Question Power. Always.

A little flash of insight--simple in its own way but incredibly profound and provocative--via Richard Rohr, who rode home with me from my Mandarin class this morning on bus #58.

(I'm paraphrasing, reworking, and adding my own two cents.)

Who killed Jesus?

The Romans? No.

The Jews? No.

The Chief Priest and Pilate killed Jesus. (And it seems to me that of the two, Pilate was the less enthusiastic about it.)

Not the prostitutes. Not the drunkards. Not the poor.

The personification of religious power and the personification of political power killed Jesus.

Therefore, for followers of Jesus, the injunction to always question power is Biblical.

Always.

Comments

[Rick]

Always?

So we should question God's power...

Or the power of the weak and the meek...

We should question the power of transformation...

And are we saying that the power and the personification of sin had nothing to do with the killing of Christ? Or that only sin personified in political or religious power killed him? And if so, isn't then always a misnomer?

Or are we redefining that word now too?

[Mike]

There's an implied definition in what I've written Rick, but thanks for questioning my post.

[Erin Wilson]

Question it, yes! But we also have a role in choosing not to feed that power, not to enable it.

[Rick]

Mike,

Sorry it took me a few days to get back here.

I'm slow fella so help me with the implied definition as some of us are likely, because of our own biases and filters, infer wrongly from the intended implication.

[Mike]

Rick - I'm thinking of power ala Walter Wink. Institutional power, be it corporate, political, even religious.

Power usually exists to maintain and extend itself. Always question it.

[Mike]

Irony Alert: Immediately after posting the comment above, I found an email update from Chris Guillebeau in my inbox. It adds a little to the conversation...

When we talk about "the system" we are talking about a structure and a set of entrenched powers. There's a political system, which favors incumbents and redistricting along party lines. There's an educational system, which favors conformity and standardized evaluation.

There's an economic system, which tends to focus revitalization efforts on reviving older industries (auto manufacturing, for example) instead of teaching people new skills (creative self-employment of all kinds).

Systems are broken because they exist to sustain themselves, and the people who run the system rely on the system to stay the same. Why should they change it up? It works well for them.

[HeidiRenee]

YES! Walt Whitman has taught me well, question everything. Especially things done in the name of God.

[Rick]

Systems are broken Mike because they're run by people... and people are broken...

That includes any power structure, even the Church, yet Christ started the Church, He empowered the Church, and he expects the Church to continue, despite its broken state...

You seem to be suggesting that we all run from power structures because of their corrupt state... but to where will you run? Won't you run into other power structures? And then you'll be questioning it? Hell of a way to live man...

I see you're running to find something, or at least, that's what you're attempting to convince us of... but I instead see you running from something... not sure what it is because in many ways, we make up the monsters we run from, they are caricatures of what the reality is...

I've run from things most of my life Mike. And a week or so ago celebrated yet another birthday but I've decided in many ways to quit running. Whether it's to something, or from something.

I hope you find whatever it is you're running to or that you lose whatever it is you're running from. And soon.

But brother, and I say this as honestly and frankly and with as much concern as I can.

I believe, hopefully wrongly, that you're chasing windmills.

Stop. Running.

Period.

Just. Stop.

Slow down. Seek not the latest fad or some mysterious inner conciousness or whatever it is that I can't fathom that you seem to be describing in your posts of late.

Seek Christ.

Maybe it's what you're doing, I don't know.

I hope it is. But if you aren't, then stop. Stop now.

[Mike]

Sorry folks... A couple of legit comments got lost in the onslaught of 184 spam comments last week. I just finished digging out from under.

Rick, I don't really know how to respond except to thank you, as I've done before, for the concern. I don't believe I'm running from or to anything. But in a world that is saturated in the evolutionary principle, ie. everything changes, I will always try to live my life and my faith on the edge of what's next.

Peace bro.