Wink argues that society creates the impression that some people are favored by God while others are rejected, based on attributes like appearance, wealth, gender, etc. There are benefits to going along with this system of unequal social hierarchies, but rejecting it challenges the entire structure. If God does not favor some over others based on accidents of birth, then the social order is a human construct established against God's nature of equality and justice for all.

1. Yet society has in every possible way created the impression
that only some are in God’s favor and the others out. By our
dress, color, nationality, wealth, age, gender, education,
language, looks, and health, others can recognize instantly
whether we are blessed or cursed, beloved or rejected. There
are enormous benefits in going along with this selective grading
of human beings, and severe penalties inflicted for its
rejection. For these that God does not sit atop the pyramid of
power accidents of genetics and class determine one’s social
location and power, and anyone who tampers with them
undermines the foundations of unequal privilege. To say
legitimating the entire edifice, does not favor some and reject
others, is to expose the entire structure as human contrivance
established in defiance of God’s very nature.
––Walter Wink
300 words for forum.
How do Wink's ideas about privilege and power compare to
Johnson's, Ehrenreich's, and Bader-Saye's ideas? [This question
casts a wide net; please feel free to write about the ideas in
which
you
are most interested.] How are they different? How might you
integrate Bader-Saye's ideas about the risks of hospitality,
generosity and peacemaking with Wink’s theology of social
transformation [as represented in his quotation above]? How
might you use the experiences/stories of the people we have
read about/viewed/listened to this semester including all of the
following:
the women in Ehrenreich's
Nickel and Dimed,
the characters from your
Multicultural Children's Picture Book

2. the characters from
Hotel Rwanda, Come See the Paradise
and
El Norte
the characters in
If These Walls Could Talk 2
The Girls Next Door
In your posting please use these stories to illustrate Wink’s
view of the connection between social transformation and our
commitment to the general welfare--
regardless of our social location. Post three questions about
how
Nickel and Dimed
and
Following Jesus in a Culture of Fear
deal with the focus of this forum and respond to
at least
four other questions posted by the other members of your
cohort.