Bert Hielema–Columns and Writings

THE LAST THINGS.

A recent poll found that 40% of Britons have not read a book in the last year. “The literary era has come to an end,” Philip Roth prophesied in 2000. “The evidence is the culture, the evidence is the society, the evidence is the screen.” Roth believed that the habit of mind that literature required was bound to disappear. People would no longer have the concentration or the isolation needed to read novels.

What is true for reading, is also true for ‘religion’. To use the above line: “People no longer have the concentration or the isolation needed to reflect on matters eternal.” The great apostle Paul, the author of many letters, still utterly relevant after 2,000 years, owed his learning through reading and memorizing large sections of the Hebrew Bible, and also knowing and appreciating the then contemporary authors, including the great Greek authors Homer and Plato – See Acts 19, describing his appearance in Athens, Greece. That’s why he urged in his letter to believers in Thessalonica – 1 Thessalonians 5: 21 – to “Test all things. Hold fast to what is good.”

That truth, ‘to test all things’, applies to us even more now, than to the communicants in that city in Asia Minor. It applies especially to today, in times of change, spiritual turmoil, and immense advances, both technical and philosophical. Scripture constantly urges us to be openminded, to see developments always in the light of the coming new world, the place Christ-followers see as their final destination. Yes: The Last Things!

To ‘test the last things’ means being a reader, means being tolerant and wise, means being able to discern, means being well-rounded and versed in contemporary thinking. It especially implies having a thorough understanding of Scriptural thinking, and Christ-centred knowledge, now both lacking.

When Paul addressed the recent converts to Christianity, he urged them to not just swallow his Christ-centered words, but to probe their veracity in the light of what is happening all around them, especially in a time when the aim of the Roman authorities was to proclaim the Roman Emperor as God.

Nothing new.

Today we are faced with the same aim: we see ‘economic growth’ as the overriding goal of our civilization, in spite of ecological agony and meteorological disasters. Affirming the assessments of experts in the fields of ‘nature’ studies is the required ‘Christian’ duty also for theologians as it concerns God’s Holy Creation, even though the Trump administration has forbidden the mention and publication of these studies. It is essential for all of us to read and to absorb the study of THE LAST THINGS, the significance of which appears more and more in today’s scenarios.

My outlook.

I see my life from the perspective of the future. By this I mean that I am ruled not by the past, but by what the Bible projects as “The New Earth to Come”, a state where ‘righteousness’ rules, righteousness also in regards to ecological conditions, defined by their laws.

Today we experience the backlash of our past actions: the bill for our riotous living is due, and the amount we owe is beyond our ability to repay. We can deny this condition – and we do – but that only aggravates the problem. The Western World is facing its final Reckoning, which the late James Lovelock defined as “The Revenge of Gaia”, a Christian concept.

Christians confess that God fashioned the earth and then donated it to us to develop it, reflecting his intentions. However, we followed a different path and today face the consequences of the LAST THINGS.  According to Kübler-Ross, we now in the stage of denial, even though the signs of our demise are crystal clear.

Two Immediate Threats.

Climate Change, now out of control, is well known, while AI, Artificial Intelligence, is increasingly being recognized as having the immediate potential to destroy all that lives and moves and has a being. It is developing so fast that those in the know fear that it threatens to be ‘better’ than humans at everything, at which point it is basically going to run the whole show, making us humans superfluous.

I see these developments as the full implementation of the “Tower of Babel” concept: The LORD said, “If as one people speaking the same language, they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. (Genesis 11:7). God will not tolerate this.

Today we again speak the same language, and, indeed, everything has become possible, including the destruction of the entire world. We, right now, are experiencing THE LAST THINGS: we better prepare ourselves. Because our generation has lost ‘religion’, has lost the God/Creator concept, the surprise will be total. That’s why– see Revelation 11: 15 – the future guarantees that:

   “The kingdom of the world has become
    the kingdom of our Lord and of his Messiah,
    and he will reign for ever and ever.”

