The old Star Trek series introduced a Prime Directive to the explorers of the Starship Enterprise. Faced with the depredations of Earth colonizers, the Prime Directive protected a planet’s culture and cultural development from interference from a more “advanced” civilization. The Prime Directive was a general policy and in rare circumstances justifiable exceptions existed. If someone else (say the Klingons) interfered, perhaps the Federation had to balance the equation to keep the planet developing naturally. Generally, though, people were to be left alone to find their own way.
The Prime Directive always struck me as a good thing if we were ever to “seek out new life and new civilizations.” We could be Columbus without sin, an explorer without the destruction and colonization.
There are many reasons to allow a civilization to develop naturally without interference. Most important is the liberty of each person: if the consent of the governed is important, then appearing with treats and overwhelming power can make informed consent hard! Star Trek rightly saw that all cultures, if they endure, will eventually find the unchanging truth. The Laws of Nature and Nature’s God* never change and can be found by any civilization. The many ways those unchanging laws can be applied to nature and to culture means the beauty of “infinite diversity in infinite combinations” is possible if the Federation, Star Fleet, or some other power (Klingons!) do not stamp the culture in their own image. Even well intentioned “help” can have unintended consequences as the spread of diseases in colonial contact demonstrated.
“We are from somewhere else and we are here to help,” is often the knell of doom.
God demonstrates this patience to us throughout history. God chooses to love us and so will not merely overwhelm us. The Divine nudges us, speaks to us, educates us, prodding us toward the good, truth, and beauty. The very vocabulary we need to know God was missing in the broken childhood of humanity. He patiently brings us forward, intervening when He can. God would have each nation, people, tribe, community respond to Him as in holiness and with justice, but art, customs, culture can vary gloriously.
Nobody directs God: God acts according to God’s will, but God wills love to us. The result is a primary direction toward us that allows growth over history. He revealed Himself in the person of Jesus Christ at just the proper moment, in just the right place, and then left us His Holy Spirit as He calls us to Himself. We can come to Jesus with different languages, folkways, art, and cultures, but gloriously one in justice, moderation, prudence, courage, hope, faith, and love.
His children who should meet each other with care, sharing the truth as they have found it with caution, have often broken this law of love. We have been blundered at best and bullied at worst. We have crushed what was not ours to crush and so much has been lost that might have been. There is no better day than today to do better.
Let’s liberate always, colonize never.
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