Jesus, the Church, and Vulcan

Strange to say, we Christians have persistently overlooked the presence of Vulcan—the false god of technology—in our hearts and in the Church. This, of course, has only made it that much easier for Vulcan to work his will on us and through us.

As with the other false Olympian gods, Vulcan’s goal is to suck vitality from as many people and as much of creation as possible. Vulcan does this by subordinating the vitality of both people and creation to the growth of cities. Cities are Vulcan’s evil counter-creation to God’s good creation. Cities are also humankind’s greatest monument to Vulcan. Today Vulcan has exceeded even his wildest dreams by integrating all the cities of the world, through us his willing minions, into one gigantic Global Technological System (GTS).

For its ongoing construction, maintenance, and growth, the GTS requires increasingly large inputs from God’s good creation. It also generates increasingly large outputs of toxic wastes. In both ways the GTS requires the systematic destruction of the creation which God called very good. It also forces us to trespass the limits, protecting the vitality of creation, that God created us to live within.

For its growth, the GTS requires the crowding together, exploitation, then abandonment of many human beings for the sake of few.

Finally, the swelling cities of the GTS are where the six gods of Olympianity—politics, war, sex, money, and consumption as well as technology—concentrate their control over human beings. We humans experience their bullying, bribing, and deception most keenly there.

For most of our history, we as Church have simply been blind to these realities. Since the beginning of an exuberant Olympianity in 1648, we have added two further mistakes. We have provided theological justification and wild enthusiasm for technological growth despite its horrific impact on human beings, human communities, and creation as a whole. We have also shielded Vulcan from questioning by limiting our understanding of salvation to what happens to our individual souls after death.

Still, during the course of our history, we may point to some radiant witness. The Benedictines, a monastic order, recently celebrated their 1500^th anniversary. During all those years, Benedictines have striven to live as radiant witnesses to Jesus rather than as parasitic slaves of the gods. In contrast to Vulcan’s desires, they have left cities and started small, intentional, Christian communities in rural and even isolated areas.

Copyright © 2012 by Steven Farsaci.
All rights reserved. Fair use encouraged.