Prepping for the Apocalypse

In 1998, Octavia Butler wrote of an imagined presidential candidate elected in the 2020s using the slogan “Make America Great Again”, in alliance with rising Christian nationalism, as well as growing vigilante violence against those who did not fit that agenda.

This work, Parable of the Talents_, looks prophetic as we look back on it from the actual 2020s, and rightfully has had renewed presence in the public consciousness in recent years. Together with the first book, Parable of the Sower, the two-book Earthseed series wrestles with central questions facing the world we live in now and easily imagined near futures. I’ve read very little of the recent discussion it has sparked online in the Trump era, but below are a few of my own reflections on the powerful message of these thought-provoking works.

Preparation in a Fragile World

Butler’s story is set in a world facing increasing pressures from climate change intertwined with socioeconomic collapse that have undermined the fragile systems holding our society together. Systems we rely on for reliable, accessible, and affordable food, water, transportation, employment, etc. are in a state of collapse. It’s not a sudden overnight collapse as in many apocalyptic stories, but a gradual unraveling of what we take for granted in our lives.

In this essential podcast episode, “Prepping for the Apocalypse Means Building Community", Kelly Hayes argues that this is what apocalypse will look like - a gradual unraveling, and one that has already begun.

The origin of the term apocalypse is instructive. Apocalypse comes (via its use in the Apocalypse/Revelation of John in the Bible and related associations with great transformation in the world) from Greek apokalypsis and means a revelation, in which what is hidden is made known.

What makes Butler’s apocalypse so horrifying is that its horrors are not outlandish ones like zombies. Rather, they are the horrors that already exist in our world, pulled out of the world’s hidden corners and revealed into the everyday (a true apokalypsis!). The horrors of Butler’s books are forced relocation to cooler latitudes because of lack of water and food, debt slavery and company town entrapment becoming widespread, the selling of bodies becoming even more explicit and visible, state systems more explicitly being only available to assist the wealthy, suspicion of others being treated as a survival skill, and violent hate being rewarded with power.

So, what do we do to prepare for that growing reality in our own timeline?

Butler’s (initially) teen protagonist Lauren Olamina sees a crisis coming where she may need to leave her home, and she begins building the survival skills often thought of as important in a post-apocalyptic world. She learns about the use of plants and she gathers essential resources for extended travel without a home. However, we see characters throughout the books bringing skills and assets that contribute to survival and to rebuilding of community, including the ability to craft tools and homes, the ability to grow food, and the ability to practice medical care, as well as ownership of land.

Above all, however, (as Hayes emphasizes in her podcast episode), the most essential skills are critical thinking to adapt to changing circumstances and a posture of always teaching others. Lauren is always a teacher, everywhere she goes, passing on knowledge, practical skills, literacy, and ideas, and people survive in this story by coming together as a community and teaching one another what they know.

Books play a crucial role as well, as a source of knowledge (beginning with Lauren’s book of local plants) and as a tool for passing ideas to others and sparking curiosity. As I work for a publisher, I am always glad to see that highlighted!

In Butler’s realistic scenario, dependence on fragile global logistical systems and on wage labor for others create vulnerability, while stability increases when local communities are able to become more self-sustaining and grow/create what they need for themselves and begin to provide it to others as well

So how do we take small steps in that direction now?

We must build our skills in growing, crafting, and foraging, as well as understanding the land we live on. But even more, we need to take inventory of the skills we do have and build relationships with others in which we share those skills with one another, strengthening our networks now while life is still relatively stable, so that we can rely on them when we need them in the future.

See more on first steps towards that which I’ve written on here (regarding skills) and here (regarding small steps towards care).

Practicing Care and the Power of Vulnerability

One of the key differences between Butler’s stories and a lot of other post-apocalyptic fiction is the vision of what leads to survival. In many stories, the strength of the independent, self-sufficient male fending off attackers through violence is put on a pedestal. For Butler, survival happens through empathy, care and welcome for others, interdependence, embrace of diversity, and the power of vulnerability.

