My renewed vision for a new reality

In Chinese, "crisis" is a "dangerous opportunity." A lot of realignments will be afoot and we will all emerge in ways we are yet to know, but better and stronger.

Photo by Ruslan Bardash on Unsplash

Today is Thursday, November 7, 2024. So by now, we all know what transpired. I am not going to recite those here.

In 2019, I first articulated my visions for what is now called Infinitus Ministries (then called Mind Geographic). This was before the pandemic, and I also had a rather vague idea of what those visions would take shape into.

But in one of the subheadings of that document, I wrote, “Raising an army of prophets.”

By “prophets,” many people misunderstand them to be prognosticators or fortune tellers. They think of someone like Nostradamus who predicts futures. But in the Hebrew and Christian scriptural traditions, prophets are those who communicate God’s message to people, pointing out their systemic dysfunctions, and calling them to realign their minds toward God and act righteously. They call people to teshuvah (return to God, in Hebrew) and metanoia (change of mind, in Koine Greek).

We live in a culture in which Christian faith is weaponized to promote an empire of men and their wealth. The empire prevails now. As in the days of Jesus, we must proclaim the kingdom of heaven in the face of the empire.

Here I am deliberately using the word kingdom. I understand many progressive Christians eschew this term as a product of kyriarchy and patriarchy, preferring euphemisms such as the realm of God or “kin-dom.” I do not do this for one reason: I believe that Jesus deliberately used the word in an intentionally subversive sense, turning its plain meaning on its own head. The “kingdom of heaven” or “kingdom of God” in the four gospels is the centerpiece of Jesus’ teachings. The kingdom is the gospel. Early Christians were executed for calling him king and lord, and he himself was executed, convicted for being “the king of Jews” — note, not “the son of God,” or “a religious cult leader.” Romans did not care much about the religious controversies among the Jews, but they did have an issue with anyone who claimed to be a king.

The incoming empire, however, is chaotic and weak, despite what it projects itself to be. It seeks to dismantle much of a largely functioning government while co-opting whatever is left as weapons against its perceived enemies and to enrich its patrons. I believe this will not last very long. Its supporters will sooner or later turn against it, and Republicans will be the ones to demand leadership change. The emperor can only go so far by repeatedly purging and replacing his henchmen.

In this scenario, it is critical to build strong local communities and intermediate institutions. Governments will be less reliable, and extremism will thrive in an atomized world where there is pervasive social isolation and epidemic of loneliness. Marginalized populations will need communities even more so.

As we move forward, I'm leaning into experiences and lessons from Christian churches in Latin America, in particular, the basic ecclesial communities. They are small, autonomous, and decentralized communities built on solidarity and mutual aid. While they were promoted within the Catholic Church as a result of the Second Vatican Council in order to extend the church’s mission into remote rural villages, they became an instrumental cornerstone of Latin American liberatory praxis in countries where corrupt, authoritarian, and dysfunctional governments were the norm.

Here at Infinitus, my current goal (among others) is to build up such communities, both localized and online.

In addition, I plan on expanding the ministry to educate the people about the impact of theology on our culture, society, and politics. As a classical Chinese adage goes (Sunzi, The Art of War, chapter 3), One needs to understand themselves and their opposition alike to win a hundred battles. Knowledge is important both to refute the errors of Christian Nationalism and to construct and articulate the theology that informs our praxis. I have the advantage of coming from the Evangelical traditions and being educated at Evangelical institutions of learning.

In Chinese, the word “crisis” is “dangerous opportunities.” A lot of realignments will be afoot and we will all emerge in ways we are yet to know, but better and stronger.

Willow.