Bert Hielema–Columns and Writings

February 18 2023

THE OLD TIME RELIGION: STILL GOOD ENOUGH?

You may know that ‘old time religion’ song:

Give me that old time religion,
Give me that old time religion,
Give me that old time religion,
It’s good enough for me.

It was good for Paul and Silas,
It was good for Paul and Silas,
It was good for Paul and Silas, 
It’s good enough for me. 

Of course, that ‘old time religion’ was never defined, because Christianity is not a religion, and cannot be defined. When Paul spoke to the philosophers on the Areopagus in Athens, he started by saying that he proclaimed ‘the unknown God’. Just as we cannot ‘know’ creation – our Global Heating predicament is proof of that – we cannot know God. Both creation and God remain the unknown, even when God and Creation reveal themselves to us. Strictly speaking, theology, the doctrine of God, is also an impossibility. Yet God permits it, as long as we know that it is not possible, only permitted. 

Creation is alive and holy.

I increasingly like Bonhoeffer’s suggestion that we perceive God and creation as complementary. Just as we acknowledge that God lives, be it in inapproachable Light, we hold that creation is alive as well. It is James Lovelock’s lasting legacy when he stated that planet Earth is a ‘living’ reality. We also owe Karen Armstrong, when in Sacred Nature she argued that we need to think and feel differently about the natural world by rekindling our spiritual bond with creation.

A long time ago: 75-80 years

When I attended the City of Groningen Christian Gymnasium, during WWII and beyond, (100 students over 6 grades, almost all male, whose diploma gained unconditional entry to either the Law or Medical faculties or a Theological school), I was a bystander in a theological dispute on ‘child baptism’, splitting not only the local Reformed churches, but also families and communities. It caused tremendous stress in my school as well, among staff and students, as the fanatic children of the ministers at the heart of the controversy attended the school. 

My church, even more orthodox, stood beyond the fray. In retrospect that theological conflict may have contributed to a total realignment and decline of Protestant Netherlands. 

What now strikes me is that theologians then knew exactly what God had in mind concerning the Christian faith. Augustine, who, 1600 years ago, founded Christianity as we now practise it, wrote once – in Latin of course – Si comprehendis, non est Deus, which means, “If you think that you understand, it isn’t God you’re talking about”.

Another ‘theological’ battle.

Today another schism is looming in connection with the same-sex issue. Here too, across all denominations, the words “we know what God has ordained”, are banded about. This same-sex issue too may lead to a realignment and decline of Christian North America. 

All this makes me question whether we can still speak clearly about the essence of Christianity. It is by now obvious that Christianity is not a religion. Karl Barth, early in his career as a pastor in Switzerland, said that, “The message of the Bible is that God hates religion”, quoting Amos 5: “I despise, I hate your festivals, I take no delight I your solemn assemblies”. 

May be Greenpeace is a better representation of the church, more in line with the ancient song “Like a mighty army moves the church of God”. At least they do something about God’s creation, by attacking corporate power. Yes, I support them financially! 

The church is good at religion.

The church is good at ‘religion’. Soon King Charles III will be crowned: he also is head of the Church of England, and ‘religion’ will be front and centre at that ceremony. Soon Pope Francis will die or resign. Again ‘religion’, the ‘old time religion’, fashioned on Old Testament decorum, will be on display for the world to see when a new Pope is elected. Compare it to Jesus’ birth, life and death:  “Foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.” (Luke 9:58).

The church in turmoil.

The church is in turmoil: it always has been. It slowly is being fashioned to reflect the Life of Jesus, a man of sorrow, acquainted with grief. And there is a lot of grief out there: long Covid, mental anguish, weather disasters, wars. And we are only at the beginning. 

The “Old Time Religion” is not good enough. Rituals and colorful vestments, tradition and liturgies, carefully staged ceremonies may be entertaining to watch, but ‘religion’ will not save us. 

Micah 6: 8 comes to mind: “To act justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God.” Love your neighbor as yourself, including Creation, love all animals, walk humbly, act justly.

