We as a society now are thoroughly technological. Our increasing capacity to manipulate and even to seemingly remake nature is essential to our pursuit of self-glorifying autonomy. The capacity to act more efficiently, to modify ever-more around us, to produce greater with less work, these all plant an assumption of constant progress in our minds.
On Sunday, May 24, Christians who observe the traditional Church calendar celebrated the Feast of Pentecost. The original event took place 50 days after Christ’s resurrection and ten days after His ascension. Jews gathered in Israel from many lands miraculously heard the gospel in their own languages.
The Church has commemorated this event for its affirmation that the gospel should go out across the world as Jesus had commanded. Christians also see it as a reversal of God’s judgment against the human arrogance on display in the Tower of Babel (Genesis 11:1-9). There, God thwarted and punished the existing human community—giving them different languages that others could not understand. As a result, humanity was divided into distinct peoples. Pentecost signaled the overcoming of that barrier in the unity of the Church and the power of the gospel.
The story found in the Tower of Babel provides wise warnings to our own times. This people planned and sought to execute, “a tower with its top in the heavens.” In doing so, they hoped to “make a name for ourselves.”
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