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St. Stephen's
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Notes on Danger, Power, & The Gospel of Mark


The Gospel of Mark is dangerous stuff, according to religious thinker and Catholic priest Dr. Jorge Lara-Braud, who has spoken at St. Stephen's in the past. For example, he said the Roman Catholic church kept church members from reading or even owning the Bible for generations, believing it to be open to misinterpretation and thus representing a possible danger in the hands of those lacking the proper credentials. A license, if you will.

Take his idea and run with it. If the Gospel of Mark is a dangerous text, how is it dangerous? If it threatens some people, ideas, etc., they stand to lose something. If some people, institutions, or ideas are threatened, then perhaps others stand to gain something. What is this something to be lost or gained? Can it be understood in terms of power? And what does that ambiguous word -- power -- mean in this context?

The relationship between power and religion is a big deal. Different people have devoted a lot of energy to trying to figure out what the story is here. Max Weber wrote the Sociology of Religion about this issue. Joachim Wach had a few thoughts on the matter. So did many others; you can look up Weber & Wach in the library's multi-volume Encyclopedia of Religion for starters. You can see why they would focus on this issue: it was and is part of the attempt to think through the implications of one's religious beliefs, among other motivations. What do those beliefs lead one to value? What do those values have to do with regard to family, job, economic system, political system, gender relations, civil and religious values, etc.? Specific events figure into the conversation: the Crusades, the conquering of the Western Hemisphere by Europeans, the Holocaust, the events in SE Asia over 30+ years, the evolving revolutions in predominantly Muslim countries, the roles of the religious right and left in the U.S., the emergence of "liberation theology" in Third World countries, chiefly in two-class societies south of the U.S. , the persecution of some people on the basis of their interpretation of their religious faith. The rewarding of others on the same basis. So many things done in the name of religion, and so often presenting danger to some, safety and reward to others.
You remember that when "the Sacred" manifests itself, it's called a hierophany. When a specific god manifests itself, it's called a theophany; and there seem to be several in the Gospel of Mark, starting with events in the first chapter The "appearance of power' is called a kratophany, particularly when the dominant characteristic of the experience is that of the overwhelming presence before which one is utterly powerless.
What does "power" have to do with religion? If the religious experience usually includes elements of authority, awesomeness, effectiveness, it seems to have everything to do with power of a supernatural sort. Unlike understanding an idea intellectually, having a religious experience involves not just the intellect but emotions, muscular control, etc. -- the whole person. The religious experience seems to be not as manageable, containable, and safe as intellectual engagement with ideas. But it seems to be more powerful in some ways. A tangent concerning physics: in physics, power can be described as "potentiality" -- the potential to do work, expending energy to alter a given situation. An example would be a dammed river; the water can then be channeled to generate electricity. But while the water can be exhausted, the Sacred is always potential, even as it is actualized or tapped it remains inexhaustible.
Think:
* the Book of Job, and its frequent references to God's creative power, ordering
the world, controlling even the ocean. Job can be seen to react with
terror and repentance, but not with understanding.....
* the Bhagavad Gita, in which Arjuna trembles as Krishna reveals his true
nature, the creative and destructive process itself, where the womb
and the tomb would seem to share the same address....
* the creation story in the Bible, in which everything that is seems to have
originated in the creative source, there being nothing else in the
beginning
* the nature of the Tao in the Tao Te Ching, described as moving, dynamic,
nourishing, yet inexhaustible.
One scholar says that power is central in religion in that religions shapes how people act. Arnold Van Gennep stressed that human beings were intrigued with the practical aspect of sacred power. Ritual activity was magic -- techniques used to manipulate sacred power for useful purposes.

On the other hand, we have the idea of feeling the presence of "the numinous" which when experienced draws out of the witness a sense of overpowering awe, terror, and dread, and a clear understanding that one is nothing in the presence of the infinite power/Other. Remember our friend Rudolph Otto?

On his heels, another guy analyzed the encounter of human beings with sacred power by looking at the structure of the symbols emerging from such encounters. Certain patterns emerge. A person is possessed by sacred power, is overmatched, and transformed. One result is that the ability to leave the self behind and tap the power of sacred realities as a "religious specialist" in the group. This is part of what good old Eliade has to say about the issue. He observed that to religious people the Sacred has power to make the world meaningful and to provide a religious worldview that shapes every endeavor.
In the Gospel of Mark,
* who has power?
* how did they acquire it?
* what do they do with it?
* who lacks power?
* did they ever have it? If so, how did they lose it?
* what do they do in its absence?