EDITORIAL
The Rev’d Dr. Nicholas Henderson
Editor: Anglicanism.org
Are we our own worst enemies?
So, a potentially ‘level-3’ threat[i] asteroid is heading towards us at 38,000 mph with a 3.1% chance of hitting the earth.[ii]
Increasingly, sophisticated astronomical observations are spotting more potential rock-like visitors coming from the region between the planets Mars and Jupiter and sometimes further afield still.
Dystopian disaster movies and a better understanding of the ancient ages of the earth, on news of space debris coming our way, are always mindful of the epoch and evolutionary changing possibilities of another Dinosaur like extinction event. These usually resolve the crisis by sending a rocket to blow the culprit to smithereens (not wise) or much better to nudge a change in its trajectory. Interestingly, this latter scenario has been tried out successfully[iii] raising hopes for a safer future.
Safer for what, we might reply? Very likely the rocket rescue concerned might come from a multi-billionaire with seemingly a huge amount of non-elected power. The same kind of power that could potentially turn off satellite navigation on a whim and plunge nations of the world into even more chaos.
We are in a new world order that has moved on from the old post Second World War consensus with the United States acting as a kind of world policeman and West versus East in an uneasy peace brokered by access to nuclear weapons. Of course those atomic and hydrogen bombs still exist but in much more unpredictable and unstable times. We’ve quickly become inured to potential flash points, in Gaza and Ukraine for example, that could trigger the World War Three of a kind of which Albert Einstein reputably said when asked if we could fight a world war with nuclear weapons – “I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.”
It is in epochs such as the one we are now entering that cool heads and wise leadership are called for and desperately needed. There has in fact been a great deal of calling-out and shouting but most obviously from those associated with variable truth, conspiracy and frankly old-fashioned imperialism. The only difference between an opportunist land grab backed up by tanks, missiles and troops in Eastern Europe and an openly declared intention to annex Canada as a state of the United States, to purchase Greenland and invade Panama is that the latter have not (yet) involved violence. In the meantime in what used to be known as the Holy Land ceasefire transgressions have continued apace.
Writing an editorial on contemporary issues leaves a distinct feel of déjà vu or plus ça change. The temptation to reflect on past spiritualties in times of similar upheaval seems fatuous when it might be observed that Christians have been praying earnestly for peace for the past two thousand years with very little to show.
Could it be that God isn’t listening, isn’t there, or doesn’t care? Perhaps we are the ones lacking, not in prayer, but in a serious engagement with reality? In this even Rowan Williams former Archbishop of Canterbury struggled, eventually more or less successfully, when he was asked, “where the hell was God?” after he and others ran fearing death from the dust cloud that engulfed the collapsing Twin Towers of the World Trade Centre after the 9/11 terrorist attack event in 2001.[iv]
It is indeed pointless to attempt to give a definitive answer to the quandary which most plagues Christians about the disparity between a loving all-powerful God and innocent human suffering. Nevertheless, the very fact that humanity has emerged from an ancestry of previous life forms over millions of years characterised by ‘nature red in tooth and claw’ challenges still, as Tennyson describes in his poem ‘In Memoriam A.H.H.’ for his friend Arthur Henry Hallam who died from a cerebral haemorrhage in 1833. Tennyson wrestled with the then new ideas of the transmutation of species and its uncomfortable relationship with 19th century evangelicalism and literalist interpretations of the Bible.
Once again in the newly invigorated conservative Christian world of today’s United States the same type of question disturbingly arises. A head-on collision of idealism and raw political, economic and military power backed up by biblical inerrancy against any other more nuanced view is in train. For English speaking Europeans for example it’s hard to interpret the word ‘liberal’ – long understood to mean ‘willing to respect or accept behaviour or opinions different from one’s own and open to new ideas’ – with the new conservative meme ‘of the devil!’
In the brave new world that is emerging it is easy to understand why European nations should be considering how to rearm and strengthen military capacity against a real, if as yet slightly undefined enemy.
The trouble is that we now have access to earth-bound weapons that are at least and often far more powerful and damaging than any visiting rock from the outer reaches of the solar system.
Nicholas Henderson
Second Sunday of Lent 2025
[i] Air blast only – broken windows and a lot of noise
[ii] https://news.sky.com/story/2024-yr4-what-we-know-about-the-asteroid-that-could-hit-earth-13307919
[iii] https://mashable.com/article/nasa-asteroid-dart-mission-impact-effect
[iv] https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/uk-news/williams-said-god-useless-day-2139086
