IF EARTH WERE AN ISLAND OF 1,000 PEOPLE WHAT WOULD IT BE LIKE TO LIVE THERE AS A CHRISTIAN?
New Earth Island Image April 2017 Draft 041017-1
As a child, I used to live in a small Canadian village of some 300 people called Carlisle, Ontario. The year was 1943. Canada was at war with the Allies against Nazi Germany. Wives were left at home while their husbands went off to war. My maternal grandparents, Norman and Mina Mills, helped raise me till my father returned from Europe.
Our little village had four quadrants formed by the main intersection of Centre Road and the 9th Concession. Grandpa Mills owned, operated and lived above the General Store/Post Office on the southeast corner of the village. To the southwest was a Bank and on the northwest corner was another General Store. A private home stood on the remaining northeast corner. This village was my immediate world.
Each year I gained access to more of the community. Up the hill to the east lived my mother’s sister (my Aunt Margaret), her husband and my four rather special first cousins. Everyone knew my mother, Marie Cunningham. Mom worked in the local gathering place for news of the war: the Post Office.
Folks tended their gardens, cheered for the hometown baseball team and showed up for the annual July 1 Community Garden Party in the park behind the Methodist Church. A few commuted to the big city of Hamilton, to work in the steel mills. Such was life in my little home village.
Tombstones in the church graveyard had British sounding names like Campbells, Greys, and Eatons. A few Ukrainian Fulchucks and Italian Trigonas made it on the mailboxes – but Asians, Africans, and South Americans must have lived on another planet. To be Chinese was synonymous with owning a city restaurant or laundry!
How little we knew in our village of the “outside” world. We knew each other but precious little about anyone else. A few pre-kilometer “miles” from our home was a ridge of shale like rock formation that rose above the surrounding countryside. This escarpment, named ‘The Mountain” rose some 200 meters high.
Years later I moved to Vancouver, British Columbia and lived within eyesight of Mount Baker, a 10,000 foot (3,300 meters) “Giant.” That was a “real” mountain. I climbed and hiked alpine meadows, to experience the reality of life above the tree line.
Then in 1994 I made my first trip to Lhasa, Tibet. I stepped off the plane at 12,000 feet (4,000 meters) in the land of Mount Everest and the towering 29,000 foot (10,000 meters) Himalayas. I discovered that how one views reality – and life – is often a matter of perspective.
I cannot comprehend 7.5 Billion people on our planet Earth.
I cannot comprehend 1 Billion people.
I can better understand 1,000.
So I decided to visualize Earth as an Island of 1,000 people and consider numbers for the year 2017 AD based primarily on Patrick Johnstone’s text Operation World with an approximate world population of some 7.5 Billion. I was able to reduce these humongous numbers to a more easy comprehension.
Let’s look at the map below of New Earth Island and consider ways this impacts our lives.
First, we note that half of the 1000 inhabitant of New Earth Island (500) are under the age of 18! This number compares to a much smaller percentage (7.9%) over the age of 65.
Notice also that Canada has only 5 Citizens on the Island (5 x 7.5 million = 37+ million people). Ironically the city of Tokyo, Japan – ranked the largest city on Earth – also has 5 Citizens. Tokyo equals Canada’s entire population! Small wonder Japanese think Canada is “uninhabited”!
Now let’s examine the “Religious Profile” of New Earth Island.
Of the 1,000 citizens on New Earth Island, 535 believe in:
- some god
other than Jesus of Nazareth; and read
- some holy book
other than the Bible; and follow the teachings of
- some prophet, or guru
other than the Jewish prophets of the Old/New Testaments who spoke on behalf of God; and accept
- some form of angelic/demonic activity
other than the defeat of Satan by the resurrected Christ; believe
- some criterion for eternal life
other than the Bibles command to confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead and you will be saved, and hoping in
- some system of future rewards for decisions/actions in this life
other than heaven or hell.
Some may ask what is meant by the term “Christian.” I am quoting Operation World when they say: Christian is “Anyone who professes to be Christian. The term embraces all traditions and confessions of Christianity. It is no indicator of the degree of commitment or theological orthodoxy. The primary emphasis utilized is that of recognizing self-identification as well as accepting the Scriptural principles illustrated in Matt 10:32 and Romans 10:9.” http://www.operationworld.org/glossary
