I’ve made a shocking observation.  After nine years of teaching Worldview and the Kingdom of God to students from countless nations, I’ve just noticed in recent months an alarming increase in the number of young Believers who defend Socialism as the hope of the human race.  I’m speaking here of Christian young people, Christian Socialists.  It comes as no surprise, really, and the blame lies clearly with my generation and especially with the church of my generation.

When the church exchanged “Thy Kingdom come” for “Come quickly Lord” we opened a worldview vacuum that young people refuse to tolerate.  A gospel of death, (“Do you know where you’ll spend eternity?”) is a piddling crumb to throw at a generation that’s crying out to know “How then, shall we live?”

Greedy, materialistic capitalism remade us into an army of consumers, bankrupt, (literally), and bereft of spiritual values.  And now a younger generation surveying the landscape sees no alternative but the Babylonian “Yes we can” worldview of Utopian Socialism. “Let us build a city…. let us reach the sky… let us make a name for ourselves…” (Genesis 11:3-4)  Socialism is a Kingdom without a king, or perhaps we should say a kingdom with the wrong king.   It’s a kingdom of fallen man with darkened hearts and blinded eyes; a failed Utopia that has never once succeeded since Plato wrote about it in 360 BC.

How could Socialism, formulated in the mind of Karl Marx, who boasted “My objective in life is to dethrone God and destroy capitalism” be compatible with the glorious kingdom of the One who came to reveal the true face of the Father?   It’s a substitute, a counterfeit, and we’re in a heap of trouble until the church repents of it’s kingdomless message and begins to re-educate itself in the ways of God.

On a personal note, It’s good to be able to unpack at my Mom’s house in Maryland after twenty-three flights, six schools, and eight weeks of travel.  Highlights of my trip included:

Teaching for the first time in the Middle East, (Lebanon), and experiencing the unbelievable warmth and joy of the culture.

My first opportunity in Milan, and attending an Alpha Course in an ancient church where Barnabas baptized the first believers.

Meeting a young Kuwaiti and hearing his AMAZING testimony of how Jesus met him in the midst of his Muslim background.

Celebrating Thanksgiving with my international YWAM friends in Budapest.

The honor of joining YWAMers in Denver as they remembered their friends and victims of the shooting that occurred there two years ago.

Meeting new students from all over the world and having a small part in their dreams and passion for changing history one person at a time.