February 11 2023 

IMPOSSIBLE: YET…..

Last Sunday I was the reader in our struggling Presbyterian Church, built 135 years ago, with 250+ pews. I counted the attendees: 25, mostly older folk! My reading concluded with Matthew 5: 20, “unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven.”

The preacher did not comment on that passage, so it remained a mystery to me, even though my most ardent aim in life is to be part of that kingdom, and enjoy eternity there. 

What sort of righteousness Jesus refers to? 

Jesus abhors the Pharisaic legalism. In Matthew 23 he curses the church- rulers so violently that they later kill him. However, Jesus had the last word: his final miracle, just before he died on the cross, was something extraordinary: at the precise moment when He said, “It is finished”, the curtain in the temple was torn into two, from top to bottom, signifying the end of religion, rejecting it forever.

What then does Jesus want us to do? 

He came to bring LIFE. (John 10:10). That’s why I do believe that the Christian teaching is all-inclusive: it’s essentially a ‘way of life’, a 24/7 affair. That’s what Jesus really is saying when he stated that ‘our righteousness’ must exceed the utterly regimented religion prescribed and practised by the Pharisees, a regimen ridiculed by Jesus who openly defied their prescriptions, yet He wants us to go beyond that!

Augustine, the celebrated church father, was right when he said 1600 years ago, “Many who God has, the church does not have; and many who the church has, God does not have. 

Think about that!

Going to church does not guarantee salvation, even though some churches still maintain that: “There is no salvation outside the church”.

What is Jesus really after?

I owe it to Bonhoeffer who perceived God and Creation as one. Creation is forever, is God’s most precious gift, for which he sacrificed his Son.  Revelation 22 categorically states that “There is no altar in the New Creation”, indicating that both the church and the Bible will not be part of eternal life with Christ: God’s law will be written on our hearts. 

That situation is already evident today: the church is disappearing, and the Bible has become a closed book The Belgic Confession, when asking how we know God, points to Creation as God’s primary revelation.

Jesus has creation in mind, when he stated that “our righteousness must exceed that of the Pharisees”. In our day-to-day life we face the IMPOSSIBLE task that the welfare of creation must ‘always’ – 24/7 – be our aim, goal, and desire. Always. With every undertaking, eat, sleep, think, act, we must ask ourselves: “does it promote or hinder God’s Creation?” No wonder we are saved through grace! We prayerfully and in community must perpetually pursue the welfare of God’s creation.

When Adam and Eve were selected out of the then human race, God endowed them with his breath, so that their body/soul/mind became a unity in and with the Holy Spirit. Their sin was that they failed to see God’s Creation as Holy, also our collective sin.

Can we still find our way?

Now our structures are breaking down. We now are continually searching without maps, playing around in half-belief: deploying, against what remains of Christianity, symbols that invoke multiple spiritualities at once. As Amos has written, “People will stagger from sea to sea and wander from north to east, searching for the word of the LORD, but they will not find it.”

J. H. Bavinck, taught me that “There is no such thing as individual salvation. All salvation is of necessity universal”. That means that our salvation and the salvation of creation go hand in hand.

I adapted a song for this purpose. Yes, you can sing it in church! Or in the kitchen!

Look, what has happened to the Earth.

Where are the birds that sing in tall-tree-towers?

Why are the woodlands now full-soaked in ash?

Why do our eyes see only fire-showers?

Where are the tears when deer no longer dash?

Refrain: How clean the water, how tall the grain

             How green the forest: can the earth renew again?

When will the deserts stop their massive spreading?

Where will we plant so food can freely grow?

Where do we go, where is our planet heading?

Why do we cause but misery and woe?    

Refrain

When will the sea be free from human binging?

Safe for the whales that frolic in the deep.

Who will arise and send alarm bells ringing?

Now is the time for our voice to weep.

Refrain       

Tune: TIDINGS 11.10.11.10 with refrain.

“Who will arise and send alarm bells ringing?

