But what is a utopia? The word, as we have seen, was coined by Thomas More, who also gave the genre of “utopias” their classic form. With his work Utopia in 1516 he began the unending series of utopias written since then. The word “utopia” represents the Greek ou topos = “non-place,” or simply “nowhere.” That is, what is dreamed of as a utopia does not exist anywhere in the real world. Therefore Thomas More’s country of Utopia is far, far away, on an unknown island scarcely accessible to traffic. Distant islands are favorites for utopian literature, and since the nineteenth century these have been replaced by planets and since the twentieth by virtual worlds.
All utopias have one thing in common: the utopian society does not exist within the world we know, or else it does not yet exist, in which case it is located in the future. Consequently, students of utopias distinguish between those that are spatially distant and those distant in time, in short, between space-and time-utopias. Ultimately, the intent is the same: what the utopia depicts is far, far away.
In terms of this basic structure of all utopias we must say that the reign of God, as Jesus sees it, is no utopia, because utopia means “nowhere.” The reign of God of which Jesus speaks, however, has a location: its place is Israel, the people of God (see chap. 3). Obviously Israel is not an end in itself. The Old Testament already sees the people of God as the entry-way for the whole world. The “pilgrimage of the nations to Zion” shows that Israel is God’s way to reach all peoples (see chap. 4). So also the concept of the reign of God ultimately always applies to the whole world. But the transformation of the world that is at stake in the proclamation of the reign of God begins in Israel because what is to happen in the whole world must begin in a concrete and strictly defined place.
That is why Jesus does not go to the Gentiles but concentrates on the people of God. And he sends the Twelve not to the Gentiles but to the twelve tribes of the house of Israel. That is his program. That is precisely why he chose the Twelve.
So for Jesus the reign of God has a fixed place that is not somewhere in the distance but precisely where he proclaims the reign of God, where he heals the sick, where he drives out the demons of society (chap. 9). In reality the place of the reign of God is even more concretely defined: Jesus begins, from the very first day of his public activity, to gather disciples around him (chap. 5). He wants the signs of the reign of God to be immediately present to every eye; he wants those signs to be tangible, visible, the objects of experience. Hence the group of disciples to whom Jesus says, “Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom” (Luke 12:32). All that speaks against the idea of calling the reign of God a utopia. But I have already indicated that, in the long series of utopias produced in the West, the utopian society is sometimes set spatially at a distance and sometimes in the future—thus either in a spatial not-here or in a temporal not-yet. How did Jesus view the temporal aspect of the reign of God? When is it coming?
We have seen that there are many texts from Jesus showing that the reign of God is not yet announced, it is still coming, people in Israel must first open themselves to it, so that from a certain point of view it is not yet here. But that was only one side of the coin, because much more prominent were all the texts in which Jesus speaks of the presence of the reign of God. For Jesus the reign is not “coming” in the sense that it lies somewhere in the unattainable future; that future is already dawning, is already visible in Jesus and his deeds. Everyone can already share in the reign of God now (chap. 2).
So in terms of the temporal dimension also the reign of God is not a utopia, but a future already in realization. Future hopes, promises, prophetic proclamations had existed in Israel for a long time. What is new with Jesus is precisely that he says: today it is all beginning, today it is fulfilled in your midst. That is, the longed-for future is here. The people of God need only believe and repent. Utopia means “not here” or “not yet.” But Jesus says instead: “today already” and “really here!”
The Function of Utopias
Thus far I have based my remarks primarily on the Greek roots of the word “utopia,” but such purely linguistic considerations are inadequate since the real impetus for the conception of utopias was not the pleasure of fantasizing but the desire to change the present. Thomas More himself, when he wrote his Utopia, had in mind the English society of his time. This is evident in the first book of Utopia, in which he gives no account at all of his distant island but instead criticizes the bad social conditions in England. We should not be overly influenced by the fact that he called his work “Nowhere.” He was altogether concerned with the society in which he lived.
