Micah 6:8 – “He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?”
After completing St. Augustine’s book The City of God, I became curious… what would the City of Humankind look like today? Augustine wrote his monumental work between 413 and 426 AD, in the aftermath of Rome’s fall to the Visigoths in 410 AD. It was the first fall of the Empire in 800 years. Many blamed Christians, as Christianity had become deeply entwined with the state after Emperor Constantine’s conversion. In response, Augustine set out to defend the Christian faith and its place in history.
He contrasted two cities: the City of God and the City of Man (or Humankind). He wrote:”Accordingly, two cities have been formed by two loves: the earthly by the love of self, even to the contempt of God; the heavenly by the love of God, even to the contempt of self.”
This quote offers a powerful lens for analyzing our present context. Today, we too are citizens of a city—globalized, digitized, hyper-connected, yet deeply fragmented. We must ask: are we building a city rooted in God’s justice and mercy—or one shaped by self-love and idolatry?
Our society is obsessed with defining the “good life.” For some, it means economic success, health, entertainment, and the like. But is this enough? Has humankind begun to weigh happiness by idols—market, health, technology—rather than the presence of God?
Augustine’s critique was not merely about Rome. It was about any civilization that puts the self at the center. Our modern City of Humankind mirrors ancient Rome in many ways:
· Spiritual apathy has overtaken sincere devotion. Where once pagan Romans rejected Christianity outright, now many reduce it to cultural formality. We find ourselves surrounded by nominal Christians—externally religious, but internally detached.
· Moral decay has become normalized. Rome was infamous for infidelity and public sexual orgies. Today, the world has become hypersexualized. Violent media intoxicates our minds; even the minds of children are reached through entertainment that numbs moral sensitivity. Pornography and digital addictions have become common in the fabric of daily life.
· The state and ideology have often replaced genuine faith. In ancient Rome, religion was entangled with imperial power. Today, we bow to new gods—economic systems, political ideologies, and trending philosophies that leave little room for the Gospel.
History offers repeated warnings: the Tower of Babel (Genesis 11), built from pride and the desire to “make a name” for humanity, ended in confusion and division. The Great Depression exposed the fragility of economic idols. Today, modern secularism and globalism often dismiss God altogether, reducing human purpose to productivity or pleasure.
These patterns remind us that when the love of self dominates, downfall becomes inevitable. The City of Humankind, like Babel or Rome, cannot stand firm when it forgets its Creator.
Augustine asks us, what should humanity love? Should we love God to the contempt of self—or love ourselves even to the contempt of God? This is not merely a theoretical question. It is the foundation on which cultures rise or fall. When love is misdirected, cities decay. But when love returns to God, renewal begins.
An exposition of the book ofPsalm 4:3–5 reminds us how to live as Christians in a broken world, to be in the world but not of it, to own things but not be owned by them. This is what it means to possess with detachment. As pilgrims on earth, we are not meant to be enslaved by temporary treasures.
Charles Mathewes, in The Republic of Grace, reminds us, “Wars we will always have with us; worries and terrors, anxieties and uncertainties… But we must never allow the terrible pressures of today to make us forget that today is not all there is.”
We need more than reform. We need renewal. Not merely changing laws or policies, but transforming hearts and visions. This is the prophetic task: to build the City of God within the ruins of the City of Humankind.This is where the call of Micah 6:8 comes alive. God calls us to a new ethic: to do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with Him. This is not a distant dream—it begins with how we live, love, work, and pray today. The City of God is not built by echoes of slogans, but by citizens who live according to God’s Word.Let us be such builders. Even if our roofs are shattered, our shoes worn, our clothes tattered—if our hearts are rooted in Him, we shall not complain.
To God be the glory.
Amen.
~ Aonukshila Kichu