Babel, Modern Interdependence and the Return of Christ

 Recently, Jonathan Haidt ominously compared the U.S. to Babel due to its deep divisions


But weren't the divisions made by God after man tried to build the Tower of Babel actually a good thing? They must have been, since God did created them in His wisdom. He hindered cooperation among men and scattered humanity across the earth.


Ever since Babel, however, mankind has kept trying to circumvent what God did to divide us and to reunite itself while rejecting Him. Often these reunions were attempted through building empires based on military conquest, and humans reigned with an attitude of usurping God's rightful place over human beings. But while these dictatorships achieved some success in forcibly bringing people together, none really came close to uniting all of mankind. 


In modern times, though, technological "progress" has given us many more "reunion" tools, and they are much more powerful in their own ways. Electronic media have made it possible for almost the entire human population to hear the same news at the same time. Each of these new tools has its own "benefits," real and imagined, and part of the price for using them is exchanging a measure of our independence for interdependence.


God created human interdependence in the Garden between Adam and Eve, and all the members of the Church, when it reaches perfection, are interdependent. 


When lived out in godliness and obedience, interdependence is part and parcel of Heaven itself. But in this fallen world, Satan's counterfeit Kingdom of Heaven tends to exploit our interdependence.


Not coincidentally, these technologies are for a time giving the upper hand to the world as they aren't neutral. The more "advanced" the technology these days, the more ungodliness increases.






    

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