 REJOICE!

ANY CHANCE FOR CHANGE?

New Pope, old church.

New President, old hat.

New economy, old problems.

New climate, old approaches.

There is this song:

Abide with me, fast falls the eventide
The darkness deepens, Lord with me abide
When other helpers fail and comforts flee
Help of the helpless, oh, abide with me

Swift to its close ebbs out life’s little day
Earth’s joys grow dim, its glories pass away
Change and decay in all around I see
O Thou who changest not, abide with me.

If there is a song, if there are lines that apply to today more than any other, they are the above cited lyrics, composed decades ago, supposedly played by its orchestra when the Titanic sank in the frigid waters of the North Atlantic in 1913.

Today, this year, this decade, the world is in its last stage of dissolution. Pessimistic? No. Optimistic, because I wholeheartedly believe, and do one hundred percent endorse, that after this terminally ongoing phase, there will be, for the sake of Christ-believers, an unexpected, all-comprehensive ending, telos, reckoning, judgement – whatever you call it – heralding the onset of the new Creation, of which numerous Bible passages speak, none more eloquently than Romans 8:

I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. For the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed.  For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God.

We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.

Please note: This passage is all about creation, and her increasing suffering, evident in rapidly vanishing species, and ever shrinking natural habitat.

Back to Today.

Back to Today, where we have experienced an interesting week. A week in which 133 old men, never married, reared in purely protective portals, within the ecclesiastic exterior of basically masculine mannerisms, chose a new leader for an institution that is quickly fading in importance. After all, its entire organisational structure is totally outdated, being based on an Old Testament model that died 2,000 years ago on Calvary’s Cross, when Jesus exclaimed: It is finished. Believe me: the priestly order is finished, even though it is taking 2,000 years to achieve a degree of reality.

Why?

At that precise moment Jesus died, he did his last miracle: “The curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom.” (Mark 15: 38) That curtain separated, in the Old Testament Temple, the room where only the High Priest, once a year, was allowed to enter to make atonement. Suddenly, with Jesus’ death, atoning for all the world’s sins, this High-Priestly symbolic act was declared null and void, and with Jesus’ very final act, RELIGION received its final farewell: away with all manifest measures of ecclesiastical expressions, evident in church spires pointing to heaven, in clerical robes and collars of any kind, in ‘reverend’ designations of various grades: all gone when that curtain ripped.

Typical Conduct.

The rituals evident especially in choosing a new pope, and in church proceedings in general, where change is seen as sacrilegious, these factors are also in plain sight in other fields of human enterprise. New Pope, old church: Change has no chance.

.

New President, old hat.

The new president is a comical figure, who is trying to rule his world based on flimsy notions. Impossible! The societal structures solidified into staleness over centuries, are, just as the ecclesiastical entities, ready to implode. His ‘reign’ will simply accelerate this process.

New economy, old problems.

Is there really a new economy? No. Jesus lamented that ‘The poor you will always have with you, but you will not always have me.’ (Matthew 26: 11). The rich control the economy, and, as Paul wrote to Timothy: For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. That was true then, and is true today. Yet, we are facing a new economy, as we are entering “The Limits of Growth”, for the simple reason that we live in a Finite World. That ‘finite’ condition will dominate our financial situation, resulting in shortages and inflation. The new economy requires ‘economy’, implying wartime conditions, not seen in 80 years, since the End of World War II.

New climate, old approaches.

We are facing impossible challenges, the most glaring being Climate Change. If there ever is a threat to LIFE, it is Global Heating, which has no solution anymore: it is baked into our human fate.

ANY CHANCE FOR CHANGE?

No. Sorry.

THE FALL OF BABYLON.

“Write, therefore, what you have seen, what is now and what will take place later.”

