Imagine

It's okay to be a dreamer, or live in a commune, or to imagine a perfect world.

There’s an old Russian joke I like to tell about three farmers and a genie. The farmers find a lamp in which a genie lives, and free the captive spirit. In gratitude, the genie offers the farmers the customary three wishes, split evenly between them—one wish each. The first farmer tells the genie he has only one pig, and wishes for another pig. Poof! Wish granted, the farmer has two pigs. The second farmer says he has only one cow, and wishes for a second: poof—another cow. The third farmer says he has neither cows nor pigs, and wishes for the other farmers to have none.

Image source: DALL-E

I am not one to delve into the rich history of philosophers arguing over what the worst possible world could be, but I think that joke has more than a hint of truth. A terrible world is one where many seek only the most modest of increase in some blessing, with the smaller minority, in a failure of imagination, seeking only an equality of poverty.

Everyone seems to have their own vision of what the worst world possible would be. For some, it’s a world where all freedom—free agency to do what they want—is removed. It would be a world of perfect order, with all submitting to a supreme “ought,” the lawgiver who determines how all should live, and against whom resistance is futile. A Borg hive. For others, such a world is attractive. A world where nobody has to worry about fate, or decisions, is to them perfect freedom. Freedom from the hard things associated with being wrong, with being lost in indecision, in failure.

Some people imagine the worst possible world to be one of unending hate and violence, where tribes are permanently at war in a cosmic battle for supremacy. Others see that world as an opportunity, for love, for nobility in the face of a foe, for bravery, for valor. A world without an enemy to those who seek righteousness of their own cause, and protection of their own tribe, is a kind of life without meaning. Such people are the ones who complain about the biblical Heaven being its own hell: sitting on clouds playing harps, for eternity, with no greater cause.

To those who subscribe to some form of Nietzschean self-realization, the worst possible world is one where everything is transcendent, where this life is merely an overture, a theme played before the curtain rises on an eternity beyond this life. The nihilist’s best life is one without consequences, at least none beyond the end of it.

To the communist, with a small “c”—those who wish to live in community, in communes, sharing all together, the worst possible world may very well be this one we live in. A world where the rich are born, grow up, live, and die rich, leaving their generational wealth to their own children, while the poor do not rise above subsistence, born into poverty and dying too soon, bringing more poor children into the world with no prospects for improvement. Such people are horrified by the inequality of our world.

It might seem like there’s really no worst possible world, because what’s heaven to one person is another person’s hell. But I do think it’s possible to see if we can find a perfect world.

I like to turn to the dreamers, the singers, and the bards to get inspiration for what’s perfect. Many Christians really hate John Lennon’s “Imagine” because it begins with “Imagine there’s no heaven / It’s easy if you try / No hell below us / Above us, only sky.” The implication here seems to be there is no God, only us. But that’s not true at all—Lennon himself attributed the song, in addition to a poem by Yoko Ono, to a Christian prayer book.

“The concept of positive prayer. If you can imagine a world at peace, with no denominations of religion, without this my God-is-bigger-than-your-God thing, then it can be true.”

—John Lennon

“Imagine” is a really prayer to return the world to a sinless state. No countries, no possessions, no greed, hunger, war, religion. Only love, brotherhood, and peace. The Bible agrees that there is such a place; it existed all the way up to Genesis chapter 3. Adam walked with God in the cool of the day in the Garden of Eden. In that place, there was no religion, no heaven above, no hell below. (Before you theologians email me your disquisitions, it’s irrelevant whether the places heaven or hell existed, as they were not relevant to mankind to consider because God Himself was there.)

Before the Fall, there was nothing to kill or die for, no countries, no possessions—we had everything in the world!—no religion as we had God for a walking companion. But then deception, sin, and corruption entered the world, and we have the world we’ve had ever since. And if you don’t believe the Bible, then, well, just remove the first part and we’ve always had that world of war, greed, hunger, and religion.

The Bible talks of another time to come when we will once again have the world of “Imagine.” In Revelation 21, the second to last chapter of the New Testament, the Apostle John hears a voice:

Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.

Lennon’s world is perfect, and it’s easy to imagine, because the Christian Bible (and the holy books of most other religions) has it written down.

The opposite of that world, it would seem, is the worst possible world. A world that does not live for today, but for the baubles and trinkets to be gained tomorrow; a world that kills or dies for the smallest reasons; a world that makes any belief into a religion worthy of a bloody crusade; a world rife with greed and hunger and scarcity; a world where brothers hate and murder each other; a world where nothing is shared.

