I categorize this post under Church of the Saviour becuase it was in a curriculum we used in a “Servant Leadership School” patterned after that one started by the Church of the Saviour, that I first read a Walter Wink book, even though I had heard of him and seen quotes and heard of his anlaysis in this “Powers” series, as well as in Sojourners magazine. This came from one of the Amazon reviews:

Wink argues that humans live under “domination systems”–the “powers and principalities that be.” These are the structural and ideological institutions that manipulate our minds, lives, and activities, reduce our freedom, and retard our flourishing. As Christians, we’re called to resist them without buying into the “myth of redemptive violence”–the centuries’ old chestnut that violence is the only kind of force that works, and that because it works it justifies itself. Jesus showed an alternative way–the path of nonviolent resistance.

More in a bit

I’m back from dinner……and still somewhat down in the dumps about the seeming invincibility of the “powers”; of the military -industrial complex and its pervasive invasion of many other structures, infusing them with complicity-encouraging sub-structures, and convinciing millions that because they “live under these systems” (which they apprarently see in a way that those powers want to be seen by the public) and have done ok under them, they must be working, and they must be “the right way” and eventually they defend these systems. In many oter cases, they simply don’t even question any of it. Thery are like a fish in the water, unaware that they are “under water”.

Just as most consumers never admit that they are “swayed” by advertising, most are wrong about this. The advertisers keep it up because they see some benefit in it, and keep fine tuning their methods. In the same way, the powers will keep spinning their philosophies to convince most of the people most of the time. Many of these exist in our churches. Whatever gets the most bodies into the pews, coming to the activities, supporting the cause, then this is the tact to take, and to perfect, and to allow to move the Church from a blessed community to a “religious flavored copy” of “what works”. And so the “stories” get squelched and neglected almost out of existence, until we rarely realize that these are important to the existence and the flavor and the mission of a Church.