George Orwell's novel Nineteen Eighty Four pictures a world run by totalitarian regimes. In this world "Big Brother" controls everything - where people live, what they do, where they work, what they say, even how they think. "thought crime", to think thoughts that are against the ideology of the Party, is a heinous wrong.
The central character in Orwell's book is a man named Winston. Winston finds himself rebelling against the "Big Brother". He finds an alcove in his house where the cameras of Big Brother cannot observe him, he begins an illicit affair with a woman named Julia, and in his own thoughts he questions the way the world is.
Eventually he is captured, and sent to prison to be "rehabilitated". This means breaking him emotionally and physically and then turning him once more into a party drone. His interrogator is a man named O'Brien. At one point O'Brien chillingly says to Winston: "The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power. Not wealth or luxury or long life or happiness; only power, pure power....Power is not a means; it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship....If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face - forever."
"If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face - forever." To many people this seems to be the future. Oppression, violence and poverty are an ongoing reality in many corners of our world. But the good news of the Christian faith is that this will not be the last word, that the risen Christ will return to restore the universe too goodness and justice. This is the Christian hope.
Source: Scott Higgins.
Topics: resurrection of Christ, return of Christ, evil, hope, justice, oppression, injustice, future, eschatology