The Powers That Be Quotes

“Faith requires at times marching into the waters before they part.”
― Walter Wink, The Powers That Be: Theology for a New Millennium

“Unjust systems perpetuate themselves by means of institutionalized violence.”
― Walter Wink, The Powers That Be: Theology for a New Millennium

“Violent revolution fails because it is not revolutionary enough. It changes the rulers but not the rules, the ends but not the means.”
― Walter Wink, The Powers That Be: Theology for a New Millennium

“The command to love our enemies reminds us that our first task towards oppressors is pastoral: to help them recover their humanity. Quite possibly the struggle, and the oppression that gave it rise, have dehumanised the oppressed as well, causing them to demonise their enemies. It is not enough to become politically free; we must also become human. Nonviolence presents a change for all parties to rise above their present condition and become more of what God created them to be.”
― Walter Wink, The Powers That Be: Theology for a New Millennium

“The myth of redemptive violence is the simplest, laziest, most exciting, uncomplicated, irrational, and primitive depiction of evil the world has ever known…Its presence everywhere is not the result of a conspiracy of Babylonian priests secretly buying up the mass media with Iraqi oil money, but a function of values endlessly reinforced by the Domination System. By making violence pleasurable, fascinating and entertaining, the Powers are able to delude people into compliance with a system that is cheating them of their very lives.”
― Walter Wink, The Powers That Be: Theology for a New Millennium

“The gospel, then, is not a message about the salvation of individuals from the world, but news about a world transfigured, right down to its basic structures.”
― Walter Wink, The Powers That Be: Theology for a New Millennium

“The ultimate weakness of violence,” observed Martin Luther King, Jr., “is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy.”
― Walter Wink, The Powers That Be: Theology for a New Millennium

“The myth of redemptive violence is, in short, nationalism become absolute. This myth speaks for God; it does not listen for God to speak. It invokes the sovereignty of God as its own; it does not entertain the prophetic possibility of radical judgment by God. It misappropriates the language, symbols, and scriptures of Christianity. It does not seek God in order to change; it embraces God in order to prevent change. Its God is not the impartial ruler of all nations but a tribal god worshiped as an idol. Its metaphor is not the journey but the fortress. Its symbol is not the cross but the crosshairs of a gun. Its offer is not forgiveness but victory. Its good news is not the unconditional love of enemies but their final elimination. Its salvation is not a new heart but a successful foreign policy. Its usurps the revelation of God's purposes for humanity in Jesus. It is blasphemous. It is idolatrous.”
― Walter Wink, The Powers That Be: Theology for a New Millennium

“I have seen enough of God’s wily ways with the Powers to stake my life on the side of hope.”
― Walter Wink, The Powers That Be: Theology for a New Millennium

“I began to realize that if violence was my last resort, then I was still enmeshed in the belief that violence saves. And that meant that no matter how much I might object to any particular form of domination, I was still trusting domination and violence to bring about justice and peace.”
― Walter Wink, The Powers That Be: Theology for a New Millennium

“Jesus does not encourage Jews to walk a second mile in order to build up merit in heaven, or to be pious, or to kill the soldier with kindness. He is helping an oppressed people find a way to protest and neutralize an onerous practice despised throughout the empire. He is not giving a nonpolitical message of spiritual world transcendence. He is formulating a worldly spirituality in which the people at the bottom of society or under the thumb of imperial power learn to recover their humanity.”
― Walter Wink, The Powers That Be: Theology for a New Millennium

“Divine judgment is intended not to destroy but to awaken people to the devastating truth about their lives.”
― Walter Wink, The Powers That Be: Theology for a New Millennium

“Personal redemption cannot take place apart from the redemption of our social structures.”
― Walter Wink, The Powers That Be: Theology for a New Millennium

“There is nothing, from DNA to the United Nations, that does not have God at its core. Everything has a spiritual aspect. Everything is answerable to God. As”
― Walter Wink, The Powers That Be: Theology for a New Millennium

“Put it to the test; which would cause the greater outcry, removing the American flag from your church sanctuary or removing the cross?”
― Walter Wink, The Powers That Be: Theology for a New Millennium