Religion, Hope, and Change Theme Analysis

The book’s heroine, Lauren Olamina, is the daughter of a Baptist minister who founds her own religion, Earthseed, in the midst of the apocalyptic disintegration of the United States. The novel begins with Lauren’s conflicted feelings about Christianity on the eve of her baptism, and ends with a mass funeral service in which pieces of Christian and Earthseed scripture are read side by side. One of the most important aspects of the narrative arc of the novel is thus Lauren’s journey to take Earthseed seriously and reconcile her commitment to Earthseed with the experience of being raised in a Baptist family. In the latter half of the novel, Earthseed begins to attract converts, and in doing so grows organically from a set of ideas and observations within Lauren’s mind into a real religious community. Throughout this process, Earthseed is also contrasted with Christianity, and the most important aspect of this contrast emerges from the way in which each religion addresses hope and change.

Whereas Christianity is depicted as providing a (false) sense of hope against a brutal and chaotic reality, Earthseed’s central principle is simply that “God is change.” Followers of Earthseed must accept that change is inevitable, that it is often destructive, and that they have the power to “shape God.” As a result, Earthseed provides a more real, tangible sense of hope than Christianity. Rather than praying to God for mercy and justice, followers of Earthseed work to change the world themselves. Shortly after befriending Travis on the walk north, Lauren explains the principles of Earthseed to him, at which point Travis objects: “Your God doesn’t care about you at all,” to which Lauren replies: “All the more reason to care about myself and others. All the more reason to create Earthseed communities and shape God together.” Within Earthseed, the source of hope does not come from God directly, but rather from people, and specifically people who accept the inevitability of change and choose to pursue a constructive, compassionate way of life.

The novel points out that one of the main reasons why people are attracted to Christianity and other mainstream religions is because they provide hope in the form of the afterlife. There is little hope left within the daily reality of the characters in the novel, and thus many characters focus on the afterlife as the only possible source of redemption from the horror of their mortal existence. However, belief in heaven is—like belief in divine intervention—shown to often be an insufficient source of hope in the face of earthly brutality. This is tragically illustrated in the case of Mrs. Sims, a devoutly Christian member of Lauren’s neighborhood who kills herself despite believing that people who commit suicide will go to hell. Lauren notes: “She believed in a literal acceptance of everything in the Bible. Yet, when things got to be too much for her, she decided to trade pain for eternal pain in the hereafter.” This observation emphasizes that even the most deeply-held religious belief (and hope) is often not enough to console people against the suffering that exists in the world.

When it comes to the matter of heaven, Earthseed is once again shown to offer a more real and substantial form of hope in comparison to other religions. While some characters (such as Travis and Bankole) object that Earthseed will not be able to gain followers because it does not provide the promise of heaven, Lauren disputes this. Belief in heaven is a central part of Earthseed’s ideology, but—in Lauren’s words—“My heaven really exists. And you don’t have to die to reach it.” Earthseed posits that “The Destiny of Earthseed is to take root among the stars.” Lauren explains that humanity’s only hope of survival is to colonize space, and that this will be the equivalent of going to heaven for Earthseed followers. When Bankole asks Lauren what Earthseed offers, she replies: “A unifying, purposeful life here on Earth, and the hope of heaven for themselves and their children.” Note that in Lauren’s use of words, Earthseed does not offer the guarantee of heaven but rather the “hope” of it. At the same time, this hope is more tangible than the hope of a Christian afterlife, and is more closely tied to the hope of a better life within the post-apocalyptic earthly world.