Marginal Christianity

By J. Scott Jackson - June 01, 2017 The Deserter by Boardman Robinson (1916). (PD-1923, via Wikimedia Commons) Reading some of the sermons Barth delivered in Safenwil, Switzerland, in 1914 yields a few tantalizing surprises. I found some of these in his homily from October 18, an almost uncanny meditation on the principalities and powers. A Unique Time of God: Karl Barth’s WWI Sermons , Trans. & Ed. B y William Klempa (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 2016). Barth's sermon text was Romans 8:38-39, the culmination of one of the most profound and perhaps one of the most perplexing passages in the New Testament. Having pondered the groans of a creation eagerly awaiting liberation from the bondage of death, Paul writes: I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God ...

Stringfellow on the Powers We have reached a point in our exposition where Jesus in his sermon has identified for us the fundamental source of our distress and opposition: supra-human spiritual forces (Satan, fallen angels, the two beasts). In Paul’s language he speaks of some of these forces as “principalities and powers” (Eph.6:12). William Stringfellow offers a perceptive account of the various strategies they use to repress humanity and sustain their own existence. It is especially remarkable that he wrote this over 40 years yet it reads as contemporary as today’s newspaper! His insights put some flesh on the struggle we face to resist the Trump phenomenon in our time and place. *********************************** The Powers main goal is to sustain themselves (survival). And yet, that brute fact is rarely discussed candidly and in the open. Still, the state functions as the preeminent principality and power. 1.   The Denial of Truth/ lying 2.   Do...

From An Ethic for Christians and Other Aliens in a Strange Land The Powers main goal is to sustain themselves (survival). And yet, that brute fact is rarely discussed candidly and in the open. Still, the state functions as the preeminent principality and power. The Denial of Truth/ lying Doublespeak and Overtalk/ euphemism or jargon Secrecy and Boast of Expertise/ hiding the truth Surveillance and Harassment/ intimidating those who seek truth Exaggeration and Deception/ absorbing the truth Cursing and Conjuring/ banishing, smearing, locking up dissidents Usurpation and Absorption/ co-opting the truth Diversion and Demoralization/ diverting, distracting These (assaults on truth) Stringfellow calls Babel. It overwhelms and dumbfounds the faculties of comprehension: conscience and sanity: Babel means the inversion of language, verbal inflation, libel, rumor, euphemism and coded phrases, rhetorical wantonness, redundancy, hyperbole, such profusion ...

6.     After living, faithful relationships with the triune God, the church in North America, perhaps the next most important thing for us to come to terms with is what St. Paul calls “the principalities and powers” (or something close to that in his letters). These realities (whether one conceptualizes them as beings or forces or both is less important that acknowledging their reality) are neither demons or angels (fallen or otherwise). They seem to comprise a class of spiritual realities with a particular divine mandate. The “powers” a.     are created by God (Col.1:16) to establish and sustain conditions for the flourishing of human life; b.     have rebelled against God seeking to rule creation themselves distorting and destroying human life (Eph.6:12); c.     were defeated by Christ on the cross (Col.2:15); d.     are being pacified by Christ back to their created purpose through the life and mini...

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...

"The Church is In Post-Christian Exile – But Should We Really Respond Like It's a War?” is the title of Karina Kreminski's article on Missio Alliance today. She's responding to another piece on the church entering Phase Two of our exile and how we should respond. And her responses are wise and to the point. It's not her responses, though, that I want to say a few words about. It's the imagery in her title, “But Should We Really Respond Like It's a War?” I want to say a vigorous and unrepentant “Yes” to that image! First, though, a clarification or two. I do NOT have in mind actual military conflict or the use of weapons in any fashion. I'm a pacifist and I believe the church should be too. Nor do I mean the strident, angry, mean-spirited culture war type of warfare. Both of these types of conflict are antithetical to participation in God's mission in the world. Yet . . . we are in a war! A war whose decisive and climactic battle has alread...

http://timgombis.com/2012/11/25/the-church-the-powers/ By timgombis I’m reading Walter Wink’s Naming the Powers again, in preparation for an upcoming project.  I’m going to quibble with his identification of the powers, but I find his articulation of the social and institutional manifestations of the powers at times simply masterful. On the need of the church to resist adopting the power strategies of the culture: When the Roman archons (magistrates) ordered the early Christians to worship the imperial spirit or genius , they refused, kneeling instead and offering prayers on the emperor’s behalf to God.  This seemingly innocuous act was far more exasperating and revolutionary than outright rebellion would have been.  Rebellion simply acknowledges the absoluteness and ultimacy of the emperor’s power, and attempts to seize it.  Prayer denies that ultimacy altogether by acknowledging a higher power.  Rebellion would have focused solely ...

In 1963 Bob Dylan sang "Only a Pawn in Their Game" about the murder of civil rights activist Medgar Evers in Mississippi by the Klan. Though it is a protest song, what is important to note is that Dylan astutely blames not the shooter, nor even the Klan, but "they" who run and rule the "game" of how society is structured and for whose benefit. He's put his finger on what the Bible calls "the principalities and powers." These mysterious beings/powers (however we describe/define them)were created by God to establish and maintain conditions for the flourishing of human life. These powers rebelled against God thus diminishing and damaging the very conditions and structures under which we were to live and sought to acculturate us to these diminished/damaged conditions as the normal conditions of life, just the "way things are." The church's job, according to Paul in Ephesians 3:11 is to announce to these powers that with the de...

          I just saw “The Avengers” this afternoon. It was a hoot!   I enjoyed it thoroughly.   It had all the stock tropes of a superhero movie though at least one of them carried an unexpected theological resonance (unintended no doubt).   I want to share an immediate (which means not fully digested) reflection on it.           In part the previews before the movie set up this reflection.   With the exception of one, these previews were all about battling alien forces or depending on superheroes to save us.   Along with “The Avengers” this got me thinking that as a culture we have a sense of dealing with problems and issues that are too big for us, whose presence daunts us and dwarfs our best wisdom to cope with them.   This seems to me to account at least in part for the movies portraying humanity as under attack from aliens, mutants, and monsters.   We se...