Such is the case, fundamentally, with all those who write utopias. They are depicting something that does not exist in order to change society as they find it. All utopias are counter-projects that are critical of the authors’ own societies. Hence I must pose my question anew.
Was Jesus not simply one of the many who try to renew their own societies with the aid of a utopia? In that case, his talk about the reign of God would have accomplished only what all inventors of utopias do: propose to the eyes of his contemporaries new ideas for changing society in the form of images, guidelines, and visions. If Jesus thought that way, would it be so bad to call the reign of God a utopia? In that case, could we not say that yes, the reign of God is a utopia and Jesus is one in the long sequence of those who projected utopias in order to change the present injustice, misery, and critical deficiency of society? Then the question would be, at most, whether this was the best and most beneficial of all utopias. If we want to get past this we cannot avoid the task of comparing Jesus’ proclamation of the reign of God more closely with the textual genre of utopias.
Abundance of Detail in Utopias
I will therefore make another foray into the enormous fund of utopian material1 and look more closely at Thomas More’s Utopia. To understand his intention one must imagine the conditions in London at the time: the misery of the poor and the arrogance of the rich, the numerous fires, poisoned wells, unbearable hygienic conditions, the power of those who could afford lawyers. It was against these conditions in his own time that More projected the new society of “Utopia.” There, everything is different. The cities are not a chaos of narrow, twisting alleys but are laid out on a broad geometric plan. They accommodate themselves to nature and are surrounded by farm fields. The water conduits are lined with brick. The roofs of houses are flat and made of a sort of cement that renders them both weatherproof and fireproof. The doors of the houses have no locks; anyone can enter at any time, since private property has been eliminated.
Every city is divided into four equal quarters. At the center of each quarter is a market for every kind of wares; there the head of each family obtains what is needed for the family and receives everything asked for without payment. No one needs to carry luggage on a journey because the people of Utopia are at home everywhere. The whole island is a single family.
The story continues with the same degree of concrete detail. Money does not play much of a role. Everyone works, but only very limited hours, and everyone rests for two hours after the midday meal. The Utopians sleep eight hours per night; they take their meals together in large dining halls. The nobility have no more privileges. The laws are very simple and clear, so that no lawyers are needed. The governing law of the island nation is also detailed: its foreign policy, how wars are conducted (they happen only in self-defense), how a family is started (only after the couple have received careful advice and counseling), how divorce is punished (with forced labor), how people dress (simply, but in high-quality and valuable materials).
We could go on for a long time in this way, but probably it is already clear that More’s Utopia is concrete. It overflows with detail; nothing is omitted. There is even consideration for how people approaching marriage get to know each other. Utopia is, in fact, made up of countless details. This was probably the reason for its breakthrough success, though that can also be attr
ibuted to its satirical features and More’s sense of humor. He wanted to make his readers laugh too. So his Utopia is bursting with details. It is concrete. And it is precisely this concrete and detailed description that characterizes the whole textual genre of utopias. To offer another example:
In 1975 the Californian Ernest Callenbach published his Ecotopia, in which he projects a detailed image of a society on the Pacific coast of the former states of California, Oregon, and Washington dedicated entirely to ecology.
The society of excess and waste has been eliminated. People live modestly, dress simply though imaginatively in a material developed from cotton. There are no more synthetic fibers. Microwave ovens are illegal. There is no use of metals (other than iron) or of synthetic colors. Food is sugar-free.… San Francisco has become a city-state. Smaller streams have been opened up, skyscrapers that were once corporate offices have been transformed into apartment buildings and linked by footbridges.… Public transportation is free. Bicycles are available everywhere at no cost. Major transport is conducted with container ships and through a subterranean system of conveyor belts.
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I need not look further into the world of today’s utopias. The principle is clear: an effective utopia is detailed. That in itself secures it attention, fascination, or horror. The details themselves delight the readers and lead them to ask whether they themselves could live this way.