Will we? Try to live the life of the new creation. Pray for Christ’s return!

February 4 2023

DREAMS AND THE UNCONSCIOUS MIND.

When I was a toddler, my neighbourhood buddies called me a ‘dikkop’, a youngster whose head was too large. When I grew up, that ‘big-head’ anomaly disappeared. 

Why this curious fact?

Well, it relates to my dreams. In 1992 I bought: “The Turning Point”, by Fritjof Capra, who received his Ph.D. from the University of Vienna. He was well ahead of his time when, in 1982, he foresaw the conditions we face today, how in all fields, in healthcare, economics, ecology, our methods and theories are leading to our own demise.

I was especially intrigued by his analyses of the various schools of thought in psychoanalysis, by such men as Freud, Jung, Rogers, and others. He clearly exposed the Cartesian split between mind and body, and Descartes’ failure to integrate the various components of life. He also touched upon cosmic consciousness, including the ‘perinatal’ experiences involving the process of birth, ‘peri’ indicating the Greek ‘round about’ and ‘natal’ from the Latin ‘natus’ meaning ‘birth’

I was really struck when he mentioned something that applied to me: “in perinatal experiences the sensations and feelings may be relived in direct and realistic way….for example the experiences of enormous tensions characteristic of the struggles in the birth canal often accompanied by visions of titanic fights, destruction and self-destruction.”

That directly applies to me. It so happens that about 5-6 times a year I have violent dreams in which I physically fight enemies trying to destroy me, sometimes causing me to fall out of bed. I now know why I have these nightmares: they started at my birth. 

There my weight was 5 kilogram, or 11 pounds, well above average.  With an abnormally big head, my delivery from the womb was a real battle, a frantic struggle to be born. 

That’s how I started my life: a desperate fight to live, now often re-enacted in my dreams. My unconscious mind at work, an experience that has put a stamp on my personality, always fighting injustice and perceived wrongs, such as ecclesiastical lethargy, climate indifference, capitalistic dominance, unhealthy eating habits.

O, yes. Another complication: the doctor at the home-birth, a friend of the family, noticed that my foreskin was too tight: so, since I was a robust boy, he immediately circumcised me, which, later in life, resulted in a pretty high pain-tolerance.

Body, Soul, Spirit.

All this brought me back to re-read Dr. C.A. van Peursen’s book, Body, Soul, Spirit, a survey of the body-mind problem. One of his conclusions was that, “One thing is clear. If the person is anything, he/she is above all a mystery which no amount of philosophizing, in itself, can ever exhaustively define.”

In the end, as a true philosopher, he concludes that, “Human existence is never lived out in the absence of intermediate factors: we ‘turn things over’, we hesitate, emphatize, evaluate – in short, we are conscious. All this means that the human as mind is the human as body.” 

The medieval mystic, Meister Eckhart (1260-1328) goes even further. He wrote that ‘the soul is not in the body: the body is in the soul.”  A true mystical statement.

Since my wife of 67 years died more than 2 years ago, my thoughts have repeatedly returned to our marriage, our 3 years of engagement – on August 31 1950 – and knowing her years before that as a family friend. She often appears in my dreams, mostly as a non-active personage. I frequently wonder how our relationship will be in eternity: no more marriage, Jesus told us.

I tend to think, in relationship to body/spirit, that, even though our bodies are asleep – Jesus never mentions death, always sleep – our ‘spirits’ are still alive. 

I have given this a lot of thought, as for the first time I was directly confronted with death/spirit. My tentative conclusion, purely my own speculation, is that the period between physical ‘death’ (sleep, as Jesus put it) and the resurrection, however long or short this time is, allows the spirit to either prepare a person for eternal life in the new creation, or become a sort of hell, where the ‘deliberate sins’ are rehashed and revisited when life has been a direct refusal to honor the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. 

I constantly read that we are ‘religious’ persons. Romans 1: 20, clearly states that, examining creation can only lead to one conclusion: it is a miraculous, divine act of God. Bonhoeffer sees that, specific to the Christian faith, is the perception that God and creation are one. I concur.

