Faith Among The Faithless: 10-Day Reading PlanMuestra

The life the Bible offers is not one that is safe from the tragedies of the world, but one in which God suffers with us and accompanies us through our hardships. There is a utopian vision in the Scriptures, a promise of a time when all things will be made new, but that promise will be fulfilled only by Jesus himself, in a time he determines, and in a way that surely—like his first coming—will surprise us all. Thus, no one should be more suspicious of idealistic fantasies than Christians.

In a similar way, we can be confident that the idealistic aspirations of others will eventually topple. This is both the blessing and the curse of Babel. In that story, humanity banded together with their own utopian vision: we will build this tower and be godlike. God’s response to it was remarkable. He recognized that, because of their shared language, “nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them” (Gen. 11:6). So, he confused their language, made it so they couldn’t understand one another, and the project failed. It’s not just a curse: it’s a blessing.

The world will always be made up of people who simply don’t understand one another, who are incapable of coming to perfect unity, and who are incapable of joining forces to accomplish their dream of a perfect society. There will always be dissent and disagreement. There will always be confusion. There will always be differentiated perceptions. Babel shows us society coming together to attempt something great, and failing catastrophically. So does every utopian effort. . . .

This is a hopeful thing, and it shows how Babel is actually a gift for a fallen world. No matter how extensive an effort at evil is, there is always the reality that confusion will set in, resistance will rise, difference of opinion will find a voice, and eventually, every totalitarian effort is destined to fail. . . .

The reality of Babel should also humble us, tempering our expectations and preventing us from being too grandiose in our aspirations. . . . It should warn us away from ideology, and should make us suspicious of anyone hawking grand solutions to the world’s (or the church’s) problems.