Power relationships between people are normal, inevitable and not necessarily bad. As mentioned earlier, being born into a family, tribe and nation entails certain power relationships by default.
Like every other human proclivity designed by God, power relationships can and do go bad. The potential problem shows up in Genesis 1:
Ge 1:28 And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”
Humans are designed to exercise dominion. The specific instructions limited that dominion to all other living creatures on the earth. Here there was no mandate for dominion over other people. That changed quickly. The first mention of human hierarchy is in Genesis 3:
Ge 3:16 To the woman he said, “I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children. Your desire shall be contrary to your husband, but he shall rule over you.”
Since the man and the woman were to become ‘one flesh,’ that establishment of family hierarchy was intended to be benign, based on mutual love. The resultant dominion over children was also intended to be based upon natural love. The expansion of families into tribes would entail emergent ways to organize; both to get things done and to settle disputes. (Since the first dispute resulted in murder, that was obviously important. Ge 4:8)
The problem with dominion among actual people is that the dominated don’t care for the arrangement, since they themselves want to dominate. This is true even in the God ordained marriage relationship. The phrase, “Your desire shall be contrary to your husband,” in Genesis 3 clearly anticipates that problem. In cases where love does not suffice, the question of who dominates must be settled, at least temporarily, by force, either moral or physical. Sadly, hierarchies governed by love seem to be the exception rather than the rule. That being the case, the Bible has extensive instructions on the acceptable limits of force in human relationships.
The book of Genesis can be viewed as a series of case studies on abusive power relationships. Both Abraham and Isaac feared being murdered and having their wives stolen by the local king. (Ge 12:12, Ge 20:11, Ge 26:7) In Genesis 16, Sarah gave her servant, Hagar, to Abraham attempting to provide him an heir. There is no mention of Hagar being asked how she felt about that. When Hagar became pregnant Sarah expelled her from the camp. Sarah eventually expelled both Hagar and her son Ishmael into the desert with nothing but a jug of water and a loaf of bread. It was only God’s intervention that prevented them both from perishing. (Ge 21:8-21) When Jacob fled from his brother Esau to Haran and married Laban’s two daughters, he became a virtual slave. When he sought to return to Canaan where his father was, Laban chased after him with a force of armed men. Again, only the intervention of God prevented Laban from taking Jacob and his family back by force. (Ge 31) When Jacob settled near Shechem the local princeling kidnapped and raped his daughter, Dinah. When the princeling tried to negotiate keeping her permanently as a wife, Jacob’s sons slaughtered all the men of the city to get their sister back. (Ge 34)
The final vignette in Genesis concerns the sale of Jacob’s son Joseph to Egypt at the hand of his brothers. (Ge 37:28) In Egypt, Joseph rose to be viceroy. It is notable that when he had the power to treat his brothers as they had treated him, he refrained from so doing. Rather, he brought his whole family to Egypt and sustained them during the famine. It is notable, however, that Joseph did reduce the people of Egypt to serfdom on Pharaoh’s behalf. (Ge 47:13-26) The sole exception to that serfdom was the government bureaucrats who had a special ration from Pharaoh. (Ge 47:22)
The events of Genesis, in addition to being valuable case studies, set up the book of Exodus. There, Israel was reduced to abject slavery and was only set free through the direct intervention of God. What is of interest here is that, after giving the Ten Commandments in Exodus 20, the narrative goes right in to a long list of statutes, a great many of which concern power relationships and refer back to Israel’s Egyptian slavery; saying in effect, “You remember how bad things were for you in Egypt, so don’t treat others that way when you have power.”
Immediately in Exodus 21 is a section on the treatment of Hebrew slaves. Male slaves were to be set free in the seventh year. Female slaves were to be freed if no man in the master’s house wanted to marry them. Further, slaves were not to be treated harshly or damaged. (Ex 21:26-27) Finally, when slaves were freed at the end of their indenture, they were to be provided with enough severance that they might be successful in freedom. (Dt 15:12-18)
The fact that, just before the Babylonian exile Israel was not treating her slaves in that way, was a major factor in God’s decision that it was time for Israel to relearn, among other things, the lessons of slavery:
Je 34:15 You recently repented and did what was right in my eyes by proclaiming liberty, each to his neighbor, and you made a covenant before me in the house that is called by my name, but then you turned around and profaned my name when each of you took back his male and female slaves, whom you had set free according to their desire, and you brought them into subjection to be your slaves. “Therefore, thus says the LORD: You have not obeyed me by proclaiming liberty, every one to his brother and to his neighbor; behold, I proclaim to you liberty to the sword, to pestilence, and to famine, declares the LORD… And Zedekiah king of Judah and his officials I will give into the hand of their enemies and into the hand of those who seek their lives, into the hand of the army of the king of Babylon which has withdrawn from you.
