The world in our image

Health and safety executives are the Pharisees of our day, make no mistake about it. It would seem that they are completely and utterly devoted to squeezing any and every joy and freedom out of everybody’s existence, for the expressed purpose of making the world ‘safer’. Ironically, we are no safer than we have ever been. We have promoted a world in which we abdicate our responsibility, instead relying on legislation to keep us safe. We have become idiots. It seems to that we have created a world where we are no longer able or even permitted to make significant decisions for ourselves, rather we have to abide by the rule book.

But this is not the fault of the H&S man/woman. This is in fact symptomatic of society’s wider plight and our divorce from God. Without him in the frame we have made a world in our image rather than his, projecting a number of our insecurities onto it. Let me explain.

You see, God is concerned with creating people in his own image; people who are able to take responsibility through love for themselves and for the world, even for their enemies (Luke 6.35). This is in fact our divine mandate as we see in Genesis 1.28.

‘God blessed them and said to them, "Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground."’

This ‘ruling over’ is not to be interpreted as an aggressive subjugation of the world in acting as moral conscience, as perhaps our friends in America have seen it. It is not a moral crusade first and foremost. It is the wholesale application of the way of service and love to every living thing in all places. We are to love beings into being. It is from this place that the authority to speak of morality comes and not vice versa. This ruling is not characterised by aggressively ‘lording it over others’, in fact it is quite the opposite. As Jesus says to his disciples, the way of ruling is now the way of service (Mark 10.42-45).

‘Jesus called them together and said, "You know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many."’

Moreover, salvation is the process of taking responsibility for ourselves, for who we have become and what we have done with our lives, before handing it all over to God. Before God can redeem our lives we have to admit our sin, which begins by taking responsibility for who we have become, without judging ourselves for who we have become. Until we do this there is no real salvation. In return for this we are given the fullness of life as a promised gift and as a gift in the here and now.

What I sense is that in throwing God out the house has left a gaping hole which cannot be filled. Where we once followed God’s rule - whether explicitly referring to him or not - we now come to some other source for ‘moral’ guidance. Much of this vacuum has been filled with the notion of human rights. Unfortunately this is in itself is not a godly pursuit, unless it is coupled with the equally important notion of human responsibilities. If we won’t become responsible for ourselves and the world, how can we expect anyone else, even our government, to do so for us? The Judaeo-Christian story is one of God acting in our world in creation and redemption. His way of redeeming the world is to become a part of it, to get his hands dirty, to take responsibility for all things. We must do the same if we are to follow his example. We must become responsible people before God. This is what it is to be truly human.

Finally, I wonder how much of this preoccupation with health and safety actually has to do with a fear of death. Are so afraid of dying that we are forced to try to make the world as safe as possible? When we know God we can live in the tension of knowing that the world is not entirely safe but that He is entirely good.