Engaging the Powers: Discernment

and Resistance in a World of

Domination by Walter Wink

Engaging The Powers: Discernment And Resistance In A World Of Domination

In this magnificent finale to his trilogy, Walter Wink engages the Powers
with brilliant exegesis and a profoundly creative nonviolence, revealing the
way to the Powers and our own transformation.--James W. Douglass,
Ground Zero Community.

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I am not a Christian, yet I found this book extremely insightful and

compelling in its exploration of the violent basis of our civilization and how
the message of Jesus, among others, is not only that of personal salvation,
but one of perceiving with clarity the nature of the world, i.e. the
Domination System that has blinded us to its true destructive nature.

The type of spiritually grounded, proactive, creative nonviolence advocated

in this book is a complete paradigm shift, an entire dimension apart fro m
the simplistic dichotomy of violence vs. passivism that most of us
unfortunately believe are our only choices.

The book includes numerous examples and interesting Biblical exegesis

on top of an incredibly insightful exploration of the myth of redemptive
violence and the Domination System that comprises our human society.

Fundamental to Winks analysis of our society is his assertion that spiritual

Powers are real -- but not simply as angels floating in the clouds or
demons waiting in hell to gloat over your soul, but as the psychospiritual
complexes that are formed from collective human belief and energy. Our
governmental and corporate institutions are themselves Powers, having a
spiritual existence in the sense of having a Being above and beyond the
sum of the individuals that comprise them (as well as enjoying legal status
that puts them on the same footing as a human being!). Unrecognized, the
Powers run amuck amongst us. We are slaves to our own creation, and
blind to our slavery. Our allegiance to the Power of the national security
state, for instance, blinds us to its own violence, opens us to being
subverted to evil ends, allows us to be convinced that upholding
democracy and freedom is synonymous with the killing of others.

A central thesis of the book is that these Powers, having gone

unrecognized for so long, have taken on a life of their own and now
dominate us. They must be seen and engaged in order to be redeemed
and transformed -- and in order for us to redeem and transform ourselves.

Wink spends the book laying bare the way these Powers work, making
clear that it is not only spiritual or only psychological or only material, but
all of these. He explores in depth the manifestations of violence and its
origins in deeply embedded cultural mythology -- as seemingly innocuous
as childrens cartoons, e.g. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles -- and the nature
of the Powers and the Domination System they create. And he explores
what he calls Jesus Third Way, the path out of the contagious cycle of
violence, not only through the example of Jesus but through examples in
history of those who have triumphed through nonviolent means.

As a non-Christian, I expected to gloss over parts that were irrelevant to

me, i.e. too heavily Biblical, but surprisingly I found that even many of
those parts were very interesting and in no way exclusionary. It actually
helps me to see the character and mission of Jesus in a new light, one that
makes him suddenly much more relevant to this day and age.

I cannot recommend this book highly enough.

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