The Imago Dei

The world has always been in disarray and when we search through history, we might find a day or two of relative peace, relative calm somewhere in those long years. But that’s all. Today is not that day and tomorrow won’t be any different, and it’s not pessimism that drives that statement but fallen human nature.

In this early 21^st Century, we’ve faced the same old wars, over the same old things – property, turf, resources, and ideology – but in our domestic world, all is coming undone. Let’s explore.

Abortions committed in the U.S. since Roe v. Wade, 1973 = 59.745,946.7…no, .8, no, .9.  It’s like that.

We are a country that has truly given ourselves over to the darkest of sides and our unborn infant death rate matches the number of all the people killed in World War II. We’ve suffered the scandal of the commercialization of fetus parts, something we could only see in a horror film just a scant decade ago.

Political civility is lost. The time for talk is over, the time for measuring opposing viewpoints and compromising has come to an end. Now, masked thugs take to the streets to disrupt peaceful protests, taking no one’s side but their own.

Welfare is rampant, generational, and coercive. And racism is blamed, white privilege is blamed, Christopher Columbus is blamed.

Public civility is lost, manners are lost, and the determination to overcome all the odds is lost. College students want “safe places” from debate to protect their feelings from injury by contrary positions. It’s a millennial nightmare on the one hand, and everyone else on the other. Just listen to Fox News and debates between pundits: they routinely talk over each other as if one’s position is the only one worth listening to. This is what “fair and balanced” will get us in 2017.

Public discourse is gone. Bring in a controversial speaker to a university and students will seemingly risk everything to stop them from speaking; chants, riots, violence, all without any accountability. At least in the 1960s, students were fighting against an unjust war.

Illegal immigrants flood the borders, risking life and limb to walk dozens and dozens of miles or more through uncompromising deserts often lead by nefarious people-peddlers for the promise of the American dream.

We have people praying for the Apocalypse. What can help us, who can cause this enmity to fall away and allow for solidarity?

Sure, Almighty God can do it, but He’s created something for us to help ourselves: 

“Then God said: Let us make human beings in our image, after our likeness… God created mankind in his image; in the image of God he created them” (Genesis 1:26-27).

In other words, He created us, the imago Dei, human beings in His image.

How is it that the things creating all the problems on Earth – people – are also the solution to those problems?

The notion of the imago Dei is also that which gives each and every human being an equal share of human dignity. And this is the game changer.

Catholic Social Doctrine is based principally upon this notion. All things that we do are to serve the dignity of each human being. Does the immigrant “deserve” to come to the United States? Certainly, for even while each country is allowed its sovereignty, the Common Good, the Universal Destination of Goods, and Solidarity – principles of Church Social Doctrine – come first. We must look at each person as imago Dei and give them equal access to the goods of the Earth. “But we created these goods,” is one of the arguments against granting access. Let us not forget the sanctity of work and remember that Service to the imago Dei is the very best thing any of us can do.

Let’s talk about civility, public, political, and otherwise. We face people who have different views from us but are they worthless? Not if they are the imago Dei. Scripture tells that we are given different gifts (1 Cor 12:1-11) and we can assume we may have different views on things. Even with an individual touting all things evil in the Lord’s eyes, we may still have a moment of grace because, despite everything, the other is the imago Dei.

Let’s talk racism and the imago Dei. What “color” is God? Despite the fact that racial activists and profiteers insist that looking at the problems of race through colorblind eyes is just another form of racism, what is the color of the imago Dei really?

We treat each person as the imago Dei and we restore to the world the specific human dignity given to us by God. Person by Person, it really is that simple.