What Can ‘One World’ Mean for Christians?

We asked some random people for their thoughts…

It can mean we don’t have a spare world in reserve, and we don’t have a second chance to live this life.

God invested everything He had into one world. One human race, one son to die for us. That there is only one world is a sign of God’s extraordinary grace, love and dedication towards us.

To Christians, ‘One World’ refers to the unity that they experience with people all over the world through sharing a common faith. An unusual bond exists between people of different race, colour, background and experience who all know Jesus personally.

There is one world in a universe of planets. One perfect son in a multitude of God’s children. One God in a host of false gods. It seems to be a pattern of God’s to choose one to be really special. We’re privileged enough to live in that one special world. Let’s act like it.

World wide co-operation seems like an impossible dream, made even more difficult by extremes of wealth, culture, religion and political ideas. One world does not imply a suppression of different ideas and cultures, but perhaps a way to move towards a greater feeling of belonging to one world is to be tolerant, especially of the intolerant.

Very little, at least to me. It seems too wide and ambiguous a term to mean anything in particular. Perhaps this issue of Christis will enlighten me. I hope so.

‘One World’ conjures up a variety of ideas and images. Foremost in my mind is the ideal of One World as opposed to division into First, Second and Third Worlds; international justice and fair distribution of all resources. My specifically Christian view is that this will be ‘achieved’, but not till Christ comes again, heralding a new Heaven and a new, uncorrupted, World (2 Pe. 3:13, Rev 21:1).

A world together in Christ.

I don’t think anyone can fully conceptualize the idea of one fully integrated world. Although we may be aware theoretically of certain events happening in different countries, it is impossible for us to understand or imagine what it is really like to starve; live in a war zone; live under a dictator; be persecuted for your beliefs or discriminated against on racial grounds.

‘One World’ for a Christian means that we all share a common humanity, that we all suffer from the consequences of sin, and that we all need forgiveness to be able to live together in the world.

One World — look after it, it’s the only one we’ve been given (with gifts comes responsibility after all).

One World is a world of unity, between all races, all religions, all genders and all countries. ‘Co-operation is better than conflict’ applies to inter-faith relations not only our Christian view of the world.

We need to learn to put into action the love for everyone that Christ demonstrated in his life, and which we preach about.

We have just one world, yet we live in different ones — surely we cannot go on living like this.

‘One World’ sounds more like a dodgy New Age organisation to me. A great conspiracy plotting for a new humanity and the like.

We must all learn to recognize that being part of the one body of Christ needs to be demonstrated within our relationships worldwide. Equality of any form will not come until this unity is manifest.