On this day, I was fresh into my familiar journey when I read again the story of the tower of Babel in Genesis 6.

All of us remember the story. The peoples of the world came together to build a tower that would reach to heaven. God saw the construction and the pride that prompted the planning and as a result, God destroyed the towers and scattered the people throughout the world by confusing their languages. As I read the story, other things I had been reading and hearing kept coming to mind. I remember reading about group of physicists and philosophers discussing recent discoveries in astronomy and how these events would change our understanding of our world and ourselves. I remembered an article about geneticists who were going over the implications of the recently published human genome.

I thought about how politicians and other expert watchers of the political landscape began to discuss the meaning of the fracturing of America into sub-groups. We once were a nation where everyone wanted to fit in. Now, we are nation where everyone wants to stand out and express their unique identities in the languages and customs of their sub-groups, refusing to be absorbed into the great melting pot of our society. Add to that the very real segregation of our world into urban/suburban/rural, of the economic have/have-nots, the technological have/have-nots — each with own language and culture — and we can begin to understand why communication, or rather miscommunication, is such an issue for our time.

Then it hit me. The story of Babel isn't about a bunch of people who lived a long time ago. Babel is the story of the place where I live and work. Like many others, I am trying to do church in Babel — a place where all of the foundations are gone and no one can talk to each other.

When I began my ministry over twenty years ago, there was a basic list of primary assumptions in the communities where I served. People generally agreed there was a God, He created the world, and He had standards for us to live by. Even the town drunk would confess to "believin' in Jesus." You could begin any discussion on right and wrong with the phrase made famous by Billy Graham, "The Bible says." Now, Christians have to be able to build a philosophical case for Christianity before we begin to build a theological case for Jesus. Our culture has no overriding concept of truth, right, wrong, good, evil or any of the other concepts you would think reasonable people would have to agree on for civilized society to be, well, civilized. In the words of Judges, everyone is doing what is right in their own eyes. People may come to see things from your point of view, but they will not recognize any authority outside of themselves. Truth is negotiable and personal.