I kinda think – hence the title – that we are in a time of ‘collapse’. Much is shifting and here are a few perspectives I have held for some time… we are seeing a shift from west to east and from north to south. I realise once we have an interest in something we tend to get that ‘fed’ to us, so I need to be a little careful but every day I get feeds around ‘new currency’, ‘a shift from the dollar as global currency’, ‘the BRICS are planning xyz’. I don’t know if the term ‘collapse’ is too strong, and I don’t know if it is appropriate what that might look like. Certainly foundations are being shaken.
Jesus spoke into another time when foundations would collapse… and those foundations were understood to be ‘holy’ foundations:
Not one stone will stay upon the other.
If foundations are shaken / removed / they crumble then what they supported will not remain, the building will at best be filled with cracks if not something more devastating.
A time of shaking brings with it both threat and also opportunity. Threat to what has been and opportunity to embrace what is not fully known nor understood. I suggest we are right at that time. ‘End-time’ language does nothing for me as I think it is so mis-guided, but I do consider that we can legitimately use language such as ‘eschatological opportunity’. That is not for believers to own as exclusively theirs (eschatology is about the world, the planet, creation after all) but surely it would be incredibly helpful if a good bunch of believers were willing to welcome in the unknown and not to retract to a measure of self-preservation.
At a time of collapse insecurities surface and there will be a push to restore some old certainties. To hold on to old certainties might not be totally wrong, for there are values worth holding on to… however, we need to be sure those ‘old’ values are rooted in the irruption of the age to come, or as Paul puts it,
[B]ut a new creation is everything!
Everything!! Old values have to be rooted in new creation values if they should remain as foundational.
There is much talk of Judeo-Christian values and I understand that, but we cannot insist on that uncritically. I love the principles of the law such as it is illegal to maximise profits (come on you know that’s true!), but we have to be careful about what we read in the law – it was given to a nation not to the world, and God very early on clearly did not think the law on capital punishment was one he should follow, evidenced by his protection of Cain.
So I think we need to not simply receive every plea for a return to Judeo-Christian values… some of them are seriously sub-Christian! And… and there is a big and. Values that transform are values from the future. The whole aspect of ‘new creation’ being everything.
There is wisdom from the past, but if we are not careful we can embrace that which holds us back from bringing in the future. We are not looking to restore old certainties.
What would eschatological values look like?
In some ways, this is exactly what I try to teach my planning students. We are entering into a new creation. That means everything we know is challenged. And much of the new creation looks inhospitable to current structures, values, and ways of doing things. As we go through the shaking in the near future we have the opportunity and challenge to determine how we, collectively, will live in this new creation.
When it comes to cities, I tell students that we have every tool needed to transform cities to meet the needs of people and other species in this new creation. We lack vision and imagination.
The new creation is here, ready or not. We are mostly not. As we seek to adapt our systems, structures, and processes for everything from building homes to growing food, we can choose to care for others (including other species) or not. The values that move with us into the new creation are our choice. Ultimately what it looks like to live within this new creation, is our choice. Who determines that? Whose voices get to be heard? Whose needs are met? All TBD.
I realized recently that the past no longer predicts the future. We are used to doing this all the time. We use data of the climate past to predict extreme weather or flooding or wildfires or any number of things and events. And at this point, none of that data is actually worth much to us. The new creation, the way its climate behaves, defies the parameters of the old creation. A civil engineer told me a year ago that he no longer knows what to teach. All of the parameters they used to calculate engineering solutions no longer work. We calculate high rain events to determine the sizing of storm sewers. But extreme rain events now defy all of those parameters. The past no longer informs the future. New parameters, new values, new ways of living together, new ways of doing things. . . all to evolve as we move further into this new creation.
Its on us. We can continue in denial and hope for some magical rescue or we can get on with the task before us. It is a challenge. It is scary. It is overwhelming. None of that much matters at the moment. We have work to do, a lot of it. Delay just makes it more overwhelming. So let’s get on it.
For some time now I have felt that the end of empire will be a time of rest for those who can accept it. I’m thinking of a passage in one of the prophets (?) where God tells his people that they have not been taking the Sabbath rest and because of this God himself will see that the land gets the rest it deserves though this means desolation and loss for the people. I feel like this is where we’re at in the west: the Sabbath rests have not been taken, the land lies exploited and abused, the covenant with God has not been kept and so God will bring an end to this empire and to all its business. For those who can accept this it will be a time of rest, for the many who can’t it will be a time of great loss.
Just my thoughts on where I see this going..
Deb – I think a great perspective. God / land saying enough… time to rest.
Fabulous comment Deb. We know when we just get out of the way and allow the land to rest, it regenerates. Often quickly. Species return. A balanced by dynamic ecosystem is restored. The trick for us humans is how do we embrace this without victimizing many innocent people. There are billions dependent upon all of these imperialistic, exploitative systems to live. How do we insure their needs are met? Not everyone has land to grow their own food when big ag falters. Nor can most of us provide our own electricity. Or medical care. A true rest meets the needs of all of us, otherwise the rest is only for the privileged few.
Those are great questions Anne! Thank you for posing them, you’ve given me a lot to think about – how do we meet the needs of the vulnerable (ourselves included!) so that the rest extends to all… The only thing I can think of right now is to continue to lean in to God and allow him to lead us. For this rest to work it’s going to need a lot of help from God. Only in God, in fact, can there be rest. But what does that look like concretely for me? Lots to think about.
An unpopular word for the old value system was “Evolution” because the scientific notion challenged a LOT of the old models foundations…my tribe intentionally taught me that evolution was a religion so I avoided it as to not erect an idol…and frankly I don’t really know a lot about the scientific model.
BUT, a “new creation” might actually be a way to describe evolution…and down that road…if Jesus is the model of the new creation, then it stands to reason that Jesus is the model for evolution as well…and what stands out here?
For me, the old model of evolution said we were creatures of our environment, we were subject to the whims of nature and the idea of “nature red in tooth and claw”, the idea of survival of the fittest was thrust upon us as natural (natural “selection” seems to actually be contractitory language even in the science world)…
Into this model of survival and “the violent take it by force” we have Jesus emerging and saying “Up until John this is the way it was, now something different is here IF you can hear it” and he interrupts the survival game by saying that divinity is choosing our own future but that is only possible by choosing love, otherwise we are left restacking the same stones that are being torn down.
That seems like a mighty big “IF”…
Just saw this great video on rethinking farming cattle. So far, under big ag, cattle and meat production (along with dairy) is a huge land degradation and climate problem. A simple shift in how farmers operate make cows contribute to land renewal and requires no use of fertilizers (a big factor in land degradation, water quality, and farmer income). So yes, give the land a rest, which is the premise of this approach, and nature will do the rest.
https://youtu.be/hjJXz0adpRg