Ambassadors in Babel

[Carl is a researcher, writer, and lecturer focusing on the paradigm shift sweeping the Western world, including the challenges and opportunities faced by Christians. He has been a frequent guest speaker at TBC conferences, and his talks can be found on our website: https://bit.ly/3LRrmpw]

Best remembered for its remarkable tower, Genesis 11 tells us this was more than just an upright structure; it was a city assembled with a cause. 

“Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower whose top is in the heavens,” reads the famous chapter. “Let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth.” 

How large was the community and how tall was the tower are moot points. It is the intention that is remarkable: a human agenda of collective aggrandizement, to engage in an act of idolatry that would elevate mankind into the heavens—“let us.” 

A parallel can be found in Isaiah’s proverb against Babylon’s king: “I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the Most High” (Isaiah:14:14I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High.
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Indeed, the roots of Babel are planted in the lie presented within Genesis:3:5For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.
See All...—that in the act of transgressing God, you can be as God. In other words, Babel was an affront against the Lord Most High, an act of unified deception wrapped-up in the greatest of hubris, an unabashed cockiness that goes beyond mere arrogance. It can be stated this way: we are the masters of our destiny, irrespective of what God desires, and we will prove this absolutely. Here is where we raise our pride, here is where we make our stand, here is where we affirm our power. Spiritually, it is collective foolishness, a broad road to destruction.

We know the outcome. Sometime during the building phase, as the people were attempting to ascend, God came down and invoked judgment, confusing their speech, “and they ceased building the city” (Genesis:11:8So the LORD scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city.
See All...). But at the same time God issued His judgment and brought their action to an end, He also demonstrated grace, saving them from the consequence of greater rebellion. Implied in verse 6 is that, if left to succeed, this endeavor would set in motion other acts of rebellion: “Indeed, the people are one and they all have one language, and this is what they begin to do: now nothing that they propose to do will be withheld from them.”

A wealth of meaning emerges from Genesis 11. It provides an example of solidarity in naming, for in the group we define our purpose and boast in it. It is a proclaimed independence from God, as we now pursue our common design apart from His order. We assert our own security, achieved through power-in-unity. Faith is found in the works of our hands; it is discovered within us instead of relying upon the Lord. In other words, cooperativelywe participate in our own salvation—we act as our own messiah. 

Who needs God when we can be as God? 

Two points emerge. First, God Himself steps in as man ultimately oversteps. There is a limit to humanity’s unholy action, and the timing of God’s judgment is—and will be—right and just. Second, we are incapable of letting Babel fade away; it is a tantalizing illusion of human progress, and mankind is drawn to its variants as a moth-to-the-flame. Babel, synonymous with collective idolatry, is a blueprint of humanity’s delusion. 

Hence, when considering our contemporary era, we are inescapably faced with a multitude of Babel imprints, this quest to be our own masters apart from God—to build “heaven on Earth” in our own image.

The transhumanist movement fits this design. The desire to use technology in order to become “more than human” and therefore birth a planetary civilization—even to enter the heavens as cosmic beings—is a dream that has jumped past the pages and scripts of science fiction and entered the conversations of Silicon Valley titans, bioethicists, neuroscientists, futuristic philosophers, and even religious figures. 

Many years ago, in June 2013, I attended the Global Future 2045 International Congress in New York City as a researcher. There I witnessed the heady excitement as technicians and scientists gushed over the works-of-their-hands, pointing to the year 2045 as our “date with destiny”—the hope of immortality and God-like capabilities. We would take hold of evolution and transform ourselves into something greater, so the narrative was repeated. We were “on the path to a new evolutionary strategy.” 

Space entrepreneur Peter Diamandis talked about humanity’s convergence into a “meta-intelligence”: that as everyone on the planet becomes deeply connected through information technologies, we emerge as a “new organism.” Our collective information experience, he explained, will usher in the “ultimate form of our evolution” and we become “conscious on a cosmic level.” In other words, we ascendthrough our technology.

Those infamous words from millennia ago come rushing back: “Come, let us build.”

One of the 2045 Congress speakers, a religious leader delighted by the unifying promise of technical transcendence, pieced together a boast with words that were not his own: “You are the light, you are the truth, you are the beginning, you are the end.”

Bold? It’s more than that. 

