The Bible recognises that societies organised around wealth and power easily drift toward injustice. Yet it offers no political blueprint for a perfect society. Instead, it proposes a moral framework built on prophetic criticism of injustice, limits on the accumulation of wealth, and—most radically—an inner transformation of the human heart. The teaching of Jesus challenges not only unjust systems but the human desire for possession and status that sustains them.
Aldous Huxley begins Island with a curious little scene. Will Farnaby, a cynical journalist, is shipwrecked off the coast of Pala. Half-conscious and aching, he is discovered by two island children. They tend his wounds, but they also insist on something odd: he must tell them what has happened, again and again. At first Farnaby …