From the Editor Mar/Apr 2017
My husband is a huge Bing Crosby fan. I think he has every song Bing ever sang, including multiple versions of “White Christmas.” He’s also seen a few Road to films, strictly because they star Bing. One is called Road to Utopia. I’ll spare you the details, which I had to look up. Suffice it to say, the plot is all about trying to get rich. Apparently, for many people, Utopia is spelled m-o-n-e-y.
In India, an experiment in Utopia-making birthed the city of Auroville in 1968, during the hippie era. According to “Trouble in Utopia” on slate.com (a website I don’t recommend) by journalist Maddy Crowell, the township is a “venture in which Marxist-flavored socialism met anarchy. There is [supposedly] no money, no government, no religion, no skyscrapers or expressways, no newspapers with headlines of war, poverty, and genocide.”
However, Auroville has plenty of other things, like robbery, sexual harassment, rape, suicide, and murder—not to mention a bureaucracy Crowell said “rivals that of India itself.” Definitely not the place Bing was looking for. The township receives more than $200,000 a year from the Indian government, and UNESCO has protected it since its inception.
Apparently, Auroville was intended to “realize human unity and establish an ideal society.” Its 2,500 residents even include an Israeli family. There’s a waiting list to get in, Crowell said, and once you’ve navigated the red tape and are admitted, you’re stuck there for two years and must work for free “as a contribution to the township.” “Where the money goes,” she wrote, “seems to be a central question.”
By now, you no doubt have the picture. Auroville is a far cry from Utopia. In fact, there will never be a Utopia apart from the Lord. He alone can create the ideal society—and He will when He returns to establish His Kingdom on Earth. And His Utopia will not be about money; it will be about righteousness.
When the southern kingdom of Judah was facing judgment (though the situation was of its own making), God gave the prophet Isaiah an uplifting message about His coming Kingdom. As today’s world grows older, it grows spiritually colder; and those of us who love the Lord can use a little encouragement. So this issue of Israel My Glory is devoted to God’s Utopia on Earth: the coming Messianic Kingdom as revealed in the book of Isaiah.
The prophet’s message is a reminder that we can take heart because the Lord, “He is God in heaven above and on earth beneath” (Josh. 2:11); and He has everything under control.
Waiting for His Appearing,
Lorna Simcox
Editor-in-Chief
