Tuesday, March 1, 2011

Globalization and the Body of Christ

The value of any religion is how it stands the test of time. And it is Christianity which shows the greatest ability of any religion to conform to the 21st century. I have already written on the parallels of evolution and the doctrine of Creation. And again, as I see the effects of globalization all around us, I wonder why nobody notices the similarities it has with another certain Christian doctrine? In what follows, we will examine the close relationship between globalization and the Body of Christ, so that Christians can better understand their faith, and so that non-Christians (for if they choose to not believe in something, they must know what it is they do not believe in) can better understand it too.


What is the doctrine of the Body of Christ? Quite simply, it is the process by which the human race becomes one body. As the human race populates, and humans live in greater communion with each other, Christ’s body grows and builds itself up.  “From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work” (Ephesians 4: 15 – 16). The formation of Christ’s body is a massive under-taking that will require “a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language” (Revelation 7: 9). Christ’s body covers the entire human race, from the deepest past to the farthest future, so that all things and all people are in someway incorporated into (or rejected from) the Body of Christ. “The body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts; and though all its parts are many, they form one body. So it is with Christ” (I Corinthians 12: 12). Christ’s body extends to these parameters because he is “before all things, and in him all things hold together” (Colossians 1: 16 - 17). Most people only think of Jesus as an individual Jew who lived in Israel some 2,000 years ago. Yet Jesus is, and always has been, a lot more than this. Like Voltron, who is formed when various robots unite together, Christ came to “unite all things in him” (Ephesians 1: 10). When he “has put everything under his feet” he will hand everything over to the Father “so that God may be all in all” (1 Corinthians 15: 26 – 28). So for a Christian, God will fully dwell with humanity when Christ’s body (the unity of the human race) is achieved. In short, the entire history of the universe is the formation of Christ’s body.



Of course, you can probably already see the parallels that those scriptural passages have with globalization. Globalization is quite literally the unification of the human race happening before our very eyes. Today, more than ever before, the nations and people of the earth are converging on each other in all domains of life: geographically, economically, culturally, religiously etc. Never before has humanity been so aware of itself ‘as a whole:’ we realize that we form one community on this earth. The United Nations, World Bank, and other global governing bodies have been formed because of this awareness. “Global” is the new buzzword. The Internet and social sites like Facebook further highlight the connectedness of the human race. On a daily basis, the human race is being driven towards greater unity and inter-connectedness with itself – a reality that reflects precisely the doctrine of the Body of Christ.


This drive towards greater unity is increasing humanity’s knowledge and awareness: which for a Christian is a spiritual awakening. God is truth. We stand on a tower of knowledge passed on by those before us, and which we are passing on to those after us. The founder of Wikipedia explains it like this: "Imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge. That's what we're doing.” Human knowledge accumulates over the centuries and becomes more accurate and refined. We thought the earth was flat, now we know that it is round. We thought the earth was the center of the universe, now we know it actually circles the sun. We thought the universe was ready-made in 7 days, now we see that it evolved over millions of years. The Scientific Revolution of the last 150 years was brought about by globalization (sharing of knowledge), and it is essentially a Spiritual Revolution, even though most of us do not think of it that way. But the fact remains that the Scientific Revolution has given birth to enormous amounts of knowledge and very spiritual technology. Cell-phones, the Internet, GPS technology, are all spiritual objects. They provide instant knowledge on just about any subject, and immediate communication with anybody, anywhere – all in the palm of our hands. Look at your phone, the energy and complexity of it; can you not feel spirit radiating from it? Many of us first find out what is happening in the world through the Internet, or our cell phones. With this technology we can communicate with people who are not even near us - it used to be thought that only angels could do that. As globalization continues, we can only expect knowledge /spirit to grow exponentially, which is consistent with the doctrine of the Body of Christ.


However, great evil can be borne out of globalization (indeed it already has), but ironically this is yet another reason that proves its similarity to the Body of Christ. Christianity is clear that as Christ’s body forms, someone else’s body is also forming: the anti-Christ’s. The Christ cannot come without the anti-Christ. The anti-Christ is any nation, people, or person, who hates the unity of the human race, and works against it. Whereas Christ stands for human unity and life, the anti-Christ stands for human disunity and death. All the knowledge and technology we listed above can be used for anti-Christ-like evil purposes: war, the nuclear bomb, global warming, anti-social behavior, loss of privacy, to name just a few. Never before has the concept of the anti-Christ been as popular as it is today: for every one of us can see the potential for some future dictator who will force everyone “to receive a mark on their right hands or on their foreheads, so that they could not buy or sell unless they had the mark” (Revelations 13: 16 – 17). So much hate and so much evil, it seems that globalization is not destined to happen in peace and harmony, but only through sweat, blood and tears (and here, coincidentally, we glimpse the mystery of why Christ had to suffer and die.) As human beings, we decide whether to love and live in harmony with our neighbours, or to hate and wage war against them.

The Christ and the anti-Christ stand on our horizon. We can forecast weather and perhaps one-day control it as Christ did (Luke 8: 22 – 25), or we can destroy the earth’s ecological balance and deplete its natural resources (anti-Christ). We can cure diseases and mental ailments like Christ did (Matthew 17: 14 – 20), or we can create viruses and neuroses meant to destroy each other (anti-Christ). We can provide food and water to the whole earth as Christ fed the multitude (Mark 6: 35 – 44), or we can sit idle and allow our fellow human beings to starve (anti-Christ). Will the human race find unity, or will it destroy itself?

That question remains to be answered, but my intent here was only to show people that the Christian religion is more relevant than they realize. Far from dying a slow death, Christianity seems to be positioning itself to be the religion of the future. The reason Christianity is seen as a “bronze aged myth” is because it is still interpreted as if it is the Bronze Age. If Christianity is eternal as it claims to be, then it is must be relevant in every generation, and as I have pointed out, it is definitely relevant in our generation. In the 21st century, it is Christianity alone that offers an explanation of globalization, while the rest of the world is only watching the phenomenon unfold without the slightest idea of what it means. One must either accept that the Christian faith predicted the phenomenon of globalization 2,000 years ago, or have to dismiss the similarities as “coincidence.” I know that many will call it “coincidence,” yes, but Christians can boast and call it “prophesy” - a lot more satisfying, and encouraging to our faith. It is no longer hip, nor reasonable, to say that Christianity is a “bronze aged myth” when it has proven time and again to be the most legitimate belief (or lack of belief) system out there.