Bert Hielema–Columns and Writings

December 21 2022

THE RISE AND FALL OF CHRISTIANITY.

Paul writes that there were few of noble birth and rich among the converts, still, quite early, Christianity penetrated into the higher stratus of society, even the imperial court. 

They were the few, but they occupied important positions. Some of Jesus’ most revealing words were directed to Nicodemus, a wealthy and wise cleric. (John 3). Joseph of Arimathea provided for Jesus’ luxury burial place. Influential women supported Jesus financially (Luke 8), so, yes, they were the few, but they played an important role among the early Christian, also because they were literate and could interpret Jesus’ words in a society where less than 10% were able to read.

Social Servicers.

When two severe epidemics struck the Roman empire between 100-300 AD, the pagans fled the city, but the Christians stayed behind, nursing the sick, andb especially, by their conduct, brought the Good News. 

In the 4^th Century their numbers swelled, and it became fashionable to be Christian. Christianity kept on flourishing for many centuries: monastic orders, through architecture and science, influenced society far and wide, with the result that, in Europe, the church dominated.

Jesus comes back.

A while ago I read “The Brothers Karamazov,” Dostoevsky’s last book. It has an episode involving the church: it’s called “The Grand Inquisitor”. Ivan, the atheist Karamazov brother, composed it and tells it to his younger brother Alyosha, the aspiring priest. In it, Jesus returns to earth during the Spanish Inquisition. Ivan says: “It is fifteen centuries since signs from heaven were seen. And now the deity appears once more among the people.” Everyone recognizes him, because a blind man sees and a dead child rises. But the old cardinal, in charge of the Inquisition, takes Jesus to prison and tells him that: “You have no right to add anything to what you have said…. Why have you come to hinder us?” Ivan explains that this is a fundamental feature of the Church that God cannot ‘meddle’ now because “all has been given by you to the Pope. The Church is the authority now.”
The Grand Inquisitor then tells Jesus that he erred when he resisted the devil’s three temptations in the wilderness, where the devil offered him miracle, mystery and might, which the Church has accepted. Jesus, however, wanted them to have freedom of choice. But, says the clergyman, freedom is too difficult and frightful for the masses and so the Church has taken the three awesome gifts for them. The Inquisitor concludes: “We are not working with you, but with the devil– that is our mystery.” 

Jesus, still not speaking, kisses him on the lips. “That was all his answer.” The Grand Inquisitor opens the cell door and says, “Go, and come no more, never, never.” And the divine visitor leaves. 

Freedom too difficult.

“Freedom is too difficult for the masses” says the cardinal, but that is the essence of Jesus’ teaching (Galatians 5:1). That’s why the church of his day killed him. Today is no different. In the 17^th Century Descartes’ philosophy was embraced by the church. He said that the whole of nature is a machine, without a soul, inanimate, an easy faith. Exploit it: become rich! Keeping the laws of Creation is hard.

Today this dualism is the standard of our culture: another reason why the days of organized religion are over. Christ came to teach us how to live: and that to the full. (John 10: 10). Admit it: the church’s message is still gnostic: separating nature from grace.

Decline.

 I attend a small-town Presbyterian Church. In Belleville and Trenton, the nearest cities, their Presbyterian Churches closed. I remember Belleville having a music director and a large choir. I remember Trenton having a youth director. This year our church has added 3 families. Why? We have an environmental team that uses the yard around our Main Street location to grow food for the Food Bank- 1,000 lbs! – signaling that “The Earth is the Lord’s”. It certainly was not the preaching! Preaching is so 16^th Century, geared to illiteracy. Believers need more than words: need ‘body, soul and spirit’ healing, need meaningful fellowship, need genuine sharing, need discussion rather than lecturing.

Rabbi Heschel defines ‘sin’ as: “The human refusal to become what we are.” The church must be the place where we become what we are, before God. Ever realized that the word ‘liturgy’ means ‘the laity at work’! That’s how a church should function. 

Christianity rose because its membership had the freedom to become leaders. Christianity fell because its leaders failed to encourage the potential of its members, and failed to see Creation as God’s Primary Word. Everything is connected to everything else: God, Christ, Creation, the Scriptures, the Holy Spirit, Humanity: you can’t have one without the other.

December 14 2022.

HOLY BODY; HOLY EARTH.

