CHRISTIANS ARE METATOPIANS
Some people seem to expend all their energy trying to save the world and making it a better place, a heaven of sorts. They will kill to make it happen. Others have long ago given up on this dream and have given in to a pessimism that sees the world as totally hopeless. This comparison highlights two philosophical world views that have dominated history. Just so you know, I am speaking in highly general terms. It is not my intention to deal with all the nuances of these world views. So I ask the reader’s patience as I endeavor to look at the forest and not the trees.
The first view is one that rests on the concept of utopia. It believes that man has within himself the power to change the world and make it an Eden-like paradise. It believes in the principle of progression; that is, the world has within itself the potential to evolve into an ideal place, a utopia, if you will. Communism and Darwinian evolution are both children of this progressive world view. Its adherents believe that a perfect world can be achieved through knowledge and strong central implementation, or coercion, if necessary. Such people are ever suspicious of old institutions seeing them a hindrance to a glorious future. Utopians live for this world and this world only and are thoroughly optimistic about the planet’s future. But if you get in their way they will shove you aside, or worse, harm you. Indeed, violence is a legitimate means to achieve their ends as they believe they alone have the answers that will save mankind. Utopians believe they must have control of all human institutions to achieve their agenda and are unnervingly arrogant. In case you haven’t noticed, utopians have taken to the streets in America recently. They believe the old ways of the American Republic are blocking a wave of a new order. Tear down old structures and the wave will wash over the nation and usher it into a period of unequaled of peace and joy… Utopia. They believe this and fight for it.
The second view is that of dystopia. It has often dominated the philosophical world especially in times of extreme unrest, like world wars or famine. Dystopians have a nihilistic (nothingness) view of life. The world is doomed from the start. The sun is burning out and the earth’s revolutions are slowing down and there is nothing anyone can do about it. It is thoroughly pessimistic. This view expresses itself in two distinct behaviors. For most dystopians they deal with reality by getting as much as they can out of the present life. The only thing that matters is the here and now. They plunge themselves into this world as materialists or workaholics or drug users or seekers of metaphysical experiences. What binds all these dystopians together is a conviction that the future is hopeless. They live according to the mantra “eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we die.” A second result of a dystopian world view is suicide. Since the world has no hope, why live in it any longer? Sadly as the world spins out of control we see more and more people choosing this option, especially among the young. While utopians are idealistic and are willing to fight for their ideals, dystopians have no ideals and simply exist for existence sake. Utopians live only for the future, dystopians only the present.
Christians cannot and must not live by either of these philosophies. Each are godless and each defies what the Bible says about reality. The Christian view is neither utopian or dystopian. It is a tertium quid, a third position. The utopian and the dystopian views both contain something truthful yet neither is true. The Christian view collates these truthful parts of each philosophy and forms them into an overall scheme that reflects the Creator God. Similar to the utopian view, Christianity asserts that there is a bright future to come, a world that shall be perfect in every way. Similar to the dystopians view it asserts that man lives in a decaying world that will one day be destroyed. But for the Christian the utopia is not the earth but heaven, a new world created by God that will be the eternal abode of those who have honored and obeyed God in the present life. Like the dystopian the Christian sees no hope in this present world and refuses to put all his faith in it. The Christian lives in the world but is certainly not of it. He lives on where he is going, not where he is. He sets his hope fully on the grace that is to be brought to him at the revelation of Jesus Christ (1 Peter 1:13) and sets his mind on things above, not things on earth (Col 3:2). He loves the beauty of this world but his heart runs out to a more perfect world to come. This tension between the world to come and the present world makes the Christian view one long paradox. The follower of Christ yearns for a future utopian home that is to come while at the same time he energetically engages the present world and tries to make it a better place. So how does these two goals fit together? The answer is simple: Christians prepare for their future home by engaging their present home. The see this world as a proving ground for the next. Both worlds are important to them. If the world to come is ruled by love, then they must love here in the present. If the future world is filled with the knowledge of God, then they will try to disseminate the knowledge of God to all peoples. If the future world is one of perfect peace then they will strive to make this current world a peaceful place. Christians live for the future by living in the present. Their minds are in the heavens while their feet solidly planted in the dirt. They are neither utopian or dystopian. They are what I will call metatopian. That is they think beyond the present age while doing their best to make it a better place. Think of a woman who is building a mansion. While the mansion is being built she has to live in a small shack on the premises. So what does she do in this waiting period? Treat the small shack like a garbage dump and make it a seething pot of filth or does she care for it lovingly even though she knows it is not her permanent abode? You get the point. All this explains why Christians have always tried to improve the world. While waiting for heaven they have been responsible for the greatest acts of mercy history has ever seen. Christians began the Red Cross and the hospital movement. Christians have built senior facilities, worked in third world nations to bring them pure water, established suitable domiciles for the insane, initiated prison reform and fought slavery. It seems odd that those waiting to get off the train would bother to clean the cab so heartily. C.S. Lewis explained this phenomenon.
“If you read history you will find that the Christians who did most for the present world were just those who thought most of the next. The apostles themselves, who set on foot the conversion of the Roman Empire, the great men who built up the Middle Ages, the English Evangelicals who abolished the slave trade, all left their mark on Earth, precisely because their minds were occupied with Heaven. It is since Christians have largely ceased to think of the other world that they have become so ineffective in this. Aim at Heaven and you will get earth ‘thrown in': aim at earth and you will get neither.” C.S. Lewis
True Christians will always care about this world precisely because they care about heaven. That is the mark of a true faith lived out. So we must say that any Christian who lives with his head in the clouds and does nothing to improve the present world is not acting like a Christian. We agree with Theologian John Piper who says:
“Yes, I know it is possible to be so heavenly minded that we are of no earthly use. My problem is: I’ve never met one of those people. And I suspect, if I met one, the problem would not be that his mind is full of the glories of heaven, but that his mouth is full of platitudes.”
Neither can one be a Christian who never thinks of the glories of heaven. The true follower of Christ never has as his aim to make the world a better place to live. Rather he makes it his aim to make the world a better place because he lives. Neither the utopian dream or the dystopian pessimism is true. Christianity alone is the true way of looking at reality because it is God’s way of looking at reality. Christianity remains the only hope for this present world because it offers it a perfect world in the future.