Andrea Minichiello Williams, CEO of Christian Concern and the Christian Legal Centre, uses the book of Ecclesiastes to open up the eschatalogical subject of Heaven on Earth.

Andrea Minichiello Williams suggests that our need for eternity, freedom and relationship with God should be reflected in our joining with the prayer that Jesues taught his disciples and us to pray: "Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven". Andrea says that God himself wants to bring heaven to earth and that we can't do it without Him.

Andrea goes on to say... 

This ‘modern’ value system under which we currently labour is not modern at all. As King Solomon said, “there is nothing new under the sun”. (Ecclesiastes 1v9)

"God has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men."

(Ecclesiastes 3:11)

King Solomon, considered by the Bible to be the wisest man in his time, had deep insight into the hearts of men. He saw our longing for eternity, for something other than ourselves, for a higher experience than our present condition affords us.

Mankind started in the Garden of Eden, not in a fallen world. In the Hebrew language, Eden means pleasure, delight or paradise. We still long for this now. We were created for eternity, and we still look towards heavenly realities. It is impossible to take God out of the heart of man.

Utopianism

This innate longing in mankind has led to many attempts to create a utopian world. Some have attempted to do this without God. All of these attempts have ended in dismal failure. They have been counterfeits of the real thing, failing to reflect the heart of God towards his creation.

The attempt by communists in the last century to create a society where wealth was equally distributed failed dramatically, and at great cost. As a result, our own generation thought that communism was finished. Unfortunately, the spirit behind communism lives on, and ideologies inspired by this spirit are guiding public discourse in the UK and across the West.

Moral relativism, multi-culturalism, socialism, secularism, humanism, the sexual revolution, the drive for equality and diversity and the iron grip of political correctness are all manifestations of this same utopian spirit.

Utopianism is a false attempt to re-create heaven on earth, but without God.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, in an address to Harvard University,described the prevailing Western view of the world in modern times as founded upon “rationalistic humanism or humanistic autonomy: the pro-claimed and practiced autonomy of man from any higher force above him. It could also be called anthropocentricity, with man seen as the centre of all”.

This ‘modern’ value system under which we currently labour is not modern at all. As King Solomon said, “there is nothing new under the sun”. (Ecclesiastes 1v9)

God also created us to be free. As well as a longing for eternity, mankind has a deep, innate and God-given longing for freedom.

Yet every attempt to create a utopia necessitates a curtailment of freedom in order to build the vision. Hence, utopias tend to become totalitarian by nature, and far from being heaven on earth, quickly become hell on earth for those unfortunate enough to be a part of the experiment.

Multi-Culturalism

Our modern value system in the West is rooted in the desire to create a utopia without God.

The well documented attempts to remove the influence of Christianity from Britain are seen by some as a worthy project to create a fairer and more ‘equal’ Britain.

Some want to see society free of religion altogether, and see their utopian dreams fulfilled in secularism. Others dream of a multi-cultural society. Both necessitate the denigration of Christianity in public life.

Unfortunately, the removal of Christianity only lays the foundation for an increasingly totalitarian future, as it is the Christian faith which has established and encouraged the freedoms that we have historically held.

Political Correctness

A prime modern manifestation of utopianism is ‘political correctness’, an ideology which, in its modern form, arose from a Marxist think tank in 1920’s Germany (I have written about this here).

Political correctness is an attempt to create a utopia and achieve political and social change through uniformity of thought, controlling what people can say and how people think. It is devastating to freedom of speech and freedom of belief, and has left almost the entire leadership class in this nation, from churchman to politician, in a state of intellectual paralysis and in fear of expressing any opinion that is not politically correct.

Political correctness lends itself to totalitarianism. It is the ‘Newspeak’ that Orwell wrote about so prophetically.

