I recently had a brief relationship with a book named “Transforming the Powers.” I met him in class and he wooed me with his provocative title and rebellious back cover. He said all the things I wanted to hear, at first – hinted that he knew a thing or two about the things I was interested in, made it seem as though we shared the same passions. But the honeymoon period ended rather abruptly when I cracked open the cover, and I quickly learned that this relationship was not going to last very long. Our problem was one that most couples have…we just couldn’t communicate. I couldn’t understand much of what he said, and the things I wished he would say to me…he never did. So regretfully, those 227 pages and I are currently on “a break.” When I ended things I told him it was me, not him. I just wasn’t ready for his abstract dialogue. My heart just wasn’t in it.
Now, lest you start to get worried and think I actually thought I had a relationship with a book, I will end my analogy here. But I think I deserve a little delirium after committing to this text for a good number of hours. The relationship analogy is an accurate one, I think. Things just didn’t work out between this book and me. I tried, I really did. And I found that the authors had a lot of really good things to say, but the majority of it was so muddled in academic jargon that I started off lost, and don’t know if I ever really was able to find my way.
The concept of the book had a lot of promise. It claims to be part of the “…growing conversation regarding the Biblical language of the ‘Principalities and Powers’ and what that strange language might mean for our own world” (p. ix), and builds on the foundation of a trilogy of work on these “powers” by Auburn Theological Seminary Professor Walter Wink. And although Ted Grimsrud does his best in the introduction (a must-read for anyone with any hopes to make it through this book) to review the basics of Wink’s contributions, perhaps it might have done us best to spend our time first in Wink’s actual writing, rather than in numerous scholars’ responses to what he said.
The book is actually a compilation of papers presented at a conference at Eastern Mennonite University in 2001, grouped into three sections. The first, entitled “Worldviews and the Powers,” is not for the faint of heart. It is filled with four dense, highly abstract chapters – one each from Wink, Nancy Murphy, Daniel Liechty, and Grimsrud – rich in social science theories of worldviews and philosophy and powers, none of which I found applicable or helpful, or grounded in concrete examples of our current world today.
The problem is that they left out both context and definition for those of us not experts in the field. I found myself incredibly frustrated on page 41 when Liechty used the term “reductionism” for the umpteenth time and I still had never received an explanation of what it meant. It felt like a sprint and I still didn’t know why I was in the race. Grimsrud’s “Pacifist Critique of the Modern Worldview” in Chapter Four offered a small breath of fresh air with some real-life examples of theory applied. Had it not been for his discussion of the ecological impacts of railroad expansion or the use of the pesticide DDT on our ecosystem, I might have given up then and there.
Part Two of the book, titled “Understanding the Powers,” thankfully improves its own understandability. Two gems worth noting are Willard Swartley’s “Jesus Christ: Victor over Evil,” in Chapter 7 and Ray Gingerich’s “The Economics of Politics and Violence” in Chapter 8, which gives a helpful look at the origins of capitalism and its relationship to violence.
Part Three, “Engaging the Powers,” includes some wonderful work from Fuller Professor Glen Stassen and Swartley again, who actually ground these abstract theories of the “Powers” in some real-world application. I particularly appreciated Stassen’s discussion of transforming initiatives and the call for Christians in the Sermon on the Mount to not just abstain from harmful practices (like murder, for example), but to actually engage in positive healing actions that transform society (like reconciliation). His “Ten Practices of Just Peacemaking,” are highly applicable, and I am still wrestling with his argument against a Christian dualism that accepts the secular world’s way of violence as separate from the prevue of Christ’s call to non-violence in the Sermon on the Mount (which some believe only to be directed to the Church).
This book requires fortitude, perseverance, dedication, and in my opinion, some foreknowledge of social science theory. Enter into its pages with caution (and energy!) and a reading partner to help make sense of it all. At the very least, it will help provoke thought regarding the powers at work in our world, and what the appropriate Christian response should be.
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