I sincerely believe that Jesus died to restore Paradise, of which John 3: 16 gives the explanation: “God so loved the world that he offered his beloved Son to buy it back from the Evil one.” Promising eternity!

January 29 2023

PEACE

One of Jesus’ most striking greetings is found in John 14: 27, “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives.”

The world’s peace is nothing else than the regularity of order; we are said to have peace when life runs smoothly and routine is undisturbed. 

But peace is more than living in a well-regulated society. Peace is even more than having a good relationship with God and others. 

The core of peace appears when we are at ease within ourselves, as outlined in Psalm 119, verse 97 – “Lord how I love your law! It is ever in my mind”. That law is much more than the Ten Commandments. Jesus mentions it in the prayer he taught us, with the first rule: “Hallowed be Your name.” 

That phrase has nothing to do with God’s name, be that Yahweh, Elohim, Adonai, Father, Mother, Creator. God is beyond a name.  It has everything to do with honoring his signature, his name, found on every creature, as outlined in Colossians 1: 16: “For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him.”

Yes: creation is holy!

The ‘invisible’ in that text, in my lay opinion, refers to the TV and other airwaves that bring our news and make mobile phones and various airborne devices possible, even our telepathic conveyances, including the prayers that emanate from our hearts and minds, as Psalm 141 says so pointedly, “Let my prayer arise before you like incense, the raising of my hands like an evening oblation”.

Like incense….

It reminds me of the indigenous rite of smoking a ‘peace-pipe’. The smoke of burning material, often scented, envelopes the persons into a circle of togetherness, visible and invasive, slowly ascending to the heavens. In the Revelation of John, incense symbolizes the prayers of the saints “the golden bowl full of incense”, as in Revelation 5: 8 and 8: 3.

Peace and prayers are difficult to find.

I love the word tranquility, the sense of serene servitude, the stance of sanctified solemnity, the hour of devotion, symbolized as lazy smoke from ‘incense’ slowly ascending. That state is increasingly more difficult to find. 

I treasure my shalom when, first thing after breakfast, drinking cups of tea, I randomly type my meditation on a text of the lectionary. I find peace in peeling me own potatoes, and later in preparing a meal of my own vegetables, my kale, my sauerkraut, my beets and beans and red cabbage. I am such a blessed person, yet daily, my prayers go to my children, my grandchildren, my eight greatgrandchildren: what is their future?

Peace, all-encompassing peace, embracing the totality of our experience, is nigh impossible today. There certainly is no peace in the weather.

Last week I read in the New York Times an interview with Bill Gates, who has given billions away through his foundation, also to environmental causes. He mentioned that the UN goal to keep Global Warming to 1.5 C is no longer possible, even keeping at below 2 C is a pipe-dream, so, perhaps 2.5 C is our next target, making ‘peace’ on the weather scene has become an illusion. 

Arctic News writes: The joint impact of a strong El Niño, high sunspots and the volcano eruption near Tonga could make a difference of more than 0.87°C. This rise could trigger further developments and feedbacks that altogether could cause a temperature rise from pre-industrial of as much as 18.44°C by 2026. 

That means total conflagration as in 2 Peter 3!

Peace and the Doomsday Clock

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists set its Doomsday Clock at 90 seconds to midnight, the closest to midnight the clock has been since it was established in 1947 to illustrate global existential threats at the dawn of the nuclear weapons age. In the first few weeks of 2023, at least 100 people have been killed in mass shootings across the USA. Both are a far cry from peace.

“Peace, I leave with you, my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives.” 

In a world, increasingly violent, increasingly inundated with atmospheric disturbances, true peace is hard to find. As ‘religion’ wanes, as churches are increasingly embroiled in sexual scandals, with rigid notions about sexuality differences, the only true source of ‘peace’ is found in looking for and simulating the conditions expected when Christ returns: “See, I will create new heavens and a new earth. The former things will not be remembered, nor will they come to mind. (Isaiah 65: 17).

