You’ve seen the headlines. “Economic Meltdown Threatens World.” This morning I did a Google news search for the phrase “economic meltdown” and retrieved 23,824 results. The stories suggested what caused the meltdown, who the meltdown hurts the most, and how to end the meltdown.
In the interests of full disclosure, I must confess that I didn’t read all of the nearly 24,000 stories. However, none of the ones that I looked at suggested that a literal melting of the economic system had destroyed the blue-green ball we call home. No one reported on molten pools of liquefied monetary assets. I found no one saying that stock certificates, banks, or investment brokers had mysteriously dissolved into gooey puddles. The earth’s molten core had not risen to the planet’s surface.
We all know that the phrase “economic meltdown” is a figure of speech signifying the financial, monetary, and fiscal crisis currently experienced by governments, institutions, and people. The meltdown metaphor graphically explains the dynamics we’re witnessing, the emotions we’re feeling, and the uncertainty we’re sensing.
No reporter, economist, or politician has to explain any of this in their stories, reports, or policy statements. We’re familiar with meltdown language. We recognize the layers of meaning, the sense of urgency, and the mood of anxiety.
Nothing has melted down literally.
But to say that there is not a literal economic meltdown is not to suggest that a meltdown has not occurred. The phrase “meltdown” evokes images of intense heat dissolving the current macroeconomic system from a solid structure into a sloppy, slushy mess. It seems like a nuclear reactor has failed, and no one can escape the deadly radiation. Like Chernobyl, there is nowhere to run, and the devastating effects will last for untold years. The economic meltdown has ended one world, and we are in the midst of building a new one.
While everyone in today’s Westernized world understands that “economic meltdown” is an allegory, imagine a naïve researcher two thousand years from now discovering a copy of the Wall Street Journal. The headline reads, “Bears Fear Meltdown as Market Tumbles.” Our unsuspecting friend may assume that a group of bruins underwent existential angst as an open-air bazaar feel from its mountainside perch thereby sparking a wildfire that threatened to destroy their fragile ecosystem.
Sound ridiculous? Maybe it’s just as absurd as people today concluding that Biblical passages such as 2 Peter 3:10 predict the literal meltdown of the space-time universe. After all, the text says, “But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a loud noise, and the elements will be dissolved with fire, and the earth and everything that is done on it will be disclosed. Since all these things are to be dissolved in this way, what sort of persons ought you to be in leading lives of holiness and godliness, waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set ablaze and dissolved, and the elements will melt with fire?”
If we read these words “literally,” we make the same mistake as our fictional futuristic friend. 2Peter is filled with figurative language. Although he talks about the earth burning up, the heavens dissolving, and the elements melting, Peter is not predicting the end of the planet. He is forecasting a drastic change—a meltdown—that he and his contemporaries would experience. The meltdown metaphor relates not to the destruction of the physical cosmos, but to the falling apart of one way of life and the start of another—similar to the way we use that language today.
We find a similar use of figurative language in the book of Revelation. In chapter 6, John envisions military conflict, economic collapse, and social upheaval. He depicts these tragedies with fiery imagery. An earthquake, falling stars, and a bloody moon accompany the meltdown.
Economic disintegration plays a key role in Revelation 18. John pictures desolation upon a once-thriving city. As Babylon would be utterly burned with fire, people would mourn as they watched with terror. This comprehensive meltdown would be followed by a new order, “for the former things have passed away” (Rev. 21:4).
These literary devices create an ethos of intense human suffering, economic turmoil, and deep misery that was being experienced by people in John’s day. They recognized the relevance of the metaphors to their own life situation—just as we at attuned to our economic meltdown and end of the world.
Jesus employed melting metaphors too. In his famous Olivet Discourse (Matthew 24, Mark 13, and Luke 21), Jesus describes a series of graphic cataclysms. In Mark 13:24-25 he tells his disciples that they would live to see a meltdown. “But in those days, after that suffering, the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will be falling from heaven, and the powers in the heavens will be shaken.”
Far from predicting a literal cosmic collapse, Jesus envisioned the devastation and loss that would come to Jerusalem at the ruthless hands of the Roman legions. “When you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then know that its desolation has come near” (Luke 21:20).
The figures of speech used in the New Testament didn’t need elaborate explanations. The original audiences intuitively grasped the metaphors. They didn’t need anyone reminding them, “Look, we’re using metaphors here when we’re talking about a meltdown.”
Two thousand years later, we’re bound to misunderstand Jesus and the various New Testament texts if we naively assume that they envisioned a literal meltdown. The ancients were every bit as sophisticated in their use of picturesque language as we are.
You might describe the loss of your job, life savings, and retirement income as the end of the world. You might see the crumbling of indispensable institutions in earth shattering terms. You might express the arrest, prosecution, and conviction of political and investment leaders as the stars falling.
So, as we recognize that our economic meltdown refers to the collapse of a system, we find that Jesus and the New Testament authors describes the momentous changes occurring in their day in a similar meltdown fashion.
Kevin Beck is COO of Presence International and author of This Book Will Change Your World. He is married to Alisa, and they live in Colorado Springs with their three electrifying children.
URL:
http://www.presence.tv/cms/cov_economic-meltdown.php
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