The Guardian newspaper covered and reported the Homo Novus book launch event in December 2023. See detailed report as featured on The Guardian.
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I recently had the incredible opportunity to discuss my new book with one of my favorite Christian authors, Frank Viola. Frank Viola is an accomplished Christian blogger, conference speaker, and a Wall Street Journal bestselling author of over 13 books including ‘Insurgence: Reclaiming the Gospel of the Kingdom’. The full interview is published on Frank Viola Patheos Blog
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A Fascinating Exploration of the Future of Humanity Through a Theistic Lens PORT-HARCOURT, RIVERS, NIGERIA, September 12, 2023/ EINPresswire.com / — In an era where technological advancements are shaping the trajectory of our society, there is growing concern about the potential consequences of this rapid digitalization. Amakiri Welekwe, a technology consultant and evangelist addresses these pressing concerns in his groundbreaking nonfiction book, “Homo Novus: A Brief His-story of Tomorrow.” Drawing on a lifetime of work in information technology and a theistic perspective, Welekwe offers a profound examination of history and presents a compelling vision of humanity’s future…. Full article on Associated Press
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The good news of the arrival of God’s rule in the person of Jesus Christ is being proclaimed across the globe. Some individuals have embraced this message, while others have vehemently rejected it. Essentially, they refuse to acknowledge Christ as the supreme authority in their lives, rejecting His leadership and His absolute sovereignty. A significant number of people completely deny the existence of God and the historical reality of Jesus, despite substantial evidence that suggests otherwise. Even among those who believe in God and acknowledge Jesus’ existence, there are those who deny the resurrection, despite overwhelming historical accounts from firsthand witnesses. However, amidst these skeptics, there are notable instances of individuals who willingly approached the evidence with an open mind and discovered the truth for themselves. They found themselves unable to refute the facts; instead, the evidence convinced them of its authenticity. If the resurrection is indeed true, then that means that Jesus is alive to this day, and the opportunity to encounter Him remains open. By placing your trust in Him and pledging allegiance to Him, He ensures the forgiveness of your sins and a chance for a new beginning. I wholeheartedly urge you to take this step with genuine determination and witness the remarkable transformation it brings to your life. This personal experience would serve as the most compelling evidence of Jesus’ existence and reality. Since the inception of the Jesus movement, down to this day, countless lives, including mine, have undergone profound inner transformation through encounters with the resurrected Jesus wherever His message is proclaimed. These individuals bear witness to the undeniable reality of Jesus and His extraordinary ability to bring about life-altering transformations. In light of the overwhelming testimony from numerous witnesses, one may wonder why not everyone is persuaded? The answer is apparent: they are unwilling to consider the evidence. Why do they refuse to do so? Because they are not willing to confront the possibility of altering their way of life that comes with the discovery of the truth. If only they would consider the evidence with an open mindset, they would come to the realization that everything Jesus said is true. However, such a realization would demand a change in their way of life, and hence, they are reluctant to embrace it. They find comfort in the darkness and are reluctant to approach the light, fearing their dark ways will be exposed (John 3:19-20). I once watched a video where the popular Israeli historian Yuval Noah Harari was asked the question, “Do you believe in God?” In response, he went on and on to describe two kinds of God: One is a mysterious God that we know nothing about. According to Harari, “the chief characteristic of the mysterious God is that we know nothing about him or her or it and I’m perfectly happy with this God.” The other is a lawgiver God that tells us how to live our lives. And this according to Harari is the God he doesn’t believe in. As a matter of fact, he dislikes that kind of God. Well, this should not surprise anyone. People don’t want God telling them how to live their lives. They don’t want the creator God to be the moral authority over their lives and tell them what is good and what is not good. They want to experience it first hand and decide for themselves whether it is good or bad for them. This is inherent in human nature. It is the original sin. This is what choosing to eat from the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil represents as recorded in the following text: The snake (Satatn) asked the woman, “Did God really tell you not to eat fruit from any tree in the garden?” “We may eat the fruit of any tree in the garden,” the woman answered, “except the tree in the middle of it (the tree of the knowledge of good and evil). God told us not to eat the fruit of that tree or even touch it; if we do, we will die.” The snake replied, “That’s not true; you will not die. God said that because he knows that when you eat it, you will be like God and know what is good and what is bad” (Genesis 3: 1-5 GNT, emphasis added). By choosing to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, Adam and Eve usurped God’s prerogative to define good and evil. They no longer accepted God to determine what was right or wrong for them; they were going to decide for themselves, what to do with their lives apart from God. The concept of the “knowledge of good and evil” goes beyond mere understanding of right and wrong; it involves the act of determining what is right and wrong for yourself. Humankind transgression lies not only in breaking God’s moral code but also in creating their own moral code as it suits them. In essence, they are basically saying, “From this point forward, God, we want to dictate the rules that govern our lives.” It was an attempt to be like God, but without any noble intentions. They were seizing His power and asserting their autonomy. This has remained the nature of sin throughout history. Now you see why Harari and many others like him prefer the so-called “mysterious” God that doesn’t care about how they live their lives instead of the “lawgiver God” that wants to be the moral authority over their lives. They want to be the moral authority over their own lives. They want to taste good and evil and decide for themselves whether it is good or not. They do not want a God to submit to, rather they want a God that submits to them. Welcome to the world of moral relativism and subjective morality. Moral relativism and subjective morality suggest that moral judgments are relative to individual or cultural perspectives and dependent on personal preferences or emotions. These
