We Are Already in Heaven, if Not in Hell

What if we are already in heaven? This question may sound spiritual but it is deeply political and economic.

Across religion, economics and politics, the same moral lesson is preached in different languages: sacrifice now, be rewarded later.

Clergymen promise heaven after death. Economists promise development after structural adjustment. Politicians promise prosperity after the next election.

The vocabulary changes but the structure does not. The reward is always deferred, and the gatekeepers remain the same.

Christianity teaches Namibians to trade competing values – righteousness against sin, while waiting for judgement day.

Believers endure poverty on earth so they can inherit the Kingdom of God, a place without pain.

Economically, the world is divided into “developed” and “developing” nations.

This language was born at the Bretton Woods Conference to rebuild Europe after World War II.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank were created to reconstruct infrastructure destroyed by war.

Europe used those same institutions to reach first-world status. But when Africa, including Namibia, inherited the label “developing”, the outcome changed.