Decline of Messianism
Do we need another hero?

messianism. Belief in the salvation of mankind through the appearance of an individual savior or redeemer. The adjective messianic is frequently used to describe thinkers who (like Marx) foretell with prophetic power that human history is predestined to lead to an apocalyptic denouément in which the contradictions and injustices of the present order will be swept away and Utopia, the New Jerusalem, the classless society, established.
—The Harper Dictionary of Modern Thought

In our part of the world it is clear that Messianism has fallen on hard times. Along with its companions Millenarianism and Utopianism, it is now routinely assigned to the past, when just about everyone was less happy and less satisfied than we are now. Oh, there are vestiges of overblown hopefulness still attached to science or technology or politics today. But these are, at most, milder forms if they qualify at all. The heady days of real, revolutionary messianic fervor seem safely over. The kind of commitment needed to fire this kind of upheaval is hard to imagine among those who find their needs largely met. The narcotic of late-capitalistic material ease and distraction make it difficult indeed to work up the necessary energy to fuel an actual revolution.

Of course, we all know there are other kinds of people on our planet (who seem to actually get their ideas from a different universe altogether). They are still able to fuel fires, both figurative and literal. They are still seeking to turn our world upside down. But they are not like us, and we struggle to understand them. We struggle to decipher what motivates them. We don’t even know how to imagine thinking like they think. We worry that some of them are living among us.

Today even the idea of a radical commitment to messianic dreams, of giving oneself over to the cause, serves only to scare most people. This kind of commitment is connected rather obviously to religious fanaticism and destructive violence. It is considered either a sickness—a mental illness perhaps—or maybe just unthinking and barbaric. As Western society has increasingly solved the problem of meeting outward needs, we’ve turned inward in our search for a smaller salvation. Personal peace, a sense of connection to something important, harmonious relations with our immediate circles—these are our goals now.

If all this is true, then who needs messianism?

Given what messianism has become, probably no one needs it. But what it has become is not what it started as. We have here a case of the later form turning away from, even turning over, the original idea.

Messianism did not begin as a revolutionary movement at all. In the Bible the idea really began with the appearance of certain individuals who came, first and foremost, as rescuers of the people. These rescuers came from unlikely places and often did their work in unlikely ways. They themselves were often the overlooked, the second-borns, the inconsequentials; perhaps they were deeply gifted in some ways, but they were just as often deeply flawed in others. Their best work eschewed the usual tools of overt power, or connections to wealth or influence, or even inspiring the masses. Some of them were very unsure of themselves. Others abounded in confidence but couldn’t get others to follow. Some had serious moral failings. But one way or another, they managed to get people out of whatever current fix they were in.

As the story of the Bible goes along, the messianic idea does grow from these rather humble roots. In the time period between the Old and New Testaments, the people’s expectations for a messiah grew in direct proportion to their suffering. It was into a situation of desperate need and high expectation that Jesus was born. And then Jesus himself turned out to be the most unlikely messiah of them all, at least according to the Bible.

He literally ran away from publicity. He offended the powerful. He spoke of the little things that just need to get planted so they have a long term chance to change the world. In the end, he told his few followers that playing the role of a servant would pay unexpected dividends and that power-plays and political machinations would backfire. He was a different kind of messiah.

As we face the end of this difficult year in our world and contemplate what might lie ahead in the new, we invite you to re-think the notion of what kind of messiah we really need. We invite you to read for yourself where the idea of a messiah came from.