            
Don’t you know that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which you have of God, and you are not your own? (1 Corinthians 6: 19-20)

We, as the top creatures, are by all indications, the only entity with a God-consciousness. In Colossians 1: 15-20, Christ describes himself as “The First born of all Creation”. That to me suggests that Christ, as the first human ever, made Creation possible, while we, as Psalm 82: 6 confirms, are “Gods, Children of the Most High”. Believe me: we are of the highest status among creatures.

“Everything is connected to everything else”.

When God’s Holy Spirit dwells in us, then this permeates our entire being, because everything is connected to everything else. That is the First law of Ecology. The others are, “Creation knows best”, “Nothing comes free”, and “Nothing ever disappears.” They too have become my rules for life.

This first law gives us special responsibilities, which means that we, in our daily lives, have to reflect the status of being ‘temples of the Holy Spirit’.

Our responsibility, owing to our high position, extends even further: not only are we of divine origin, we LIVE in a divine setting as well. 

 “Sacred Nature” traces how ancient religions always have regarded the earth as holy. Psalm 24 unambiguously states that “The earth is the Lord’s and all it contains”, affirming creation’s sacred status.  

Since life is a unity, my mind too needs cultivating so, for more than 30 years I have written a daily log of 500 words, based on the lectionary, in which I wonder and wander, give my imagination free rein, do this right after my breakfast every day. Last week, in my ‘first thing in the morning’ exercise of exploring the Scripture, I was confronted with 2 Peter 3: 10, “and the earth and everything done in it will be laid bare”. 

That made me think of COP15, meeting this week in Montreal, discussing this very text: “Everything done in the created world”. That points to us and ‘biodiversity”. Yes, these 12,000 delegates there are discussing 2 Peter 3: “How to remedy the harm we have done to creation!”, because Biodiversity, the concept, indicates life in all its facets. 

Biodiversity is essential for the processes that support all life on Earth. It keeps us healthy. It keeps us fed. It keeps our economies running. In fact, half of global GDP is dependent on nature, according to a report from the UN Environment Program. Food production depends on pollination. Construction depends on timber. Infrastructure and energy production depend on reliable water sources that flow from healthy ecosystems. Yet, ironically, how these sectors operate is also suffocating biodiversity by depleting natural resources, spoiling forests and seas, and crowding out and killing native species.

“Human kind cannot bear much reality”, writes T.S. Eliot in Murder in the Cathedral.

We are what we eat. What we are physically, depends on our diet. What we are spiritually, is often the result of our upbringing. By the grace of God, I was born in a devout, extended family. As grown-ups, we are on our own, attacked from every possible angle by material and spiritual forces. It is almost impossible to develop a balanced life, and yet we must. We must do everything possible to maintain the holiness of our status: that means striving for a long and healthy life, which includes diet: it is our duty from Day 1.

The five pillars of a longevity diet are:

1. Whole grains like corn, rice and oats (complex carb)
2. Greens
3. Tubers, including potatoes and yams (complex carb)
4. Nuts
5. Beans (complex carb)

Ever since I read (45 years ago), “Diet for a Small Planet” my wife (now deceased) and I have followed a vegetarian diet, based on the five points outlined above. I see it as my holy duty to treasure my body as holy. Fortunately, I still am able to cultivate a large vegetable garden, so that most of what I eat is homegrown.

To stay physically fit, I walk each day for about an hour, almost always in a forest setting. Again, I am fortunate there as well, a choice we made in 1975 moving from the city to Eastern Ontario.

All this has not been my doing: I believe in divine guidance and thus adhere to: Psalm 119: 105: Your word – Christ, Prophecy, Scripture – is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path (in God’s holy creation).

Yes, I believe in divine guidance: I believe that we are here for a purpose, perhaps an impossible purpose: To be a holy person in a holy earth, in preparation for perfection to come.

December 7 2022.

OUR MARCH OF FOLLY

Then you better start swimmin’
Or you’ll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin’

—Bob Dylan, “The Times They Are A-Changin'”

I have this book, bought in 1985, The March of Folly, by Barbara W. Tuchman, already famous for her The Guns of August and A Distant Mirror, the calamitous 14^th Century.

In her March of Folly, she wonders why governments throughout history have pursued policies contrary to their own interests, noting how already in antiquity the Trojans took the wooden horse within their walls, assuring their defeat; how the Renaissance Popes provoked the Protestant secession; how the British lost America through their own stupidity and America betrayed herself in Vietnam.

Since 1985 we have witnessed an identical phenomenon in the 20-year war the USA waged in Afghanistan, a country with a history of failures for Alexander the Great, the British, and the Russians.

