aetcma ;iiid the Holv Roman Empire.rnCommunist Russia’s dream of becoming the center of a newrnworld civiHzation appears to have foundered with the breakuprnof the Soviet empire in 1991, 927 years short of a millennium,rnblitler’s ‘ision turned to nightmare and ended in blood and ashesrnafter onl- 12 years. Thus this last centun’ of our millenniumrnhas seen two ver’ fast false starts as far as a third age is concerned.rnOur own new American republic, proclaiming itselfrnthe Nuvus Ordo Seclorum, the New Order of the Ages, beganrnless pretentiously and has lasted longer, with 777 years to go untilrnits millennium.rnPresident George Bush eoked dreams of a New World Orderrnin 1991, the last decade of this millennium, but once thernGulf War ended, he said nothing more about it. hi his succe.s.sfulrncampaign against Bush, Bill Clinton evoked Utopian ideas,rncalling for “the courage to change” and promising a NewrnCovenant. He did not call his covenant third, but his use of thernbiblical expression intentionally or unintentionally evokedrnquasi-religious images of another New Age, as different fromrnthe present age as the New Testament is from the Old.rnhi the last year of this old millennium, strange events havernbegun to unfold. ‘I’lie Cold War is over—won, we say—and thernvictors arc up to sometliing, perhaps to more than they themselvesrnrealize. NATO, a defensive alliance forged to defendrnWestern Europe against the Soviet Union, has been reconfiguredrnas, in the words of a French journal, “a vehicle of Americanrnhegemony.” Was its war against Yugoslavia the first battlernfor a new and different kind of empire? The world has becomernglobalized, we are told. The same computers that cause us tornfear 01/01/00 link ever’ tribe and nation into one earth-encompassingrninternet. The surface of the earth, coered with die zoospherernof human and animal life, is now being covered, to rrsernPierre Teilhard de Chardin’s term, with a nouosphere, but arnmechanical one, not spiritual as he envisaged. It is not the increasingrnmental activit’ of man that will cover the entire earthrnin a mental net; the emerging nouosphere mav be a kind of mechanicalrnimiversal Mind made up of all of the interlockingrncomputers of the world.rnAre wc at the dawn of One New World? There is no declaredrnhuman candidate for emperor, no nation that w ill admitrnto seeking world hegemony. One nation, ours, appears to ha’crnat least some inclination in that direction, and our Presidentrnseems to be appointed (or self-appointed) to exercise an officernonce reserved for Cod, that of reruiu mundi moderator, tliernmoderator of all the affairs of the wodd. On the other side of thernEarth, a vast people, four times as numerous as ours, is determinedrnto prevent that from happening. The eyes of the worldrnare fixed upon Israel and Jerusalem, where the plan of Cod andrnthe schemes of man hae intersected in the past. WillrnJerusalem once again be “trodden down of the Gentiles” (Lukern21:24)? For tire first time in human histon,’, it is possible to envisagernan Armageddon in which the combatants number notrnthousands, hundreds of thousands, or even millions, but hundredsrnof millions, as in the iniager’ of tiie books of Daniel andrnof Revelation.rnAs we approach the turn of tlie millennium, we have heardrnor endured a series of predictions of a new order and attempts tornerect it. From Lessing’s naively optimistic expectations of maturernhuman reason in The Education of the Human Racernthrough America’s ambitious but non-rcvolutionarv’ Novus OrdornSeclonmr to Bismarck’s Second and Hitler’s Third Reich, thernhuman vision of a new order has become progressively morernsecidar and, alas, more awful. Are we on the threshold of anotherrnand more universal New World Order, ruled not by thernmind of Cod, but by the universal mechanical Mind of all thernworld’s computers?rnHuman attempts to create a Utopia, a new order, a ThirdrnReich, a new Gommunist Man have proved not merely vainrnbut deastatingly dreadful in die inversion of their stated goals.rnPaul warns of those who, “Professing themscKes to be wise . . .rnbecame fools” (Romans 1:22). Will our kinder, gentier pursuitrnof ever grander and more vainglorious dreams bring us to a eliniaetiernThird .ge in the third millennium? Utopia is not possible,rnfor man determined to force its birth becomes a monster —rnperhaps literallv, as a genetically engineered, cloned New Man.rnIn 1914, just before the belle epoche disappeared in fire andrnsmoke, the poet Stefan George warned:rnYou felons are the first to murder Cod,rnCar’e out an idol not resembling Him,rnHailed b’ sweet names, and hideous as no otherrnYou hurl the be.st you lia e into its jaws.rnChristians all over the world offer the Lord’s Prayer coundessrntimes ever’ day. It has the petition, “Thy kingdom come.” Asrnwe celebrate, or merely obser’e (as the case may be), for the lastrntime in a vear numbered 1—, the birth of the One after whomrnour years are ninnbered, we can both hope and pray that if therernis to be a Third Age, it will be more like Joachim’s ‘Third Age ofrnthe HoK’ Spirit than like any modern messiah’s Third Age of thernReligion of Man. crnBleeding in Gray Shadowsrnby Thomas Paul De WittrnI find my soulrnIn the compositionrnOf shadows.rnA brush of gray,rnA sparkle of white,rnA dark boomrnAnchoringrnMy center.rnSo solid, so rigid.rnSo amber and so bled.rnTo touch a vein so tenderrnAnd bleed forevermore.rnDrained, I fold.rnOnly to stand tallrnIn the shadow of Cod.rn18/CHRONICLESrnrnrn