by Marva J. Dawn

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review by Catherine Trzeciak

ON A POPULAR quiz show in the early 1950s, answering questions became entertaining and profitable. In fact, the right answer to the Big Question was worth a whopping $64,000! Decades later we are still fascinated with game shows and big questions, although the prize for the right answer has gone up considerably...ten million dollars at last count—with a little help from the audience and a few “life lines.”

Long before eager contestants and flashy game shows, Friends knew that prayerfully asking the right questions in community and as individuals was an invaluable way to discern the mind of Christ and grow in faith with one another. In the tradition of Friends “Queries,” Marva Dawn's book challenges the church to consider some tough questions. In what ways has the church been led away from its true calling by heeding the seductive and insidious manifestations of fallen “principalities and powers” within our modern culture? Although she offers a thoughtful overview of historical and biblical understandings of the powers, she strikes at the heart with her probing questions: “Why have we turned pastors into successful CEOs instead of shepherds for the weak? Why do we search for pastors who are handsome, sophisticated, charismatic—instead of models in suffering? Why do our churches adopt practices of business life and its achievement models?”

In response to the fallen powers, the battle cry she boldly proclaims to the church is, “Return to the cross, put on the armor of God and live out of weakness.” What did she say...live out of weakness? In our power-driven, success-oriented culture, could any statement be more startling? When was the last time you flipped through television channels, read the newspaper, or glanced at a magazine and saw an advertisement that encouraged you to be weak? My best guess is—never. The siren call is to be strong, wealthy, and powerful...and if we would just buy the right car, be seen with the right people, or have the right job we would have “it.” And if not, certainly an “extreme makeover” will do the trick. The strength of this book is that Marva Dawn consistently reminds us that God's ways are not our ways: what seems to be worth ten million dollars is, perhaps, worthless; and what appears to be insignificant, even undesirable, just might be a treasure.

To uncover the treasure of living out of weakness, Marva Dawn takes the reader on a hopeful journey through Scripture and reflective readings that reveal how the fullness of God's presence and power tabernacles, or comes to dwell, in our weakness. She reminds us of the simple truth that we are nothing apart from God. Only by living out of our brokenness in utter dependence upon God can we ever hope to fulfill the Church's true calling “to be the agent of God's purposes and the community of people among whom the Triune One dwells.”

Marva Dawn writes with the wisdom of a theologian and the soul of one who has experienced the power and compassionate intimacy of Christ in the midst of deep suffering and pain. She does not glamorize weakness, minimize the struggle, or suggest an easy way out. And yet, reading her reflections on the vitality and passion of the early church, which embodied a theology of weakness, one can't help but eagerly long for the same tabernacling of God's presence in the church today. To that end, Marva Dawn offers in the final section of the book a series of questions for “reflection and communal conversation.” You won't get $64,000 for answering these “queries,” but you will be given the opportunity to wrestle with your own sin and weakness at the foot of the cross, and in the intimacy of that suffering find the presence and tabernacling of God. And that is priceless!

For further study and reflection on a theology of weakness, I recommend Joy in Our Weakness—A Gift of Hope from the Book of Revelation also by Marva J. Dawn.

Throughout Powers, Weakness, and the Tabernacling of God Marva Dawn capitalizes Church when she is writing about “the ideal as Christ would have his Body be,” and uncapitalizes church to “name concrete fallen (and seeking to be faithful) realities.” In writing this review I have respected and followed the same pattern.

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