It is easy to view life in the modern world as a clash of cultures, an ongoing conflict of values that keeps humanity in a perpetual state of discontent and strife. God Himself comments about human beings, “The way of peace they have not known” (Isaiah 59:8; see Romans 3:17). As the apostle Paul says in Romans 3:9, this persistent condition of turmoil exists because the people of this world “are all under sin.”

When God created humanity, the Bible tells us in Genesis 1:27, “God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them” (emphasis ours throughout). In the next chapter, a closer retelling of the events on the sixth day of creation, Moses writes that “the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, . . . and man became a living being” (Genesis 2:7). Then, “the LORD God said, ‘It is not good that man should be alone; I will make him a helper comparable to him’” (Genesis 2:18), making a woman from Adam’s rib (Genesis 2:22). He joined them in marriage—creating a family, a nascent community (Genesis 2:24).

In its spare style, the creation story introduces two major human philosophies: individualism and collectivism. We can understand them most simply through the pronouns I and We. Individualism (“I”) focuses on the rights, concerns, and goals of each person, while collectivism (“We”) prioritizes the same for groups and communities. In a “normal” society, these two worldviews should balance in tension, attempting to fulfill both individual and communal desires and aims. In Genesis 1-2, God acknowledges His creation of individual man and communal mankind (see also Genesis 5:1-2). As chapter two ends, they exist in balance (consider Leviticus 19:18; Matthew 22:39 in this regard).

Genesis’ third chapter, however, relates the entrance of sin into the world and the individualism-collectivism equilibrium. Its arrival drastically tilts the equation toward individualism, as each person wants what he or she judges best for the self. According to Genesis 3:16-19, sin curses women with sorrow, pain, and the battle of the sexes, and it saddles men with grueling, futile, lifelong labor.

These effects of sin bring out the worst in people as they strive to achieve their desires in competition with the rest of humanity. Cain’s murder of his brother, Abel, in Genesis 4 stands as an obvious example of the strife selfish individualism spawns. After more than a millennium and a half of increasing Cain-like self-centeredness and corruption—to the point “that every intent of the thoughts of [man’s] heart was only evil continually” (Genesis 6:5)—God sends the Flood to restart humanity (see verses 6-12).

Since that time, the pendulum has swung from individualism to collectivism and back again many times. Which worldview takes precedence in any given era often depends on such diverse factors as geography, climate, population, wealth, technology, political leadership, and religion.

Some societies, especially where survival is more challenging, have leaned toward collectivism to increase their chances of producing enough food or manning their borders. In such situations, entire communities pitching in for the welfare of all face better odds than scattered, unsupported individuals. Such cultures value loyalty to family, tribe, religion, or state over individual needs and aspirations. As the group’s cohesion and success are more important than any one person, an individual who prioritizes his desires before those of his community is often severely sanctioned, leading to expulsion or even death. Soviet Russia and Communist China exemplify extreme political versions of collectivism.

Conversely, Western nations have spearheaded progressive individualism since at least the sixteenth-century Protestant Reformation, when Europeans rebelled against Catholicism’s imposed religious and political collectivism. Since then, each generation has pushed the boundaries of personal liberty and autonomy, eroding loyalty to established institutions. While individualism spurred thinking and innovation—creating the Ages of Exploration, Colonization, Industrialization, Transportation, and Information—it has also thrust radical ideas into the mainstream of philosophy, education, and religion. Their tendency has been to fracture society into increasingly smaller groups of like-minded people until only the individual remains (see Judges 17:6; 21:25). We have “progressed” from John Donne’s “No Man Is an Island” to Demi Lovato’s “I Love Me.”

With its mislabeled social-media networks, fractured political landscape, and perverse sexual “freedoms,” the Western world is swiftly lurching toward peak individualism, putting it squarely in the crosshairs of Communist China and Russia, both collectivist holdouts from the last century. Currently, West and East are engaged in a proxy war in Ukraine, playing military chicken with the lives of millions, testing each other’s political resolve. As in Vietnam—where the same two worldviews clashed over fifty years ago—there will be no true winners. Money, arms, infrastructure, and lives will be spent in vain without resolving the underlying conflict.

At some point, the tenuous equilibrium will fail, and the world will plunge into the maelstrom of total war, the horrible devastation and death of the time of the end. As Jesus says in Matthew 24:21-22: “For then there will be great tribulation, such as has not been since the beginning of the world until this time, no, nor ever shall be. And unless those days were shortened, no flesh would be saved . . ..”

The “I versus We” conflict is, of course, not the only cause of the coming holocaust. However, it represents the inability of individualistic human beings to recognize and control their selfish tendencies, to sacrifice for the good of others, and to value and support larger entities that promote unity and shared effort. On the collectivist side, it likewise characterizes the failure of entrenched groups or communities to encourage personal responsibility and excellence; to allow freedom of movement, opinion, and expression; and to recognize the worth of each human life. Taken to extremes by competing nations, these differences, when seen as threats to a revered way of life, become a casus belli.

As Christians, we should consider where we stand on the individualist-collectivist spectrum. As predominantly Westerners, we will likely discover we favor individualism. Yet, God has called each of us to a greater “We,” the Body and, ultimately, the Bride of Christ, a unified assembly of believers (I Corinthians 12:12-14, 27). Are we in balance?