Christianizing the Powers
Posted on 8.01.2016 Since the publication of Reviving Old Scratch , I've been in a lot of discussions about how we should think about "the principalities and powers." As a liberal and progressive Christian I blame the powers--organizations, nations, states, institutions, bureaucracies, power hierarchies, economies, political structures--for just about everything that is wrong with the world. The powers are evil, demonic, satanic. And no doubt that's a key part of the NT witness. The Powers were and remain antagonistic to Christ and his Kingdom. As it says in Ephesians 6.12, our fight is not against flesh and blood but against the principalities and powers. And yet, in light of the work of Hendrik Berkhof in his book Christ and the Powers , I've come to moderate my position a bit in regards to the powers. I wrote about Berkhof's work in 2013 and want to summarize it again here. To start, Berkhof wants us to consider the creational goodness of...