Here are some recent news items to which I have added a few facts that seem related. Have fun putting it all together, creating your own narrative about what it all might mean, if anything. 

1.  A recent study released by NASA poses the bewildering question first put forth by Carl Sagan. Getting no response to the signals sent into space in search of extraterrestrial life, he asked: Where is everybody? Is no one out there? The new study proposes a simple answer. As civilizations develop across the universe, technology advances, but the ability to deal with crises does not. And so, before they can explore and communicate across space, civilizations die. Hence, the silence. The same fate might  befall earth. We could completely do away with nuclear weapons and stop climate warming, but we do not. Why? Again, the answer is simple. We do not function as one community, communicating and having compassion for one another. The darkness of inequality, racism, sabotage and neglect of others, creates a planetary civilization that sows the seeds of its own destruction. The NASA scientists do not say that this is definitely what happened across the universe, only that it could have. Nor do they predict that this is how earthbound civilization will end, only that it could. 

2. The population of earth has reached 8 billion people. The projected peak, before a gradual decline sets in, will be 10.4 billion in a few decades.  With global warming raising sea level, huge populations will be forced to seek higher ground, leaving behind inundated homes, fields and farms. Drought has devastated large areas, with food and water supply reaching crisis proportions, and the call for humanitarian aid will only increase.

3. Fewer than 1% of the wealthiest people use more of earth’s resources than the bottom 50%.

4. Fewer than 1% of the richest Americans own about half of the country’s wealth.

5. Male human fertility rates have declined over 50% between 1973 and 2018, and the rate of decline is increasing.

6. Many of the laws of the Hebrew book Deuteronomy were written to protect the poor of society, the “foreigner, the widow, and the orphan”. Often unable to survive, the poor were forced to borrrow money in order to buy food, and when the accumulated debt was too high to pay back, they sold themselves into slavery. And so we find laws prescribing a sabbatical every 7 years, when debts were forgiven and slaves set free, and the Jubilee, the 49th year when all property was returned to the original owner. After a harvest, the gleanings were to be left in the field for the poor to gather. The laws gave structure to the covenant of society, a vision in which all were seen as children of God.

7. Jesus gathered a family of friends, women and men, about 25 in number. The concept of the 12 male apostles was a fiction imposed later by rich and powerful men. The Family of Friends shared with one another and cared for one another. All were equal.

8. About twenty years after the crucifixion, Paul traveled far and wide, founding small congregations that he hoped would emulate that family of Jesus, wherein the distinctions between rich and poor would be overcome and all would be seen and treated as equal. Paul was horrified when he learned that just the opposite had happened in the church in the city of Corinth. The intended love feast of rich and poor had degenerated into a situation where the rich ate and drank to the level of gluttony and intoxication while the poor were forgotten and left out.

9. The New Testament book of Acts, written about 115 CE describes a memory about the earliest Christian gatherings: “All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need. Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having the goodwill of all the people”. Acts 2:44ff.  This is not history, but an idealized vision of what could be.

Does this all fit together? Is there more to add? What say you?

Dr. Carl Krieg received his BA from Dartmouth College, MDiv from Union Theological Seminary in NYC, and Ph.D. from the University of Chicago Divinity School. He is the author of What to Believe? the Questions of Christian Faith,   The Void and the Vision and  The New Matrix: How the World We Live In Impacts Our Thinking About Self and God. As professor and pastor, Dr. Krieg has taught innumerable classes and led many discussion groups. He lives with his wife Margaret in Norwich, VT.