What is the World Coming To? Part 3
Thank you for coming back for another week. We are wrapping up our series What is the World Coming to? This series has largely been a reaction to the What Will Replace Religion? video from Big Think featuring Jamie Wheal.
In Part 1 we looked at the standard for good and in Part 2 we looked at the inclusivity of Christianity. Now I want to talk about the concept of happily ever after.
Wheal states in the video that “Meaning 3.0” doesn’t promise an out or happily ever after, it provides tools to mend our trauma, reconnect with inspiration, and to better connect with each other.
He goes on to say this is how we recapture our bliss, contentment, longing and passion, and the story of who we are and where we’re going and the commitment to figure out what do we do now.
These are high promises from Meaning 3.0, ideal promises really but can it live up to those promises? In the video, Wheal doesn’t state what those new tools are, I imagine you’d have to buy his book in order to get that.
Old Tools
Wheal says that Meaning 3.0 takes certain characteristics from religion: tools to mend our trauma, inspiration, and connectivity. The problem is that those tools are seeking to find the answers in places other than Jesus. Places that fail to meet our expectations every single time. .
Like I’ve stated before, we have everything we need in the Gospel. All of the promises Meaning 3.0 makes are fulfilled in the Gospel. There is no better tool to heal our trauma than resting in the comfort of Christ. It’s not that our trauma goes away but we see it through new eyes in him. And then what is more inspiring than Jesus sacrificing himself for undeserving people like us? Thinking about connectivity, the blood of Jesus bonds us to one another in a way the world never could. When we become Christians, we are made family, adopted into the body of Christ.
With this tool, the Gospel, we experience incomparable joy, contentment, longing and passion. We don’t need to figure out who we are and where we’re going because our identity is found in Christ and we know how the story ends.
Happily Ever After
According to Wheal, Meaning 3.0 doesn’t promise a happily ever after. The Bible does. That is actually a promise in scripture that we find security in. Genesis 3 tells us that Jesus will crush the head of the serpent, finally killing sin and evil once and for all. Revelation 20 lets us know that the end for Devil is found in the lake of fire where he will never be able to torment us again. And Revelation 7 promises that we will neither hunger nor thirst, God will wipe away every tear from our eyes.
Meaning 3.0 promises us more tools to with which we will endlessly search for an answer. The idea of spending the rest of my life, spinning my wheels, trying to find something inside myself to hope in just doesn’t sound very compelling to me.
The Neverending Search
Meaning 3.0 will give us tools with which we will keep searching. The Gospel comes with the answers and gives us security on where we’re going. But as I mentioned in the last post, that was never the problem. It’s the demand on our lives people don’t like.
Meaning won’t be found in ourselves. Happily ever after won’t be found in fancy new psychological tools. As counterintuitive as it may sound to us, meaning and happiness are found in surrendering our lives to God. The great lie of our society is that in order to be made whole, we have to fulfill every one of our desires. That journey never ends.
But as the old hymn says: At the cross, at the cross, where I first saw the light. And the burdens of my heart rolled away; it was there by faith I received my sight, and now i am happy all the day.
There it is. Mans endless search for the meaning of life, finds its ultimate answer at the cross, in the work of Jesus who died so that we might live.