Control and grace

The ACT Government has, recently, introduced laws to criminalise patterns of coercive control in relationships, to bring Canberra in line with other sThis is a good step. Abuse within relationships is not always loud, sometimes it comes with a thousand tiny constrictions that amount to treating another person like a bonsai tree. If you’ve ever seen those kinds of patterns in operation, it’s awful – the isolation and surveillance, love-bombing paired with a loss of autonomy.

But thinking about these new laws made me have an uncomfortable thought that I then had to work through. Christians believe God is, in some sense, in charge of everything. Not just the weather or the rise and fall of empires, but us and our lives. Which raises a fair question: if God is sovereign, does he just spiritually micromanage us? Is divine rule merely coercive control with better branding?

Christians have wrestled with this question for centuries. The fancy theological word is compatibilism, though, I freely admit, that sounds like the kind of word a consultant might have up on a Powerpoint. In short, compatibilism takes the data from the Bible that shows that God really is sovereign, and human beings really do choose and explains how they could both be true.

It is absolutely true that God rules everything, and yet God’s way with people looks nothing like coercive control.

Coercive control shrinks you. It makes you smaller. You learn to second-guess yourself, retreat, keep the peace, survive. The whole point is domination.

God, by contrast, is deeply committed to human agency.

The Bible’s story is full of invitations, warnings, persuasion, promises and patient wooing pursuit. Jesus weeps over Jerusalem rather than steamrolling it. He invites disciples to follow him and, bewilderingly, sometimes lets people walk away. The Spirit changes hearts not by flattening our personhood but by remaking desire.

Here is the Christian paradox: God is utterly sovereign, and yet never manipulative. Strong enough to rule history, gentle enough not to crush a bruised reed.

Perhaps that is because coercive control is ultimately about possession, while God’s rule is about love. One diminishes a person into fearful compliance. The other grows a person into freedom.

Or, to put it in gospel terms, sin curves us inward until we become less ourselves. Grace renews us toward the people we were made to be, and one day will be.

Grace and Peace,

Steve