Liquid Times

At the risk of sounding overly academic I’d like to invite you on a brief sociological journey.

In his book Liquid Times sociologist Zygmunt Bauman presents a very interesting picture of the age in which we live. He writes of the perilous place western civilization, indeed the whole world, finds itself in.
To summarize, Bauman points out that the “liquid” nature of society as we know it means several realities.

First, rapid change means we can’t keep up. Things morph so quickly that even well planned and well intentioned responses are outdated almost before they can be put into action.

Second, power is shifting away from local political spheres to broad globalization. We feel locally hopeless at the enormous global challenges (which is perhaps why we’re ready to elect anyone will promise us hope).

Third, this aforementioned power shift makes any sense of community sound “increasingly hollow.” That which holds us together is temporary and fleeting and we are withdrawn and estranged from those nearest to us.

Fourth, all of the above has caused us to live only for the now. We have forgotten our histories and the future. After all, anything we thought we knew feels useless given the current global challenges and rapid changes. The great new skill is being able to forget what you’ve learned.

Fifth, when it boils right down to it we are a society that has moved “the responsibility for resolving the quandaries (of this volatile age) onto the shoulders of individuals.” The individual has been saddled with the responsibility to solve problems that are beyond the capacity of politics, history, and community to solve. No wonder we are medicating ourselves to death!

Having effectively stated that what we have created is an outrageously individualized society midst a globalized and complex world, Bauman declares something paradoxically astonishing: “The future of democracy and freedom may be made secure on a planetary scale – or not at all.” What? Please pass the valium…on the rocks! In essence what this world-renowned scholar seems to be saying is that the only hope for a society with a case of hyper-micro-individualism is deliverance on the hyper-macro-scale! So, we only think about ourselves and yet are somehow to find a solution to our globalized dilemmas on a planetary level!? We’ll get right on that, right after our show is over and the beer has run out.

At first blush Bauman’s words seem startlingly impossible. And they are, until we begin to think theologically, until we think about God, his Word, and his salvation. Isn’t the essence of the mystery of the Gospel the wonder that the global solution has been revealed and this radical Good News Kingdom begins within the individual, who is then connected to a redeemed community who together reveal the wisdom of God as far out there as the heavenly realm (Eph.3:10)? Wow! God must read Bauman!

As those redeemed by grace through faith let us cling to the revealed hope that has somehow captured our very individual hearts. And, let it not stop there, let us be communions of hope, ambassadors of reconciliation, legions for peace in a world taught with a tension that cannot be resolved without Divine intervention