I’m working on taxes this week, so I’m drawing on a post I did in 2006. It has an erie relevance to today, 12 years later.
THE VIEW FROM ABOVE
Some astronauts were quoted as looking down on a peaceful and fragile earth and wishing that we could learn to live together in peace. Early on one of the Astranauts in the Apollo program was quoted as saying that from space you could not see the lines that divided nation from nation.
TIMES ARE CHANGING
I would suggest that we are entering into a period that someday may be known as the time of the death of nations and nationalism. Like any tremendous shift in culture, it does not happen all at once and there are many retrograde efforts to hold back the movement of time. Yet you can see the first signs of this blurring of lines in the way corporations are seeking to transcend national boundaries in their operations. You can also see this shift in the new form of war that is referred to as terrorism. The terrorists are not bound by national boundaries and the governements that seek to combat them are demonstrating marked confusion as to who to retaliate against. Even in the recent movement within the Episcopal/Anglican church where certain churches in our country are taken under the care of African Bishops, there is the blurring of lines.
THE REFORMATION RESPONSE
The last time such a major shift took place in the movement from feudalism to nationalism, the church responded with the Reformation. What will happen to it this time?
I wrote that twelve years ago, but recent events have only reinforced my thoughts. In the church, a combination of church splits and the loss of trust in institutions is also reshaping the nature of the church. If denominations disappear, what is your image of what the church might become?
