Audience of One

Longing for community

When I was younger, I loved the novels of Monica Hughes (and for that matter, still do). Recently I re-read one, a novel set in a future with a dystopian repressive world government. During the course of the novel, the teenage protagonist Alison discovers that the penal colony her dissident family have been sent to is in fact another planet, where the government are hoping to set up a working society who will provide a source of labour for their exploitation of the planet in the future (a bit like the Brits sending criminals to Australia). However, a psychologist named Jay, whose ideas had been used to put together a society that would work on an alien world (basic premise: don’t tell them it’s not Earth, drug the adults into amnesia, get their kids to learn to make the decisions), is in fact opposed to the government’s plan, and so returns to Earth with a report of a failed society where the rebels all killed each other off. This leaves Alison and the others in their own kind of Eden, with a new society based on co-operation and caring for each other, safe from future interference.

It’s at once a pessimistic and an optimistic view of the future. Firstly, the world government, their restriction of freedom, their abuse of power – human nature in all its sinfulness. But then you have the new society, where the children have learned from the mistakes of their ancestors, where there’s a return to a hunter-gatherer society, where the community is so near perfect that the kids never fight or fall out, and make sensible decisions – well, it’s completely unrealistic. The thought of eight-year-olds being content to dig holes, find berries or cook food each day, without squabbling or running off to play, is a crazy one, but somehow an attractive one.

Hughes wrote many other books, some of which I’ve bought. One thing many have in common is this future, “evolved” society, where everyone has learned from the mistakes of the past and are working together for a sustainable future (sounds like the Green Party manifesto). There’s a return to a simple past, away from cities and technology to nature and natural ways of doing things, an implicit environmentalism. Above all though, there is the sense that merely by having seen the mistakes of the past, these utopian societies will work, and go on working.

I read these books, loved them, but was never quite satisfied once I’d finished them. I was drawn into the world they created, and then I would get to the end and feel almost unsettled. It’s only later that I’ve realised why. I got to the end of this book the other day, and thought “but this isn’t how things are now”. We live in a world marred by sin, lives full of activity with hardly a chance to pause and enjoy God’s creation. We’ve messed up this world, and can’t fix it fully. Reading these books makes you long for a society like the one they portray, but reality says we’ll never experience anything like it in this life.

So the longing I was feeling, the unsatisfied and unsettled reaction I’d had that I couldn’t pin down, was simply a longing for the new creation. Monica Hughes’ website implies that she was a Christian. Was this her own subtle way of inciting that kind of longing in people? I guess I’ll find out once I’m there myself.

The utopian societies that she has created share many features, but the primary one is the care and concern the people have for each other. A great regard for beauty and simplicity in their lives (the absence of money and a return to subsistence agriculture, or making useful, everyday things look beautiful), the importance of work and the satisfaction it brings, and some form communal decision making under the leadership or guidance of elder members, are some of the other consistent features. Many of those things are attributes that our communities and churches should share, and these are the things which make her societies so attractive to the reader. The unsatisfied feeling I get in reading of such societies shouldn’t just stop when I’ve finished reading. Paul talks about this creation “groaning” (Romans 8:22-25) as it awaits its redemption. I should expect to want the new creation; and I should be motivated to do what I can to live in light of that future. The fact that one day the church will reign with Christ over a new heaven and earth, perfect and wonderful, should make us live like that now. So let’s build communities that point to the future; let’s do our best to look after this world, and care for it like we should; let’s count ourselves dead to sin and live in light of our sinless future (Romans 6:5-12). The new creation awaits us, so let’s live in light of that. Christian communities should be such that people can see a glimpse of the new creation and a perfected people of God in us.

To conclude, one final thought. Paul writes in Romans 10:14-15:

How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can they preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!”

One aspect of the communities portrayed by Hughes is the welcome they show to outsiders, and how they include them in their society. The church should not be inward-looking. Sure, we want to grow in personal godliness and to become a group of people that better reflects God’s love, and we should make it our aim to do this. But God’s love is a love that reaches out, and so our churches must too. The message of the gospel needs to go out, not just a message of a renewed society and renewed relationships. Ultimately, humans are sinful and need God to rescue them, and it’s only this rescue that will lead to the renewal of all things. Without sin being dealt with, the new creation won’t be perfect – but Christ’s death pays for sin once for all, and his resurrection assures us of a new life, one that will be made perfect when everything is made new.

Matthew @ 22:25, February 10, 2008 to Discussions | Comments (0)