Editorial: God’s Reign at the Start of a New Millennium

If every Christmas calls for an appraisal of our world in the light of the gospel, entry upon a new millennium calls for an even broader appraisal. There can be no doubt that humankind is richer, more powerful and more knowledgeable than it was in the year ad 1000. Many diseases have been eradicated, and the domination of nature in general has reached the point where space travel is a reality. These marks of human achievement are grounds for optimism about the future but they need to be balanced against human failures if that appraisal is also to be realistic.

The world’s riches are now concentrated in ever fewer hands and in Australia the gap is widening to the extent that we even talk of a disappearing middle class. Power is now so concentrated in a number of transnational corporations that the sovereignty of nation-states themselves is severely compromised. Foreign media barons like Rupert Murdoch are now able to openly preach the gospel of ‘self-interest’ in foreign policy, and to relegate morality in such policy to the rank of a luxury. Social justice in the distribution of our wealth has been supplanted in Federal Government policy by a system of punishment for the unemployed and poor for plights due more to Government shortcomings than to their own. These examples of human failures are temptations to cynicism and pessimism rather than optimism, especially if one finds oneself among the losers. What light can the gospel shed on this appraisal?

The Saviour born 2000 years ago came to rescue us from the power of sin manifested in such human failures as those listed above. The reign of his power over all creation will come, but it will be brought about by divine not human power. Signs of that divine power at work already in the world to bring about God’s reign can be seen in human striving for a regime of justice, love and peace; human cooperation is called for by Christ in his work of establishing his reign. The ultimate triumph of that reign is assured by Christ’s conquest of the ultimate weapon of this world – death – in his Resurrection. This is the ground of our hope for the new millennium, but it is a hope matured by the recognition that our participation in it depends upon our willingness to bear the Cross of frustration in – and even rejection of – our work for a world ruled by justice, love and peace.

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