NOVEMBER 6 2016
READY FOR JUDGMENT DAY?
Last week I picked up one of the last books written by the well-known Canadian born economist John K. Galbraith. I scanned the contents, but only read the last paragraph. The book A JOURNEY THROUGH ECONOMIC TIMES, ended with these words: “Our future will depend on the outcome of the quiet or perhaps not so quiet war between the comfortable and the underclass.”
This was written before 1994, and now, 22 years later this prophecy is being fulfilled.
In a few days we will know the outcome of the US election, a struggle between the comfortable and the underclass. As a comfortable person my preference is Hillary but I am afraid that this election will not solve anything: on the contrary it will only emphasize the immense difference between these two classes of people.
Last Monday I returned from a wedding in Minnesota, but we mostly stayed in Wisconsin at our daughter’s cottage. It was disconcerting to see so many TRUMP signs there. I spotted no HILLARY ones.
I sat at two dinners – the Rehearsal dinner as grandparents of the groom and the wedding meal – and both times talked with Americans about the election, including a Washington insider, a good friend of our daughter’s. He told me that Washington is getting bored with the election, sure that Hillary would win, which now, after the latest email disaster, is in doubt.
I have a theory why the F. B. I. released the 30,000 missing e-mails. The Federal Bureau of Investigation wants Trump to win to prevent a general uprising of the underclass when Trump loses. Both the military and the police are Trump adherents, so when a revolt against Hillary does come, the authorities may call in vain on those who have to enforce the law.
Our two daughters in the States are Democrats, of course, being comfortable, while one grandson is now married into a loyal Lutheran – and strong Republican – family: very nice people and good businessmen as well. But they vote Trump. Their attitude reminds me of Bonhoeffer who disagreed with Luther on his so-called TWO REALM thesis, separating faith from political convictions. During the Hitler regime – 1933-1945 – the German Lutheran Church overwhelmingly supported Hitler. Bonhoeffer fought that tooth and nail and it cost him his life: he dared to be different.
Back to John Kenneth Galbraith, who also wrote:
THE CONVENTIONAL VIEW SERVES TO PROTECT US FROM THE PAINFUL JOB OF THINKING.
I like that quote. Politicians want to get re-elected. One of their favorite promises is to say that they will engender Economic Growth. Trump promises 25 million jobs, and people believe him, a man who is a true disciple of Satan, the father of lies. A bit of thinking – yes, a painful job – would make it clear that we simply cannot have Infinite Growth in a Finite World. The world is tired and exhausted, and literally running on fumes, and polluted ones at that.
Conventional thinking by people and politicians never include creation, God’s earth on which we have the privilege to dwell and which God has given us to look after. That looking after has degenerated into exploiting the earth. The church at large sees God as holy but regards creation as disposable, fanatically adhering to the so-called Nature-Grace divide, separating nature from God. Imagine, splitting Bach from his music, or van Gogh from his paintings! Yet we do it with God. Go figure!
Slowly, but, I am afraid it is too late, we are discovering that we are indeed part of nature: harm nature and we are killing ourselves as well. Church leaders, almost to a man (!) vote for heaven: it is so much easier to go there than to live a life that reflects the eternity that is to come in a New Earth.
I once submitted a manuscript to an agent. His reaction: well-written, but due to the lack of a heaven perspective it will never sell. Does that really mean that this is an either/or situation? Either I am right or the church is? Is there no common ground in this matter?
John 3: 16 has convinced me that I am right and that the church is wrong. That famous text says that God loved the world, the cosmos, which God created perfectly, and which he gave to us as a totally harmonious entity. We – stupid we – sold it to The Evil One. (Will we do it again when the USA elects TRUMP?) God, however, still loved his precious earth so much that he offered his only Son as a sacrifice to buy it back – redeem – from the current owner, The Evil One. On Calvary, Jesus on the cross, the deal was made final, but the final transfer – the new owners moving in – will take place when Christ returns: in the meantime trouble, big time.
By and large almost the entire church remains heaven-oriented. I know why: the church wants to conform, just like the church in the Hitler days. Yet Jesus always was unconventional and always was direct, that’s why we too must dare to be different.
Yes, the Bible is controversial. We hardly ever hear a sermon on Jesus’ words that “many are called but few are chosen”. Matthew 20: 16 happens to contain that discouraging news.
Or take Christ’s obscure wondering whether he would find FAITH on earth when he returns. Luke 18: 8 relates Jesus’ question, surely a rhetorical one, of course, meaning that no, he will not find much of the sort of faith that sees his creation as holy, because faith in the New Creation is so downright unorthodox.
If the church really would proclaim that, if the church really would LIVE that God’s earth is holy, then very, very few people would come to church, because it would break with all accepted conventions, and would change the church into a “struggling for answers” community, making efforts to see the earth as holy, trying integrated living, venturing to factually live in harmony with God’s creation, attempting to change our way of transportation, switching to growing wholesome food, to sharing possessions with the less well off. Then efforts would be made to build and occupy energy efficient housing and perhaps doing away with automobiles and flying everywhere.