And it is precisely this crucial feature of the genre that is missing from Jesus’ proclamation. We find nothing of the sort with him. One must read the utopias of the modern age to understand clearly how little Jesus describes the reign of God. He does not picture how Israel will look under God’s rule: how people will live together, how families will look, how society itself will look, how things will be when God alone is sovereign. There is almost only a single image he uses for the reign of God: the common table, the shared meal (Matt 8:11; Luke 14:15-24). And even that does not remain merely an image, because Jesus already makes it a reality among his disciples and with toll collectors and sinners (Mark 2:15).
Jesus does not project any imaginative scenes of the future society. He acts. He gathers disciples around him, brings them together around a table, and practices with them the table customs of the reign of God: that one should not choose the best place but instead wait to see what place one is given (Luke 14:7-11); that the one who wants to be first must be the servant of all (Luke 22:24-27); that disciples should wash each other’s feet, just as he has done—that is, do the dirty work for others (John 13:14-15); that disciples must forgive each other seventy-seven times, that is, always and without ceasing (Matt 18:21-22); and that they should look out not for the splinter in a sister’s or brother’s eye but for the beam in their own (Matt 7:3-5).
Jesus does not portray a utopian “realm of freedom,” but he leads those who follow him into freedom. He does not describe the condition in which all alienation will be miraculously overcome, but he says, “Those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will save it” (Luke 9:24). This is how Jesus projects society under the rule of God. He sets no preconditions: the reign of God is already beginning; its powers are already at work; it gives a new way of being together, even a new society, but not one that needs to be dreamed up. It takes place in the daily companionship of the one table, in common discipleship, in daily reconciliation. It happens out of joy in what God is doing. And it is by no means the case that this coming of the reign of God happens purely within. No, sick people are being healed, demonic forces are being overcome, the hungry are being filled, and enemies are being reconciled.
Jesus did not participate in preparations for a revolt against the Roman occupation (chap. 11). He and his disciples went about the country barefoot and unarmed and without any equipment so as to distance themselves from the Zealots’ preparations for war (Matt 10:10). This again makes it clear that life in the reign of God has political consequences and social dimensions; it inserts itself into real life. It is already concrete, and for that very reason it has no need of the concreteness of a utopia.
Utopian Faith in Progress
When Thomas More’s Utopia was printed in 1516, Christopher Columbus had already discovered America. Nicolaus Copernicus had probably written his Commentariolus in 1509; in it he proved that the planets revolve around the sun. The Age of Discovery had begun, and it opened up completely new perspectives. The English statesman and philosopher Francis Bacon published his own utopia, Nova Atlantis, in 1626. It too took place far away, on a lonely island, Bensalem.
In Nova Atlantis a society had been established that placed the highest value on scientific research. The island of Bensalem is practically a single institution for research. It includes “collections, laboratories, botanical gardens, places for the cultivation and manipulation of seeds, parks for animals and birds, high towers for meteorological and astronomical observations.”3 Science is to rely only on observation and planned research.
Thomas More had already anticipated technical advances, but it was Francis Bacon who first put science, technology, and the systematic investigation of nature at the center of his utopian society. He projected it as “a perfect scientific society.” The goal of the research and technical innovations was for him “a better life for all.”4
Since Bacon, no utopia can lack faith in reason and progress. It is true that beginning in the twentieth century there are also negative projections, “dystopias” that warn against the baser aspects of progress: consider only Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World (1932) and George Orwell’s 1984 (1949). The number of these dystopias is growing. But the majority of utopias, now as ever, assign great and even decisive significance for the advancement of humanity to science and technology. On the whole, the utopias project an image of a progressive society in which, through human reason, learning lessons from history, and the application of science and technology, a better and easier life for all will be made possible.
What is the relationship of Jesus’ proclamation of the reign of God to all that? If he had only thought of something that comes after death, the question would, of course, make no sense. But for Jesus the reign of God first of all means this life, this world, this history within which the rule of God is to expand. But that necessarily raises the question whether his idea of the reign of God includes anything like progress and development. Let us look once more, briefly, at the parable of the mustard seed (cf. chap. 7 above).
