The System

From Patrick Ness in the most recent SojoMail, on our generation:

We are encouraged to care, but not question. We are told that individual acts of charity are to be commended, but that systems will never change. The "common good" only applies to those whose accents, skin, neighborhood, and paycheck look like our own. Don't get me wrong - we're not complacent. We simply haven't learned the power of collective action toward lasting social transformation.

I'm reading Walter Wink, The Powers That Be, and in the book he talks about the nature of systems, how they have personalities, and discusses what the New Testament means when it talks about "principalities and powers." It is an interesting idea. I was reading John 10 the other day and in it is the passage about Jesus offering us life to the full:

The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full. - John 10:8-10

Before even reading the book I had the thought that perhaps "the thief" isn't only an evil, demonic being (which I'm not sure about yet) but perhaps systems and structures that destroy. If Jesus' offer isn't one of isolated, personal salvation, but is actually a message of the formation of a new community of God's people (and more than that, too, but not less) then it would be easy to see that the enemy--thief--could be a system that comes only to kill and destroy.

Just a thought. If the system can be directly opposed to the life that God has planned for us, then as Christians we should recognize the problems and make choices in line with that. It is too easy to say that we will just go into the working world and 'be Christians'.

I am not saying that we should arrange our lives to live out Fight Club or V for Vendetta. Those are stories that perpetuate the myth of redemptive violence. Violence and destruction will not fix anything. But the creation of an alternative community--a community that breaths life to a dead world...that seems to be option I continually come back to. I don't know if that means we shouldn't participate in the 'corporate' world, but as Wendell Berry says:

I don't mean to say, of course, that all corporate executives and stockholders are bad people. I am only saying that all of them are very seriously implicated in a bad economy.

We've go to start there. Not only corporate executives and stockholders, but consumers as well. We need to see just how deeply we are implicated in a system that could potentially be destructive to the earth, communities, and life as was intended by God. Collective action towards lasting social transformation begins when we realize that we can do something! I'm not just talking about boycotting certain consumer products, TV stations, movies, or Wal-Mart--which are all good and noble things to do--but the arrangement of a different way of life where we don't have to boycott Wal-Mart because we don't need anything from them.

As far as the corporate world goes its not that I'm against capitalism or anything, but I just don't think we have to always work for huge, international companies. I say go local. I would love to see lots of people caring about their communities, providing services for the community, consuming things that are from their community, banks that serve the community, etc. This is a place we must use our imaginations because it would look very different than our society looks in the cities today. No more Chili's and Bank of America. What a world it would be....

Collective action towards lasting social transformation begins and ends with the Gospel. Jesus is Lord. That should be enough to change everything if we would just allow it...