So, to continue this little series on Christian social and political engagement. Miroslav Volf tells us that Christianity is a prophetic faith, and that our prophetic calling requires us to engage with our wider society in a manner which is neither passive not coercive. Walter Brueggemann suggests that a prophetic ministry should open up possibilities beyond the dominant consciousness, allowing us to mourn the injustices of our society and dream of something better. Neither of them tells us how we should do this. One way to start to think about this more practically is via Walter Wink's The Powers That Be: Theology for a New Millennium , first published in 1999. This is a short, accessible rendering of material from a trilogy of books Wink published between 1984 and 1992. Wink suggests that institutions, like individuals, have a spiritual as well as a physical reality. This reality is not inherently good or evil. Our social institutions often have a good and necessa
'Contemplating the teeming life of the shore, we have an uneasy sense of the communication of some universal truth that lies just beyond our grasp.' - Rachel Carson