Prominent religious thinkers and activists such as Pierre Teilhard de Chardin and Thomas Berry have defined humanity in recent decades as living in an axial age. In simple terms, an axial period is one in which there are major mutations of our social fabric regarding consciousness and social structures.

I believe we today remain living in an axial period announced by the likes of de Chardin and Berry. Living in such an age that occurs every few hundred years in history is both challenging and uncertain. We cannot easily predict the eventual outcome of the transformative process. The significant changes that are likely to occur may move civilization in directions that are productive and fundamentally enriching for all created life forms or, on the contrary, they may enhance the further deterioration of our social fabric and sustainability foundations. People will come to know and experience the final verdict when the current axial age reaches its conclusion. The new age that dawns will retain some forms of previous creational existence. But the new existence will undergo significant, even radical redefinition. 

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