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According to the historian, Flavius Josephus, Nimrod the infamous lead architect of the tower of Babel once vowed that he would avenge himself on God for bringing death on their forefathers. Through his efforts and bravery, he would overcome the curse of death placed upon rebellious humanity, and achieve happiness. He failed on all fronts. In the Epic of Gilgamesh, one of humanity’s oldest tales, the title character embarks on an epic quest to attain immortality. After many trials, he eventually hears of a flower on the ocean floor that will restore his youth. And, despite a warning from the only people ever granted immortality by the gods—that his quest will ruin the joys of life—Gilgamesh plucks the flower from the watery depths. Unfortunately, his success doesn’t last. Gilgamesh inevitably loses the flower, and eventually, like all mortals before and after him, dies. Alchemy, with its roots in ancient Egypt, was driven in part by this same quest for immortality. One of the main goals of alchemy, aside from the transmutation of metals, was the creation of a panacea to cure any disease, and to attain physical immortality. Interestingly, the word “panacea” which has become a regular English word for “remedy,” was actually the name of the goddess of universal remedy in Greek mythology. Panacea was the daughter of Asclepius (the ancient Greek god of medicine). Alchemists in various ages and cultures have sought the means of formulating the elixir. In ancient China, Chinese alchemists developed their own unique alchemical techniques with the goal of creating an elixir. It is said that many emperors, nobles, and officials consumed what they thought were elixirs of immortality to extend their lives, not knowing that they were poisonous and ended up dying. Qin Shi Huang, the first emperor of unified China, had long harbored the obsession of ruling forever. He sent Taoist alchemists with hundreds of young men and women to find him this “elixir of life.” As he aged with no hope in sight, he became desperate and started ingesting potions containing the highly toxic mercury sulfide made by his alchemists to prolong his life. His quest for immortality led to an early grave. What he feared most came upon him without mercy. Similar stories exist in other ancient cultures and civilizations such as India, Greece and Rome and, by extension, the whole of Europe. In medieval Europe, for example, alchemists swindled aristocrats by promising to defeat death and deliver immortality, all to no avail. This eventually gave birth to what is now the science of chemistry. Scientific alchemists dropped the Arabic prefix “al,” and the word “chemy” or “chemistry” replaced alchemy as a term for the scientific study of physical and chemical processes. However, alchemy retained its ancient mystical and philosophical flavor, which eventually gave rise to the modern day concept of alchemy. For thousands of years, our forebears rummaged the spiritual and natural world for guidance and remedies to ease pain, cure diseases, and revive the sick. Modern Western medicine, which has its roots in the ancient Greek temples of Asclepius (god of medicine), has become one of humanity’s most powerful weapons to push back death and extend our lifespan. Through a mix of superstition, trial and error, and a gradual accumulation of empirical knowledge, a form of science evolved that we know today as medicine. The discovery of the invisible death armies we call germs (bacteria, viruses, and fungi) that cause disease, and the invention of antibiotics and vaccination was a pivotal moment in humanity’s fight against death. The ancient medical approach known as humorism, which was thought to explain the cause of disease, gradually gave way to the modern day germ theory of disease. So we thought we had finally acquired the tools to defeat death. But, sadly, in spite of our wonderful achievements in the field of medicine, we still haven’t conquered death. According to Yuval Harari, “So far modern medicine hasn’t extended our natural life span by a single year. Its great achievement has been to save us from premature death, and allow us to enjoy the full measure of our years.” However, up to this point, all efforts by humanity to overcome the curse of death have been unsuccessful. Everyone in history who invested money, energy and time in the hope of acquiring immortality all met the Grim Reaper. And yet the dream of physical immortality and everlasting life hasn’t ebbed. In the 21st century, Silicon Valley capitalists and the rich around the world are on the match again for immortality and even divinity. Follow the money as they throw millions of dollars at immortality research and antiaging startups. Many are pitching their hope on the promise of technology and profit-driven capitalists to defeat death and deliver immortality to the benefit of humanity. They look forward to the day when they can upgrade their bodies and upload the content of their brains to computer systems. Again, to quote Yuval Harari, “We don’t need to wait for the Second Coming in order to overcome death. A couple of geeks in a lab can do it, given enough time and money.” Really! His statement reminds me of the famous saying by Winston Churchill: “Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” If there’s anything we can learn from history, it is that all those who embarked on this journey share something in common: they failed. What most people fail to realize is that no amount of human knowledge and technology can help us escape God’s decree that we are dust and to dust we will return in our appointed time (Genesis 3:19). Yes, the technology developed along the way may help us solve some difficult health challenges, and possibly slow the aging process and improve life expectancy; nonetheless the quest to conquer death as a technical problem will ultimately prove to be futile. But the good news is that God has already made a way for humanity. Jesus in His resurrection has