January 22 2023

THE END OF THE WORLD.

I have a book by that name, written by Otto Friedrich, a former senior writer at TIME weekly. It was published in 1986, and I bought it that same year 

on December 24, perhaps a Xmas present to myself. The subtitle was, not surprisingly, A History, as, evidently, the world did not end. 

I have no idea why “The End of the World” fascinates me. Perhaps my upbringing has something to do with it, memorizing the Apostles’ Creed, which ends with: “(I believe) in the resurrection of the body and life everlasting”. Perhaps Noah’s Flood influenced me, and the implication, that next time ‘we’ would be the instigators of the End. 

Even though there are books hinting at The End, such as Elizabeth Kolbert’s, “The Sixth Extinction”, and Bill McKibben’s, “The End of Nature”, I don’t know of any recent church publications that prepare us for THE END which surely will come. 

A subtle change.

It was different centuries ago. The historian, Johan Huizinga, in his “In the Shadows of Tomorrow”, wrote that, (and I translate): “It would be useful to place our notion of crises in a historical perspective, considering the immense internal commotions of centuries past. There is an essential spiritual difference between then and today. Then there was a consciousness expressing: Our world, however big or small, is imperiled, is on the verge of dissolution. That particular position was very prevalent in people’s minds, and fed into the feeling of the approaching End of the World.”

This was plain already in the year 410, when the Sack of Rome took place. The theologians of those days, relying on Revelation 18, equated the Fall of Rome with the Fall of Babylon, the End of the World, as described in that chapter.

Throughout history, horrendous events, such as the Black Death – 1347-50, when about half the European population died – were seen as God’s judgement. Then everybody was a church member, so, yes, in their minds, the ‘End of their World’ was a correct assumption, which proved to be true for their place and time.

How people’s religious motivations have changed!

In 1983 on November 10, exactly 500 years after Martin Luther was born, and in 1517 openly defied the world’s all-powerful institution, the Church of Rome, my brother, my wife and I visited Wittenberg, and the church where Luther had affixed his 95 theses. On the concrete steps of that now empty and neglected edifice, two teenagers were shooting dope. That, to me, signified the religious State of the World today, where the church no longer is the penetrating force 5 centuries ago. The world-shaking events Otto Friedrich described which, by and large, were regarded as religious-significant happenings, no longer are connected to biblical givens. Society at large has undergone a seismic change in faith-matters. Where even a century ago churches were thriving, today religion has become redundant. The End of the World has been decoupled from the human mind.

Back to In the Shadows of Tomorrow.

Dr. Huizinga writes – and I agree – “We know that much in the past has been better than today. But we also know that, in general, there is no way back. There only is an ‘ahead’, even though the unknown future fills us with dread”.

That ‘ahead’ is eerily outlined by Dr. Nouriel Roubini in his address to the World Economic Forum in Davos this past week. He said, 

“What I have called mega-threats others have called a “poly-crisis. We are therefore facing not only the worst of the 1970s (repeated negative aggregate supply shocks), but also the worst of the 2007-08 period (dangerously high debt ratios) and the worst of the 1930s. A new “geopolitical depression” is increasing the likelihood of cold and hot wars that could all too easily overlap and spin out of control.” The managing director of the International Monetary Fund calls it a “confluence of calamities”. The world economy, she warned last year, is facing “perhaps its biggest test since the second world war”. Similarly, the former US secretary of the Treasury, Lawrence H. Summers, argues that we are facing the most acute economic and financial challenges since the 2008 financial crisis. And in its latest global risks report – released just before elites gathered in Davos this month to discuss “cooperation in a fragmented world” – the World Economic Forum warns of “a unique, uncertain and turbulent decade to come”.

Arctic News writes, “A huge temperature rise threatens to unfold, as the already dire situation threatens to turn catastrophic due to the combined impact of a number of developments and feedback, such as La Nina to El Nino. 

The convergence of these events could well result in THE END OF THE WORLD as we have fashioned it.