So, what about today? More of the same?

Now, almost 2023, we have arrived at a turning point in history, where again folly takes place, now in the fast lane. In earlier times, conflicts were between nations. Today our foolishness is altogether different: we now openly combat God, by waging war against his creation, in which we all, with very few exceptions, are eager participants. Isaiah 24 describes our situation perfectly. Have a look: the Bible is relevant for all times.

Ample warnings.

It’s not that we have not been warned: already Svante Arrhenius, a Swedish scientist, 125 years ago, suggested that the use of coal and oil would lead to global warming: since then, with James Hansen leading the way, the United Nations have had 27 conferences, each one with more urgent warnings.  

Folly in the fast lane: Three ultimate dangers.

Our self-inflicted and unwinnable war is resulting in three predictable events: (1) Permanent Inflation and famine, (2) shortages of necessary components, stalling the economy and causing unemployment, and (3), financial turmoil leading to collapse.

Permanent inflation and famine. 

Weather related events and regional conflicts will decrease food supply, cause inflation, as the easy to exploit natural resources have been used first, making new supplies more costly to obtain.

A possible world-wide depression.

Depression as occurred in the 1930’s cannot be ruled out. Increasing demand for government funds to compensate for floods, heat, earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes, new weaponry, will deplete government funds, aggravated by stalled or diminished tax revenue. 

Financial Collapse.

Directly tied in with this is financial collapse as the entire economy is a Ponzi scheme: when one sector collapses, the entire structure stumbles.

How can we cope the best?

No simple answers. Our energy addiction is impossible to kick. Go back to a church where like-minded people seek refuge in community, prayer, and mutual support. Revelation 18 points to an economic situation with inflation and sufficient supply of luxury goods, but no demand: in other words: “Stagflation”. It also points to a very sudden end for all. Don’t get caught unprepared.

Is there really a solution?

Frankly, we have painted ourselves into a corner. We have erected a society totally dependent on fossil fuels. The efforts by the United Nations, through Climate Change Conferences – 27 so far – have proved fruitless. 

The good news is that the efforts to alleviate the effects of Climate Change through solar and wind power, will bear fruit in the New Creation, evident from Revelation 14: 13, as ‘our good deeds will follow us.’

Admit it: as church, we have been foolish. We have followed the wrong track, believing and proclaiming that salvation was a matter of the soul, able to enjoy  the ‘carbon-derived luxuries’, and then sail beyond, leaving our messy earth behind. Bonhoeffer calls that “Pious Secularism.” He was entirely correct when he stated that Christ came to teach us ‘how to live.’ 

Johan Herman Bavinck in his book, Between the Beginning and the End, a radical Kingdom vision, categorically wrote: “Salvation of the self and salvation of the earth go hand in hand: you can’t have one without the other.” 

Yes, the times they are a’changing.

When representatives from more than 190 countries assemble in Montreal this week to try to negotiate a landmark agreement on global biodiversity, their focus will be on creation, called “Mother Nature” by scientists. However, their point is wrong. The real obstacle is our human nature. It is too late to change our ways. 

But it’s human nature that will determine the outcome.

Then you better start swimmin’
Or you’ll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin’

We must prepare ourselves for radically different circumstances. It no longer is a purely physical matter: it is a spiritual change that is needed. We are on our own. The old ‘oil-based’ economy is killing us. A new mindset is needed.

November 30 2022

DOOM HAS GONE MAINSTREAM

I subscribe to the New Yorker. Each week a 90 pages issue arrives in my mailbox on the highway where I live, some 5 km – 3 miles – from the hub of the village. The November 28 issue, with a cover of an angry, gigantic wave about to overwhelm high-rise complexes, silhouetted against an ominous sky, caught the essence of its contents: Journey to Doomsday; Annals of a warning Planet; The Coming storm. Truly biblical warnings. 

I was born a down-to-earth Northern Dutchman, one of those known for the sober, even somber, outlook on life, not given to superficial banter, and empty conversations, but direct and to the point. When I look around, read behind the headlines, cast my eye on the world at large, observing the ecclesiastical rites, the lukewarmness, the lack of direction, the downright tomfoolery there, the dearth of basic knowledge of the elements of Christianity, then my prayer is, “Lord Come, what’s the use of prolonging this empty ritual”. 

