The Kingdom of God has a biotechnological research agenda
The Kingdom of God has a biotechnological research agenda.
We must cultivate all life, starting from the bottom up. We must learn how life works, how evolution unfolds, how ecosystems function—and we must learn to bless and uplift those processes into glorious flourishing.
This is the creative process that God models for us in Genesis 1—and then immediately calls us into. This is what causes Paul to exclaim:
“All creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed...in hopes that creation itself will be liberated to join in the freedom and the glory of the children of God!” (Romans 8:19-21)
This is what leads to Revelation's vision of a city so big it can encompass the entire world, so powerful it reaches beyond the stratosphere, and so glorious it pours life and healing into all creation.
To do this, we must pour intense research into the fundamentals of life: genetics and cellular structure—epigenetics, metabolism, and intracellular programming—ecosystems, biogenesis, and evolutionary development. We must learn to create, edit, and manage these systems, to resurrect extinct species, give existing species new life, and protect endangered species from extinction.
We must not return to a prior ecological state, or be content with simply limiting environmental damage. We must move aggressively forward into an ecosystem that is thriving like never before.
And if we do so, then we will thrive like never before. Not only will we unleash unimaginable global flourishing, we will create a civilization rich beyond its wildest dreams. We will learn to cure disease, to extend life, to grow better food, to need fewer resources, to construct vibrant new ecosystems on other planets.
We will learn to optimize the earth for maximum biodiversity—until our oceans are teeming with vast creatures of the deep, our skies are full of glorious life and color, and our plains are bringing forth vegetation that would make Eden weep.
Our wilds will be full of large creatures, beasts of massive grace and beauty, animals whose names our ancestors first whispered in awe. Our cities will be refreshing beacons of light, skyscrapers literally reaching the skies—not enclosing us in concrete and steel, but raining down nourishment, greenery, and life.
This is the calling of God. It's what we were uniquely made to do. And it is precisely that which most reflects the one whose image we are. It's a calling described over and over in the biblical story, from Genesis to Revelation, from Old Testament to New Testament, from first creation to new creation.
It's the mission without which all life will perish. It's the mission without which we will be purposeless and lost. It's the mission without which humanity will not prosper.
And it's the mission that contains everything our creator promised us, on the first day we walked with God in this beautiful, glorious creation.