“[God] made all nations to inhabit the whole earth, and he alloted the times of their existence and the boundaries of the places where they would live, so that they would search for God and perhaps grope for him and find him…” (Acts 17:26-27).
Arthur H. Robinson died not long ago in Madison, Wisconsin. I noticed the obituary in my newspaper. Dr. Robinson was a geographer at the University of Wisconsin – and a world-class mapmaker. I am familiar with his work; we use his wonderful maps here in our offices.
Dr. Robinson pioneered a breakthrough in the science of making maps, fueled by a simple insight. He understood that every map in the world is merely a “projection” of the lands it represents. And every projection is guided by certain criteria – some obvious and some, perhaps, not so obvious.
Take the Mercator Projection, for example – a traditional map found in schools and colleges across the country. The map is based upon the work of Gerardus Mercator, a Dutch mapmaker in the 16th century. The Mercator Projection was drafted as an aid to maritime navigation, in the days of the great explorers. It emphasizes accurate coastlines and contours – good for sailors. But the projection sacrifices an accurate approximation of size and scale – bad for the development of a reasonable world-view. Northern latitudes are dramatically exaggerated while tropical areas are condensed. Norway and Sweden appear nearly as big as South America. And Greenland swells to continental size.
The problem results from the inherent difficulty of depicting a globe on a flat sheet of paper. Among mapmakers it is sometimes called the “Greenland problem” – a problem of scale that that makes Greenland equal to all of Africa. In the real world, as you might know, you could fit fourteen-and-a-half “Greenlands” in the continent of Africa. You could fit all of the United States in Africa’s northwestern quadrant, all of Argentina just below, all of India above the horn, all of Europe across the central plains, all of China in the southern cone – and still have room for New Zealand somewhere in between. Does your map show the relationship? The Robinson Projection attempts to remedy the imbalance introduced by Gerardus Mercator. Northern latitudes are properly compressed, while tropical latitudes are expanded. Greenland appears as it should – about the size of Mexico and a fraction of the size of South America. It is all a matter of perspective.
There is a kind of “Greenland problem” in the spiritual world, too. Our spiritual maps are “projections” just like their geographical counterparts. As Minnesotans, Iowans and Californians, etc., we tend to swell the significance of northern latitudes while we underestimate the significance of God’s activity in Asia, Africa and Latin America. We tend to inflate our own needs, perspectives, culture and values, while under-appreciating needs and perspectives from elsewhere in the world. And what is worse, we navigate by our projections. American Christians spend approximately 95% of their considerable income on themselves. Approximately one half of one percent is invested in reaching the unreached with the Gospel of Jesus.
In the end, of course, neither Robinson nor Mercator will do. The only projection that matters is God’s own. How does God see the world? Are we willing to see it as he does? Will we navigate our lives by what we see?