“How can you be somebody else’s saviour, when you can’t be your own?” ― Caroline B. Cooney (American author)
I was born the year that Nelson Mandela arrived on Robben Island, where he was sent having been sentenced to life imprisonment. In April of that year he gave a famous 3 hour speech as part of his defence at the Rivonia trial. It ended with these words:
“During my lifetime I have dedicated myself to this struggle of the African people. I have fought against white domination, and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.”
Twenty six years later, in February 1990, he emerged from Victor Verster prison, one hand entwined with that of his wife Winnie, the other held aloft in a victorious clenched fist salute. He was hailed as a hero; his lack of resentment or any desire for revenge for all his years of incarceration won him friends around the world as well as averting the expected blood-shed across South Africa. He became a role-model, a statesman and, everyone hoped, a saviour for a troubled nation.
Last month, it seemed that the world recognised another. Greta Thurnberg, with seething anger and an almost permanent frown, sat on the stage at the UN climate change summit in New York, where she boldly charged global leaders with failing in their task of taking action against climate change. With commendable audacity, she faced down the UN and unflinchingly declared, “You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words.” Unintimidated by the many government representatives and professionals present, and in a concise 495 words she completely held their attention. “How dare you?” she thundered, and many of us echoed her accusation, admiring her eloquence as she berated the suited government representatives and the financially-driven corporate befoulers of our once green earth.
Sally Benson, co-director of the Precourt Institute for Energy at Stanford University called her, “a catalytic leader”, who has done more to galvanize action on a global scale than any environmental scientist. One such scientist called it, “the most powerful speech I’ve ever seen.” Far from impeding her, Greta’s much commented on Aspergers may well keep her safe from the powerful opportunists who, I fear, will almost inevitably try to slide into the shadows behind her limelight and attempt to manipulate her to fulfil their own particular agendas. I hope her parents are strong, that she can stay focused and that those who have paved the way for her will not be forgotten. Greta may brush off the bombast and rhetoric of a Jeremy Clarkson, but a Vladimir Putin may be rather more challenging. “Go and explain to developing countries why they should continue living in poverty and not be like Sweden,” Putin told an energy conference recently.
The western countries who invented the steam engine – thank you Robert Stephenson and friends – and the internal combustion engine – danke Herrs Nikolaus Otto und Karl Benz – have become victims of their own unparalleled success. Their machines have been embraced by the rest of the world to such an extent that we are told we now potentially face the 6th mass extinction of species in history, including our own.
We need help. And we need it now.
The myriad natural disasters being experienced around the world, increasing in both frequency and ferocity, are the planet’s red flags, urging us to look beyond ourselves. They serve to remind us that we are not after all, captains of our own destinies; we do not have the final word and there are still things, events and forces beyond our flimsy human control. It irks us, puzzles us, confounds and angers us; but there it is.
Those who think we have all grown out of God, as either concept or Deity, deny that we need a Saviour at all. “Look in the mirror”, they collectively cajole, “there is your saviour”. Good luck with that. History and human secularism all seem to demonstrate quite convincingly that there is nothing within us that can deliver us from ourselves, so you won’t be surprised to hear that I disagree strongly with the self-saviour concept. No amount of self-knowledge, self-examination, self-interrogation, self-recrimination, or self-help will allow us to pull ourselves up by our bootlaces to where we need to be. The residue of the ages of Reason and the Enlightenment demonstrate that far from each successive generation growing and developing forward/upwards, we simply continue to make a mess of just about everything we put our hand to. Technology, medical advancements, scientific discoveries, space exploration and ‘AI’ have all progressed rapidly of course, but in terms of humanity, I wonder whether we have begun to go backwards. The last century illustrates the point that our descent is not a recent trend, but has been underway for some considerable time. In this century, we seem to be less kind and more judgemental than previous generations, jumping down the throats and excoriating those who disagree with us, even as we verbally embrace diversity of race, creed, faith, gender, sex and culture. We don’t though. Not if we don’t happen to see it someone else’s way, or understand, or care, or agree. We have lost the important ability to debate properly: with curiosity, vulnerability and willingness to learn; without vitriol, bitterness, ducking behind offence or resorting to infantile name-calling. We’ve become needy and withered and divisive and cruel. We need so much more than a higher plane of existence. We crave genuine life, physically, emotionally and spiritually.
We need a Saviour. No politician, revolution, climate change policy, legislation or social reform – however sweeping – can save us from ourselves. Mandela’s legacy is broken and all but discarded in the African mud. Thurnberg’s remains to be seen. Without doubt, however, like John Bunyan’s character in ‘The Pilgrim’s Progress’, it’s clear that across the world we have fallen into the collective and treacherous Slough of Despond; it’s sucking us down and we cannot get out on our own.
As someone who gets excited about Christmas from September, I am personally comforted and encouraged by the timeless words of the angels to shepherds on an ancient Judean hillside: “Today in the town of David a Saviour has been born to you; He is the Messiah, the Lord.”
Not only have I not ‘grown out of God’, I have discovered that His intervention in human history, His plan for people, planet and salvation, and His promise to be: ‘Emmanuel’ – God with us – are not a feeble emotional delusion or an ill-devised medieval mantra, but the only things which make sense in a world gone mad; the only sure way I can hope to keep dancing through all of our contemporary chaos.
dancingthroughchaos 