Co-owning the Earth (2)
Call me a heretic and I’ll say ‘amen brother’ (or sister), because the word heresy comes from the Greek word ‘hairesis’ which means ‘to go one’s way.’ That’s what I try to do, not conform, not crawl along with the crowd, not complacently comply: no, I am busy “working out my salvation with fear and trembling” (Phil.2:12).
For me working out my salvation is a constant struggle between how I live and how I should live, because new times need a new approach. A Dutch theologian, Dr J.H.Bavinck, wrote in his book De Mensch en zijn Wereld – and I translate – “we cannot imagine a greater contrast than that between the compelling and concordant composition of creation as it came forth from the hands of God, and the now by demons dominated domain, the place where our haunted human tribe abides after the fall into sin.”
Why is this man so outspoken? Here is his answer: “The Kingdom is kaput. That is the deep tragedy, a disaster much greater than creation’s broken harmony: the earth’s meltdown means that God has surrendered his work of art to the Devil’s powers whose only aim is to abuse and destroy what God has made.”
I am afraid that too often I also am his willing ally: each time I drive a car or switch on a light, I aid in creation’s destruction.
Bavinck continues, “The kingdom includes all plants, animals, people, angels; it means that sea and earth, mountain and valley, past, present and future are part of a powerful and meaningful entity, in which everything has its perfect place and in which every tiny item functions properly and deploys its inherent power in total unity and in complete symbiosis with its surroundings. That peaceful stability has been broken.” So far Dr Bavinck.
The Copenhagen meeting earlier this month was a feeble attempt to restore a bit of balance. I believe that James Lovelock was right when he wrote in his The Revenge of Gaia, Earth’s Climate in Crisis and the Fate of the Earth: “We have driven the Earth to a crisis state from which it may never, on a human time scale, return to the lush and comfortable world we love and in which we grew up.”
Frankly I cannot understand how John 3:16 “God so loved the world,” is almost always understood to mean that God’s love is restricted to the human race. However, the Greek original says, God so loves the “cosmos,” the totality of life. If God loved all that lives, shouldn’t we do the same? Shouldn’t we also love trees, seas, air, animals, with every fiber in our bodies, every day, every hour? Shouldn’t that be the focus of our lives, the essence of ‘being born again’?
If it is sin to kill and to steal, then surely it is a sin to destroy carrying capacity – the ability of the earth to support life now and in the future. To give back to God the gift of creation in a degraded state capable of supporting less life, less abundantly, and for a shorter future, is surely a sin.
I know it’s much easier to believe in heaven, to escape this earth and its wickedness than to conduct ourselves as co-owners and so treasure the earth as our dearest possession. It requires fear and trembling to live so today that when Christ returns we have no trouble fitting into the new creation that is about to come.
In these end-times a new religious focus is needed. The world realizes already that we live in the last days. During November two movies were released, and next January two more will be, all four films dealing with Apocalypse.
(1) 2012. Massive shifts in the Earth’s crust lead to earthquakes, volcanoes and tidal waves, all in keeping with Mayan prophecy, a movie already wildly successful.
(2) THE ROAD. An unidentified cataclysm, possibly nuclear, plunges the earth into darkness and cold, eliminating most of life on earth: also to great acclaim.
(3) DAYBREAKERS. A plague has put vampires in charge of society, but their greedy, unsustainable corporate-hunting practices have almost destroyed the food supply.
(4) LEGION. God has become tired of all ‘our BS’ and decides to exterminate humanity by sending his angels – insect-like humanoids with extendable limbs and expandable claws – to kill us.
Here is a thought from a Christian historian, John Lucacs, who wrote: “The fear or anticipation that something may happen may cause it to happen (a view of ‘a future’ may cause ‘ present’)”. In other words, the fear that the earth may experience a tremendous upheaval, as these four movies try to tell us, may bring it about.
We are on the verge of a New Year. Not yet 2012, but 2010. Perhaps the Lord will come back this coming year. We, of course, don’t know the Day or the Hour, but all signs point that his coming is imminent.
This and other writings can be seen at https://www.hielema.ca//; Comments to bert@hielema.ca.