Continuing with a bit of an Advent theme, I'm currently (re)reading Walter Wink's trilogy on the Powers. My interest is to keep expanding on the idea that Christianity is primarily a socio-economic project. A few years back I was going to write a thesis as the final part of my masters exploring spiritual warfare through a similar lens. This was mainly going to be using the work of William Stringfellow but then my professor told me Wink would be essential for this. Ultimately this thesis project was scrapped due to some timing complications; but instead I concluded with two shorter research projects that I think do a good job of working through what I was thinking about at the time (here and here).
Anyway, as a part of this Advent and Christmas season, I have decided to go back to some of that and draw out some reflections on what it means for the Kingdom to be breaking in as it relates to the idea of power in our world. Wink's core argument is that modern readers have failed to understand the mythic descriptions of the Powers on their own terms.
“The goal is not ‘demythologizing’ if by that is meant removal of the mythic dimension, but rather juxtaposing the ancient myth with the emerging postmodern (mythic) worldview and asking how they might mutually illuminate each other.”
So expect a few notes here for the next couple weeks on this topic as I work out a bit of what is on my mind this season.
One of my favourite Advent passages comes from Luke chapter 3. It actually might be one of my favourite passages regardless of the season. It's about the work of John the Baptizer in the lead up (advent) to Jesus. He is telling the crowds who are following him about the coming salvation and judgement of God. The people ask him—and this is where the advent of it all comes in—what should we do while we wait and prepare for this?
What then should we do while we wait?
I really think that this is the perfect question for Advent. If Christmas is about the arrival of the Kingdom, Advent is about taking a beat and getting ready. I've heard it described as active waiting. Rather than jumping straight into celebration, there's this season of preparation. It's like having guests over for a big holiday party; there's so many things you need to do before they arrive. Advent is the church's season of house cleaning and meal prep.
But back to the main question: what are we supposed to do to get ready? John's answer—and, quite frankly, I love this—is socio-economic.
In reply he said to them, "Whoever has two coats must share with anyone who has none; and whoever has food must do likewise." He said to [the tax collectors], "Collect no more than the amount prescribed for you." He said [to the soldiers], "Do not extort money from anyone by threats or false accusation, and be satisfied with your wages."
What I appreciate here is that there really is no way to 'spiritualize' this away from its very real economic implications. It's also a vision for a society that would have radically upended the Roman Empire. If you have extra, share it with someone in need. If you are part of the machine itself that extracts wealth from its citizens, do so in a way that is fair, nonviolent, and non exploitative. Imagine such a thing.
Christmas has, in so many ways, become a celebration of indulgence and excess. [cue a Charlie Brown Christmas] I'm not trying to be all curmudgeonly here, I enjoy giving gifts and having elaborate meals during this time as much as anyone; but I think the value of Advent is that it calls us back to this idea that there is still much work to be done in order to get ready. And that work is not accomplished by going to more church services, having the biggest nativity scene on your lawn, or fighting about corporations saying happy holidays. It's found in a vision of upending an unjust and oppressive socio-economic system that dehumanizes its labourers and worships capital. It's in recognizing that the extra that we have we are not entitled to, but that it should be shared with those who have far less. It's in gratitude and generosity and solidarity with the poor.
Advent is ultimately a reminder that the world isn't as it should be and we shouldn't be okay with how it is.
Been a bit of a quiet season for deeper reading so I haven't added much here.
I'm currently powering through the final stretch of the Wheel of Time books (in the last half of the last one). For those that don't know, this is a 14 volume fantasy series. I've attempted it twice before and lost momentum. I started the series from the beginning again in April and have been pushing to accomplish it by the end of the year.
I've also been spending more time in the mornings doing some reflective work on my life. I'm working on building out a 5-10 year vision and it's got a lot of my headspace. So less time for reading.
Also, I turned 40 today.
“Small things were important. Seconds were small things, and if you heaped enough of those on top of one another, they became a man’s life.” (from Towers of Midnight, book 13 in the Wheel of Time)
"I do believe in the possibility of creating a new social model. The only thing is that we now have to begin afresh. The unions, the labour halls, decentralization, the federative system—are all gone. The perverse use that has been made of them has destroyed them. The matter is all the more urgent because all our political forms are exhausted and practically nonexistent. Our parliamentary and electoral system and our political parties are just as futile as dictatorships are intolerable. Nothing is left. And this nothing is increasingly aggressive, totalitarian, and omnipresent. Our experience today is the strange one of empty political institutions in which no one has any confidence any more, of a system of government which functions only in the interests of a political class, and at the same time of the almost infinite growth of power, authority, and social control which makes any one of our democracies a more authoritarian mechanism than the Napoleonic state."
From Anarchy and Christianity, Jacques Ellul.