Earthly powers enslave us...
Illustration
Object:
Earthly powers enslave us. The media makes us its puppets in dictating to us what we (think we) want. Society puts us in racial and gender straitjackets. We fight wars because government tells us to, and society largely keeps us in the social class in which we are born. These earthly powers are the four beasts of Daniel's dream. But Daniel's dream makes clear that insofar as the holy ones of the Lord (perhaps the Messiah) will be the one(s) to possess the kingdom, we have the assurance that the ways of the world will not ultimately prevail. Seventeenth-century French intellectual Blaise Pascal describes the enslavement we experience from the ways of the world and of their ultimate demise:
It is absurd to rely on the company of our fellows, as wretched and helpless as we are; they will not help us; we shall die alone. We must act then as if we were alone... We should unhesitatingly look for the truth. And if we refuse, it shows that we have a higher regard for men's esteem for pursuing wealth.
(Pensees, pp. 80-81)
But if we rely first on Christ who ultimately is in control of the earthly powers, then these powers can be made to serve his aims, as Martin Luther King Jr. well described:
Now power properly understood is nothing but the ability to achieve purpose... There is nothing wrong with power if power is used correctly... Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice, and justice at its best is power correcting everything that stands against love.
(Worldview [April, 1972]: 5ff)
It is absurd to rely on the company of our fellows, as wretched and helpless as we are; they will not help us; we shall die alone. We must act then as if we were alone... We should unhesitatingly look for the truth. And if we refuse, it shows that we have a higher regard for men's esteem for pursuing wealth.
(Pensees, pp. 80-81)
But if we rely first on Christ who ultimately is in control of the earthly powers, then these powers can be made to serve his aims, as Martin Luther King Jr. well described:
Now power properly understood is nothing but the ability to achieve purpose... There is nothing wrong with power if power is used correctly... Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice, and justice at its best is power correcting everything that stands against love.
(Worldview [April, 1972]: 5ff)