                                                                        Revelation 1: 19

No, the Bible does not tell us what happens day-by-day, of course not. It does however, especially in the last Bible book, picture how our world will end, and how then a new beginning emerges, with the new humanity that is wise, mature and knowledgeable. This new humanity is given the opportunity to pick up where “Adam and Eve” failed. That awareness, that desire, that ‘faith’ instinct, starts now, while we still dwell in an era where God-defying people – think Trump – create the ultimate universal undoing, speeding up the process of total disintegration.

Of course, right now, we all are participants in this unfolding drama, this creation-God defying human experiment, culminating in “The Fall of Babylon”. The author of REVELATION tells us that our earth, given to us by God, (see Psalm 115:16), has become like Babylon, that God-forsaken place, to which the Israel nation, some 2,500 years ago, was exiled.

My Spiritual Journey.

We all have our spiritual journeys. For me the year 1972 was the beginning of new insights, the year when ‘my eyes were opened’. Oh, I had been a ‘Christian’ from Day One of my life: born into a devout, church-adhering family, who had been sincere believers for generations.

Before that year I was the typical, obedient, run-of-the-mill-heaven-devoted believer. Example: as a member of a book club, I received Rachel Carson’s book, SILENT SPRING, and gave it away before I ever read it: ‘nature’ simply was not something that interested me.

Then the year 1972 became a turning point.

Two friends gave me books they liked and recommended: 1. The Dutch “Sterven.. en Dan?”, (After Death… What?). That book, written by a theologian, opened my eyes to ‘Life after Death’, lived, not in heaven, but in/on God’s work of art: his creation. That radically changed my life.

In the second book: “The Limits to Growth”, Danielle Meadows and others, drawing on computer models, investigated exponential trends, spanning population, industrial production and environmental impact, and concluded that by 2025, the world would reach the limits of earth’s resources, and its economy would start contracting, no matter how much money were used to prevent this.

Then there was still another book that clarified my thinking: Dr. Barry Commoner’s book, The Closing Circle (1971) in which he outlined “The Four Laws of Ecology”:

1) Everything is connected to everything else; 

2) Everything must go somewhere; 

3) Nature knows best; 

4) There is no such thing as a free lunch. 

These four laws emphasize the interconnectedness of ecological systems and the consequences of human actions in the environment. Especially today, Anno 2025, these four laws prove the foolishness of our industrial, nature-despoiling-earth-polluting lifestyle. Memorize them!

New Times.

Today the world economy is at a major turning point, which is why we should brace for rapid changes in the economy. The world is moving from having enough goods and services to go around, to not having enough to go around. The dynamics of the economy are very different with shortages coming. The hoped-for solution of higher prices doesn’t fix that problem, because, adding more buying-power simply produces inflation. Other solutions are needed. The world economy is reaching what simply is “Limits to Growth.”

I believe that Revelation, the last Bible Book, is prophetic in this regard. To the discerning reader it indicates what the future holds. See the heading of Revelation 18: it says The Fall of Babylon. I believe that Babylon, the city/country to which Israel was banished, is now equated with our secular world. In that chapter, the fall of our creation-destroying society is foretold: There – see verses 11- 19 – our economic collapse is pictured. Substitute gold and precious stones for yachts and fancy cars, estates and glamorous women, and we talk about people like Musk and Trump, Thiel and the Billionaire Bunch now ruling the economy. “In one hour, the economy has been brought to ruin”, (Verse 19).

Economies throughout the ages have grown until their populations grew too large for resource availability. World History is replete with societies that fail. Babylon was one of them. Jared Diamond, 20 years ago, wrote COLLAPSE, How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed. Herelates the well-known example of Easter Island, in the Pacific, far from mainland Asia or America, where deforestation contributed to its total collapse. Other equally astute examples are the Maya cities, and, of course the Roman Empire, whose demise, somewhat arbitrarily, has been pegged at 476 AD. There too, supplying an increasing population, and decreasing resources, were factors.

Our fossil fuel age began over 200 years ago, and it now seems to be reaching its end.

Be mentally and religiously prepared.

THE  DEVIL VERSUS DIVINE DUEL

“But woe to the earth and the sea,
    because the devil has gone down to you!
He is filled with fury,
    because he knows that his time is short.”

