Orwell’s Fatal Error

He believed in Christian ethics without Christ. No wonder he was pessimistic.

1984 has arrived. A third of a century ago, George Orwell predicted what it would be like. Now we must evaluate how far we have come toward his nightmare.

Of course, no one but the omniscient God has a handle on enough facts to make such an assessment plausible. Just when we think we have nailed everything down, something blows loose and exposes a new labyrinth of surprises that alter our judgment of the entire situation. Who in 1945, for example, would have predicted that the Ayatollah Khomeini and the powerful resurgence of militant fundamentalist Islam would become a decisive force in world politics?

Even more humiliating for all “world assessors” is the clear evidence that their assessments are invariably more reliable as a reflection of who they are than of what the world is really like.

Orwell’S Bias: A Reluctant Pessimism

When he wrote 1984, George Orwell was a pessimist—a reluctant pessimist. He was a pessimist not so much because he was ill and dying but, strangely, because he had accepted so much of the basic value system of biblical Christianity. To put it in baldest terms, Orwell was committed to a Christian ethic but without the metaphysical framework of Christian theism that gives it validity. And he had the perspicacity to see it. He believed in truth and love, but he had no faith. And, therefore, in the end he had no hope even in truth and love. At the same time, he was both too much and not enough of a Christian. And in this he was wiser than most of his contemporaries. Or ours!

But George Orwell was a reluctant pessimist. We know this is true because he chose to continue the battle for truth and love in spite of his pessimism. After all, he did write 1984. And just before he died, he asked to be buried with a traditional and fully biblical Anglican funeral service. Like King Agrippa (assuming the latter was sincere), George Orwell was very near to God—just outside the door. And dare we hope, at the end, the good Lord dragged him, too, through the gate—reluctant, fearful, desperate, but seeking?

Orwell As Prophet: A Mixed Bag

As I look out at planet Earth through evangelical eyes, I see a world that is not wholly Orwellian. Some parts live in the shadow of a “Big Brother”—Albania, Khomeini’s Iran, the Soviet Union. For many parts of our planet, fortunately, this is much less so. But no part of our planet is completely untouched by the trends Orwell foresaw. Even more chilling, humankind now has the technical capability for producing an Orwellian state. We are fast approaching a time when specialists can shape the human body, including brain and nervous system, according to the pattern they choose. And many would do it if they could.

Strangely, in view of Orwell’s radical despair over modern man’s loss of faith, he never envisaged the significant role of religion in the late twentieth century. For him, apparently, the scientific view of the world rendered any form of theism or the supernatural so ridiculous that it could never again become a force in world politics. He completely bought the Marxist-Leninist line that the ideas about God and life after death are both irrational and immoral.

To the evangelical the modern revival of religion comes as no surprise. He knows that humans are essentially religious and that religion controls their deepest drives. Neither is he surprised that of the two most oppressive nations on planet Earth, one is a communistic state dominated by Marxist atheism (Albania), and the other is a theocracy whose rulers govern in the name of Allah (Iran). Neither religion nor irreligion is a guarantee of liberty.

Orwell Sold Religion Too Short

On the positive side, George Orwell failed completely to see the astounding revival of supernatural Christianity (in its evangelical form within the Anglican faith he secretly admired, or in any other form). Yet since the middle of the twentieth century our planet has experienced a remarkable new birth of evangelical faith. We are too close to it to observe its strength. The old “liberal Christianity,” which in reality was neither liberal nor Christian, is either dead or dying. Pockets still hold out in cloistered academic preserves, but at the grassroots level it is clearly a religion whose time is long past. The standard news magazines even quote Jerry Falwell more often than the National Council of Churches.

Many of us can remember when Time magazine could not tell the difference between evangelical and evangelistic. Fundamentalism was a dirty word and no other form of evangelicalism was recognized. Today evangelicalism is respectable. (Is this the first step in its domestication within the melting pot of America?) Evangelical churches and denominations are expanding. Evangelical seminaries are flooding the pulpits so that younger clergy are already decisively more evangelical in doctrine and in ethical convictions than either the middle-aged or the older clergy of a generation ago. Evangelical private colleges are more than holding their own. And evangelical publishing houses are pouring out an unbelievable quantity of books—though, honesty compels us to add, too often in less than ideal quality.

