The Principalities and Powers are Legion: William Stringfellow and The Idolatrous Life Taking Things
According to the Bible, the principalities are legion in species, number, variety and name. They are designated by such multifarious titles as powers, virtues, thrones, authorities, dominions, demons, princes, strongholds, lords, angels, gods, elements, spirits…
And if some of these seem quaint, transposed into contemporary language they lose quaintness and the principalities become recognizable and all too familiar: they include all institutions, all ideologies, all images, all movements, all causes, all corporations, all bureaucracies, all traditions, all methods and routines, all conglomerates, all races, all nations, all idols. Thus, the Pentagon or the Ford Motor Company or Harvard University or the Hudson Institute or Consolidated Edison or the Diners Club or the Olympics or the Methodist Church or the Teamsters Union are principalities. So are capitalism, Maoism, humanism, Mormonism, astrology, the Puritan work ethic, science and scientism, white supremacy, patriotism, plus many, many more—sports, sex, any profession or discipline, technology, money, the family—beyond any prospect of full enumeration. The principalities and powers are legion.
The above quote is from William Stringfellow which comes via Richard Beck’s blog post where he drops some knowledge about the spirituality of iPhones.
Stringfellow’s language here is astonishingly prolific to me. Thinking this way about the idolatrous principalities and powers which invade every aspect of our lives, what comes to mind as a potentially helpful remedy for this predicament is John Caputo’s cry for deconstruction as a way of life. For Caputo deconstruction is not about destruction, but rather reformation and reconfiguring, which he allies to metanoia, the New Testament term for undergoing a fundamental change of heart. Deconstruction in this sense then, serves as a continual “breaking up of the crust” that inevitably forms around our ideological hearts.
Drawing above by Alexandro Garcia
0 Comments