Apple recently unveiled its Vision Pro, a revolutionary spatial computer that seamlessly blends digital content with the physical world. The device creates an infinite canvas for apps that scales beyond the boundaries of a traditional display and introduces a fully three-dimensional user interface controlled by the user’s eyes, hands, and voice. This is a significant move towards an increasingly digital life in the metaverse, a limitless online reality.
It is not surprising to find oneself drawn to “the Revelation from Jesus Christ … to his servant John” (Rev 1:1) at a time such as this. To be sure, the Revelation is a strange book with bizarre creatures and indecipherable episodes re-imagined and re-purposed from an ancient vault of Biblical apocalyptic imagery. And, as GK Chesterton so aptly put it; “Though St. John the Evangelist saw many strange monsters in his vision, he saw no creatures so wild as one of his own commentators.” Yet instinctively we sense, if the reader would “heed” (1:3) the words in this book, navigational directives will emerge by which to surmount tumultuous times. Herein lies the allure of the apocalyptic.
At the height of the scientific apologetic debates of the 2000s it felt like both sides were driving in opposite directions in identical cars, each convinced they were driving towards the truth. Perhaps they were, but they were also driving away from something. And I think what they were driving away from, was beauty.
Douglas Rushkoff’s TED Talk, How to be “Team Human” recounts how he was probed by tech billionaires who wondered whether New Zealand was the right location to build their doomsday bunkers. What bothered Rushkoff about what these tech billionaires were planning?