New Year Message For 2018
New Year is a time to seek new direction. It is also a time to put measures in place that avert bad things.
Bad things that threaten our world are
- displacement of work by robots and of freedom by artificial intelligence
- displacement of local communities by globalisation
- displacement of nature by multi-national predators
- displacement of respect by a godless mind-set.
Secular society has failed us. Yet religion has been marginalised in the public square. This mind-set has created a moral vacuum. The vacuum is being filled by commerce whose value is greed, politics whose value is pride, science whose value is prejudice and civil society whose value is ‘me first’.
The post-Christmas story gives us clues as to how to fill the vacuum with good and to seek inspired new directions. The shepherds’ work and community was deepened by their shared experience of the divine coming to them through the humility of a young woman like themselves. So was their communion with God in nature and their sense of respect.
President Putin says that artificial intelligence ‘is the future… Whoever becomes the leader in this sphere will rule the world.’ King Herod, who treated people as if they were robots, who despised Bethlehem as a backwater, and who had no respect for life used the magi for his base intelligence purposes. But they outwitted him, not through an organised intelligence system, but by responding to God in their hearts and dreams.
Artificial intelligence may mimic trillions of elements in God’s brain, which a human can’t, but it can never capture the vaster part of God’s brain which is not available for such purposes. We simple humans, however, if we humbly seek the God of surprises with open hearts, can be led in ways that cannot be predicted.
The incarnation of God in human life engenders respect for every human being. In 2018 let us foster respect for each person because God’s image is in them and seek to relate to that which is of God in everyone. Let us listen for divine harmonies, develop friendly creativity in our communities, protect nature, bring back wonder into science, learning and even in mundane jobs. And let us foster inspired leadership in business, politics and media, starting with ourselves.
I wish you a very Happy New Year!
Ray Simpson