When we turn to other parts of the world, evangelical resurgence is even more startling. The growth of evangelical Christianity in South America is best captioned by the title “These Unbelievable Years.” Missiologists predict that by the year 2000 Africa will be the most Christian continent. In the Far East, Korea continues to shine as the crown jewel of mission activity for all time. But most amazing is the growth of Christianity in Communist China—in spite of the expulsion of all missionaries and the ferocious persecution of all religion. Some China watchers insist that there are now 50 million Christians in mainland China.

A Prophet Still To Be Heeded

In spite of evangelical gains, we dare not rest at ease in Zion. Alien forces are everywhere at work to reverse the hard-won victories. It is difficult to tell whether Arab oil subsidies of Islam or South African racism does more to stifle evangelical witness. China is a fluid situation. And everywhere in the Third World, fear of “American imperialism” thwarts the evangelical advance.

In the United States, what “Big Brother” could do only by torture, American society is accomplishing in more subtle ways by gentle persuasion through television, radio, the printed page, and “scientific marketing.” Fortunately, the philosophy that dominates these media is not totalitarian, and they are not physically oppressive. But they are no less sinister. They still often resort to mind control by manipulation rather than by stimulating us to clear thinking. Their goal is usually to mold us all into hedonists, crass or sophisticated (it does not matter which), whose decisions are determined entirely by consumer orientation to gratify our personal desires. And their values, though more palatable to the human psyche, are just as antibiblical as the totalitarianism of “Big Brother.” In the end, they are equally destructive of the human soul.

In retrospect from George Orwell’s 1984, the tragedy of evangelicalism in 1984 lies in how miserably we have applied the biblical values we so lightly profess. As Orwell clearly illustrated in his novel, true human freedom and a healthy and constructive society are compatible only where we share an irrevocable commitment to truth and love. And we can permanently sustain a commitment to truth and love only where we possess faith in an adequate ground for these noble values.

To our shame, we evangelicals needlessly allow ourselves to be pressed into the world’s mold of untruth and materialistic selfishness. Not only is this inconsistent with our faith, it also deprives our faith of its strength and destroys the personal values we hold so dear.

Near-Side Pessimists, Far-Side Optimists

Yet no evangelical can ever be an unmitigated pessimist. He may often be a pessimist about the present, but he is always an optimist about the final goal. On biblical grounds he rejects any dualism that allows evil an equal place with good or a cyclical view that goes nowhere. The Bible teaches that history has a clearly defined goal. That goal may be reached only “beyond history,” and it will not be attained by our human striving to erect the kingdom of God on earth. Yet a day will come when all the universe will be subject to the triune God.

Even now God is working through human history to attain his good. That gives ultimate meaning and purpose to our life and activity on earth today. History makes sense. We may not know how each little piece of action fits into the divine whole, but we know that it is all part of the divine pattern. And because we know that God is now working through these earthly events of our own human history toward an ultimately good goal, we gain direction and meaning for life. Human existence is mysterious but it is not nonsense. The simplest believer and the wisest philosopher can look reality straight in the eye and keep their sanity.

Yet we cannot deny the awful reality of a Vietnam, the terrifying poverty of India, the murder of millions of unborn infants in America, a schizophrenic child, or the imminence of nuclear war that could scorch our planet to a cinder. With George Orwell, I am a pessimist—on the near side.

But I am not an absolute pessimist even there. I know that God holds steadfast to his goals for our universe and that he is in sovereign control. I am his servant to work for him and with him and with my fellow human beings to further his plans for the advancement of his kingdom. Each task I do in his service contributes in some significant, though often mysterious, way to that ultimate goal.

These daily tasks to which he now sets me seem so mundane. Yet no task is wasted. Each is an indispensible part of the beautiful whole. And this lends infinite significance to tasks that would otherwise be only menial or even degrading. No cup of cold water is offered in vain. Each washing of my neighbor’s feet is worth the effort.

George Orwell’s 1984 failed to predict the reality of our time. His diagnosis was valid: with scintillating clarity he portrayed our human depravity, our drive for selfish power at any cost, and the depths of man’s inhumanity to man. With amazing insight, he also perceived the weakness of humanity without God and the values that can be grounded only in the God of the Bible. He might perhaps have agreed with the apostle Paul: without Christ, without God, without hope in this world.

But, thank God, Orwell failed in the utter pessimism of his volume. He failed because he did not reckon with the surprises of God—the sovereign God of all human history who knows where he is going and is moving all history toward that end.

KENNETH S. KANTZER

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