The word, “Crisis”, may be is overused, but it has its content. Events explode out of normal channels into destructive and fast-moving processes we cannot control. But you did not notice the key word. It is “normal”, for normal does not exist. It is always going somewhere. It is five years before war breaks out, or the end of the slave trade, or before the birth of Christ or the extinction of the dinosaurs. “Normal” now is not normal. Look at data on energy consumption, the extinction of species, or refugees. In a variety of ways, we are accelerating across the globe.

Part of it is rich and poor. Economic calculations are always approximate but the people who could gather in a plush medium sized room would have assets equal to the poorest half of the world’s population. Ordinary rich people will receive a hundred or a thousand times the income of the poor. This is not a neutral process. The rich nations are the old colonial powers and the new corporate colonial powers. Money has been, and is extracted from the poor and poor countries, by near slave labour, resource extraction, poor country manufacture, corruption and trade manipulation on a vast scale. It has been, and is, unfair, unjust, and we, the rich nations pretend it is our superiority and justify ourselves in terms of the “status quo” which is going where it is going as a tidal wave.

Second, we are buying trash. On a vast scale, through vanity, you-owe-it-to-yourself, egomania, flattery, advertising indoctrination, glitzy presentation and more we are buying stuff and its packaging which is ruining the planet. We are gyrating round the world on near meaningless trips of self-importance. We drive fast to the next traffic jam. But we are under judgement. The judgement is on our rich overconsumption as we die singing, “I did it my way”. China, used by the West for a hundred years, is now dominant in world production and doing the western colonial economic thing in reverse. There is the judgement of affluence on health, relationships, thinking and lifestyle filling the world with rich fools. It judges us by global warming, the friction of consumerism, and the bonfire is ready. The planet will burn.

Third, we are under the judgement of false nationalism. The Great USA, GUSA, is sinking under its own obesity, armed to fight the rest of the world and having to goad enemies into opposition. It has an idiot as President, and much of a population which has been brainwashed out of thinking by decades of trashy media. Other nations defend themselves against putative enemies and fail to notice that “enemies” are caused by wars and the threat of wars and going there on holiday is easy. Britain claims it is leading the world, but only in pomposity. Putin builds a cathedral to the military, which, I am told, fails to impress God. Meanwhile fighting, arms, refugees, military dictators, failed states, bombed cities, revenge and manufacturing arms destroys the possibility of a good world in unthinking patriotism designed merely to keep the arms companies in business.

Then there is the great introversion of the human race, as everyone puts their heads down to the mobile phone and to another generation of captivation to gaming, apps, links, contentless chat, selfies, and trillions of images. A generation grows which will not be able to recognize a brick, let alone lay one, which votes for people they like, which faces lockdown through Coronavirus without noticing that they have already locked down out of public affairs, real work, what is true, evidence, thoughtful speaking and reading and building human societies. The great contraction of the human mind from the television screen, itself often mindless, to the smart screen goes on apace. But, as the person steers himself by his mobile phone, he does not see the car coming with the driver also looking at his mobile phone. The crisis is coming.

Who will see it? Who will say, in the round, This is the Real Crisis? Surely not the Church. Of course not the Church with Archbishops in pointy hats and people intoning the same things every week and waiting for the next Coronation, or smiley vicars, or singing slowly “Amazing Grace”. Or the Church in denominations, with self-reflecting “theologies”, obsessed with not being obsessed by sex, rattling collection boxes and with Cathedrals full of Canons as if people knew what Canons are. No. That Church is incapable of anything decisive. The Church can do nothing.

But Christianity should see the crisis. God has a fair grasp of it across human history and has set out its parameters. God knows we are meant to be stewards of God’s earth. God tells us the meek will inherit the earth, because unless we are meek there will be no planet to inherit. God sets up prophets to warn and tell the worst. Christ sees us through Mammon and seeking gratification. He insists justice comes first. He knows those who take the sword perish by it in their own stupidity. He knows others are more important than the self. We learn God straightens out life and Christ can turn us all around and turn us inside out and economize on what we “need”. God sees through the destruction of temples and empires. Christianity can both identify the crises of the self, western materialism and money worship and address it at root. Christ can reconcile nations and peoples, and show us the foolishness of our ways, and he already has over two billion people to work with, though mainly we are asleep, compromised, small minded and preoccupied.

Of course, it requires the ripping up of much of the contemporary Church – its small mindedness, absorption of western culture, cultic worship, rituals and focus on ecclesiastical survival, and its pathetic temerity to power. It requires a rediscovery of the big world-changing good news of Christ. It is an in and out revolution – into our lifestyles and out to all the principalities and powers which are leading us into this Crisis. It is part of and beyond climate revolution. It will take on the megapowers beyond threats and its weapon is the sharp sword that comes from the mouth of Christ. Blessed are the poor and cursed are the rich. The mighty are down, and the yoke is easy. Don’t worry about things. Die to self. Don’t strain at gnats and swallow camels. Those who take the sword die by it, so spread peace; it costs nothing. So the Gentle Nazarine turns us around, rebirths the good before God and heals the nations.

Yes, there is the big Crisis and we must learn to name it truthfully. It involves the full scope of human sin. There is the Saviour and Teacher of the World. He doesn’t shout, but two billion need to listen urgently and see the big picture he presents through to the healing of the nations..