Lauren has a condition where her body responds to and mirrors the pain she sees in others, a physically disabling condition of too much empathy. However, it is the empathy developed within her that leads her to reach out in care and welcome for many who she encounters along her journey. Unlike many others in her environment who view one another with suspicion and respond to others with violence or isolation, she reaches out, particularly when she sees others who are vulnerable, like she is. Vulnerability becomes a superpower for the group gathering around Lauren. Each of them has some trait or circumstance that makes them vulnerable, and that allows them to choose dependence on one another instead of isolation and suspicion. One of those vulnerabilities is diversity. Lauren’s initial small group traveling together is racially mixed, which is unusual on the road they travel and creates additional suspicion and risk (and increasingly this brings risk again in America today!). However, for other racially mixed groups they encounter, it creates a natural bond and foundation for trust. Their group is able to keep adding others who share this particular point of vulnerability and strengthen themselves through their embrace of diversity.

Conversations on Children

Small children are also particularly powerful, as they are incredibly vulnerable and quickly and repeatedly help to generate trust and social bonds between people throughout these stories.

However, children are also the subject of a lot of tough conversations in these stories. Not only do they suffer terrible things in this world due to their vulnerabilities, but often they are even conceived as the result of abuse and attacks. However, Lauren’s community welcomes these children as a gift and an opportunity for healing and enters the long work of healing for both them and their mothers. On the other hand, for those who have not yet had children, like Lauren herself, the circumstances of their crumbling society force tough conversations that some have even now in our own environment. Is it wise to bring a new generation into this world of suffering? Is that responsible and fair for them? Does that make us more vulnerable or use our resources inefficiently? Or are children a protest of hope against the crisis?

One final note on children, the narrative also discusses the challenging dynamics of surrogacy, often seen as a pure good to allow children for those who can’t have them. However, in its general approach of revealing more explicitly the dangers that are already with us, Butler’s work draws out the potential for exploitation here as those who are wealthy use and discard the bodies of those who are desperate in order to get what they want without pain or inconvenience, and the surrogate mothers are left deeply wounded. It’s a small note in the story, but worth reflection.

The Rise and Fall of Tyrants

As we see Christian nationalism weaponized by a rising tyrant in our own time, Butler’s narrative in Parable of the Talents parallels many of its dynamics. In a time of economic unrest, an ambitious male vilifies scapegoats, promises law and order, and twists religion to oppression and violence. Vigilantes act with violence and see themselves as supporting that tyrant, harming groups different than them, while the leader and his more respectable followers lightly distance themselves and view the leader as innocent of any guilt for their activity, justifying their own continued support of the leader while taking no real action to stop or disown the vigilantes.

Eventually, the tyrant wears out his welcome, as promises are not followed through, the economy continues to struggle, truth comes out about abuses, and more and more people gain courage to speak out. I wonder if this would be Butler’s imagination about the end of MAGA as well. Or does there come a point where authoritarianism has so entrenched itself that the tyrant survives those dynamics?

God as Change

Part of Lauren’s constant teaching and planting seeds is that she is always spreading ideas, including her new religion, which can be simplified as the idea that “God is change”. What she really means is that change is the constant and powerful force always present in our lives, and she applies the term “God” to it for effect. For her, there is not really a divine creator, but she teaches about humans recognizing that everything is always changing as well as taking responsibility to shape that change toward good.

Now that’s a simplification, and also clearly outside the teaching of Jesus, but it does share a helpful parallel to a certain line of thought within Christian theology which I think is true and helpful.

Lauren’s Earthseed belief rejects any idea that the future is already predetermined and places an extremely high value on human free will and the role of that freedom in shaping the future, as well as the idea that the divine is dynamic and shifting as events occur rather than static.

I think there are parallels here to open theism, a strand of Christian thought in which God is pictured as having a less-than-full knowledge and predetermination of the future, whether by choice or by nature. In this view, human will partners together with God in shaping the present and the future as events occur. In this view, God leaves significant space for human freedom and creativity to shape history, delighting in the good that comes from that and mourning over, redirecting, and seeking to heal the evil. God does not coerce, but delights in improvisational interaction with human freedom as we shape history together. God is not distant or stoic, but deeply interactive and full of emotion as we experience history together. I think this view, when expressed well, as in the book The Openness of God, can be beautiful and biblical, making sense of many of theology’s toughest questions. While it is looked at with suspicion by some theologians, it is embraced by significant voices within commonly accepted Christian orthodoxy and is a worthwhile set of ideas to consider. I found myself resonating with lines of Butler’s Earthseed verses in her books where they aligned with elements of this way of thinking.