January 15 2023

SHELTERING IN THE SHADOWS OF TOMORROW

An incident, its details I have forgotten, has marked my life. I probably, once had an appointment, was quite late, and get such a severe scolding, that now, being on time, has become an ingrained habit with me, making me very ‘time-conditioned’, ruling my life, and even coloring my outlook on eternity.

Colors my outlook on eternity? Yes,

In my biblically biased opinion, I view my life from the perspective of the END. I see myself as ruled by “Teleios”, found in Matthew 5: 48, where Jesus tells us to be ‘teleios’ as his father is ‘teleios’, translated as ‘perfect’. It actually tells us to live life from the end of life on earth to the present. 

Life from the ending?

‘Teleios’, translated as ‘perfect’, has no reference to its root, ‘telos’, which means ‘end’. Jesus really means us to be ‘ending-oriented’, measuring life not from birth to death, but living it back from its very end, the New Creation, living a life shaped by that future, that future being the New Creation, the Kingdom to come: “Seek first the Kingdom, the welfare of Creation”, is Jesus’ explicit command. That indicates a perpetually sustainable life, for which I regard my present life as the ‘proving ground’.

A radical new concept.

So, yes, this gives me a totally different outlook on life: it involves a radical change what the “Christian Life” is all about! That a change is needed is obvious: the heaven heresy has totally distorted this concept.

We now live in a time of negative tendencies, more about killing than healing, more about breaking down than building up. It is all too plain that Western culture is fracturing at the seams, with spikes in anxiety, depression and mental illness, loneliness and alienation, with family failure and systemic racism. To stand strong in these days of fracturing, we must adopt rules for life to withstand the onslaught that imposes itself upon us.

I am very aware of this ordeal, with our energy use as the real culprit.

That’s why I am very ‘energy’ conscious. I only turn on a light when it is absolutely necessary. In 1993, when I retired, I installed 3 solar panels and batteries to alleviate my energy use. For decades I used wood for heating but this year, reading about its detrimental influence on air quality. I have given up on wood, using it only when electricity is disrupted.

My daily routine centers on healthy habits, both physical and spiritual. I believe that the Lord has given me my body as a gift to honor him. 

Plenty of signs.

Gail Tverberg, an actuary, starts her latest blog, OurFiniteWorld.Com, with these words:

“Why is the economy headed for a financial crash? It appears to me that the world economy hit Limits to Growth about 2018 because of a combination of diminishing returns in resource extraction together with rising population. The Covid-19 pandemic and the accompanying financial manipulations hid these problems for a few years, but now, as the world economy tries to reopen, the problems are back with a vengeance.”

I fully concur with her assessment and see it as another sign that Revelation 18 is about to be implemented. There the heading is The Fall of Babylon, which directly points to a looming collapse, eerily abetted by the US 

Republican tiny majority in Congress, a bunch of politicians without a clue about The TIME we live in.

In October, the World Meteorological Organization reported that the atmospheric concentration of all the main greenhouse gases – carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide – had reached record highs. WMO head Prof Petteri Taalas said: “We are heading in the wrong direction.”

Admit it: Our path to cosmic destruction continues unabated. There’s little we can do about it, even though we must adhere to the best of our ability to live a redeeming life. 

2023.

The year 2023 has had an ominous start, witness California, where one of my three daughters lives in Santa Barbara. Even that privileged couple, Harry and Meghan, were under evacuation orders. Climate Change knows no boundaries. Tornadoes anyone?

What I observe all around me, confirms my suspicion that, in spite of repeated warnings and massive conferences, nothing will change.

In 1935 Dr. Johan Huizinga, wrote: “In the Shadows of Tomorrow”. This famous historian then warned, “We live in a world possessed, and we know it.” In 1939 his predictions came true: all hell broke loose. 

Today we live in a world even more possessed, even more threatening, even more ominous and devastating: and we too, are ignoring the obvious.

Today, 2023, I shelter in the shadows of tomorrow: waiting,“But for you who revere my name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its rays.” Malachi 4:2.