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The strategic position of humans in the created order has been called many names in the secular world: human exceptionalism, human supremacism, human superiority, anthropocentrism, humanocentrism, speciesism, and so on. It should be obvious to everyone that there are powerful forces who don’t want humans to be in this unique position. These forces are determined to knock humans off the pedestal of exceptionalism in order to erase the ultimate vestige of God from humanity. They have totally dedicated themselves for various reasons to convincing us that we really aren’t all that significant. It is therefore not surprising the ferocious efforts being made to blur the lines between humans and animals, on the one hand, and between humans and machines on the other hand with the intent of reducing us to nothing but physics, chemistry and algorithms. Yuval Harari, who writes from a purely naturalistic standpoint, wastes no time in tearing down human exceptionalism by portraying humans as having no greater importance than animals such as apes, pigs, and chickens. According to Harari, “Homo sapiens long preferred to view itself as set apart from animals, an orphan bereft of family, lacking siblings or cousins, and most importantly, without parents. But that’s just not thecase … Our lack of brothers and sisters makes it easier to imagine that we are the epitome of creation, and that a chasm separates us from the rest of the animal kingdom.” Such efforts are driven in part by the desire to enthrone Darwinism and its notion that humans are just another creature along the animal chain that is not qualitatively any different from other animals. As noted by Wesley J. Smith, a Senior Fellow at the Discovery Institute’s Center on Human Exceptionalism, the unrelenting assault against human exceptionalism of which many remain unaware is being mounted on many fronts. One of such is the idea of extending legal personhood (the status of being a person) to animals. For years, animal rights advocates have sponsored so-called “animal-welfare” laws to pave the way for the legal consideration of animals as persons, a position solely enjoyed by humans. These laws would inevitably give your cow or your chicken the right to bring a lawsuit against you or anyone who tramples on their rights, of course not by themselves directly, but via human proxies. Let me clarify that I am not justifying any form of animal abuse or cruelty. Although animals are given to serve humankind, that does not grant us permission to inflict harm or to make them extinct. It’s our obligation as humans to treat animals humanely. That’s in fact an intrinsic part of human exceptionalism. This is an important point to grasp in today’s world where more value seems to be placed on the protection of animals than on upholding the sanctity of human life. However, to the surprise of many, the concept of animal personhood has garnered endorsementfrom several renowned legal experts affiliated with Ivy League institutions. Some even claim that granting legal personhood to animals is not even enough; they are now actively calling for personhood and legal rights for individual plants and Mother Nature. As bizarre as these ideas may seem to some people, it has transitioned from being solely within the confines of academic institutions to being implemented in public policy in Europe and other parts of the world. And now, a new front appears to have been opened in an effort to blur the lines between man and machines. This new front sees human beings as just biochemical algorithms and data processing systems just like machines (computer algorithms), and questions the continued assignment of special value to human life. It sees members of the species Homo sapiens as completely losing their economic value because of the rise of intelligent machines. According to the proponents of these ideologies, it is just a matter of time before computer algorithms outperform biochemical algorithms in terms of intelligence. If that happens, would the machines rule over humans and treat them as a lower class of beings? But are humans just biochemical algorithms lacking in free will? David Hodgson, an Australian legal expert, counters this claim by stating that it is the combination of our consciousness and a type of reasoning that is not accessible to non-conscious AI, that gives us libertarian free will. Humans can operate algorithmically, but this is not the only way that humans operate. According to Hodgson, there are two types of reasoning that humans can perform: algorithmic reasoning and plausible reasoning. Hodgson further noted that our ability to engage in plausible reasoning is a vital component of human rationality, allowing us to evaluate and determine what actions or beliefs to adopt. This according to Hodgson is a unique capability of human consciousness that non-conscious intelligent machines lack, and it plays an essential role in our ability to make moral judgments. Plausible reasoning occurs when individuals are faced with the challenge of weighing incommensurable options about “what to believe” or “what to do.” For instance, when you are torn between honoring a request to help a person in need (an act oflove) and accepting an invitation to dine with someone (not your spouse) you have a romantic interest in (pursuit of lust), both of which require your physical presence at the same time. We have the capacity to make decisions that are not wholly determined by the way we are or the way the laws of nature work. We are not merely biochemical algorithms and algorithmic choosers. We are not just a brain. Yet, there are many who believe that physical matter is all that exists; and that everything can be explained in terms of physics, chemistry and biology. Those who hold this view believe that we’re no more than robots, and that free will is just a fable. Accepting an algorithmic account of humanity is the sort of reductionist position that typically leads to the conclusion that humankind is no different from machines and therefore should not be accorded any special