It looks that the Amish have the right answers after all.
Our entire political, social and economic establishment is set up to prevent us from questioning and thinking. Thinking is not enough, of course, because thinking has to result in action.
Basically most of us are conventional people: we hate to be different; we hate to stand out; we hate to go against the grain. In a word: we hate to be controversial because that is unpopular.
And that brings me to the LAST JUDGMENT.
Picture yourself standing face-to-face with Jesus. I imagine he will ask us some very pointed questions.
Here’s a little story about JUDGMENT.
When reluctant Peter was dispatched by the Holy Spirit to preach in Caesarea, in the heart of the Roman Occupation Force in Israel, he faced a large assembly never before exposed to the gospel. You know what his opening words were? Here’s what Peter said to these aspiring Christians: “(Jesus) is the one whom God has appointed as judge of the living and the dead.” (Acts 10: 42).
Those were his exact words. First thing Peter talked about was Jesus being the Judge. And what will Jesus ask us when we face him?
He will ask us first and foremost about our love or lack thereof of the cosmos for which he gave his life.
That brings me to THE LORD’S PRAYER, the most recited and least understood of all prayers. HALLOWED BE THY NAME is the first line. We have left the word HALLOW in there for a reason: it’s obscure, it’s basically meaningless, because we never use the word in daily encounters.
Nevertheless it means HOLY and refers to God’s creative powers as expressed in Psalm 33: 9 where God spoke and the earth was formed by his HOLY Word. Jesus, when he asked us to use that prayer as a model for all other prayers, started with the suggestion that we regard God’s creation as HOLY.
Back to JUDGMENT.
It seems to me that when Jesus sits in Judgment, every person alive or dead, you, me, our parents and grandparents, everybody, will be asked how we have dealt with that first, and presumably most important, part of the prayer he taught us: how have we dealt with creation. One of Jesus’ questions, perhaps the only one, will be: “How have you lived in relationship to my creation?” And we will tell the truth: before him no lie can stand.
And this brings me again to THE USA PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN
In the entire 18 months election campaign, Climate Change was hardly mentioned. Trump and the Republicans deny this takes place.
But to live so that GLOBAL WARMING will not get worse, will never happen, or to put it in a positive stance, Climate Change will accelerate because we are too complacent and too self-satisfied. It’s simply too inconvenient, will require too many changes.
That means that, basically we all are little TRUMPS. The comfortable are just that and the underclass want to be like the comfortable. Climate Change will only speed up, unchecked, until we are confronted with self-inflicted collapse.
Here’s a little known item that I gleaned from THE ARCTIC NEWS. It writes that “One reason for the low sea ice extent is the high and rising temperature of the Arctic Ocean. On October 31, 2016, (LAST WEEK!) the Arctic Ocean was as warm as 17°C, or 14°C warmer than the average during 1981-2011.”
High Arctic temperatures mean that in these shallow waters, the methane Hydrates are starting to be released, a gas 100 times more lethal than our common automobile exhausts. When this happens, we could see a 10°C increase in the Global Temperature. Welcome to Hell on earth.
This indicates that any measure we take to reduce GHG, Green House Gases, is totally futile. No wonder 2016 will be the hottest ever recorded. It used to be that ice and snow would bounce back the warm sunshine, but now with most of the ice and snow gone, the dark waters absorb all the heat.
IT’S US AGAINST CREATION, IT’S US AGAINST CHRIST.
We, the human race, are fighting the War of all Wars: us against creation, us against the CREATOR. Not surprising that Jesus questioned our faith and wondered why so few follow his teaching
Of course, the result will be our total defeat, at the cost of all that we hold dear, including our own lives. THE WAR IS UNIVERSAL. The war is caused by our refusal to let go of the conventional, our refusal to accept our wasteful ways as sinful.
Before, when we were in wartime conditions, the poor and marginalized would face greater food scarcity and price insecurity, and the threat of violent conflict connected to this instability. In actual wars such as World War I and World War II, these people would often find themselves on the front lines while the richer were insulated or even benefited.
Not so this time. In our war against God and his creation, the rich, possessing more, will also lose more. It reminds me of the Iconoclast, when in 1530-60 the masses revolted against the rich church and against all established authorities. Now 500 years later, the dispossessed again will go where the possessions are and destroy them.
THE CONVENTIONAL VIEW SERVES TO PROTECT US FROM THE PAINFUL JOB OF THINKING.
Convention no longer works. All established authorities, from political to business to ecclesiastic, will cease to be. We have to start to think outside the box, think the way Jesus taught us: Love God and his creation above all other matters. That must be our priority from now one. And the second is like the first: love your neighbor, including your enemy, the Muslim, the Gay and Lesbian, like yourself. These two commandments have priority over all other rules.