“Every few hundred years in Western history there occurs a sharp transformation…. Within a few short decades, society rearranges itself—its worldview, its basic values, its social and political structure, its arts, its key institutions. Fifty years later, there is a new world. And the people born then cannot even imagine the world into which their own parents were born. We are currently living through just such a transformation.”
Peter Drucker, in Postmission, 74.
Drucker is in essence saying that fifty years from now we could be facing a world as starkly different to us as the Enlightenment would have been to the Middle Age monk. The West is undergoing tectonic cultural change. While these changes are fundamentally the same in Europe as in North America, the ramifications and outworkings can nonetheless be dissimilar.
A mentor of mine, Tom, would here interject his refrain, “You realize that we are living in significant times!” Indeed, and we church leaders therefore have a tremendous responsibility in guiding the people of God through the vicissitudes of the postmodern period into the pre-whatever-it-may-be future.
So let’s take a look into the future, and specifically, at the Tendara Colony in the year 2348…
This is story of Annika Hansen. Annika's parents were unconventional scientists who left Federation space, in their vessel the Raven, to perform experiments in pursuit of some unique secret theories. On Annika’s sixth birthday, they encounter a Borg vessel.
(Note: The Borg are a race of humanoids in Star Trek. The Borg claim to seek to "improve the quality of life for all species" as they pursue their quest for perfection. The Borg function as automatons, their minds are collectively connected to the Borg Queen. They are characterized by relentless pursuit of targets for assimilation, thus the show describes the Borg as "the ultimate consumer" against whom "resistance is futile.")
Annika’s parents studied the Borg ship for a long while, but Annika didn’t have a good feeling about all of this. With reason, because the Hansen’s scientific curiosity pulled them in to a trap! (add your own scary music here)
They are detected. Annika’s parents appear to have been killed. She is assimilated and raised as a Borg. Her Borg name becomes "Seven-of-Nine."
So, when she was very young, Annika lost touch with her human side. Seven-of-Nine has had no experience of socializing as part of an adult group. In fact, any individual characteristics she once possessed are now suppressed.
Many postmodern people feel this is what has happened to the Church, a beautiful young girl, the bride of Christ, has been assimilated by a sinister culture—modernism. Today, they feel, the church is more Borg than bride, more machine (read institution) than woman. She is emotionless, without community, and in the collective only one way of thinking is allowed.
But there is hope!
When the Borg are compelled to form an alliance with the crew of Star Fleet's U.S.S. Voyager, Captain Janeway requests that a single Borg act as a representative of the collective. Guess who is chosen?!
During a conflict, the Voyager crew is forced to sever Seven-of-Nine’s link to the Borg collective. She goes into shock and her human side starts to reassert itself, rejecting her Borg implants. With her human and Borg elements in constant conflict, Seven-of-Nine is in physical danger!
Her first instinct is to return to the Borg, but the Captain won't allow it. So the Doctor replaces many of her Borg components, making her far more human than she has been for nearly 20 years.
THE END (play your own happy music here)
To be continued…
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