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Humanity is in search of a utopian society. A utopian society is one that is characterized by benevolent governments that ensure the security, safety and general welfare of its citizens. It’s a society anchored on equity and trust, which treats its citizens with dignity, a society where citizens live in health and abundance, and in a safe environment without fear, a society where citizens have absolute control over their circumstances and environment. We all desire and long for that kind of society even though it has so far eluded us. The search for utopia and the ideal society is as old as humankind itself and runs through civilization. It has led to the invention of all kinds of ideologies and socio-economic and political systems such as monarchy, democracy, communism, totalitarianism, progressivism, egalitarianism, humanism, transhumanism, intentional community, universal basic income, among others. Surprisingly, some of these ideologies have also been the source of untold mass poverty, injustice, terror, oppression and destruction. Those are nothing but signs of dystopia—a dysfunctional society quite the opposite of what society yearns for. More often than not, the future is often presented in our current film and literature menu as a dystopian society. The pursuit of utopia, in any shape or form, indicates that there is undoubtedly within every person’s heart a craving and an empty space that is designed specifically for God. This craving and vacuum cannot be satisfied by anything that is created, but only by the Creator Himself. There is a deep longing within us for a return to Eden (God’s paradise or kingdom), but we want God out of it. The renowned French mathematician and physicist, Blaise Pascal, while reflecting on this truth noted thus: What else does this craving, and this helplessness, proclaim but that there was once in man a true happiness, of which all that now remains is the empty print and trace? This he tries in vain to fill with everything around him, seeking in things that are not there the help he cannot find in those that are, though none can help, since this infinite abyss can be filled only with an infinite and immutable object; in other words, by God Himself. Every time we exclude God from the equation, the ultimate outcome tends to be dystopian and results in more misery for humanity. Our world is perpetually faced with a choice between a society characterized by liberalism and one that is dictatorial. This entails a choice between a world order based on distributed decision making, and one based on centralized decision making. It’s a choice between democracy and dictatorship, between a liberty that could lead to anarchy and self-destruction, or controls that make life more difficult. Some countries have embraced dictatorship and totalitarian control, while others have embraced liberal democracy, which in itself is gradually falling apart due to the growing influence of modern technology. Which system of governance, democracy or dictatorship, is better suited for humanity and likely to emerge as the dominant one? In the hope of a better society, people sometimes demand a change of government, by which they mean a change of political party or politician such as president or prime minister, or even a complete change in the system of government. Interestingly, Jesus’ key message to the world echoes the same sentiments. He said that the basic need of the world is a change in government, and that He was sent to bring about that change. He used the term “Kingdom of God” to describe the kind of change in government that He is bringing (Luke 4:43). The Kingdom of God is a theme that runs through the entire Bible. Humankind was not made for democracy or to run themselves; neither were they made for dictatorship or to be under someone else’s authoritarian control. They were made for the Kingdom of God. They were made to be under a just and benevolent divine King. This is the only way that society will flourish. We were made to be subjects of the life-giving King. This is the only way to find fulfillment and to reach our full potential. The world is in dire need of good leadership—an individual capable of effectively managing and controlling society while granting its citizens complete freedom within those parameters. We are constantly searching for a political figure or political institution that can strike the ideal balance between control and liberty in our social structures. Regrettably, the perfect person or system remains elusive and unattainable. This reality has led to many citizens harboring deep skepticism towards politicians and some have lost all faith in their government and governing institutions. There’s no one who can create a better world for us except the Lord Jesus. When He does, there will for the first time bea harmonious balance between complete control and absolute freedom. In this new world, righteousness, peace, and joy will prevail, creating a perfect society. In this new world, righteousness, peace, and joy will prevail, creating a perfect society. So does this imply that the only message we can offer people in our present unstable world is “Don’t worry; wait for the kingdom and for Jesus to return and fix everything?” If that’s the case, it’s discouraging news. It’s not practical for us to continue living as we are because there’s a possibility we won’t be alive by the time Jesus returns. But here’s where the message of the Kingdom comes into play: The Kingdom of God has already invaded this present age so that men may know something of its blessings even in this corrupt age. While we await Jesus to return and seize the reins of power and establish the fullness of His Kingdom here on earth, you can still enter the Kingdom now. You can come under His rule and government now, and as you do so, you will experience true freedom through the liberating influence of the Holy Spirit working within you (Romans 8:2).
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