The Gospel in Octavia Butler

Finally, I think Butler’s depiction of two different ways a newly-birthed religious community gives a fascinating glimpse into imagining the earliest disciples of Jesus. Lauren tries two different paths over the course of the stories. First, she gathers people into a commune, as discussed above, interdependently caring for one another and gathering regularly for discussion of community life and religious ideas, as well as for marking of community events and holidays. To me, this parallels the early church in Jerusalem, as seen in Acts. They are rooted in one place, deeply intertwined in life together, sharing resources to meet one another’s needs, and gathering regularly as a community.

From Acts 2: “The believers devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching, to the community, to their shared meals, and to their prayers. A sense of awe came over everyone. God performed many wonders and signs through the apostles. All the believers were united and shared everything. They would sell pieces of property and possessions and distribute the proceeds to everyone who needed them. Every day, they met together in the temple and ate in their homes. They shared food with gladness and simplicity.” (CEB)

However, when this time ends, Lauren practices another way. In the midst of imperial oppression, she travels (with a partner) from home to home, finding those who will host her and hear her, using creative methods to plant the seeds of her message and form a scattered network of individuals who are impacted by her words and support her, one another, and the continuing spread of the message. To me, this sounds very much like the mission Jesus gave to his disciples in the gospel stories, and a life that some of them and others since have lived out as part of spreading the good news.

From Luke 10: “After these things, the Lord commissioned seventy-two others and sent them on ahead in pairs to every city and place he was about to go. He said to them, ‘The harvest is bigger than you can imagine, but there are few workers. Therefore, plead with the Lord of the harvest to send out workers for his harvest. Go! Be warned, though, that I’m sending you out as lambs among wolves. Carry no wallet, no bag, and no sandals. Don’t even greet anyone along the way. Whenever you enter a house, first say, “May peace be on this house.” If anyone there shares God’s peace, then your peace will rest on that person. If not, your blessing will return to you. Remain in this house, eating and drinking whatever they set before you, for workers deserve their pay. Don’t move from house to house. Whenever you enter a city and its people welcome you, eat what they set before you. Heal the sick who are there, and say to them, “God’s kingdom has come upon you.” Whenever you enter a city and the people don’t welcome you, go out into the streets and say, “As a complaint against you, we brush off the dust of your city that has collected on our feet. But know this: God’s kingdom has come to you.”’” (CEB)

In these stories, I think Butler reveals the significant influence that scripture had in forming her imagination, but she also offers an imaginative picture of what each of these two (contradictory and meant for different people and contexts) ways of living out the call of Jesus might look like today, if we were to substitute Jesus’ good news for Earthseed. Throughout these stories, she also shows through Lauren’s methods the power of parables, art, skills, and poetry opening doors with people as she travels, but also the importance of ritual and stability in bonding communities together, mourning losses, healing from traumas, and planting hope for the future.

Beyond all of their imagination for living life in a crumbling world, Butler’s books also give a lot of thought-provoking material for the follower of Jesus reflecting on how to take seriously Jesus’ teachings and the ways of life modeled by his earliest followers.

Historical Heroes

For today’s Historical Hero, I’ll highlight Jeanette Li, whose story as an adaptable but constant teacher and as a refugee amid oppression somewhat parallels the journey of Octavia Butler’s Lauren in the books discussed above.

Jeanette Li of southern China (1899-1968) was a teacher. She was born to a Buddhist family in south China, disappointed she was a daughter rather than a son. She was curious and doubted Buddhist teaching even as a child. When sick, she heard the good news in a mission hospital. She was in a church and Christian school, but she and her mother faced persecution including rejection by her clan. She became a teacher and eventually opened a girls school. She continued to teach and lead in various ways and often struggled with how to integrate her faith and career. She faced more persecution under both Japanese occupation and Chinese Communist Party rule, and was both a refugee and a prisoner for some time. Late in her life, she continued work of evangelization as well as ministering to migrants in Hong Kong and Los Angeles.