Imagining a Future for Humanity

And what needs to happen for us to get there

Let’s imagine this: Tomorrow we are given a perfect world. There is peace, no wars, no famine, no lack of resources. All of us have an opportunity to live a long life. It is idilic. But then we have not changed. We become envious. We revert to the belief in scarcity. We don’t think peace will last and fight over resources. Then we form tribes, and divisions, and boundaries to protect what everyone can freely have. We tear that world apart into pieces, and ourselves with it. And in maybe in a few months, a few weeks, or even a few days we are back with the same world we are in. People are fighting for land and provisions. We are divided politically, ideologically, and religiously. We don’t see each other as humans, but as different, as the other. Our biases, prejudices, and fears set in again. In other words, because we have not changed, we won’t get to keep what we have. This is why we can’t have nice things!

Photo by Simon Berger on Unsplash

Perhaps some people thoroughly understand this point (I know most people reading my work do). Some of us want peace and prosperity for all, but we have not developed the language to express it. We have not been taught how to communicate it with others, and most importantly, we have not been taught how to live out this intuition that sits deep inside of us. I can dare to say that this was the intent of much of Judaism and Christianity, to show this way for all of humanity. And even in other religions traditions there have been ways to talk about how to make changes ourselves in order to achieve a sense of peace, shalom, nirvana. But what has happened is that those narratives have been eclipsed by a larger narrative, one of empire and control, of power for a few and hardship for many.

My story is not a new one. It is the same story as the second creation story in the book of Genesis. But it is an alternative interpretation. It is not about sin or the fall, which are words and concepts not even in the Genesis story. It is not a story necessarily about humanity’s shared past, but it is one about our potential future.

Why hasn’t the story been told this way before? Well, it has. It was told by Jesus. It was told in parables, riddles that were only explained through intimate tutelage with the Rabbi. It came through the communities of the early church and their attempts to share all they had and tend to the needs of their communities. It came about through how these individuals saw that the movement called “the Way” was no longer about certain Jewish practices, such as circumcision and dietary restrictions, but a transformative way of being. It came through the breaking down of barriers between enslaved persons and free persons, between men and women, between cis and other gendered, between Jew and gentile. It came through the writings of the early thinkers in Greece and Egypt who sought use the philosophical language of their day. But this came to an end after the Constantine the first absorbed the religion into his empire, for his purposes of uniting Rome.

The “people of the way,” would be conquered. They would formally become the “little Christs,” the Christians, a name given to them by the Gentiles in Antioch (Asia Minor). They were now legalized. The price they payed not to be persecuted was that they would be part of a corporate takeover, and made into the Church of Rome. The narrative of transformation and social engagement was made into a doctrine of belief. Control came through uniformity. People who once cared for the poor and sick, the hungry and disenfranchised, would become bishops, and cardinals, and popes. They were not only given section, but political power. There was to be one faith and one teaching. Everything else was heresy. And some historians have argued that the one who put all this together, Emperor Constantine, may not have believed any of it.¹ He was a genius!

But to not be completely cynical and to be fair, remnants of “the people of the way” remained throughout history. They still worked within this system to serve the needy. They helped people transform their lives. They were devoted to bringing about the world that Jesus once sought to establish, a world of kinship. This was all done inside the massive structure called Christendom.

But this world has changed and what we have is the polarization of goals of the original movement. Either it is Christian self-help, i.e. how to live more holy lives, or Christian activism, in both conservative and progressive manifestations. Either one by itself seems an empty shell of how things should be. Even though there might be wonderful people in all these congregations, they do not seem to be deeply tied to a vision of transformed lives within the context of a new, healing and restorative community. Very few communities have achieved bringing these two aspects back together.

This is not a manifesto to return to the original movement. There were many things about the early church that should remain in the past and not worthy to be retrieved. Rather, this call is to set a vision for what can be the future, a future not for Christianity and the church, but one for humanity and the world.

I’m not certain the trajectory of Christianity in the U.S. or elsewhere. What I am certain is that a shift has occurred and it has started with Evangelicalism, and is moving across the Christian landscape. In our modern age, people no longer need the religion of Christianity to survive. At one time the institutional Church had all the power, the power to forgive sins, the power to bless marriages, and the ultimate power to save people from damnation. These things all gave people a purpose for living. The church both provided the problem and the solution.

But technology, capitalism, and consumerism has given humans purpose and replaced the institutional church. With information widely available on how to achieve one’s ends and goals, the “God of the gaps” has been more than filled. It may have been at one time that people’s purpose in life was governed by the fear of eternal damnation. Life was short and the inequality gap was huge. Therefore, the offer of heaven was a nice consolation. But now, most people no longer fear a post-mortem damnation of continually living in poverty and sickness.

Now the real problem is no longer the inability of people to reach their ultimate destination, not a problem of getting what only the religion of Christianity claims that it has, i.e. salvation. Modern society has provided real life salvation in many ways. Medical technology, economic opportunities, and a quality of living has come to many people. No, the problem is not in saving us from a hellish existence, rather it is in achieving our humanity. People continue to do damage to themselves and to others, and, believe it or not, many of them want to do otherwise. They simply have not been given another option.

People have come to realize that the God who wants us to have world of peace, wholeness, and abundance, is not the same God who wants to smite us and send us all to hell. People have been abandoning this latter God for sometime now. The congregations that have stopped preaching this message have also realized that Sunday services, good preaching, and Bible studies, are not enough to attract people. They have become healing and restorative communities. But these are few and far between. People gather together for many reasons, some for spiritual fulfillment, some for social engagement, some to reinforce their beliefs. None of this is in itself is wrong, but it misses the mark of what could be possible.

But what if we gathered to have our imaginations challenged and reshaped. What if we left places of worship and communities of faith transformed, to live better and whole lives? What if we our gatherings make us people who want to look out for the disenfranchised and oppressed, to bring liberation to ourselves and therefore others? What if the God who wants us to have a world worth living in also wants us to have lives that can fully enjoy that world?

A friend of mine, who has served churches for a long time and a pillar in the Christian community, told me one day that he “longed for the death of the institutional church.” This surprised me, but in context, he expressed that it needed to die so that something else can emerge from its ashes, from its tomb. I am also wondering about the “church” in the broader sense that connects us all.

After WWII, the German theologian, Dietrich Bonhoeffer saw the death of the church also. It was the German state church that supported the Third Reich and it was this church that he lost his religion to. The only connection he had was in the Black church back in America because that church understood both the need for liberation and restoration. This was the one that made him want to go back to Germany to help his people and to eventually be executed in a Nazi prison. He saw “church” very differently.

His congregation was “religionless.” It does not share the same language as the institutional church, but it is often more honest its status and needs. It is often more open in attempting something new, maybe failing, maybe getting close, but at least striving for something different. This is maybe what continues the life of those once called, “the people of the Way.”

So let us dream of something altogether different, another way of acting and being in the world. Something that tethers us in an ancient past, so we do not forget our histories, but also moves us forward.

Post-script

In a future post, I will be talking about the destination and how to get there. If the early Christian movement was called “People of the Way” then there must be a goal and a path. If so, it would be crucial to know the trajectory and the destination.

1. I may be able to take on face value the historical accounts that Constantine I proclaimed himself to be a Christian, but to take as evidence that God spoke to him (in Latin) and Jesus affirmed to Constantine a dream that he would have victory against his brother-in-law in a bloody battle would be inconsistent with a religion of non-violence.