On April 9, 2022 By Jon Herr In Culture 1

Created for Communion

Guest Post by Jon Herr

Humans are beings driven by power, conflict, and struggle. Individual power. Gender conflict. Class struggle. We as homo sapiens do not exhibit sapience—wisdom—so much as struggle.

Perhaps we ought to call ourselves homo conflictus.

We’re conflicting, power-hungry strugglers, whose relationships are shot through with antagonism, friction, and tussles. A white man is unable to speak with a female person of color, without their interaction being defined by the intersection of her social marginalization with his social dominance.

Or, so we are to believe.

Suppose for a moment, if you will, that In the beginning, when there was nothing, Apsu and Tiamat gave birth to gods who clamored and upset their peace, bringing distress and conflict. . . . That In the beginning, Apsu plotted to kill his own sons, but instead was himself killed by his son Ea. . . . That In the beginning, Tiamat made demons to avenge her husband, but instead Marduk killed her and formed the earth and sky from her distended corpse.^a

Suppose for a moment, if you will, that prehistory leading up to the creation of the world and of humans was made up of unending wars for power, full of conflict, and struggle, culminating in regicide—the assassination of the cosmic king and queen of the heavens.

And suppose for a moment, if you will, that this Marduk created man in order to lay upon him the toil of the gods, so that the gods might rest. Suppose that man is supposed to continue doing what the gods do. What the gods have been doing.

What sort of world would you expect? You might expect a world of tyrants. A world of wars. A world of enslavement, brutality, manipulation, jealousy, greed, pride…and struggle. You might expect a world where people are banned from the internet. A world where celebrities insult one another’s spouses and slap one another. A world where, as NT Wright once put it, “our politicians demand to be treated like rock stars while our rock stars are pretending to be politicians.”^b

Well, this sounds like our world, doesn’t it? Those strong gods seem to be alive and well. So perhaps homo conflictus we are.

Is this so? If “conflicting beings” we are, we ought to be perfectly content with conflict. But we are not. Something in this clamorous, conflicting, contentious picture ..is amiss.

This is because we were not created by proud, warring, regicidal gods. We were created by a God who made man to be His image and glory (1 Cor 11:7). A Triune God, united in Himself as a perfect “us” (Gen 1:26), united in a common will, united in bonds of eternal love. A God who created man, to lay upon him the dominion of the world, and to rest on the Seventh Day.

Conflict tends towards loneliness, but we were created by a God who said it was not good for man to be alone (Gen 2:18). We were created by a God who created man in community, giving us bodies and selves as divine gifts (JPII), and calling us to give ourselves to one another in love.

We were created by a God who was not content with the clamor our sin threw into the world, so who in the Person of His Son, came common-born into the world.

Eternal Word, Maker, Life, and Light came into the “Babel”, destruction, death, and darkness of a world plunged in sin. And we have seen His glory. (Jn 1:14)

We were created, not by a god who killed others to become king, but by a King who was killed by sinful others to bring us to God (1 Pt 3:18). Not by a god who ripped open the body of another to create the world, but by the God whose own incarnate Body was ripped open like a Temple Veil, to re-create the world. And we serve this God, by whose own blood we can enter the Holy Places (Heb 10:19-20; Acts 20:28). As such, we were created by a God who made us to be homo adorans—a worshiping, adoring, giving, loving people.^c

What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? (Jas 4:1)

Humans are therefore beings driven—not by power, conflict, and struggle—but to conflict and power-struggle. Driven there by sinful passions, pride and arrogance.

But Jesus Christ came to deliver us from these things, and to take our friendship with the world and replace it with friendship with God. (Jas 4:4-8) Our Creator came in His expansive, self-giving Love, to make us one, even as Father and Son are one, that we may dwell together in His presence (Col 1:16; Jn 17:11, 21-24).

Suppose for a moment, if you will, that that is the kind of world you’ve been placed in; and that that is the Creator who placed you there. Suppose, that “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” (Jn 1:1) What kind of world would you expect? You would expect a world of unity, rest, peace, and Divine Love. And it’s this world which is being remade in the Church, the Body of Christ united with Christ. And it’s this world which is entering into the tumult of the fallen world, and taking over, bit by bit. We were created, not for conflict, but for communion.

“Jon Herr (MATS, Reformed Theological Seminary; BS Bible, Philadelphia Biblical University) is Pastor of Christ Covenant Church of Chicago (CREC). Previously he served as a deacon and ministerial student at All Saints Church (CREC, Lancaster PA). He and his wife Jackie live in the Chicago suburbs with their two daughters and three sons.”