Christianity as a provisional hope for the world.
December 22, 2009
It is hard for me to imagine a world more bleak in outlook than what I see before me presently. Maybe Buddha was right and the most compassionate thing that a person could do would be to not have children. I would be hard pressed to want to bring a child into this world to love and adore while knowing all the time that extreme suffering is in a cards,* a stacked deck against all children.
[* Buddha was raised in a pleasure palace where he would only know delight, but then he broke out and saw the horror that was his fate and the fate of all, i.e., suffering and dying.]
I don’t know what to think. The hero of my childhood, the Christian church, has sorely disappointed me. It should be clearing the way for the rest of the world to follow but it (especially protestant American Christianity) has chosen to focus on personal salvation and to forget everything else, i.e., leave it to God to deal with.
The practical Christian ideal is the Commune of Jerusalem where all Christians constituted a single family and thus did not make deals, but gave freely both of talents and treasure* and taking only according to need. Even the independent followers of Paul were expected to support the commune as the best of all possible worlds, a communion, a family, the ideal and what is to come.**
[* Perhaps the Holy Spirit's strike at the Commune was actually directed to deadbeats, and promised that only those are counted of the family who are of the family, i.e., sincere in sharing.]
[** The fact that Paul did not organize communes is not a recognition that he did not share that view, but only that he thought that Jesus was returning very soon, when the commune would be universal on earth, and so he promoted that conception (the Commune) in order to acknowledge the Commune as the final state of humankind, and just thought that it were more important to awaken all the blind, i.e., non-Christians, to start living a life of love, than to actually go all the way into the communal living (an impossibility per his thinking at that time).]
The Christian ideal then would be a universal communion dedicated to a world conducive to the introduction and rearing of happy and loving children. That would be the result of the Commune, that children would grow up in an environment of sharing and would accept it as second nature as do those children who grow up to conceive and recognize the family.
In order to provide for any reasonable hope for this world there are three things the Christians are empowered to do and must do. One is to work for the reconstitution of the Commune of Jerusalem, and the other is to accept and promote both homosexuality and abortion as meaningful and humane ways to take control of the population. The latter two now call for a justification.
The case to be made for abortion goes like this. We must stop the growth of the population if we expect to have a world fit for children to be born and raised in. We as a species are at war with ourselves in this regard. Until we are able to get ourselves under some sort of rational self control it will be necessary that deaths be increased and that is done most mercifully with those who are not yet born. So it becomes like the draft in the time of war where young people are forced to die for the sake of the country, and here it is for the sake of humanity. And so we have to keep up abortion and even promote or necessitate it (via a draft) until we are safe from over-population. And the best way to stop abortion eventually anyway (taking control of population) is to find some substitute for this presently needed, unfortunate and expedient abortion.
And that brings us then quite naturally to the homosexual. It seems very clear that two people of the same sex can live full and productive and very happy lives together. The barriers have come down enough to at least let us know and experience homosexuals and can consequently recognize that they are no more or less moral than left-handed people. Let us now take the term “homosexual†and use it here to mean people who honestly have lots of fun with people of their own sex. And lets assume further that it is a mere life style, and fundamentally voluntary, and that all these homosexuals could be taught to have as much fun with women. Let it be. The wonderful suggestion that arises from all this is that since these people attest to an incredible delight in homo sex, it might be very functional and expedient not to condemn the lifestyle, but rather to promote and further it* and to be appreciative of this nature of the human that he can be encouraged to try things to see if he might happen to like them.** If this could catch on, we could imagine a world where homo sex had been promoted so far that the population growth would start to decline and where abortions would no longer be called for.
[* The scriptural authority for such stances is too numerous to cite. Let Acts 15 and Romans 13:8-10 suffice.]
[** My knowledge of the human is that he is bisexual and thus could be introduced to either homosex or heterosex in a way that could be lots of fun in both cases, and where he would not wish to switch, even knowing that it is possible and his proclivity be essentially voluntary.]
So we as Christians are called to establish a world fit for children and we do it by getting the population under control (via temporary abortions and permanent and increased homosex). And then by the establishment of an expanded Commune of Jerusalem. This will be difficult, but the Christian can be encouraged by the promise of Jesus that communalism is the future state of the world. It will happen, and instead of using that certitude as an excuse to do nothing (to the “glory†of God?!) the Christians are rather to be active in achieving that on their own, while knowing their efforts will not be in vain, namely it will happen (per the promise of sacred history). The world shall be a fit place to raise children and generally in which to exist.
Paul told his parishioners to think for themselves and gave them their primary, practical principle : be expedient in the application of the rule of love (1 Cor 6:12).
So the picture ends up like this: there would be a giant commune without deadbeats or abortion and where the world will have gone from hetero sex to a proportion of hetero sex and homo sex in order to have the right balance of people and resources.* And there would be no distinctions among people within the commune.
[* Of course it may be that sexual preference is something like the strange proclivity of 10% of any given population to use their left hands. It just does not make any sense but it endures anyway. Ten percent are left and 90% are right, and it seems fairly constant over time.**]
[** It could be that both the hand and sexual preference are genetic, and then we might induce a certain proportion of homosexuals need for population control and balance.]
I cannot imagine how the Christian church in America could work to accomplish these three things, or rather this one thing (the commune) via the other two (as expedient means*). My present hope is that China could get it started by continuing communist and becoming Christian in the full liberty conveyed to the followers of Paul (and as expressed above) and thus unify Paul (liberty) and Peter (the commune). So with China it might happen. The Americans could be left to pursue whatever it is that they happen to want at the moment and might eventually see through experience and comparison that a better and happier America would be something on the lines of a commune. The Chinese could utilize the expediency principle* of Paul and harness Christian zeal for liberty and the commune. That could be a very nice fit. It would certainly make China the center of the world.**
[* The Chinese would find homosexuality especially helpful in a time where abortion has been used to stifle the birth of females. The excess males, in a communist China with a leadership of Christians who join the liberty of Paul with the rules of the commune, could be united in official matrimony which would be very expedient (to use Paul's term).]
[** Once China were to become Christian and communist, it could send out its own missionaries to convert the world to this union of liberty (free thought and speech) with efficient organization of the commune for the sake of equal treatment and enjoyment of all children and indeed all people.]