Redeeming Power with Diane Langberg

Psychologist and author Dr. Diane Langberg joins our podcast to discuss the themes in her book, Redeeming Power: Understanding Authority and Abuse in the Church. Dr. Langberg who has been working with survivors of trauma and abuse, clergy, and caregivers for almost 50 years, desires to increase awareness and understanding of power and its abuse so those who have been abandoned by broken systems of power can be defended and protected.

Defending dysfunctional and abusive systems

“When we think about a system of any kind, whether it’s a government or some kind of organization, or the church, which is a system, it’s people standing together usually for a particular goal or purpose or whatever.

And so what the people want to do is maintain the system because of what it gives them. So if you come along and say, the person who’s running that system is a wolf and is devouring the sheep, nobody wants to hear that. Because if that’s the case, then the thing that they believe in that keeps them safe isn’t safe. That’s terrifying.” – Diane Langberg

In this conversation Dr. Langberg discusses the purposes, dynamics, systems, and proper place of power, as well as the ways in which it can deform and distort, noting that “our responses to the vulnerable expose who we are.”

And she noted that while “much of Christendom today seems less interested in seeing as Jesus saw…and far more interested in gaining power,” there is also the invitation and opportunity before us to “cross divides, step out of high positions, and reach out with love to those who are vulnerable, whose power is little or trampled, bestowing benedictions as we go.” We trust you’ll find this conversation inspiring and hopeful.

This podcast is an edited version of our Online Conversation from July 2021. You can access the full conversation with transcript here.

Learn more about Diane Langberg.

Authors and books mentioned in the conversation:

George Herbert

Related Trinity Forum Readings:

Crisis-Ready Leadership Collection

Related Conversations:

Leadership in Tumultuous Times with Ron C. White
Lincoln in Private with Ron C. White
Crisis Ready Leadership

To listen to this or any of our episodes in full, visit ttf.org/podcast and to join the Trinity Forum Society and help make content like this possible, join the Trinity Forum Society

Special thanks to Ned Bustard for our podcast artwork.