Here’s another example from Mark Pesce, a pioneer in web interfacing, as excerpted from his documentary, Becoming Transhuman:

“We seek, therefore, to bless ourselves with perfect knowledge and perfect will, to become as gods, take the universe in hand, and transform it in our own image, for our own delight. As it is on Earth, so it shall be in the heavens, the inevitable result of incredible improbability, the arrow of evolution lifting us into the Transhuman, an apotheosis through reason, salvation attained by good works.”

This is hubris…and it isn’t going to work.

The Babel model also dovetails with the rallying cry for global order. From United Nations summits to World Federalist events to the scheming of the World Economic Forum, in political unity we save ourselves and remake Paradise, becoming the planet’s self-proclaimed messiahs. 

This line of thinking has been circulating for decades. Consider what American Peace Society member, Raymond Bridgman, wrote in 1905—his was an intoxicating vision of human empowerment, a “political unity of the world”:

“The world, unified and intelligent, would for the first time in human history come to the grandeur of its existence as one, and would feel the thrill of intelligent unity…knowing its unlimited powers, looking over the earth and recognizing its directorship amid all the forces of nature and man, feeling its strength and realizing its boundless opportunity, will say ‘I will.’ Thus and then would be accomplished the grandest revolution in human history. The world would have found itself, would have come into self-consciousness, realized its true supremacy, and declared its opportunity.”

Such a boast! 

Fast forward to the late 1990s and actress Jean Stapleton. Like other luminaries of that era, such as news anchor Walter Cronkite, Stapleton believed in the potential of world government. Her endorsement of the World Federalist Association—now renamed Citizens for Global Solutions—the longest-running world government lobbying group in the United States, is telling. Notice the messianic tone: “The goal of the World Federalists is peace through unity of government. We must support their vision of oneness in diversity for it is the salvation of humanity.”

This hope in cooperative human salvation can be found in the Parliament of the World’s Religions, the mother ship of the interfaith movement. While at the 2018 Parliament in Toronto, I listened as Swami Agnivesh expressed his vision for one planet: “We, the peoples of the world, need to unite and demand a world government, and a world parliament, based on an Earth constitution.” 

After six days of sessions where religious leaders and political figures held hands, the closing plenary offered gratitude for the work done during the Parliament: “Thanks to all of those who are committed to the salvation of the Earth.” 

This kind of salvation-in-unity rhetoric is prevalent within the global interfaith community. Consider this montage of quotes, as taken from my notes during the 2023 Parliament in Chicago: “It’s the world’s religious leaders who ultimately bring the world together…. We’re building Heaven on Earth, we birth Heaven right here…. [It’s the] end of the old world order; the start of the new world order—one humanity, one earth…. Salvation is not individual but is collective, and only in the community are we saved…. We are the resurrection who leads to the Promised Land.”

The gospel of Babel is being openly preached. 

Glimpses of this ancient-future structure can likewise be seen at transformational events like Burning Man, which had a 60-foot tall “Chapel of Babel” in 2023. Plastered over its walls were thousands of photographs of animals and people, and inside was a confessional booth where you could unload your soul. It was an appropriate edifice, for Burning Man is a place where the world comes together—a place that bridges spirituality with secularism, materialism with mysticism, and where the individual finds purpose in the collective hive.

So what might Babel 2.0 entail? 

I am reminded of a workshop I attended at Burning Man in 2018. The subject was Artificial Intelligence (AI) and spirituality, and the discussion was led by a major personality in the field of digital currencies. A new paradigm will be necessary to birth a new civilization, so went the narrative. And with this in mind, our real-time information becomes the energy that enables AI to participate in this global civilization. But as we are spiritual beings, how will AI understand this? Is it possible to “make AI spiritual”? In seeking to build the “pure information community,” we were told, Artificial Intelligence will need the capacity to “read people” and respond in ways that reflect our spiritual evolution. Over the course of the workshop, it was evident that this version of Babel would require four building blocks to complete its tower. 

First, a new spirituality: out with the Christian worldview and in with the mystical and shamanistic. Second, a new social contract or ethos: a re-fashioned culture geared to radical tolerance and the exploration of identity, all painted in environmental green. Third, a new means of exchange and validation: with everything digitalized, economic behaviors could be monitored and adjusted to fit the acceptable standards of blocks one and two. Finally, global management: Artificial Intelligence will need to be integrated into our daily lives, knowing us individually and guiding each person towards our collective social and spiritual development.

Delusional? Yes, and not without its consequences and dangers. Nevertheless, the bottom line is that this workshop demonstrated the persistence of Babel. 

