Half a billion practicing converts and slouching towards a billion rapidly, speaking 75 languages and all in just a few years, no millenniums needed. The Moses, Messiah and Pope of this amazing cultural phenomena is one Mark Zuckerberg, Time magazine’s Person of the Year, not to mention the subject of the Academy Award-nominated movie about him, “The Social Network”. He’s only 26 and already the $6 billion young man. He is creating Marshall McLuhan’s global village without knowing who McLuhan is. Like his predecessors, Marx, Jesus and Freud,he is a system builder. He has a vision of the world and is using his relentless genius to build it. He is the Uber Nerd and like his brilliant fellow nerds is hell-bent on bringing his brave new world to us at warp speed, no matter how socially disruptive his creation might be. And brother, is it going to be disruptive. Goodbye privacy and adios borders. I’m not on Facebook (it’s a generational thing). I can’t knock it except to point out that it’s not informed by literature (he’s never heard of E.M. Forster and he went to Harvard). He’s not interested in politics. He’s probably heard the word Orwellian but doesn’t know the source of it. So the revenue keeps pouring in as the photos keep being uploaded, the updates and links keep growing and the posts keep everyone posted. Is it a dark and tangled forest or is it a way to remind us that we are all one as the Buddha said. One of the main tenets of Buddhism is compassion and Facebook is electronic compassion. As for privacy, you must lose everything to gain everything and in a zen twist, wherever you go, there you are.
Luke says that the Kingdom of God lies within you. It’s as true a statement as there ever was. Maybe Facebook is simply a 21st Century version of the wisdom we’ve known for over 1500 years. But with lots of ads attached to it.
The scripture you reference in Luke is one of my favorites, but not for the reasons you might imagine. When Jesus uttered those words about the Kingdom of Heaven being in your heart, he was making a political statement, as much as a describing spiritual truth, and in the process created the most effective marketing campaign the world has ever seen.
ReplyDeleteThe (ahem) genesis of the marketing idea started 4,000 years ago when Abraham made a covenant with his god for a promised land for his posterity. In the next 500 years, twelve tribes were established by his great-grandchildren, who were then enslaved in Egypt, freed by Joseph, and led to freedom across the Red Sea by Moses. In another 500 years, after a lot of wandering in the desert and pillaging cities, the Twelve Tribes crossed the River Jordon, settled into the 'promised' land west of the Dead Sea, and built a gleaming temple in Jerusalem. However, after another 500 years the kingdom had been split, and the people carried off into captivity by the Assyrians and Babylonians. Within another 500 years, after some lenient immigration policies, two of the tribes were back in Jerusalem, in a land now occupied by Rome. What do you do when your religion is based on tribal identity and the possession of land, but you are an enslaved displaced refugee and your people are scattered? Who and what do you believe? You need someone to give your land back!
And so, the prophesying began. The Jews were waiting for a Messiah to return and give them back their property. Remember, there was no talk of salvation, heaven or hell in the Old Testament. Everything was based around preserving lineage and land. So, when Jesus hit the scene, everyone was excited to see how he would overthrow Rome and return the land back to the people. Like a good politician, Jesus pivoted this expectation by saying, in essence, 'That's not the question', and then went on to say that the kingdom of God cannot be seen because it's in your heart. Jesus deflected public expectations for battle and Roman concern for a tribal uprising, by a creating an inflection point for a new belief system. This guerilla marketing strategy detached belief from fixed land and strict tribal lineage, to a universal faith that could be carried anywhere by anyone. No credit checks. No contracts. Lenient terms. Just like Facebook. Brilliant!
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