CONFRONTING THE POWERS THAT BE
We're sorry. It's not us. It's the monster. The bank isn't like a man.
Yes, but the bank is made up of men. No. you're wrong there--quite wrong there. The bank is something else than men. It happens that every man in a bank hates what the bank does, and yet the bank does it. The bank is something more than men, I tell you. It's the monster. Men made it but they can't control it. --John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath (ETP 50)
TPTB - Chapter 1
In this section Wink describes five historic world views, each of which is the background faith undergirding particular Powers, providing their spiritual rationale or ethos. He writes: "A world view provides a picture of the nature of things: where is heaven, where is earth, what is visible and invisible, what is real and unreal." (TPTB 14)
Underneath our reasoning and deciding there are hidden assumptions
which we often do not recognize are there. Yet these beliefs determine
to a large degree what we do day by day. We have drunk in these items of
faith in our youth. We just assume them. The fact that we believe in them
unconsciously gives them enormous power to control our lives. Often elements
of more than one world view are at war with one another within us.
Wink describes the five most pervasive and controlling world
views in history:
1. The Ancient World view: (the world view of the Bible): Heaven above, earth below. Events in the one are mirrored in the other. The spiritual mirrors the physical and vise versa. This view was shared by most ancient peoples and is still the view of many in our Western world.
2. The Spiritualist World view: (Gnosticism, Manichaeism, Neoplatonism): The creation is not good but evil and the spirit is trapped in its physical body. Escape from the material body is salvation. This view still has power among many. Examples of modern spiritualism are Christian Science movement of Mary Baker Eddy, Theosophy, sexual puritanism, anorexia.
3. The Materialist World view: This world view contends the cosmos is devoid of creator, spirit, meaning, values. This represents the unconscious working presupposition of a multitude including many people who consider themselves religious.
4. The Theological World view: (reaction to materialism): These theologians often say, "Science tew:ells us how the world was created and theology tells us why." It ends up splitting apart science and religion to the detriment of both.
5. An Integral World view: This comparatively new world view, now emerging, sees everything as having an inner and an outer reality. God is within everything somewhat as our spirits are within the body but also one with it.
How do these relate to the Powers? The institutional Powers around us would have no control over us unless we shared to some extent a world view which is incarnate in that particular system. We go along with all sorts of odd and evil actions because we have been brainwashed that this is the way life is.
2. Consider and discuss: It has been said that many of us are "practical atheists." We worship once a week and live the rest of the time by the values a materialistic society of self-indulgence. We celebrate the power of God and spend the rest of the week ignoring that power. We pray but don't really believe our prayers change anything.
3. We may be the first generation that ever lived which is able to consciously choose a world view. Which would you choose, and why?
Copyright © 1998 by Vern Rossman