Revelation 12: 12.

Mark 4: 39 indicates Jesus’ deity, and his continuous struggle with his opponent, the Devil. Continuous? Yes. History actually is typified by the struggle between God and the Devil. When the kings of Egypt menaced Israel, tried to eradicate her, then it was not Israel, but the ‘child’ that was the target. When centuries later Jerusalem was destroyed, and the entire population exiled, that too was all about the child that had not yet been born.

The history of the world basically is the unending duel between Good and Evil, between the Divine and the Devil, who has been pursuing Jesus from Paradise to the present.

Here is an example.

The twelve disciples were doing what they do best: Sail the rough waters of the Sea of Galilee. Experienced sailors they are, not easily frightened, they suddenly were exposed to a storm of the century, and thoroughly afraid, call out for divine help.

Divine help?

Yes, Jesus is there, asleep, so, desperately afraid – and that means something for these professionals, grown up on the ups and downs of the waves – they think they are about to drown. Then Jesus does an unusual thing: he talks to the waves and the waves oblige, because their motions were induced by Jesus’ opponent: the Devil.

When Jesus ‘rebuked’ the waves that threaten to drown him and his 12 disciples, he, actually, put a stop to the Devil and his attempt to eliminate ‘the Message’, all part and parcel of the age-old struggle between evil and good.

More intensity evident today.

That battle is now intensifying. With the Devil thrown out of heaven, and landing feet first on earth, everything in the human sphere is affected to an immense degree: Satan, banned from God’s presence, uses his defeat to start a new activity. From now on, world events will be more frightening, accelerate with greater ferocity, assume more ghastly proportions, drag millions along in a danse macabre, speed relentlessly to chaos and social upheaval.

The Almighty Human?

Today we see an immense increase in human power. It almost seems as if God for centuries has blindfolded humanity to prevent it from seeing all the planetary powers and possibilities, and then, suddenly, God rips away the blindfold, so that the one perspective after another opens up. This wild, unrestrained progress of human thought and technical prowess comes with a good dose of triumph, but also with visions of frightening nightmares. We read the harrowing words – applicable right now – “Woe to the earth and the sea, because the devil has gone down to you.”

Enter Climate Change.

That is all too evident in The Climate. Every morning I receive an update from ARCTIC NEWS. I will share with you yesterday’s communication:

Temperature anomalies for February-March 2025 over the Arctic were as much as 20°C higher than 1951-1980, as illustrated by the image on the right.
The fact that these anomalies occurred at a time of year when little or no sunlight was yet reaching the Arctic indicates that the cause of these very high anomalies is extremely high ocean heat. 

This rapidly warming Arctic Ocean is quite shallow, and covers zillions of tons of Methane, 100 times more lethal than Carbon Dioxide (CO2). Once this is released, Global Warming will kill all that lives and moves and has a being.

That’s precisely what the Devil has in mind: Destroy, destroy, destroy. Climate Change is one way; nuclear war is another. We, the human race, now have the power to annihilate what God in Genesis 2 called ‘good’ seven times. We – with rare exceptions – are participants in this process, because the outcome for our way of life is anything but good. When God destroyed the world in which Noah lived, he promised not to repeat such an event, knowing that this time we – guided by the Devil – would do so.

Hope.

The Devil thought that when Jesus was killed, he had won the battle. And then the impossible happened: “Up from the grave he arose!”.

What was true for Jesus, will become also true for the cosmos. God loves his Son: he loves his cosmos equally well: Revelation 21 will soon become reality, because Jesus is stronger than death.

Then I saw “a new heaven and a new earth,” for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. 

There is a clear choice: the duel will end. Being the Devil’s dutiful disciple ends in death. Being Christ’s gracious co-worker brings LIFE, and that to the full.

PAROUSIA, CHRIST’S RETURN.

Parousia indicates the Second coming of Christ.

