What is Mesotopia?

This work started as a Biblical Ethics teaching series that I ran multiple times at Cornerstone Church in Johannesburg, South Africa between 2004 and 2009 during my pastoring years there. I published The Subjective God in 2015 which servs as a platform for this material. The necessary starting point of biblical ethics is this: If we don’t understand God’s ethic, how can we lay a foundation for our own? Happily though God is gracious enough to give us a very clear broadcast of His ethics in The Bible. God’s ethics revolve firmly around what we call Holiness, but it may not be quite as simple a concept as we imagine.

Gene Roddenberry had a vision of the future, a kind of near Uopia where humanity is united. War, greed, and money have been abolished; at least on earth; and humanity leads the charge to colonize a universe–populated with stereotypical, socially dysfunctional sentient species–with their Federation's ideals.

Roddenberry's vision stands on the other extreme to those of the nauseating myriads of Dystopian writers who have produced a slew of books and movies each describing, in painful detail, the multiple ways this could all go to hell in a handbasket.
And, although these are extremes, they are not absolute extremes. Star Trek is seasoned with some very shady human characters in positions of power, who are greedy, selfish, and who lack moral fibre and courage. The Federation approach is militaristic, while always claiming altruism; low ranking captains serve the narrative as the heroes who struggle with ethical dilemmas of appling ideals by force and navigating weaker minded admiral authorities. One wonders why we constantly reward weak character with power and control, but that we do, as Roddenberry faithfully recounts.
On the other side almost every dystopian story is equally seasoned with hope, more often than not a hero arises out of the chaos–with similar inward struggles and misgivings–who leads society out of the clutches of self-destruction. Humility and confidence seem to swirl around these characters as they rise to prominance, Utopian captains, and Dystopian heroes. Inevitably they, like their forebears, are destined for the path of blackmail, corruption, and dictatorship.

Utopia and Dystopia... neither are a true reflection of Western society's varied cycles. What we do observe is Mesotopia. A slow, steady upward trend toward technological advance, social order, individual liberty, opportunity, education, and public health. This is not a result of democracy, rather democracy is a result of this trend. Neither is it a result of the scientific method and education, equally those things are the result of this trend.

So then, what fuels this trend? Why don't we see it in the rest of the world?

This website explores the connection between generational cycles, complexity theory, and the prophetic voice that slowly and steadily dispels chaos and plants seeds of order. It is an examination of the origins and results of Biblical Ethics.