The Powers That Be – A Life-Changing Book

“That is, by far, the funniest movie we have ever seen,” my parents kept repeating.  They were not alone as other friends and family members had profusely offered a similar judgment.  I had yet to see it and wouldn’t see it for a few years.  I missed the window of when the movie was in the theaters, and this was still the time when it took quite awhile for movies to make it to video.  I was also cheap, so I seldom rented new release movies.  I preferred waiting until I could rent it for only $0.99.

Eventually, I got around to renting (at $0.99) and watching Robin Williams’ Mrs. Doubtfire.  To be honest, I was underwhelmed.  It’s not that I didn’t think it was funny – it was.  The problem was that with all the praise I heard, I was expecting even more than I got.  My expectations were too high, so it turned out to just be “okay.”

In saying that Walter Wink’s book, The Powers That Be: Theology for a New Millennium, was a life-changing book, I fear raising your expectations too high.  Many things lead to this:

• I don’t know how life-changing this book would have been for me had I not already had a year and a half of seminary under my belt.  Would I have been ready for or understood many of the concepts in the book?  I remember when serving First United Methodist in Wichita Falls, Texas that I recommended it to one Sunday School Class who was ready for it and loved it.  Another class who studied it shortly thereafter was not ready, did not understand it, and hated it (except for one or two individuals).
• Had I not read this, I may have had similar life-changing experiences with other books.  At the same time, would I have been prepared for those other books without the new understandings I gleaned from this book?

Whatever the case, I do know this was a life-changing book for me at the right time, and it continues to be.  It molded the way I looked at the remainder of my time in seminary as it has my outlook on life in general.

The book was required reading for my Supervised Ministry Class at Brite Divinity School conducted by Dr. Steve Sprinkle.  The purpose of the class was to help me critique (and be critiqued) in my service of ministry within a local congregation (for me it was First United Methodist of Lewisville, Texas).  To help in this process, we had reflection papers along the way.  One of these papers was entitled “Appropriate Pastoral Authority and the Minister of Integrity.”  The required texts to influence this paper was The Powers That Be and Michael & Deborah Bradshaw Jinkins’ Power and Change in Parish Ministry: Reflections on the Cure of Souls.  I had a hard time writing the paper as I kept wanting to contemplate other aspect of Wink’s book that didn’t relate directly to the paper.

I remember the three things that most impacted me back then:

• The idea that there are different ways of viewing the world, and the dominate way of viewing the world has changed through the centuries.  Wink gave a brief definition of several of these worldviews (ancient, spiritualist, materialist, theological, and integral) highlighting positive and negative attributes of each and offered an invitation to begin to view the world through the integral worldview.
• He pointed out something many of us have experienced in life: even organizations have a “spirit.”  Haven’t you entered a church and right away could feel a positive or negative vibe?  Or have you taken a job somewhere expecting it to be a certain way, but as you got to know the organization you sensed a positive or negative attitude that was deeper than a surface level critique of the place?  Or have you worked or participated somewhere where the leadership changed and with it so did the demeanor of the organization (in a good or bad way)?  Although I had experienced things such as these, I’d never taken time to consider that sometimes the spirit of an organization needs redemption, too.
• For the first time, I experienced the teachings of Jesus as being more than simply personal – for personal salvation only.  There was a social aspect that I’d never been exposed to (or chose to listen to).  So many of Jesus’ teachings were about dealing with and changing society, and Wink made this very clear for me for the first time.

I think these three stood out the most to me on my first reading as they most closely related to the paper I had to write.  Since that first reading, though, Jesus’ promotion of non-violent resistance has been what has been most eye-opening for me.  This is clearly in Jesus’ teachings when we are able strip away the way we have often been taught some of Jesus’ teachings, and this book helped me to do that.

So far, I’ve read this book cover-to-cover at least three times, and I’ve gone back to study and / or reference parts of it for deeper understanding.  Each time, I’ve come away with a new insight or way of understanding the world and our Christian response to it.

For me, the one weak point of the book is Chapter 10, “Prayer and the Powers.”  In many ways I feel that he retreats from the integral worldview back into the ancient worldview in his understanding of prayer.  That being said, the thoughts he laid down about prayer made me reconsider my own thoughts on prayer, and there is still good insights to take way.

For those wanting a good book to study, this one can create some good conversation.  Vern Rossman has created a study guide to go along with the book, and it can be found at http://www.bridges-across.org/ba/vr_confront.htm.  Honestly, I haven’t found that to be very helpful for me, but that probably has more to say about my teaching style than his guide.  In the fall of 2011, I led two groups from First United Methodist in Wichita Falls through this book.  To accompany, I used video clips from some Living the Questions produced series:  Victory and Peace or Justice and Peace, featuring John Dominic Crossan; Tex Mix: Stories of Earthy Mysticism, featuring story of and told by Tex Sample; and the segment on “Prayer” from Living the Questions – the original study.

If you haven’t read the book, obviously, I’d highly recommend it.  If you have, please, leave a note below about your thoughts of the book.