The word itself is found in that terrifying chapter of Matthew 24, where Jesus describes the very circumstances, we are experiencing today. In its 3d verse, He uses the GREEK word Parousia, also found in 1 Corinthians 15:23, and in 1 Thessalonians 2:19.

You may not have noticed, but the concept of Parousia – the ending of this world, and the onset of THE NEW WORLD – frightens the billionaires of our age. They are preparing for this event by building elaborate retreats, while, ironically, those who call themselves followers of Christ, are fixated on going to heaven, a Greek, pagan notion, deeply ingrained in Christendom.

Why is heaven so preferred?

Heaven is the church’s favorite, because it is much easier to exploit earth’s riches than to appreciate, cherish, yes, love the earth as God’s precious gift to us, not to exploit, but to enhance. That’s why Jesus’ repeated warnings – open your Bible and check such passages as John 3: 13, John 7: 33, John 8: 21 – clearly state that where Jesus is going, we cannot come. However, the erroneous ‘belief’ that Christians, upon death, go to heaven, is almost universally accepted as ‘gospel’ truth. It is clearly the Devil’s teaching, inspired by pagan preaching, propagated by Plato and Socrates, who separated mind from matter, heaven from earth, seeing mind as good and matter as evil. Socrates drank the poison with pleasure, in the false notion that leaving ‘material life’ would lead to ‘eternal’ bliss. Yet, this unbiblical heaven notion has dominated Christianity almost from its inception, in spite of Genesis 2, where God surveyed his creation and pronounced it ‘good’ seven times.

Enter Dietrich Bonhoeffer and J. H. Bavinck, two prominent theologians. 

First the eminent Dutch theologian, the late professor of Missions at the Amsterdam Free University. He writes: “It is God’s intention to unite all fractured parts of his creation into one overarching harmony. There is no such thing as individual Salvation. All salvation is of necessity universal.

In other words, personal salvation and the salvation of creation go hand in hand: you can’t have one without the other. 

Bonhoeffer, as outlined in Dr. Sabine Dramm’s book on Bonhoeffer, goes a step further: Christians exist with both God and the world. And that means: worldly Christianity, a religion-less Christianity. In Bonhoeffer’s eyes, for us to be Christian and for the church to be Christian, believers must be fellow travelers with the world; God’s kingdom comes whenever the church remains in solidarity with the world while awaiting the Kingdom from God alone…….God wants to be revered by us here on earth, in our brother and sister, nowhere else. And then she quotes Bonhoeffer: Christianity in its present form has no future as a religion.

Quoting Bonhoeffer again, she writes: “God himself mended this sundering of religion from life by living in Christ a human life in a human body, and thus life lived in the discipleship of Christ is a full, undivided life as a full human being. It is simply impossible to experience God without the world, and to taste the reality of the world, without God: worldly existence and Christian existence are not simply two sides of a coin, but they are at one and the same time the entire coin.”

It is well to re-read the above passages, both based on John 3: 16. In that dialogue Jesus outlined to Nicodemus, an important teacher in the Jewish most important school of theology, God’s plan for salvation: Love Creation just as God does. 

What does this mean for us, as Christians?

Embrace creation: work for her betterment, ask for forgiveness when we harm her. I tentatively see the cosmos as God’s female expression, God’s beloved daughter, just as Jesus is his male counterpart, his beloved Son.

Back to Dramm: ‘We are off the beaten track or even secularists when we no longer believe in God’s kingdom. Secularists are Christians who accommodate by denying God’s kingdom on earth and a flight from the earth. Christians exist with both God ‘and’ the world and with God ‘in’ the world: that means ‘religion-less’ Christianity, worldly Christianity.’

What does the immediate future resemble?

I experienced the Hitler regime from 1932-1945. Its aim was to establish a One Thousand Year Kingdom of Peace, preceded by a period of purification, not unlike Trump is pursuing. The Nazi experiment lasted a dozen years, ending in total destruction and millions of deaths. The Trump Era too will end in bloodshed and global demise. Watch what’s happening on the Climate front: In the Polar Regions heat threatens to reach sediments at the seafloor of the Arctic Ocean and destabilize hydrates contained there, resulting in eruptions of huge amounts of methane:  the most lethal of gases. 

