Two weeks ago I raised what I considered an intriguing question:  If everyone were to put their heads together and contribute their ideas, perceptions, and experiences, could humankind come up with a vision of reality and answers to the big questions that are better than any of the existing religions?  Could humans, through open and creative conversation, refinement, and experimentation, move humanity past wars, power struggles, and injustice to achieve a utopia on earth? 

I raised this question as a response to a philosophical trend I have seen in the world called “Open Source.”  Open Source as a term is most widely used in computer programming, as the term for software that allows for anyone to contribute to its content, with the goal that such a collaborative effort would create the best possible software.  Examples of open source include Wikipedia, an on-line encyclopedia, and Google’s new Android cell phone platform.  But while Open Source is most prominent in the world of computer programming, as a philosophy it has begun to creep into other areas, including religion (for example, Yoism), which is what prompted me to raise it as a theory for critique.  Hence, the above question:  If we all put our heads together, could we answer the big questions of life, from human suffering to social injustice, from existential emptiness to wars between nations?  Could humankind, through open and creative conversation, refinement, and experimentation, create heaven on earth?

Let me answer with one word – No.

Honestly, I would love to see a group of people actually try this experiment, just out of pure voyeuristic fascination, but I have serious doubts that such a movement would ever even get off the ground, let alone succeed in bringing heaven to earth.  Why am I so cynical?  For three reasons:

(1) It’s been tried before – really, this is nothing new.  As the writer of Ecclesiastes put it, “What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun” (Ecclesiastes 1:8-9).  The whole Open Source name may be new, but the idea of Open Source religion or philosophy sounds a lot like a rehashing of the so-called modern experiment – if we get rid of superstition and blind faith in some pretend God and embrace reason, then humanity can evolve, achieve enlightenment, and create a better world.  I think the past two centuries have shown conclusively that often when people have an idea apart from God of what utopia should be, there’s a good chance you’ll end up with the Holocaust or Communist China and Russia.  The “progress” of humanity has shown that although we have evolved to the point where we can build an atomic bomb that can destroy a nation, we don’t quite have the wisdom to know what to do with it.  Humankind has been trying to create a perfect society apart from God for a long time, and I for one am still waiting to see the progress.

(2) Humans have a huge tendency towards selfishness, fearfulness, laziness, addiction to the things of this world… need I go on? – in a word, we are sinful.  Like that word or not, it’s an accurate description of human reality.  The Hebrew language, which the Old Testament was written in, has a few different words for sin (kind of like how the Eskimos have lots of words for snow).  For example, peshah, traditionally translated as transgression, is rebellion against God – you know what is right but you do the wrong thing anyways.  Chattach, translated as sin, is falling short of a mark.  It’s not necessarily willful rebellion, just not measuring up to a standard like “Love God with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind.”  And thirdly, hawon, translated as iniquity, means that we are corrupt, twisted, and crooked in our very nature, at the core of who we are.  Even if you reject the Bible and disagree with the first two definitions of sin, the reality of hawon is hard to argue.  As the Apostle Paul classically put it in Romans 7:15:  “I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.”  If we’re honest, as long as we have real ideals and values, we can relate to that statement - the reality is that we often act hypocritically, contradicting our values with our actions every day.  As John put it, “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us” (1 John 1:8-10).

All of that is to say two things – first of all, good luck in getting any group of people to put aside their selfishness, fearfulness, laziness, and addictions to work together towards the betterment of the world without the help of God.  I’ll believe it when I see it.  After all, it’s one thing to have values; it’s another thing to live them out.  It’s hard enough to get a group of Christians working together for the betterment of the world, even with the help of God, because of our tendency towards sinfulness. 

Secondly, as Donald Miller put it so well in Blue Like Jazz:  “I am the problem… this is the hardest principle within Christian spirituality for me to deal with.  The problem is not out there; the problem is the needy beast of a thing that lives in my chest…”  This is huge – as long as humans work together believing that the issues are all external ones like war, poverty, and injustice, without recognizing that the bigger problems, like self-centeredness, greed, laziness, fear, and imprisonment to things of the world, lie on the inside, there will be no real progress.

(3) It is very easy to criticize and find fault with the way others do things; it is significantly harder to actually do something positive - one of the most disappointing things about the Yoism website, for example, is that it is mostly a combination of lofty theory and videos and articles that can be summed up as “let’s laugh at Christianity and other religions.”  Now, as I have mentioned before, I do not take offense easily and am open to reading criticisms of my faith in order that I might better understand why people reject Jesus.  I believe in the importance of listening for the truth in any critique.  However, as an observer, I have a hard time seeing how bashing and laughing at a religion or philosophy will help bring heaven to earth.  It seems more likely that Open Source religion will turn into a “let’s put down other beliefs so that ours looks more enlightened” website than an actual movement making any progress towards their lofty goals.

As Teddy Roosevelt famously put it, “It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.”  Our attempts at bringing heaven to earth may be imperfect, but at least we are striving in the arena.

For these three reasons, I do not see much hope for Open Source religion or any other God-less attempt to “bring heaven to earth.”  I do believe that those who reject belief in God can do good and meaningful things in this world, but that in the end the only true hope for bringing heaven to earth lies in the way of Jesus.  I believe that Open Source religion is right in reminding us that in the end, true Christianity is just as much about “bringing heaven to earth” as it is about where you go when you die.  Jesus taught us to pray “Your Kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” (Matthew 6:10), and Jesus’ message and ministry were largely about the kingdom of heaven – teaching and showing what it looks like when people are living under the reign of God.  We would be wise to remember this emphasis of Jesus. 

Lastly, if you consider Open Source religion to be the answer, or any human attempt at solving the problems of the world, I commend you for your desire to see heaven established on earth, and challenge you to listen carefully one more time to the way of Jesus.  I think you may be surprised at how right He is.

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