If You Do Not Know Where You Are Going
09-11-2025
A PROPHETIC IMAGINATION OF AMERICA UNDER PROJECT 2025
There is an old proverb: If you do not know where you are going, you will end up somewhere you never intended. It applies to individuals and nations alike. Right now, Americans are debating the sweeping proposals gathered under the name Project 2025. Many dismiss it as politics as usual. Others see it as a distant threat.
But what if we imagine, through the lens of faith and history, what our country might look like ten years from now if every part of this plan were carried out? Imagination is not prediction. It is prophecy in the biblical sense: holding up a mirror, asking whether we recognize where the road leads.
What follows is a letter written from 2035, looking back on a decade of full implementation.
A Letter from 2035
My dear friend,
It is the year 2035, and I write with a heart weighed down. Ten years ago we thought Project 2025 was just another policy document. We told ourselves that America was too anchored in law and tradition to drift very far. But the road was chosen, and this is where it brought us.
The Economy of Scarcity
Grocery stores are stocked, but prices are punishing. With immigrant labor stripped away, fields stand half-harvested, houses take years to build, and eldercare is a privilege for the wealthy. Machines were supposed to replace workers, but no machine can comfort the dying or nurture a child. The wealthy thrive under a flat tax, while ordinary families shrink their hopes to fit their paychecks. Growth has slowed; opportunity feels like a memory.
Government Without Guardrails
The independence of agencies is gone. Justice, environment, and commerce all bend to the occupant of the White House. Civil servants once guided by expertise were swept out and replaced with loyalists. The Department of Education no longer exists; schools are fragmented and unequal. Children in wealthy areas flourish while others are left behind.
A Culture of Fear
For immigrants, life is perilous. Deportations and raids tore apart neighborhoods. Families live in shadows, fearing that a knock at the door will scatter them forever. Laws speak the language of morality but enforce only a narrow vision of family. Women and LGBTQ citizens lost protections once taken for granted. “Family restoration” was promised, but too many families are broken.
Creation Wounded
The air is thicker, the storms more violent, the summers hotter. With environmental protections dismantled, fossil fuels surged. Prosperity was promised; instead came floods, fires, and fragile communities where the poor suffer most.
Power and War
The Pentagon is again called the Department of War. The nuclear arsenal has expanded, and diplomacy has shriveled. Allies mistrust us. Trade wars made goods expensive. America is strong in weapons, but weak in friendship.
Faith Confused with Domination
Christian words fill the public square, but the spirit of Christ is harder to find. Faith is wielded as a tool of control, not as a call to service. Churches are divided, their witness dimmed. The poor still come to our doors, but the nation no longer sees that Christ comes with them.
My friend, this is what happens when a people do not ask where the road leads. We traded solidarity for suspicion, stewardship for exploitation, dignity for domination. The proverb proved true: we ended up where we never intended to go.
Yet hope is not dead. God’s mercy does not abandon us. The Gospel still whispers its eternal truth: I am the way, the truth, and the life. If we have courage, we may still find our bearings.
Signed from the future,A voice that wishes we had chosen the road of Christ, not the road of control.
The Present Choice
This is not a prediction. It is a prophetic imagination. We are still in 2025, standing at a crossroads. One road leads toward compassion, justice, stewardship, and human dignity. The other leads toward control, fear, and exclusion.
The Gospel asks us: Do you know where you are going? For if we do not, the nation may end up somewhere it never intended.
But what if we imagine, through the lens of faith and history, what our country might look like ten years from now if every part of this plan were carried out? Imagination is not prediction. It is prophecy in the biblical sense: holding up a mirror, asking whether we recognize where the road leads.
What follows is a letter written from 2035, looking back on a decade of full implementation.
A Letter from 2035
My dear friend,
It is the year 2035, and I write with a heart weighed down. Ten years ago we thought Project 2025 was just another policy document. We told ourselves that America was too anchored in law and tradition to drift very far. But the road was chosen, and this is where it brought us.
The Economy of Scarcity
Grocery stores are stocked, but prices are punishing. With immigrant labor stripped away, fields stand half-harvested, houses take years to build, and eldercare is a privilege for the wealthy. Machines were supposed to replace workers, but no machine can comfort the dying or nurture a child. The wealthy thrive under a flat tax, while ordinary families shrink their hopes to fit their paychecks. Growth has slowed; opportunity feels like a memory.
Government Without Guardrails
The independence of agencies is gone. Justice, environment, and commerce all bend to the occupant of the White House. Civil servants once guided by expertise were swept out and replaced with loyalists. The Department of Education no longer exists; schools are fragmented and unequal. Children in wealthy areas flourish while others are left behind.
A Culture of Fear
For immigrants, life is perilous. Deportations and raids tore apart neighborhoods. Families live in shadows, fearing that a knock at the door will scatter them forever. Laws speak the language of morality but enforce only a narrow vision of family. Women and LGBTQ citizens lost protections once taken for granted. “Family restoration” was promised, but too many families are broken.
Creation Wounded
The air is thicker, the storms more violent, the summers hotter. With environmental protections dismantled, fossil fuels surged. Prosperity was promised; instead came floods, fires, and fragile communities where the poor suffer most.
Power and War
The Pentagon is again called the Department of War. The nuclear arsenal has expanded, and diplomacy has shriveled. Allies mistrust us. Trade wars made goods expensive. America is strong in weapons, but weak in friendship.
Faith Confused with Domination
Christian words fill the public square, but the spirit of Christ is harder to find. Faith is wielded as a tool of control, not as a call to service. Churches are divided, their witness dimmed. The poor still come to our doors, but the nation no longer sees that Christ comes with them.
My friend, this is what happens when a people do not ask where the road leads. We traded solidarity for suspicion, stewardship for exploitation, dignity for domination. The proverb proved true: we ended up where we never intended to go.
Yet hope is not dead. God’s mercy does not abandon us. The Gospel still whispers its eternal truth: I am the way, the truth, and the life. If we have courage, we may still find our bearings.
Signed from the future,A voice that wishes we had chosen the road of Christ, not the road of control.
The Present Choice
This is not a prediction. It is a prophetic imagination. We are still in 2025, standing at a crossroads. One road leads toward compassion, justice, stewardship, and human dignity. The other leads toward control, fear, and exclusion.
The Gospel asks us: Do you know where you are going? For if we do not, the nation may end up somewhere it never intended.