“For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.” (Romans 3:23)
Eric Blair’s work confirmed the truth of the gospel. He surely didn’t mean to, but he did just the same. Blair, the Englishman who wrote under the pen name George Orwell, wrote the novel Animal Farm, completing it just before the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of World War II. Animal Farm is an imaginative, thinly-veiled commentary on Communism’s flaws. An avowed Socialist, Orwell despised Communism and portrayed it as darkly as possible.
Tired of being exploited, the animals on Manor Farm rose up and overthrew Mr. Jones, the master of the farm. Having run him off his own farm, the animals had an opportunity to start fresh. At first, there appeared to be fairness and equality under the new order. “All animals are equal,” ran the watchword on the now renamed Animal Farm. Gradually, however, that equality was strained, twisted, and broken. By the end of the novel, the revised slogan was, “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.”
Did the environment around the animals ruin things? No, they could have made the farm–in theory–as wondrous as Eden. Did poor strategy doom them? No, they planned endlessly, and, at first, worked tirelessly. What, then, spoiled Animal Farm? Corrupt hearts. Selfish souls. Pride. Dishonesty. Epic greed and jealousy. The farm sank to chaos and returned to exploitation because–in the language of Paul the Apostle–all involved had sinned and come short of the glory of God.
Oversimplification? Hardly. Through the ages, humankind has tried again and again to build, grow, prosper, and flourish. Some efforts have been brilliant, some dull; some have been charitable, some brutish. All, though, have been marked by individual human hearts that need cleansing, redemption, and forgiveness in Christ. Orwell stumbled into the truth when his farm animals said, “All animals are equal.” Paul affirmed that all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. "All" means absolute equality of need and of condition. Christ offers eternal salvation to all. It’s not too good to be true.