In addition to the rules about slavery and the consequences of ignoring them, Scripture explicitly addresses how the defenseless were to be treated. Generically, the widow, the orphan and the stranger were powerless in Biblical Israel. The widow had no husband to defend her interests. The orphan had no family to protect him. The stranger had no clan to take up his cause. Hence, each was potentially prey to the unscrupulous and might be of little interest to the authorities. Scripture addresses this in several places:
Ex 22:21 You shall not wrong a sojourner or oppress him, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt. You shall not mistreat any widow or fatherless child. If you do mistreat them, and they cry out to me, I will surely hear their cry, and my wrath will burn, and I will kill you with the sword, and your wives shall become widows and your children fatherless.
Dt 16:13 You shall keep the Feast of Booths seven days, when you have gathered in the produce from your threshing floor and your winepress. You shall rejoice in your feast, you and your son and your daughter, your male servant and your female servant, the Levite, the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow who are within your towns. For seven days you shall keep the feast to the LORD your God at the place that the LORD will choose, because the LORD your God will bless you in all your produce and in all the work of your hands, so that you will be altogether joyful.
Dt 24:17 You shall not pervert the justice due to the sojourner or to the fatherless, or take a widow’s garment in pledge, but you shall remember that you were a slave in Egypt and the LORD your God redeemed you from there; therefore I command you to do this. “When you reap your harvest in your field and forget a sheaf in the field, you shall not go back to get it. It shall be for the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow, that the LORD your God may bless you in all the work of your hands. When you beat your olive trees, you shall not go over them again. It shall be for the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow. When you gather the grapes of your vineyard, you shall not strip it afterward. It shall be for the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow. You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt; therefore I command you to do this.
Dt 27:19 ‘Cursed be anyone who perverts the justice due to the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow.’ And all the people shall say, ‘Amen.’
In addition to the stereotypically defenseless, Scripture also commands that justice be impartial between those of different economic or social status:
Ex 23 You shall not spread a false report. You shall not join hands with a wicked man to be a malicious witness. You shall not fall in with the many to do evil, nor shall you bear witness in a lawsuit, siding with the many, so as to pervert justice, nor shall you be partial to a poor man in his lawsuit.
Le 19:15 You shall do no injustice in court. You shall not be partial to the poor or defer to the great, but in righteousness shall you judge your neighbor.
Dt 1:16 And I charged your judges at that time, ‘Hear the cases between your brothers, and judge righteously between a man and his brother or the alien who is with him. You shall not be partial in judgment. You shall hear the small and the great alike. You shall not be intimidated by anyone, for the judgment is God’s. And the case that is too hard for you, you shall bring to me, and I will hear it.’
All of these and many other passages of Scripture were given explicitly to guide Israelite society in managing power relationships. History, of course, details numerous cases where Israel failed to follow those principles and fell into injustice and violence. As mentioned above, such behavior was a contributing factor to the Babylonian exile. It was also the case in the Assyrian exile of the Northern Kingdom and the Roman exile. In each of those cases injustice and violence has risen to such a level that, God said in effect, “You are no longer a fitting testimony before the rest of the world of my covenant.”
Dt 4:5 See, I have taught you statutes and rules, as the LORD my God commanded me, that you should do them in the land that you are entering to take possession of it. Keep them and do them, for that will be your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the peoples, who, when they hear all these statutes, will say, ‘Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people.’ For what great nation is there that has a god so near to it as the LORD our God is to us, whenever we call upon him? And what great nation is there, that has statutes and rules so righteous as all this law that I set before you today?
In each case, Israel had become indistinguishable from any other nation. God therefore suspended the blessings of the covenant and invoked the curses.
As mentioned earlier, power relationships not based on love are established by force, either moral or physical. The obvious inverse is that harmful, unjust or illicit power relationships can only be broken by force, either moral or physical. Assuming the relationship is wrong, moral suasion is unlikely to be effective, leaving only physical force. Biblically, the lowest level of force would be to invoke the courts in cases where a tort could be proven. Failing that the next step might be simply to leave, go somewhere else, flee. In that case Scripture says:
Dt 23:15 You shall not give up to his master a slave who has escaped from his master to you. He shall dwell with you, in your midst, in the place that he shall choose within one of your towns, wherever it suits him. You shall not wrong him.
Before the American Civil War juries in the free states often refused to convict fleeing slaves or those who helped them because of this Scripture. Biblically, flight was the path taken by Jacob when he decided he had had enough of being a virtual slave to his father-in-law.
Should all of the above fail to resolve the situation, the final step would be violence. There, all of the usual calculations of risk and reward would apply. A successful outcome of attempting to break an abusive relationship is uncertain and the resultant state of freedom has its own set of risks. As seen in the story of Israel before the Exodus, the easier course is simply to bear up as best one can.
