Peter MacDonald
“Therefore let us go to him outside the camp and bear the reproach he endured. For here we have no continuing city, but we seek one to come.”
Hebrews 13:13–14 (KJV)
There is a striking parallel between Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World and the ‘smart cities’ being developed by global elites today. Although Huxley was not a believer in God, he still sensed something profound: no matter how advanced or tightly controlled a society becomes, it cannot suppress the part of the human spirit touched by grace and God’s common grace for all, which Huxley was not aware of, being an atheist.
In Brave New World, the World State allows “Savage Reservations” to exist beyond their reach. These places are portrayed as primitive and uncivilised, used to highlight the supposed superiority of the controlled world. Yet it is in those reservations where true humanity survives. It is there that John the Savage, raised with Shakespeare and echoes of Christian morality, learns about love, loss, longing and faith. He becomes the conscience of the novel, reminding readers of what’s lost when comfort replaces truth.
Today, AI-powered cities like The Line in Saudi Arabia and other surveillance-heavy urban experiments are no longer science fiction. These digital projects aim to monitor every movement, predict every decision and even manage people’s emotional responses. They will offer safety, convenience and control but risk turning human beings into manageable units of data. A sanitised society – but a soulless one.
What the architects of these systems often overlook is this: God always preserves a remnant. The wilderness – physical and spiritual – remains a refuge. Grace flows where wires cannot run. Throughout history, God’s people have found ways to live outside oppressive systems:
- The early Christians met in catacombs.
- The Huguenots worshipped in caves.
- The Scottish Covenanters defied royal decrees in open fields.
- The Waldensians clung to scripture in Alpine valleys, sustained not by comfort but by conviction.
In every generation, some are called to walk outside the gates. They are labelled as misfits, extremists or relics of the past. But these are often the ones truly alive, because they are not fed by machines but by mercy. They are not managed by systems, but led by the Spirit. They live under grace, not grids.
The powerful elites know this. That’s why they lean on propaganda more than outright force. Like Pharaoh mocking Moses, or Babylon ridiculing the exiles, the modern system mocks those who live differently. But history remains clear: no empire that rises without God ever endures.
The real question is not whether this digital empire can be defeated – it already has been at the Cross. The question is whether you choose to remain within its walls or step out into the wilderness where Christ waits, where true life and freedom remain, and be of the world and not of it, as Jesus proclaimed.
Even here in New Zealand, we have a legacy of this very spirit.
The Free Church of Scotland settlers who founded Dunedin came not for gold or gain, but because of a schism in the church at home. They chose to leave behind the entanglements of state religion to build a community grounded in total freedom under scripture.
Their journey was not just migration: it was a spiritual exodus, a search for a land where Christ alone would be King and the Bible the only charter. That founding spirit still whispers through the hills and stone churches of Otago: freedom is worth everything and it is found where Christ is Lord, not Caesar.