Our website contains many reports detailing the effects of this ideology on freedom of speech: Politicians sacked for expressing conservative sexual ethics; doctors under investigation for mentioning Jesus; nurses taken off the front line for wanting to wear a cross; teachers disciplined for offering to pray for a pupil; employees sacked for expressing private Christian views, even when out of the office; street evangelists arrested for ‘causing offence’; and foster parents struck off for their Christian beliefs, with their views described as an ‘infection’ in Court by a statutory body.

Sexual Utopia

Within our lifetimes we have also seen attempts to create a sexual utopia by stripping away all restraining influences from sexual behaviour.

Society now accepts widespread sexual licence as the norm. There is hardly space here to tell of the resulting devastation to family life; the broken marriages, the eradication of childhood innocence, the explosion of unwanted pregnancies and abortions and the widespread proliferation of sexually transmitted diseases.

One aspect of this new sexual utopia has been the normalisation and promotion of the practice of homosexuality, and its enforcement through equalities legislation. Unfortunately, this has resulted in severe restrictions on freedom of belief and conscience in the public sphere. It is very hard for employees in some parts of the public sphere to remaining true to biblical sexual ethics without being penalised.

Many individuals have lost their jobs, been demoted, harassed or even arrested due to very simple expressions of their Christian faith, especially regarding sexual ethics.

This includes Dr Hans-Christian Raabe, a Christian GP who was removed from the Home Office Drugs Advisory Panel because of his unrelated views on homosexuality; David Booker, who was suspended from work for talking about church teachings on homosexuality during a private conversation with a colleague; Andrew McClintock, who was not allowed to continue working as a family magistrate because he did not want to place vulnerable children with homosexual couples; and Theresa Davies, who was demoted because of her refusal to preside over civil partnership ceremonies.

Our website also documents the stories of many others who have suffered, including Dr Sheila Matthews, Gary McFarlane, Eunice and Owen Johns, Kwabena Peat, Lesley Pilkington, Peter and Hazelmary Bull, PC Cogman, Chris Windows, Lillian Ladele, Dale McAlpine, Denise Haye, Paul Shaw, Philip Lardner and Mrs Pauline Howe amongst many others.

These are all ordinary people, many of whom have had their careers ruined and their personal lives invaded, for expressing mainstream Christian doctrines, such as marriage being between a man and a woman.

Equalities and Diversity

More recently, the utopian spirit can be found in the ever expanding ‘equalities and diversity’ industry.

‘Equality’ in this context often means the manufacture of ‘equality of outcome’, where every type of person must be hired and promoted in numbers that reflect their perceived proportion in the population. This is enforced social engineering to create the type of society which its proponents would like to see. It is pure Marxism, translated from the economic sphere into the social.

‘Diversity’ means embracing the goals of the homosexual agenda and promoting homosexuality, bisexuality and transgenderism. As noted, anybody with a conscientious objection will be crushed.

The approval of the practice of homosexuality can even become a condition of employment. In the US a man was fired from AT&T because his Christian beliefs prevented him signing a company diversity policy which required that he ‘value’ homosexuality, a lifestyle that he believed was immoral.

The Gospel

The totalitarian nature of utopianism is in stark contrast to the gospel. The Christian faith has freedom at its very core, starting with the personal freedom obtained by individuals who find faith in Christ, and leading to the corporate freedoms that nations enjoy when influenced by Christian values.

Britain has been known around the world as a bastion of democracy, tolerance, freedom of speech, belief and conscience. A society which has been influenced by the Christian faith will often be a society which respects freedoms to an unusual degree. This is currently being dismantled.

It is possible that utopian fantasies will take our nation to the brink. But it’s never too late to turn back.

Our need for eternity, freedom and a relationship with God are reflected in the prayer Jesus taught his disciples. We are to pray for God’s will to be done on earth as it is in heaven. God himself wants to bring heaven to earth. We can’t do it without him.

As the Lord answers those prayers he will meet the longings which King Solomon recognised. It is God who will bring us the heavenly realm that we so desire. It is a realm of authentic freedom and a realm which reflects the glory and nature of Jesus.

Let’s not settle for a counterfeit.