February 3 2012
HOW THEN SHALL WE LIVE?
One of the most e-mailed articles in the New York Times issue of January 28 had this opening paragraph:
“A couple of weeks ago, on a leisurely Sunday afternoon, 40 people gathered at a church in Washington Heights for a show-and-tell session sponsored by the New York City Preppers Network. One by one, they stood in front of the room and exhibited their “bug-out bags,” meticulously packed receptacles filled with equipment meant to see them through the collapse of civilization.”
I emphasize the last line: “To see them through the collapse of civilization. I guess I am not the only one who thinks that we live in the most perilous period of history.
The Bible, both in the Old- and the New Testament tells us to: “Come out of her, my people, so that you will not share in her sins, so that you will not receive any of her plagues, for her sins are piled up to heaven…” (Revelation 18: 4-5).
It is my opinion that we no longer physically can opt out: it is too late for that. Still the question “How then shall we live?” must be asked.
My tentative answer comes in two parts.
(1) We should live so that we are mentally/spiritually prepared for the collapse of civilization, which is a prelude to the return of Christ, described in the three last chapters of Revelation, the very last Bible book. That, I think, is the easy part.
Christians always have looked forward to Christ’s return, reason why the entire New Testament is written with Jesus’s immediate return in mind. Acts 2 relates how the first Christians shared their possessions: they expected His return in a matter of weeks or months, not years.
There is a reason why Christ has taken his time: we had to discover the boundaries of creation: the boundaries of science – splitting the atom; the boundaries of nature – Climate Change; the boundaries of commerce and trading- how the lust for money is the root of all evil; the boundaries of space – satellites – and other boundaries, such as what to eat – vegetarian I believe, perhaps also the boundaries of organized religion and formal marriage. This knowledge and much more, is needed to avoid mistakes in the new creation where everything has to be perfect.
The Bible is not a history book: it is the book of salvation, but it gives hints of the future, such as in Matthew 24 and Revelation 16 and 17. These passages don’t paint a pretty picture. Already there are abundant signs of looming disasters, and judging by history and human nature, little or nothing will be done to prevent matters from getting out of hand. No wonder ‘collapsitarianism’ is all the rage.
When will Christ come back? A distant relative of mine – Harold Egbert Camping (My first name is Egbert) tried to fix the date, but we know that is impossible, yet Jesus gives numerous pointers: Matthew 24 Verse 14 says that before Christ comes back, the ‘Gospel of the Kingdom’ has to go world-wide. Not just the Gospel. Jesus is very specific: The KINGDOM Gospel, which means the good news that the New Creation is about to come: here the World Wide Web is the most likely medium. Matthew 24: 15 gives another indication: the planetary plague of pollution: “So when you see standing in the holy place (that is God’s holy creation!), the abomination that causes desolation – yes, that refers to Climate Change and world-wide pollution- let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains.” The annotation ‘let the reader understand’, indicates that the warning applies to both the destruction of Jerusalem, which happened in A.D. 70, and the end-of-time, when Christ returns, preceded by enormous disasters, both natural and man-made.
That same recent New York Time article also said this:
To the unprepared, the very word “prepper” is likely to summon images of armed zealots hunkered down in bunkers awaiting the End of Days, but the reality, at least here in New York, is less dramatic. Local Preppers are doctors, doormen, charter school executives, subway conductors, advertising writers and happily married couples from the Bronx.”
There is indeed a wide-spread fear that there’s something seriously amiss in society. The “prepper” meeting took place in a church, but Christians are not mentioned among the “preppers”. Satan’s most successful deception has been that believers go to heaven even though the Bible never mentions this. It actually says the opposite: nobody can see or approach God. (1 Tim 6: 16.) It does state that God, the earth and the human race belong together forever. One of my friends once said: “God made no junk and will not junk what he has made.” That’s why the question: “How then shall we live?” is so important because the earth is our habitat for ever.
(2) My second part of “How then shall we live?” involves love. 1 Corinthians 13 is all about love. It says that if we don’t have love, even if we have faith to move mountains, it amounts to nothing. Traditionally we have applied this love to humans only, but that is not enough: our love has to be total, and must include everything God created. John 3: 16 very explicitly states that God’s love is in the first place aimed at his creation: “God so loved the cosmos.” We have to move away from ‘man’ centred loving, so-called anthropocentric love and embrace everything that lives. We need to practise the sort of reverence for all life found in the Hindu and Buddhist traditions, as well as in the teachings of Saint Francis of Assisi and Albert Schweitzer. We need to learn to value other species for their own sakes, and not because we expect to use them for our own economic goals. That may be a lot more difficult, because for the last 500 years we have acted as if the earth’s resources were infinite, and have mercilessly exploited nature and animals, indeed ‘dominated’ the earth, rather than lovingly ‘serve’ her, as Genesis tells us.
Especially the tribal traditions of the native populations emphasize the importance of harmony with nature. Before we can enter the New Creation we must learn how to be one with creation. Here is a quote from “Land of the Spotted Eagle” by the Lakota (Western Sioux) chief, Standing Bear (ca. 1834-1908):
“The Lakota was a true lover of Nature. He loved the earth and all things of the earth… From Waken Tanka (the Great Spirit) there came a great unifying life force that flowered in and through all things, the flowers of the plains, blowing winds, rocks, trees, birds, animals, and was the same force that had been breathed into the first man. Thus all things were kindred and were brought together by the same Great Mystery….Kinship with all creatures of the earth, sky, and water was a real and active principle. For the animal and bird world there existed a brotherly feeling that kept the Lakota safe among them. And so close did some of the Lakota come to their feathered and furred friends that in true brotherhood they spoke a common tongue.”
I know this sounds difficult to achieve in today’s urbanized world, where everything is geared for profit, including all of nature. Yet, if I read my Bible correctly, then that sort of virgin world is our future, a place where everything is in harmony. Call it ‘paradise.’
How then shall we live?
My grandparents – born in the 1870’s – had no trouble with that question. Their lives were totally in tune with God’s earth. We now live in a time where we are harvesting what James Lovelock calls “The Revenge of Gaia.” A good example is the current practice of “fracking” and ‘oil at any cost’ which will only make nature’s problems worse.
Matthew 5: 48 combines the two parts of the answer. It says: “Be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect.” The Greek word for ‘perfect’ is ‘teleios’, of which a better translation is ‘holistic’, embracing matters from beginning to end. Teleios comes from the Greek word ‘telos’ which we find back in ‘tele-phone’, tele-vision’, something we hear or see from ‘telos’, from ‘afar’. Telos means ‘end’. So when we are ‘teleios’ we keep the ‘end’ in mind, the New Creation, where everything will be perfect, Jesus message of The Gospel of the Kingdom. Only holistic living does that. It takes a lot of prayer and community support to even begin such a life style. Our aim is to become anthropoi teleioi people who live for the coming of the Kingdom.
My constant prayer is: Lord, have mercy on me, because I fall so short of these goals.
Next week: an exploration on “The Lord’s Prayer”. In January 4649 people visited www.hielema.ca/blog