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Hey Jack! Leon and I have been re-working our worldview for the last couple of years based on an "ought, is, can, will" Biblical framework. It is always great to read your blogs! We would love to visit Ecclesia when we are in Houston sometime. It was so great seeing you in Jan, in spite of the circumstances! Your friend, Mandy

Can a set of "disordered values and patterns" constitute a “system”? Can a pattern be disordered?

I ask not for simple contrarianism but rather to seek clarification on what it is that stands in opposition to the "Kingdom". Help me understand whether “this present evil age” actually consists of something identifiable, something definable on its own terms, or whether it is only to be understood in the negative, as a rebellion against that which should be.

Further, are we talking about a "bogus world system" or is it really just a "bogus world"? The word system seems to imply intention, organization, plan, and coordination -- all with multiple players involved. Does that accurately capture what you intend to describe, or do you mean to include or address random, thoughtless digressions from a prescribed path? Or both?

I don't want to speak for the writer here but yes, disorder can be a pattern. The term disorder is a technical term in theology for whatever is contrary to God's good order established in creation. The fact is we have an enemy who delights in bringing disorder to God's good order. There are patterns which are discernible in the bogus world system. See C. S. Lewis' SCREWTAPE LETTERS for an imaginative example. Put another way, anarchists seek to bring disorder to society. They try to do so in whatever way they can. There is intention. There is plan and purpose.

Dr.Capes--thanks for chiming in. Evil has a pernicious way of frustrating lexical precision and philosophical delineation. The authors of the Bible seem to have no appetite for abstractions and speculative theories, but they knew that things were not right, and they were given a vision and a taste of a new creation. In response to Luke's final thoughtful question, I guess my answer is "both." To clarify what the BWS connotes, I offer an extended quote from one of my professors: "When world is used in the negative sense in Scripture, what is meant is the total system of corporate flesh operating on earth under satanic control, with all of its incentives of reward and restraints of loss, its characteristic patterns of behavior and its [proud] structures, methods, goals and ideologies. It is substantially identical with the biblical symbol of the harlot Babylon and with Augustine's City of Man. It involves many forms and agencies of evil...including dehumanizing social,economic and political systems...and culturally pervasive institutionalized sin such as racism. Like the many-headed beast of Revelation 13, the world is secretly compatible with and operative within systems which are antithetical on the surface, such as capitalism and communism." (R. Lovelace, Dynamics of Spiritual Life).