The eCrozier

We are living in a Star Wars civilization with Stone Age emotions, medieval institutions and Godlike technology. – E.O. Wilson

The above quote is from evolutionary biologist E. O. Wilson’s book: The Social Conquest of Earth. If Wilson is correct in his contention, no wonder so many people in our culture feel diseased, or at least, ill at eased. It might also explain (at least in part) the extremist behavior we see in politics and other areas of our common life. In Wilson’s observation, our civilization and technology have far outpaced our personal, human capacity to make sense of them as well as the institutions we have to shape and manage them.

For example, medical and scientific advances have developed capacities for stem cell therapies, cloning, and gene manipulation that have moved rapidly ahead of our moral and ethical discernment about what the “good” is. And the institutions that traditionally have shaped and guided such discernment aren’t currently equipped to do so. Likewise, in an age of nuclear weapons in suit cases and unmanned predator drones with missiles in the sky, the old “Just War” constructs, first promulgated by St Augustine and later shaped more clearly by St Thomas Aquinas, are nearly impossible to apply.

I may be wrong, but I think this helps explain why so many people experience chronic anxiety these days. If you Google “Generalized Anxiety Disorder,” you will get over 5 million hits! The National Institute of Health describes Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) as “a pattern of constant worry and anxiety over many different activities and events. The main symptom is the almost constant presence of worry or tension, even when there is little or no reason to worry about them.”

Given this world as it is, we may all be tempted to reside with Booby McFerrin and just sing: “Don’t Worry, Be Happy!” But I don’t think that’s the answer. What I believe is needed is a robust eschatology based on the “sure and certain hope” we have through God’s grace in Jesus. Eschatology is the study of how things will end. With that grounding of God’s future, we can work back to our present time from that hope, using it as the lens by which we discern the difficult moral and ethical choices in front of us. Such a hope-filled lens is not a black and white roadmap, but it will give us a frame of reference that allows us to lessen our anxiety about the way things are (and how they might be heading). We make better choices when we’re not overcome by anxiety and a fear of the future.

Simply enjoining people to “be happy” isn’t robust enough. And neither is the misguided theology of the “Left Behind” series where the authors seem to know more about how things will end than Jesus claims he himself knows. A friend once noted: As Christians, when it comes to eschatology, we’re not called to be on the “program committee,” we’re called to be on the “welcoming committee.” And as the Brazilian writer, Paolo Coelho, wrote: “Everything is ok in the end, if it’s not ok, then it’s not the end.” Or maybe even better from Dame Julian: “All shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.”

+Scott