Wednesday, November 04, 2020

Powers & Principalities

 1)    I wrote about this in a series of posts, writing mostly from what I'd read by William Stringfellow and Walter Wink. [There were seven, starting from http://sneezingflower.blogspot.com/2006/09/way-to-quaker-renewal-part-i.html]

After another look at Stringfellow (_An Ethic for Christians and Other Strangers in a Strange Land_), after this latest election and all that led up to it -- I'm wrestling with a different take on these things.

Writing it up may take awhile; meanwhile I'd appreciate other people's comments and ideas. 

What if anything do those terms refer to? Is there enough about them, in the Bible or anywhere else, to anchor any useful speculation?

To be continued tomorrow, I hope:

2) Is there an honest use for this terminology? Do we understand things better through it, or merely get a convenient vehicle for rhetorical attacks?

To label a phenomenon "demonic" is kind of pejorative. When does that distort perceptions; when does it clarify?

Is it worse to have an archaic vocabulary for describing a disease? -- or to have none at all?

3)