Tools for Ministry in the Workplace
Stephen T. Arpee
February 17, 1995
Four ways of viewing reality:
a) The "traditional" (common to most ancient cultures), including Biblical, view of reality: Two distinct spheres, natural and supernatural, mirroring each other, inter-connected, spiritual powers envisioned as being "out there."
b) The Docetic, or spirit-matter dualism, that sees the created world as "evil."
c) The "Modern" or Enlightenment view, which pictures the spiritual and material realms as possibly having been connected "in the beginning," but now completely disconnected. In its extreme form, this is Materialism, in which only the material realm is real.
d) The New Option, related to the New Physics, which envisions the interpenetration of spirit and matter, or, indeed, that "spirit" is within "matter." (In New Age thinking, this becomes Pantheism; but Panentheism (pan_en_theism), which sees God as transcendent as well as immanent, can work with Biblical language.)
The point of option (d) is that we can learn to read words like, "gods," "angels," "Satan," "powers and principalities" as referring to the inner reality of social systems, rather than to disembodied supernatural beings somewhere "out there;" and then to take very seriously what the Biblical writers have to say about how God deals with these systems.
a) The Golden Age: The Late Stone Age, about 8,000 to 3,000 BC. Creation of language, agriculture, domestication of animals. No evidence of organized warfare (non-violent). Communal social organization, co-operative, matriarchal. The equal worth and dignity of each member of the community.
b) The age of the Domination System: The military empires, 3,000 BC until now. Hierarchical (restricting access to information and decision-making to the oligarchy), patriarchal, violent, degrading people in the lower levels of the system, especially women. Intentionally using a religion to secure the acquiescence of the mass of the people.
c) "God's Dream," "The Righteous Kingdom," "The Kingdom of God:" Repudiation of the Domination System; points of contact with "The Golden Age"- communal solidarity, equal dignity of all people, non-violent. The good, but fallen world, is being redeemed. The decisive event, God's victory on the cross, has already taken place.
a) Exodus 20:1-3; Psalm 95:3: The reality of the "gods" is taken for granted, though they are clearly not equals to the High God. The liberation from Egypt is the revelation of Yahweh's character and his repudiation of the Domination System.
b) 1 Samuel 8:1-20: Yahweh reluctantly allows Israel to adopt its own form of the Domination System; but the King of Israel is not divine, and he is continually subject to God's judgment through the voice of the prophets.
c) Genesis 1-2; compared to the Babylonian creation myth (See Walter Wink, ENGAGING THE POWERS, Chapter 1): The archetypal example of a religious system sanctioning the authority of a despotic government based on violence.
d) Daniel 10: The vocabulary changes from "gods" to "rulers" or "angel princes," but the perception of the inner spiritual reality of social systems remains the same.
e) Revelation 12:7-9; 13:1-2: Satan, the dragon, is the opponent of the People of God. He gives his authority to "the beast," which is identified as the Roman Empire. (Rev 13:18 Nero, 17:9 the city of Rome) "Satan" is the spirit of the Domination System.
f) Colossians 1:9-2:15: By his death on the cross, Jesus "disarmed" (unmasked) the powers and principalities. God does not destroy our rebellious institutions, but he strips away their pretensions to ultimate authority and calls them into voluntary submission to him and his purpose in history- the Kingdom of God.
This is the theological basis for an approach to our interaction with, and our life within, the economic and political institutions of our day- not flight, nor destruction, nor submission; but truthful analysis, confrontation, engagement. This is the proper context both for social action and the communication of the Gospel in one on one relationships.