Modes of Power
What Is Power, and Why Does It Matter?
At some point in life, everyone encounters the question of power. Whether we’re seeking it, losing it, resisting it, or recovering it—power matters. We long for power in our lives, our environments, our relationships. And we all know the ache of feeling powerless—unable to influence the world around us or even the shape of our own soul. At its core, power could be described as the ability or capacity to influence or induce change.
From the very beginning, power was part of humanity’s calling. The divine command in Eden—“Be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it…”—was not just a mandate. It was an act of empowerment. A gift of agency. A commission to steward, shape, and cultivate. Power, in its purest form, was meant to be relational and vocational. A high calling indeed—and one that would require wisdom, patience, and good judgment. Especially when it comes to wielding power over other humans.
In much of the world’s imagination, to have power over something is synonymous with dominance and control—often enforced by the threat of penalty. Throughout history, rulers have exerted their will over others, shaping outcomes, commanding systems and structures, and bending human wills. This form of power is easy to recognize: it works through coercion, projection, and hierarchy. It imposes form with the expectation of strict obedience in return. From the earliest memories of civilization, the world has been structured around this mode of power. It governs our empires, institutions, economies, and even many of our relationships. One could hardly be blamed for assuming this is simply what power is.
But history has not only been shaped by empires and kings.
As historian Tom Holland argues in Dominion, the Christian tradition introduced a radically different vision of power—one in which the weak possess value, suffering can be dignified, and authority is meant to serve rather than subjugate. This reimagining of power gradually transformed the foundations of Western thought: from morality and law to identity, compassion, and even rebellion. Holland suggests that many of the ideals we take for granted today—human rights, equality, the protection of the vulnerable—arose not in opposition to religion, but as the fruit of a deeply Christian soil, even when that soil is no longer acknowledged.
How has this come to be? How have such counterintuitive values—honoring the weak, dignifying suffering, restraining the strong—come to shape the conscience of cultures that once bowed to empire? It did not happen through conquest, but through a different kind of influence. A power that does not force, but invites. That does not overwhelm, but resonates in unison with.
And so we arrive at a deeper question—not just what is power, but how it works. How it enters the world. How it takes hold of a soul, a system, or a story. Can all power be reduced to control? Or might we distinguish between power that is elicited—drawn forth freely—and power that is illicit—taken, imposed, or coerced?
Illicit or Elicit?
Illicit power begins with the assumption that change must come from without. It works by force, image, and ideology—manipulating reality into shape through external pressure. It exerts itself over others, not with them. It projects form onto the world, shaping others in its own image—or worse, erasing theirs. It does not wait for response. It demands reaction. It seeks replication, not resonance. This is the power most often wielded by empire, with propaganda and idolatry. It reshapes the world in its likeness, flooding it with copies and echoes until the original voice is lost. In its wake lies distortion:
Echo replaces voice, compliance replaces communion and fear replaces freedom.
Elicited power moves differently. It begins not with pressure, but with presence. It is not effective through domination, but rather, differentiation . It listens before it speaks—and when it speaks, it does so with care, addressing not the surface, but the seed. It is the power of invocation—calling forth what is already latent. This is not the power to make something happen, but the power to draw it out, like light stirring a sprout from the soil.
This is the power of resonance. Just as a tuning fork can cause another to vibrate across a room—not by pressure, but by harmony —so too does true power awaken what is present but dormant. It meets the soul not with noise, but with frequency.
It is the power of the Logos—the divine Word that did not shout over the void, but hovered over it. It calmed it by presence and called light into being by speaking with it.
Power as Presence, Not Projection
Modern culture is saturated with projection—psychological, technological, ideological. We extend ourselves outward in order to control. We assert, broadcast, manage. But resonance works the other way. It listens inward, tunes carefully, and waits for sympathetic vibration. This kind of power transforms a space not by rewriting it, but by activating what lies within. It is relational, not mechanical. It requires attention, humility, and timing. It makes room. It honors the integrity of the other.
Where projection fills the void, resonance leaves it open. It does not overwrite—it responds. It does not enforce—it elicits.
This power is easily missed. It is not always loud, and it rarely looks like power. But when it speaks, it speaks deeply. It brings not obedience, but recognition. Not submission, but participation.