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Maturity 4 - Mature Society ...

Thursday, Oct 1, 2009. How mature is our society? What does maturity mean with respect to our social habits, our systems, with respect to the way we treat each other and deal with each other? The maturity of a society has to do with its way to organise things.

There are many things in our world which show some sign of maturity. We have managed to establish a political system where many people can participate in the decision processes. That is some kind of maturity, though the way we work with these systems often appears to be quite childish. There are some good and even mature ideas, but the reality is different from it. We have a business system where in principle many different people can manufacture and sell. The market economy of western states has some features which seem to be mature. But there are many quite crazy things going on as well, even on a nearly official level. We are not at an end with the quest for a better social system! Neither the development of democracy nor the development of our economic world is finished.

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When I think about the way we run our societies, then I discover many things which work. There are habits and traditions which have been developed over hundreds of years, and the system works in some reasonable way. On the other hand it seems more clear today than over the last 30 years that we are part of a dynamic development, where all weights are shifted continuously and where unbalances in the system appear on a frequent basis. It is difficult to speak of “maturity” in a system which is changing all the time, which is moving forward. There is some stable state only on a temporary basis!

But the maturity of a society is not only the maturity of some of its procedures. We need to talk about the Lord and his relation to a mature society. Can a society be mature which has forgotten that there is the living God? Can we speak of maturity when the people in some village do not know the Lord, but follow many things, when they forget the source and centre of life? True maturity can only develop when we live in faith, when we let the Lord influence the way we do democracy and economy, when he governs our relations and interactions! Real Christian faith has strong impact on all levels of life and society.

Maturity of a society needs mutual appreciation. A society which suppresses part of its members cannot be called mature in a spiritual sense. Efficient production, which does not allow half of the employees to lead a reasonable life, is not a mature production but a system of exploitation. It can be a sign of maturity to rebel or work against such systems. Usually one entrepreneur alone cannot change the system, the rules are set on a political and social level.

I realise that I am at the very beginning when I think about maturity and society. Maturity means so much to me, I think of Jesus and his mature behaviour. In our society in the UK, in the US, in Germany or France, in China or Japan I see many things which are very immature, which are even outrageous, which are unbelievable. So maturity is a real challenge for our societies. We are not there yet. We are even very far from maturity. But thinking about it can guide our analysis, our thoughts about ways to change and to transform the world around us into something which is closer to the Lord and much better for all of us! [R.W.E.P., jesusnetwork.eu]

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