Summer Reflections: China, Wendell Berry and the Gift of Limits

China is on the move! I saw this clearly while in Southeast Asia this summer and recently read When China Rules the World: the Rise of the Middle Kingdom and the End of the Western World, by Martin Jacques.   In 10 years China will have 1.4 billion people, or 21% of the world’s population. Their economy, unlike ours, is booming. By 2027, experts say China will overtake the USA as the largest economy in the world and that, in 50 years, Beijing will be the world’s capital, not NYC. The drivenness , speed, and intensity to be bigger, larger,   richer, and upwardly mobile in China is staggering. This contrasted sharply with two novels by Wendell Berry, that I read this summer — Hannah Coulter and Jayber Crow.  His themes include limits, the finite, the local and the small. These limits enable us, he writes, to grow in humility. And that this is the great spiritual necessity if we are be hospitable and loving.  His characters point us to what he sees as the root cause of disease in our culture –economic hyperactivity and idolatry. Our commitment to upward mobility both isolates and enslaves people. I like the way he described one of his characters: “He was not trying to get someplace. He knew he was someplace.” I can see now why Eugene Peterson has quoted Berry so often over the years. His writings remind me quite a bit of Benedictine spirituality and their commitment to stability.  I think I prefer Berry’s spirituality, not that of the Chinese government, even if they do become the next economic, political and military superpower. What do you think? How important, do you think is a theology of limits to the future of advancing the gospel?