To interpret this parable in Mark 4:30-32, it is crucial to compare the reign of God not simply with the mustard seed but with the whole process by which the tiny seed becomes a mighty shrub. The reign of God is neither like the mustard seed alone nor like the full-grown bush but resembles the whole process from seed to shrub. Thus the parable does not speak about the reign of God in static terms; it is about the way in which it comes, the “silent revolution” of the reign of God. It speaks of how God realizes his plan, his rule, his salvation in the world. God starts small, but at the end the tiny beginning will become something unexpectedly great, in whose sheltering shadow the birds of the air build their nests.
Does that represent faith in progress? Not at all! Jesus does not say that culture or morality grows, world peace or the well-being of human beings increase. Nor does he say that people will become steadily healthier and have to work less and less. He says: the reign of God is growing.5 And the reign of God means that in the end God alone is Lord, that all honor is given to God and God alone is served. But at this point Jesus would say: When all that happens, then human life will be at its best. When God alone is Lord, the mastery of human beings over one another in the bad sense will cease. And he would add: “Seek first the kingdom of God, and all other things will be given to you as well” (cf. Matt 6:33 // Luke 12:31).
Faith in progress, together with a mania for whatever is technically feasible and the corresponding fantasies of universal power, is not to be found in Jesus. But he does possess the knowledge that God’s salvation
will succeed because it is more fascinating than anything else in the world. To that extent, certainly, the proclamation of the reign of God releases a dynamic in the world that, beyond the utopian, introduces unstoppable salvation and creates a new thing.
The Perfection of the Human
Closely associated with the faith in progress of Western utopias is belief in the perfection of the human being. That means not only the improvement of their physical constitution, which, of course, takes up quite a bit of space in the bio-technical utopias. It refers also to the human psyche with its confusions and destructive desires. Here too the modern utopia, increasingly combined with science fiction, offers a rich fund of material.
Despite all our recent experience of totalitarian societies, the optimal new human plays an astonishingly important role in current utopias. Humanity becomes more and more perfect. Many utopias even dream that the boundaries between the “real” and the “virtual” world will increasingly vanish. The individual is gradually dissolved into a constantly networked, super-individual reality until there remains only a single world-intelligence.
I cannot find anything like belief in human perfection with Jesus. Here especially his incorruptible realism is evident. He knows that human beings are evil (Luke 11:13); he speaks of this “evil and adulterous generation,” with adultery of course serving as an image for turning away from God (Matt 12:39). He speaks of the persecution and even the violent death of those who follow him and do the will of God. In the end he himself was killed. His death is the final interpretive element added to his proclamation of the reign of God (chap. 2). Without what Jesus had said about slander, persecution, and suffering, his idea of the reign of God might insinuate an almost magical success story; it could lead one astray to believe in the possibility of perfecting humanity.
Jesus did not believe in the perfecting of the human, but only that it is possible to become perfect (Matt 5:48), though “perfect” does not mean simply moral perfection; it means an undivided surrender to the will of God (chap. 13). Jesus believed not in the constant “improvement” of human beings but that in the people of God all could help one another, repeatedly forgive one another, and show one another the way. Precisely because Jesus counted not on the optimization of the human but on joy over the reign of God and constant conversion and reconciliation we do not find in him anything like the contempt for reality that characterizes so many utopias—the same contempt for reality that began with Plato in the utopian sections of his Politics. Precisely because Jesus always had the weakness and fragility of human existence before his eyes the society he began with his group of disciples was not totalitarian, as are so many utopian societies from More to Lenin. With the Zealots, with whom Jesus was much more powerfully confronted than is usually assumed (chap. 5), one can speak of a “terror of ideas” and also of genuine terrorism. There is nothing like that with Jesus. He even warns people against following him.
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