Book Review:
The Way of the Dragon or The Way of the Lamb

This book review was included in the March 2019 Meadowcroft Monthly. For an archive of all book reviews, click here.

What does true power look like? How have our churches gone after power in the wrong way? How can we correct our course? These are the questions Jamin Goggin and Kyle Strobel attempt to address in their wonderful new book, The Way of the Dragon or The Way of the Lamb.

The book is written by two younger men trying to gain perspective from older people who have gone before them. And so interviews drive the book - interviews with Marva Dawn, J.I. Packer, Eugene Peterson, Dallas Willard, John Perkins and others.

J.I. Packer highlights the way that our weakness is our strength:

In the Christian life and in ministry, weakness is the way. The way of weakness, as I understand it, has two basic aspects. One is that the watching world sees you as weak in the sense of being limited and inadequate. The second aspect is that you yourself are very conscious of being limited and inadequate. In that respect, we are all to walk in Paul’s footsteps, knowing God's strength in the midst of our human weakness.

This understanding of power affects how we think not only as individual Christians, but as churches, as Marva Dawn told the authors:

It is crucial that Christ’s victory over evil be realized not only by Christians in isolation, but by communities of believers. That is why the New Testament is so concerned that churches remain an alternative society, not fostering the parasitic growth of the powers of evil but maintaining purity and freedom. If churches took this stand, it would change the attitude of our congregations, so that rather than trying to be powerful in in the world, we would be a servant in the world.

But perhaps my favorite quote from the book was from Jean Vanier, who has made a life and ministry of serving people with disabilities.

The difference between a community and a group that is only issue-oriented, is that the latter sees the enemy outside the group. The struggle is an external one; and there will be a winner and a loser. The group knows it is right and has the truth, and wants to impose it. The members of a community know that the struggle is inside of each person and inside the community; it is against all the powers of pride, elitism, hate and depression that are there and which hurt and crush others, and which cause division and war of all sorts. The enemy is inside, not outside.

The authors go on to note, “We think we want community, but deep down we want to be in a group that makes us feel special. Jesus offers something else, something distinctively more profound. Jesus calls us to himself, that we may partake in his life. But Jesus’ life was marked, not by success, domination, and victory, but by love.” Of course, love is the hardest way, which is why we sometimes reach for worldly sources of power. As one writer put it, this type of power can be tempting to us because “power offers an easy substitute for the hard task of love.”

Understanding true power is always important, but it will be especially important if our culture becomes more secularized. It will be so tempting for us to grasp on to power through political means, or by concentrating on how evil and scary the world “out there” is, or by complaining about other churches that have given in to the spirit of the age. But none of these offer what Jesus offers us - the way of humility and weakness, the place where true power is found.