This world.

Except where it’s not, because we have elements of the perfect world popping up here and there.

Since I’ve been a Christian, which happened quite unexpectedly in 1999, I always believed that the best form of economic structure for believers is voluntary communism, as in a commune where everyone lives for the group, but still can have their own possessions. This is how the saints lived in Acts chapter 2. And the best examples of this are when people give willingly to support the underprivileged, and to help the poor.

The 2022 CAF World Giving index shows that Indonesia has the highest rate of donating money and time (84% and 58% respectively), a title it’s held for over 5 years. The USA comes in third after Kenya with an 80% in helping strangers, 61% in money donations and 37% in time. The report notes, “Since religion has traditionally been a key driver for giving, a possible explanation for these findings could be their large religious populations. These results could also be driven by community-focused cultural traditions such as Indonesia’s gotong-royong and Kenya’s harambee, which unite people in times of increased need, including during the Covid-19 pandemic.”

Governments give to other governments, and to their own people, in support of political and foreign policy goals. People giving from the heart out of compassion is one of the keys to a perfect world, and the lack of giving is a sign of a lack of compassion. Those who believe a perfect world is one where nations should seek their own greatness are actually hurtling toward the worst possible world.

Two of the biggest challenges to a perfect world are inequality and scarcity. In Boston, you can get the best healthcare in the world, except it’s simply not available to most people, and it’s getting worse, as Steward Health Care is circling the drain, unable to pay its bills. It’s certainly not fair that Americans living in Utica, Mississippi don’t have the same kind of access.

It’s even less fair that refugees with work authorizations in America who can’t afford company health insurance plans can’t get good health care in most places. And those who are here in legal limbo awaiting a massive backlog of cases, can’t legally work anyway. Then there are the people here illegally, who are limited to cash clinics, free clinics, and emergency room indigent care.

And that’s America, the most productive nation on earth. Other countries have free healthcare, but that doesn’t eliminate scarcity. Canada has struggled with this, by opening the floodgates to euthanasia—the freedom to flee this world. It has not gone well. Of course, we can all be equal when we’re all dead. I’d say that’s possibly the worst of all worst possible worlds—the one where nobody is here. Extinction by choice.

The perfect world oozes perfect equality and perfect individuality, because none seeks after the welfare of themselves alone, but seeks the welfare of themselves and their neighbors. There’s no need for government when people voluntarily learn what’s important to others and do it. No greed, no crime, no envy, no gluttony, only love and care for others.

There’s nothing wrong with seeking equality, or as the popular term is today, equity of outcomes. To people who value such things, the third farmer in the Russian joke is perfectly justified in his wish to make things equal—after all, the other farmers started out with more than him. It would be unseemly for the third farmer to wish himself richer than the others, he reasons. That would make them jealous, and they would seek to destroy him to take what he has. So the third farmer asked for equity, and received it.

It is a dream to have the perfect world, but it is a failure of imagination to believe it is impossible. Christianity is founded on the belief—the faith—that Christ’s transforming power, the Holy Spirit’s indwelling of the human heart, the rebirth of the human spirit in Christ, and the continuing maturity of the faithful in prayer, meditation and discipline (“to make disciples”) will perfect the world.

But among the Christian faithful are the pretenders, the ignorant, the wolves in sheep’s clothing, the tares (weeds) among the wheat that spoil the harvest. The reaction to genuine compassion and love among the weeds is condemnation and anger. We see it every day when so many who claim to be the Christian right condemn a Super Bowl ad depicting Christians washing feet. We also see it when Christian nationalists and those who promote an “America First” doctrine resort to threats and violence. (Thank you to David French for both essays.)

Imagine: the perfect world is one with no religion, but with the heart of God. No heaven because it is here with us. No greed because we all provide for one another. No war because we do not seek it.

If this is the perfect world, then we live in a world that is not perfect, but not the worst possible world either. The worst possible world, if you think about it, is one where everything is about religion, about scarcity, about ignorance, about envy, greed, and power. The worst possible world is when religion itself is politics, and where politics is religious, worth killing and dying for. Think: Russia under Putin.

I don’t think America is fully in the worst possible world, but we certainly have a lot of people who seem to crave it.

It’s easy to be the third farmer in the Russian joke. It’s a lot harder to be a dreamer and a doer in an imperfect world. But imagine the possibilities.