Here we are again, June 19th is coming up and we’re going to be celebrating that the Second Coming has already happened. I hope you realize how crazy that sounds to normal people. I was listening to a podcast recently titled, “Are We Living in 1984, Brave New World, or Fahrenheit 451?” There are actually a lot of videos on YouTube about this! While we’re exclaiming, “The Lord God Jesus Christ reigns,” everybody else is asking, “Which dystopia are we in?” Despite the New Church Day celebrations, my sense of things is that even New Church people these days think that the world is getting worse, not better.
It’s not hard to see why. Many people look at the modern world and see eerie echoes of dystopian fiction. Surveillance is expanding. Distraction is everywhere. Comfort has become a kind of quiet ruler. So how do these two ideas fit together? How can we live in what feels like a growing dystopia, while also seeing that the Lord is actually leading us to heaven on earth?
The answer requires us to really examine what the Lord promises.
A World That Looks Dystopian
Let’s start with the dystopian point of view. I have to admit, if we observe modern life, the parallels to the three classic dystopias are hard to ignore.
We see something like 1984 in the rise of surveillance—data tracking, cameras, algorithmic monitoring. Whether through governments or corporations, human behavior is increasingly observed, recorded, and analyzed. There’s also a subtle and not-so-subtle pressure to conform to acceptable opinions, with social or professional consequences for stepping outside the lines.
We see Brave New World in our relationship to comfort. We are surrounded by entertainment, convenience, and instant gratification. Discomfort—whether emotional, spiritual, or intellectual—is something we are trained to avoid. Instead of being forced into submission, we are gently lulled into it by pleasure.
And then there’s Fahrenheit 451. People are more connected than ever, yet often less engaged. Screens dominate attention. Deep reading, reflection, and meaningful conversation are in decline. It’s not that knowledge is banned—it’s that it is quietly replaced by noise.
Taken together, these trends paint a picture that society can be monitored, pacified, and distracted all at once, which doesn’t feel very “Ain’t this Second Coming great?!” But this is where we have to shift back to Revelation and the Writings to see just what it is that the Lord promises with the “end of the age.”
Utopia Promised but…
One of the promises is that communication between the Lord and His people will be restored to a clarity not seen since the days of Adam and Eve. God walked the garden with them, and He’ll be on the throne in the New Jerusalem. The Writings spend a fair bit of ink on how He communicates with us, and explain that one of His primary methods is an influx that comes from Him, down through the heavens to us. The analogy is simple: it’s like how we experience the sun. The light and heat travel 93 million miles, across space and through Earth’s atmospheres to us. The Writings also tell us that the Lord’s light and heat were being cut off from us due to what amounts to spiritual pollution. There’s a longer explanation of course that we don’t have space for here, but the point is this: with the obstruction removed through the Last Judgment the Lord’s influx was able to reach us again.
But I get it, when people think of the Second Coming, they’re focused on the promise of the New Jerusalem, a heaven on earth, not just better communication. However, what people miss on this promise of the New Jerusalem is there’s more going on with the Last Judgment and Second Coming that just the Lord giving us heaven. The Lord didn’t just give the Children of Israel the land of Canaan on their first day out of Egypt either. They had to be made ready for it. They had to make a stop by Mt Sinai where the Lord… wait for it… He communicated with them. He said, “By the way, you’re going to have to make some changes.”
We’re given a similar message with the Last Judgment and Second Coming. Heaven is being made available to us, but we still have to choose it. There are 12 gates, and these are the different ways by which people are introduced to the Lord’s new church through true teachings from the Word. Each gate signifies a specific “truth from good” that provides a way of entry into the heavenly city—that is, into the true church and spiritual life. The number twelve, which appears frequently in this vision, signifies “all” in relation to truths and goods(See AE 208, 430). So not everybody can come in. It’s not a utopia for everybody. Everybody is welcome, but you have to have something true from the Word to get through the gate.
Utopia and Dystopia Simultaneously
When you start to compare the dystopian world view with what the Writings actually say about the Second Coming, you can start to see that both can be true. Just as Jesus never created a rebellion against the Romans during His first advent, He doesn’t seem disposed to toppling dystopian governments in His second coming either. It’s just not His priority. What is His priority? That we act “from freedom according to reason,” and He “guards freedom in man as man guards the pupil of his eye” (DP 97). The point is that the Lord guards our spiritual freedom, not our freedom from earthly governments. He renews our world from within, not by establishing new external controls.
It leaves all of us with a choice. The Lord has restored communication, and has made truth more accessible. The inner meaning of life—love, wisdom, purpose—is more clearly revealed. But that doesn’t mean it is automatically embraced. You can live in 1984, Brave New World, or Fahrenheit 451 just by letting your mind stay in those places. In fact, the very forces described in these dystopian models can pull us away from the Second Coming: Fear can shut down independent thought. Comfort can dull spiritual hunger. Distraction can scatter attention. The result is a world where truth is present—but often ignored.
Or you can choose to live in the New Jerusalem. It’s another one of those things that sounds simple, but is more difficult in practice because of the mental discipline required. Because you have the teachings of the Second Coming, you let go of false beliefs, reign in your ego, and let go of fear. That’s why we’re given the teachings. When you apply them, it enables you to see the world and the people within it very differently. It doesn’t happen magically though. You have to discipline your thought processes. You want to live in the New Jerusalem, a utopia? You have to think like an angel, and angels think from the Word. When you discipline your mind to think with patience, humility and positivity you are developing the character of an angel, and you are becoming the kind of person who is in the New Jerusalem. You become the solution, not the problem.
So are we living in a utopia or dystopia? We certainly can be living in both at the same time: oppressed by government and spiritually free. But it’s really about where your focus is. Are you actually using the truths available to you to guard your sanity? Or do you have the same fearful mindset as the masses? You’re free to think and believe as you wish… for better or worse… which is the real sign of the Second Coming. Whether you’re in the New Jerusalem or in one of the dystopias outside of it is entirely up to you.