Kingdom Voices | From Babel to Bitcoin: Decentralization and the Fall of False Unity

Kingdom Voices is a fellowship stewarded by Jack Raney

Kingdom Voices is a series of reflections calling a generation to see money, work, and creation through the lens of divine order stewarded by Jack Raney. 

“Jack’s diligence, curiosity, and devotion to Kingdom truth are emblematic of what Kingdom Bitcoin stands for, restoring discipline, integrity, and faith to the way we build and steward creation.” - Jeff Hasselman

In Genesis 11, humanity gathered on the plains of Shinar and declared, “Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves.” It was not the construction project that offended God. It was the heart behind it: pride masquerading as progress, and unity built on control rather than covenant. Humanity wanted one language, one system, and one tower under human authority instead of God’s rule. To protect them from their own ambition, the Lord scattered them and confused their language.

Babel was never about architecture. It was about authority. It stands as humanity’s earliest picture of centralization, a monument to self-exaltation. The impulse that built Babel still survives. Every era reassembles its own tower. Kings have done it with armies, banks with credit creation, and corporations with data. These modern towers promise security through uniformity and order through obedience. Yet every tower built on human pride eventually collapses because it violates the design God built into creation.

Today’s financial system reflects this same pattern. Central banks and governments consolidate power by controlling the measurement of value itself. They dictate one economic language and the world is expected to fall in line. Markets depend on artificial stimulus, nations borrow without restraint, and truth shifts according to policy. This, too, is a kind of Babel. It is a tower of paper wealth stretching toward the heavens, supported not by righteousness but by illusion.

Then something unexpected appeared. In 2009, during the aftermath of another global financial crisis, a new foundation was laid. It was not built on trust in institutions but on mathematics. Bitcoin entered the world quietly, like a voice from the margins. It had no king, no temple, and no central tower. Its strength came from voluntary cooperation among countless independent participants. It offered order without hierarchy, many members unified by shared rules rather than imposed rule.

Decentralization is humility expressed structurally. It admits that no single man or institution is worthy of controlling the flow of value, just as no human being has the right to monopolize truth. In this way, Bitcoin quietly reflects divine wisdom. Creation itself is decentralized. The stars, the seasons, the body of Christ, the ecosystems of the earth. All operate under law, yet move freely within that law. Freedom in God’s design is not disorder. It is harmony without tyranny.

Bitcoin’s openness creates accountability. Every transaction is visible. Every rule is transparent. There is no privileged priesthood. Participation requires integrity. Where Babel pursued power through control, Bitcoin pursues peace through consensus. It disperses authority in the same way God once dispersed languages, not to divide but to protect.

For believers, this carries deep resonance. The Kingdom of God is not a human empire. It is a living network of hearts transformed by truth. Jesus did not build a tower. He built a body, diverse and self-regulating, united by the Spirit. Bitcoin, though temporary and earthly, echoes that pattern. It disrupts false unity rooted in fear and replaces it with voluntary order rooted in truth.

Babel shows us that prideful centralization ends in confusion. Bitcoin shows us that humble cooperation leads to clarity. One seeks control. The other honors law. And perhaps in our digital age, God is once again allowing the towers of man to crumble, so that truth, not tyranny, may stand in their place.