I’m no Christian, but there are some aspects of Christianity I admire, particularly the actual message of Jesus — i.e. engaged love and compassion for others (although many self-professed Christians don’t seem to exhibit those traits). So Walter Wink’s exegesis of the Bible vis a vis the culture of violence is extremely fascinating to me, as a juxtaposition of the positive qualities I see in Christianity with the ideas within primitive anarchy.

Particularly this. In the New King James Version of the Bible, 1 John 2:15-17 says this:

Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the father is not in him. For all that is in the world — the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life — is not of the Father but is of the world. And the world is passing away, and the lust of it; but he who does the will of God abides forever.

This can be interpreted as a world-denying view, not dissimilar from some Buddhist views of the world and its desire and attachments as pure illusions to be discarded.

But Wink tells us that what is normally translated as “world” is the Greek word kosmos, which differs in meaning depending on the context and which, in much of the context of the New Testament, refers to “the human sociological realm that exists in estrangement from God.”

Because the range of meanings assigned to the term “world” is so wide, I suggest that the New Testament sense of world as an alienating and alienated ethos may be translated more meaningfully as “system.”

So here’s the punchline. That same Biblical verse, translated his way, becomes:

Do not love the Domination System or the things pertaining to it. If anyone loves that System, the love of the Abba [loving divine parent] is not in that person. For everything in that System — the desire engendered by an alienated body and a wandering eye and the arrogant pretensions of those who are full of themselves — is not of the Abba but is begotten by the Domination System itself. That System is passing away with all its perverse desires, but the person who does what God wants done remains “into the aion” that is coming.

This is fascinating. Wink is saying that Jesus is teaching no less than political revolution in an entirely new way — the transformation of the whole system of violence, the redemption of an alienated society, the reconnection with the Divine on a collective level. This “revolution” must itself be completely different from the violence that word connotes.

I’m intrigued to see where he goes with this.