Abstract

This article explores the interrelations among religious, moral and political power in an analogy to the Christian concept of ‘perichoresis’ of the Trinity. Starting with beliefs about power, the endoxa, the article explores, first, moments in Western thought to show how power has been grounded in God or gods and in the vitalities of nature. In each case, ultimately speaking, ‘might makes right’. Within this history the article also charts the ‘axial breakthrough’ in Christianity that places ‘ethical’ limits on religious and political power. In a second step, the works of Reinhold Niebuhr and Stanley Hauerwas are explored in order to show that current Christian ethics is caught in an aporia: it asserts the reality of power in history and the ‘world’, but also the ultimate claim of Christian love. The article concludes that Christian ethics needs a differentiated conception of power and a renewed conception of ‘conscience’ as the mode of moral being within complex social systems