"Angels, Spirits, principalities, powers, gods, Satan — these, along with all other spiritual realities, are the unmentionables of our culture. The dominant materialistic worldview has absolutely no place for them. … [But] materialism itself is terminably ill, and, let us hope, in process of replacement by a worldview capable of honoring the lasting values of modern science without succumbing to reductionism. … [Therefore] we find ourselves returning to the ancient traditions, searching for wisdom wherever it may be found. We do not capitulate to the past and its superstitions, but bring all the gifts our race has acquired along the way as aids in recovering the lost language of our souls. … In Naming the Powers, I developed the thesis that undergirds all three volumes of this work: that the New Testament’s “principalities and powers” is a generic category referring to the determining forces of physical, psychic, and social existence. … In the present volume we will be focusing on just seven of the Powers mentioned in Scripture. Their selection out of all the others dealt with in Naming the Powers is partly arbitrary: they happen to be ones about which I felt I had something to say. But they are also representative, and open the way to comprehending the rest. They are: Satan, demons, angels of churches, angels of nations, gods, elements, and angels of nature." - Walter Wink
About the Author: Walter Wink is Professor of Biblical Interpretation at Auburn Theological Seminary in New York City. His other Fortress Press books include The Bible in Human Transformation (1973) and the previous two books in the Powers series, Naming the Powers: The Language of Power in the New Testament (1984) and Engaging the Powers: Discernment and Resistance in a World of Domination. Please see the Powers Trilogy elsewhere on this page for a special package price on all three volumes.
"Who says that biblical theology is dull? Wink knows the distinction between what is meant in the New Testament and what is meant for today. But he also recognizes that sometimes risks must be taken if one is to bring the horizons into touch .... These and other matters he explores are crucial issues for reasons of theology, pastoral care, social justice, and nothing less than the salvation of the world. One is grateful for the erudition, the spiritual depth and imagination, and the controlled passion which Wink has brought to them." - Frederick Houk Borsch, Virginia Seminary Journal
"In his remarkable trilogy on the principalities and powers, Walter Wink has biblically verified what more and more of us have come to realize intuitively: namely, that underneath and within the social, economic, and political crisis we face, there are profoundly spiritual realities which must be confronted .... Wink presents us with the sobering and illuminating truth that movements for social change will simply never succeed unless they come to terms with the existence and pervasive presence of the structural and spiritual forces the Bible refers to as principalities and powers. And there is no better treatment of the biblical and contemporary meaning of the powers than Walter Wink's." - Jim Wallis, Sojourners
"Unmasking the Powers is one of the most powerful and incisive treatments of the evils which
afflict our society and our church that I have ever read. With wisdom, scholarship, and
evangelical zeal, Walter Wink deals with the many ways that the powers of evil infiltrate our
lives." - Morton Kelsey, Professor Emeritus, University of Notre Dame.