Political Utopianism and Christianity Are Incompatible

May 13, 2020 by

By Anders Koskinen, Intellectual Takeout:

“Immanentizing the eschaton” is a political and theological term in which a person or group attempts to bring about, through human action, a heaven-like existence on Earth.

Seeking utopianism, in other words.

Living in this fallen world, it’s unlikely that we’ll ever see the quest for utopia realized. Those who hope and work for it will only be disappointed.

Yet it was this pursuit of heaven on earth that British journalist Malcolm Muggeridge identified as a primary factor in the decline of Christianity in the United Kingdom in an appearance on Firing Line.

“[F]rom Darwin, particularly, onward, the intellectual climate of England was utopian. In other words, it promoted and believed in a kingdom of heaven on earth. And that if people are induced to believe in a kingdom of heaven on earth, of course they don’t believe in a kingdom of heaven in heaven because it’s not needed.”

In his youth Muggeridge found communism appealing, traveling to the Soviet Union in 1932. Becoming increasingly disillusioned with communism, Muggeridge made a name for himself by reporting on the Holodomor, the great man-made Soviet-orchestrated famine which killed millions of Ukrainians. Muggeridge went on to later protest the soft treatment of the USSR by western journalists. He became a Christian in the 1960s, eventually entering the Roman Catholic Church in 1982 at age 79.

Muggeridge’s Firing Line discussion on earthly utopia went on to reference The Beatles and their pursuit of Hindu spirituality rather than Christianity.

Read here

See also: Under the rainbow banner, by Darel E Paul, First Things: “Therapeutic politics instructs us to overcome both internal repression and external oppression by creating a society in which not simply the pursuit of happiness but happiness itself is a right owed to all.”

Os Guinness: US switching from biblical American Revolution values to secular French Revolution onesby Michael Gryboski, Christian Post:

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