Judging from Scripture, toxic power relationships are displeasing to God for at least two reasons. The first and most obvious revolves around simple considerations of justice. The maintenance of such power relationships involves force, either implicit or explicit. Coercing a person’s behavior, absent that person having committed some criminal act, is textbook injustice. (While the standard here for defining injustice is Scripture, it should be noted that many non-Scriptural laws are perfectly benign. Traffic laws would be an example of this. Ethically, traffic laws flow from the Biblical requirements to consider the safety of one’s neighbor in all situations. For example, dangerous animals must either be confined or destroyed; when digging a pit in the ground it is required to put a fence around it so passersby don’t fall in; when doing something dangerous like felling trees, it is required that one’s equipment be in good repair and operated safely; etc.)
The second reason God disapproves of toxic power relationships is spiritual. In cases where those practicing injustice represent the government, enforcing unjust coercion requires corrupting others. Consider, for example, the execution of a criminal. If the person has been convicted of murder by a court, Scripture says that he should be executed. In that case the executioner is both justified and duty bound to kill the murderer. In doing that, it is not necessary that the executioner attend the trial and be personally convinced of the murder’s guilt. In other words, the executioner trusts that the system has worked as intended. It is this mechanism that gets hijacked by a false religion or an ideology.
Pharaoh did not personally throw Hebrew babies into the Nile; officials and employees of his government did that. Stalin did not personally enforce the confiscation of Ukrainian grain leading to the starvation of 3.6 million Kulaks; officials and employees of his government did that. Hitler did not personally murder six million Jews; officials and employees of his government did that. In each of those cases large numbers of government officials and employees had to be convinced that mass murder was acceptable
It is worth observing that when God destroyed Egypt in the process of freeing His people, the devastation hit the entire population, not just Pharaoh. The final plague, the death of the firstborn explicitly hit every household except those with lamb blood on the door. (Ex 12:29-30) Similarly, during the Nuremburg trials after WWII the defense, “I was just following orders.” was not accepted. In other words, all people are moral agents who are responsible for their actions. That responsibility cannot be delegated to another.
While getting corrupt individuals to do evil things is fairly simple, moving large groups of people to do evil requires deception; which is to say demonization, false religion or ideology.
Demonization is simple enough. The target must simply be identifiably different from the majority. Once the decision to demonize is made, the next step is to convince the majority to fear and distrust the target population. That is the technique that Pharaoh used against the Israelites.
Ex 1:8 Now there arose a new king over Egypt, who did not know Joseph. And he said to his people, “Behold, the people of Israel are too many and too mighty for us. Come, let us deal shrewdly with them, lest they multiply, and, if war breaks out, they join our enemies and fight against us and escape from the land.” Therefore they set taskmasters over them to afflict them with heavy burdens. They built for Pharaoh store cities, Pithom and Raamses. But the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and the more they spread abroad. And the Egyptians were in dread of the people of Israel. So they ruthlessly made the people of Israel work as slaves and made their lives bitter with hard service, in mortar and brick, and in all kinds of work in the field. In all their work they ruthlessly made them work as slaves.
When exhaustion from hard labor was insufficient to keep the Israelite population in check, the Egyptians resorted to murder, throwing boy babies into the Nile. These murders were couched in terms of Egypt’s greater good. Since the Hebrews were foreign, it was very possible that they might turn against Egypt in the event of a war. Therefore, prudence dictated that their numbers (especially the numbers of fighting age men) be kept under control.
Religion has always served as a basis for conquest. In the Torah, Moses told Israel that they were being given the Land and that they are to extirpate the native population. It was explained that the Canaanites’ iniquity was so great that God had had it with them and wanted them gone completely. (Dt 9:1-6)
The problem with religion as a basis for power, it that it is difficult to authenticate. In the case of Moses and Joshua, God Himself provided visible and irrefutable authentication. First, He destroyed Egypt, extracted His people and split the sea for them to pass. Had that not been sufficient, He descended on Mount Sinai and spoke directly to the assembled nation. Thus, there was no question among the Hebrews as to the validity of the directive to take the land and wipe out the native population.
After the events of the Torah, things became much more tenuous. In the case of Israel, God sent prophets, but the genuine ones were often ignored and there were flocks of false prophets to add to the confusion. This diminution of dramatic authentication did not stop people from using religion as the basis for conquest and bringing people under bondage. It simply opened wide the possibility of fraud.
Sadly, one of the consequences of religious fraud has been a loss of trust in the church and ultimately trust in God. Part of the fallout of that lack of trust has been the secularization of society and the rise of ideology. In the West, ideology seems largely to have replaced religion as a motivator for mass action. The murders orchestrated by Robespierre, Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Che Guevera, et al were all sold to their followers on the basis of some ideology. Their victims were branded as counter revolutionaries, thought criminals or enemies of the state.
In addition to murder, ideology also leads to a loss of liberty as discussed next.