19 Quotes by Richard Beck

In sum, when Paul writes in Ephesians 6 that our battle is against the principalities and powers, he’s not just talking about demon possession, he’s also talking about our struggle with political powers.

In contemporary American culture our slavery to the fear of death produces superficial consumerism, a fetish for managing appearances, inauthentic relationships, triumphalistic religion, and the eclipse of personal and societal empathy. These are the “works of the devil” in our lives, works produced by our slavery to the fear of death.

This is how worship is connected to our ability to love. When we give our ultimate allegiance to any of the principalities and powers, large or small, we find ourselves perennially at war with anyone who places these things at risk. Idolatry breeds perpetual vigilance and violence.

Basically, a satan is more of a relationship than a person. Anything that is facing you in an antagonistic or adversarial way – working against you as an opponent or enemy – is standing before you as ha satan, as an adversary, as a satan. In the Bible, Satan and the Devil are interchangeable names for the personification of all that is adversarial to the kingdom and people of God, the personified Enemy of God.

It’s the same problem we struggle with when it comes to marginalizing our privilege, power, or position as we focus on the voices and concerns of those who have been marginalized and oppressed. Even our social justice efforts become contaminated by our desire to be the center of attention as we fail to place weaker and less powerful voices at the center of our concerns.

When Jesus talks about conflict with “principalities and powers,” he’s talking about conflict with legal and political authorities.

Satan might not be a personalized agent, but I do believe there are moral forces that transcend individuals, forces that have a real causal effect on moral decision-making.

Here, then, are cases in which the fear that violent pedophiles might abduct children from public places – a vanishingly rare occurrence – was used to justify the punishment of women who were looking for work, women who were at work, or women who simply thought that she and her child might both benefit from the child being allowed some time to play on his own – in other words, women whose failure to devote every moment to their role as mothers was viewed as literally criminal.

Salvation, then, involves liberation from this fear. Salvation is emancipation for those who have been enslaved all of their lives by the fear of death. Salvation is a deliverance that sets us free from this power of the devil.