Could that trigger the Parousia? Stay tuned.

DOES FOREWARNED MEAN FOREARMED?

This my work is more about seeking than finding; of that which was found only a little bit is truly certain; the rest, however, is marked as “problem to be found”.                                                        Augustine.

Augustine of Hippo, also known as Saint Augustine and in the Eastern Orthodox Church as Blessed Augustine, was a theologian and philosopher of Berber origin and the bishop of Hippo Regius in Numidia, Roman North Africa. He was born on November 13, 354 AD, and died August 28, 430 AD (age 75 years). According to Dr. Douglas Hall of McGill University, “he was perhaps the main architect of Western theology who, writing in Latin – as then all people did – wrote: Si comprehendis, non est Deus, (if you think you understand, it isn’t God you are talking about). “God remains the unknown one, even when God reveals Godself – no, especially then!”, writes Dr. Hall in his book, What Christianity is not.

Here is one of my educated guesses about the many unknowns in the Bible: In these last days, much that was pure guesswork, becomes plain when it actually happens. When there is a mention of ‘let the reader beware’, it often means that we can only grasp the mystery, when it knocks at the door.

Forewarned is forearmed?

This past week, close to Easter, I read Luke 18: They will mock him, insult him and spit on him; ³³ they will flog him and kill him. On the third day he will rise again….The disciples did not understand any of this. Its meaning was hidden from them, and they did not know what he was talking about.

The mindset of the 12 disciples was fixed on ‘power’, on becoming important functionaries in the “Jesus” Empire, where victory over enemies was assured, where providing bread was no problem, as Jesus fed thousands of people, so Jesus’ words of his impending death fell flat.

Today is no different. Creation/God is speaking loud and clear that our increasing use of fossil fuels will kill creation, but we ignore the signs, and continue our rapid descent into the cosmic holocaust that awaits us. 

Or take another one of Jesus’ sayings.

The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full. (John 10: 10). 

This begs the question: ‘Who is the ‘thief’, and what is ‘life’?

My simple answer is: “We”. We, especially we, the latter-day earth-dwellers, especially we, the affluent Western folk: we are the thieves. ‘Life’ is living in tune with creation.

I sincerely believe with Psalm 24: The earth is the LORD’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it. I also believe Psalm – 115: 16 – The highest heavens belong to the LORD, but the earth he has given to mankind. Yes, God gave to earth to us, not to exploit, but to enhance, to beautify, to improve, and make better. 

He gave it to us to delight in its intricacy, be amazed at its coherence, where everything is connected to everything else, where the chemical air composition is just perfect, health-enhancing, where the waters covering 70 percent of the globe, always have the perfect temperature, just to give 2 examples.

But just as the disciples ignored Jesus’ repeated warnings that he had to suffer, had to die, would voluntary surrender himself to ultimate trauma and the most horrible death, we too ignore the increasing signs that God’s creation, leased to us under strict conditions of betterment and enhancement, will suffer the same fate of Christ, as Peter, the apostle, among many, wrote: “But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything done in it will be laid bare”.

The above is the ultimate happening: total incineration. ARCTIC NEWS lately brings daily examples of situations how this can could play out. Up, way up North, in the Polar regions, where the shallow Arctic Ocean is rapidly warming, it threatens to melt the immense mass of METHANE accumulated there, one hundred times more lethal than the GHG – the Green House Gases – generated by our so adored automobiles. Here the prediction of the apostle Peter, is being implemented, but we refuse to believe it, just as the disciples did not absorb Jesus’ sayings.

Who says that the Bible is a mysterious book? As the theologian Karl Barth told us: Always read the news with an eye on the Bible, and always read the Bible with an eye on the news.

We have been warned. We ignore the warnings. We are forewarned, but refuse to be forearmed.