response to "victimization as a worldview" good title, by the way. i think this is a grad school paper waiting to happen. a book even. (1) let me begin by saying i think this is an excellent topic and one that i have not attempted to think through enough. this has got to be the best ground-up discussion that i've even heard on this topic from a christian perspective. (2) it seems like jacques ellul's whole life was to some extent focused on exploring this question. The Presence of the Kingdom directly and philosophically deals with this exact issue. He sets up what he believes is the role of the disciple in society based on God's will for the world and then critiques the world through that same view. It feels almost like reading Isaiah when you're reading that book. So as a "look here for better stuff" recommendation, I would point directly to this book I'm reading. (3) there are so many terms i'd want to have defined in this article... dialectic and injustice would be two. There are two main definitions to 'dialectic': one is the Hegelian definition that simply means two competing ideologies that eventually synthesize. The other is the Marxian definition that adds notions of dire conflict, Darwinian struggle for supremacy, etc. In Hegelian terms, both the thesis and its anti-thesis might compromise into the synthesis; in Marxist terms, there is only antagonistic struggle where one side eventually wins. It seems like in this article, we're talking about "dialectical materialism" or Marxism. (4) Jacques Ellul points out that there is a dialectic to the Christian life--if by dialectic we are talking about two seemingly compelling and somewhat opposing ideals. We have the command to be 'in the world.' We have the command to be not 'of the world.' We are not to be 'conformed;' we are to be 'transformed.' The Kingdom is Now. The Kingdom is Not Yet. So if, and only if, the dialectic we are talking about is already assuming--is built upon the foundations of--desiring to know and do the Will of God, then it seems like we should address things as a dialectic. But unlike both Hegelian idealist dialecticism and Marxian materialist dialecticism, we are caught in a divinely instigated paradox--a "Both-And" tension. Ellul calls it the "Agonistic" (not agnostic or antagonistic--which is how I read it the first time) path of the Christian. The Agonistic path rejects either pole of the dialectic as sufficient--we can neither see things as people "of the world" (under which I would toss things like dialectical materialism) nor as people not "in the world" (under which I would toss the desire to shuck personal responsibility for the plight of the poor and "oppressed"). So, to sum up, I would say that Ellul does a better job of speaking about these issues than I ever could. If I understand what he's saying correctly, there is a responsibility for Christians who desire to do the will of God (the ideal) to see where their world is now (one side of a dialectic) and to pray and act toward the other end of the dialectic--ultimately realizing that the role of the Christian is revolutionary and transformative but MUST remain "in the world." This series of points might be somewhat different in focus than what your article was addressing...I'm not sure if you can see value in them. I just thought that so much of what you're talking about is exactly the same as what this book by Ellul is addressing.