Pages could be filled with similar plans and schemes. There is nothing new under the Sun….And an echo from the original prototype comes to mind: “...now nothing that they propose to do will be withheld from them” (Genesis:11:6And the LORD said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do.
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Options For Christians

Professing Christians have three primary options in response to the growing shadows of Babel. 

First, we can ignore it, naively thinking we are somehow unaffected. But an indifferent approach will only last so long. As the ballooning size of Babel encroaches, we will inevitably find ourselves in a situation hostile to the Christian message of absolutes, of sin and salvation, and of the need for an exclusive Redeemer, Jesus Christ. We will become increasingly marginalized as the dangerous other, and wondering how we arrived in this difficult situation.

The second option is deeply troubling: To find shelter under the shadow of Babel, and attribute this to something Christian. As the world becomes syncretistic, many churches likewise blend with the spiritual and secular flavors of the day—from accepting and amalgamating mystical practices, to “greening the faith,” to participating in woke ideologies. To mirror the world and call it Christian is thus our second option. Sadly, it’s a road too often chosen. 

Option three is to be in the world but not of the world, and in so doing, to take seriously our Biblical call to be Ambassadors for Christ. Paul said the following to the church in Corinth, 

“Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us: we implore you on Christ’s behalf, be reconciled to God. For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” (2 Corinthians:5:20-21 [20] Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God. [21] For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.
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What does this entail? 

Upfront, an ambassador is the official and legal representative of one’s government to a foreign country, wherever you may be; increasingly in our case that land happens to be blanketed in the dimness of neo-Babel, and so we must let our light shine—the light of Jesus Christ—as a beacon on a hill. I cannot think of a higher calling than being His ambassador. 

Being an ambassador also means we know the power and position of our King. We represent His interests and have aligned our priorities with His mission. We are trained in His ways, and we are cognitive as to how our actions reflect God’s character. 

Moreover, as per any other ambassadorship, we too need to be aware of the cultures and traditions of the place we find ourselves positioned in. Yes, we are set apart from ungodly customs, and at the same time we are not uninformed regarding the character of our surroundings. Like the Apostle Paul in Athens (Acts:17:16-34 [16] Now while Paul waited for them at Athens, his spirit was stirred in him, when he saw the city wholly given to idolatry. [17] Therefore disputed he in the synagogue with the Jews, and with the devout persons, and in the market daily with them that met with him. [18] Then certain philosophers of the Epicureans, and of the Stoicks, encountered him. And some said, What will this babbler say? other some, He seemeth to be a setter forth of strange gods: because he preached unto them Jesus, and the resurrection. [19] And they took him, and brought him unto Areopagus, saying, May we know what this new doctrine, whereof thou speakest, is? [20] For thou bringest certain strange things to our ears: we would know therefore what these things mean. [21] (For all the Athenians and strangers which were there spent their time in nothing else, but either to tell, or to hear some new thing.) [22] Then Paul stood in the midst of Mars' hill, and said, Ye men of Athens, I perceive that in all things ye are too superstitious. [23] For as I passed by, and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with this inscription, TO THE UNKNOWN GOD. Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you. [24] God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands; [25] Neither is worshipped with men's hands, as though he needed any thing, seeing he giveth to all life, and breath, and all things; [26] And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation; [27] That they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him, though he be not far from every one of us: [28] For in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring. [29] Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man's device. [30] And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men every where to repent: [31] Because he hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained; whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead. [32] And when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked: and others said, We will hear thee again of this matter. [33] So Paul departed from among them. [34] Howbeit certain men clave unto him, and believed: among the which was Dionysius the Areopagite, and a woman named Damaris, and others with them.
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As part of the royal diplomatic office, our task is twofold. First, we must effectively communicate the King’s message, regardless if the land is hostile or friendly. Second, we are to be vigilant as to the deceiving schemes of antagonistic powers, recognizing challenges to the King’s message. Then, as an ambassador should, we petition for intervention while alerting others in His service to areas of concern, seeking to build up one another in sound doctrine, knowledge and love and faith. The work of The Berean Call is part of this mission. 

Being an emissary is a serious undertaking: “Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us: we implore you on Christ’s behalf, be reconciled to God.”

It is time we take this calling to heart, looking to our savior Jesus Christ, even as the “temple of man,” neo-Babel, is being built around us. 

TBC