Limits to Progress, 2.0

Guelich Exegetes the Sermon on the Mo... Prayer for Progress

Limits to Progress, 2.0

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By Stephen W. Hiemstra

The dominant cultural motif in the Bible is not progress, but proclivity of individuals and nations to sin. Although we are created in the image of God, original sin polluted both our hearts and minds by instilling a rebellious spirit in us. Human sin, after Adam and Eve left the Garden of Eden, grew to the point that God destroyed most of humanity with a flood (Gen 5:5). However, starting out fresh with a new family, Noah’s, proved not to improve the faithfulness of humanity after the original sin of Adam and Eve (Gen 3:6). Even Jacob’s sons, the fathers of the Nation of Israel, sinned in selling their brother, Joseph, as a slave to the Egyptians (Gen 37:28).

Moses critiques the idea of cultural progress, the idea of a righteous community becoming increasing righteous, with this warning:

And when all these things come upon you, the blessing and the curse, which I have set before you, and you call them to mind among all the nations where the LORD your God has driven you, and return to the LORD your God, you and your children, and obey his voice in all that I command you today, with all your heart and with all your soul, then the LORD your God will restore your fortunes and have mercy on you, and he will gather you again from all the peoples where the LORD your God has scattered you. (Deut 30:1-3)

This passage is often taken as a prophecy of the Babylonian exile, but the full cycle is: doing evil, angering YHWH enough to produce historical subjugation, crying to the Lord in need, and raising up a deliverer (Brueggemann 2016, 59). This cultural cycle is illustrated repeatedly in the Book of Judges, as in the story of Gideon (Judg 6-7). An echo is also seen in the story of King David in Psalm 116. Our salvation in Christ also fits into this paradigm.

Limits to Progress

The Enlightenment myth of progress has been popular because of technological innovations and social changes, but both depend on a Christian heritage embodied in the idea of being created in the image of God.

Democracy makes sense when we are all equal before and loved by God, but starts to fray when standards of living come under pressure and social group contend to dominant one another, as we are currently witnessing. Technology need not benefit all economic classes equally becomes innovations are increasingly costly requiring investments that not all groups can afford. Even political dispensing of rights and privileges does not necessary level playing fields among social groups because these rights and privileges must be defended both politically and legally, which costs time, energy, and money, and such redistributions create resentment.

Ultimately, progress is a cultural attribute that depends on shared values and an economic base that are no longer what they were. What culture giveth; culture can take away. The biblical witness is that reversals in cultural progress are the historical norm.

Christian Foundations

The only glimmer of hope cited in the Bible is the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ that led to the giving of the Holy Spirit and the founding of the church (Act 2:1-4). Yet, outside of faith, even the church is a fallen institution, as we read in the first three chapters of Revelation.

The warning in Revelation of special concern to the postmodern church is the letter to the church at Laodicea. John writes:

I know your works: you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were either cold or hot! So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth. For you say, I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing, not realizing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked. (Rev 3:15-17)

We could imagine the postmodern church sharing in tribulations similar to those articulated in Deuteronomic Cycle that applied earlier to the Nation of Israel. More generally, Revelation talks about a great tribulation (Rev 7:14) that will occur before the second coming of Christ. This tribulation has all the markings of a reversal of cultural progress and should serve as a reminder that our only hope is in Christ.

References

Brueggemann, Walter. 2016. Money and Possessions. Interpretation series. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press.