It seems to me that the roles have been reversed: not the church is telling us that the end is near – even though it is her task – but the world has assumed that task. The church is preaching the half-truth message that Christ died for our sins, and repeats this ad nauseam, while the total truth includes that Christ really died to restore Creation. It is plain from John 3: 16, that God’s love for the world must be the church’s central aim. 

Yes, Creation is at the very center of the Gospel. It so happened that the first religious-conscious human pair sinned against creation when they defied God’s explicit command about the importance of the TREE. Trees are our lungs: trees can live without us, but we cannot live without trees. 

My bio.

I came to Canada in 1951, now some 71 years ago, as a young man of almost 23 years. My fiancée came a year later. Those seven decades coincided with The Great Planetary Ponzi plot, when we borrowed from the planet to enrich ourselves, we, the Christian West. The 27 UN COP meetings were intended to make restitution, but they all proved useless, assuring doom.

It all started with theft. We stole the land from the indigenous people, who had lived sustainably in tune with the rhythm of creation, killing some 56 million, about 90% of their population, the greatest holocaust ever perpetrated. We paved over their land, mined their mountains, dammed their rivers, and relegated a ragged remnant out of sight and out of mind.

The punishment of these murders is now visiting us. Elizabeth Kolbert concludes her book, The Sixth Extinction, with the words, “Extinction “will continue to determine the course of life long after everything people have written and painted and built has been ground into dust and giant rats have – or have not – inherited the earth.”

These words were written almost 10 years ago. Today, Anno Domini 2022, in this week’s New Yorker, her final paragraph is, “Climate Change….is not going to have a happy ending….or any ending at all. Whatever we might want to believe about our future, there are limits, and we are up against them.

I have this book: Sacred Nature, by the religious writer Karen Armstrong, who, by researching ancient religions, discovers that they all believe that nature is of divine origin. Of course, it is: it will take eternity to even glimpse what is hidden there. That’s why it is becoming increasingly clear that ‘personal salvation and salvation of creation go hand in hand.’ Jesus, in his so well-known Sermon on the Mount said that, ‘the meek shall inhabit the earth’. Another translation translates it as, ‘those who claim nothing for themselves, shall inherit the earth’. We, in our arrogance have disregarded Jesus’ advice, and have claimed everything for ourselves. When God pointed out the Tree of knowledge to the first spiritually aware couple, the text says, (Genesis 2:9), “Trees pleasing to the eye, and good for food.” In the next chapter, (Genesis 3:9), “The tree, was good for food and pleasing to the eye.” Here the order is reversed: there’s where the Ponzi problem began, and the origin and death of Capitalism. The Bible has something to say on that, “For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil”, writes Paul. (1 Timothy 6: 10).

Today our Planetary Ponzi Problem is backfiring on us. As Elizabeth Kolbert wrote, “Whatever we might want to believe about our future, there are limits, and we are up against them.”  

1972 was an important year in my life: two books led to my conversion: “Limits to Growth”, now visible; and “After Death, what?”, dismissing the “heaven” myth. 

The Planetary Ponzi attempt will end as Ponzi schemes always do: Planetary Collapse.

November 23 2022

SOCCER: THE SELECT FEW. 

When I was in elementary school in Groningen, an old University City, I played soccer in two ways. We played a game called, ‘putje’, where the street on which I lived, was the soccer field, the ball a bit bigger than a tennis ball, and the goals were the cast iron, four-holed drains – putjes – some 50 cm across, built into the curb of the sidewalk on each side of the paved street.

Just imagine, playing on the thoroughfare, where then – this was 1930’s – the traveled road was basically free of automobiles, and the only traffic was the baker’s three-wheeled ‘bakfiets”, a carrier-tricycle, and the horse-drawn-wagons of the fruit-vegetable vendor and milkman. No fast-driving cars or trucks. Lots of bikes and pedestrians, of course. The streets were safe, the air, well? There were the street cleaners, scooping up the horse manure.

No TV, outdoors all the time: inventing games, annoying neighbours, playing hooky. No worried parents, always at some sort of game, and, of course soccer, always soccer. 

We were very fortunate: a very talented fellow lived just around the corner: a teenager, who started a real soccer club, on a real field, with a real soccer ball and real goalposts in a nearby recreational park: he was so good that later in life he became the goalie for the Dutch National team. My younger brother and I became member of that neighbourhood club. So, yes, of course, soccer is in my blood, even though I never became a good player. Broke my right-foot big toe, maybe that’s why. It still hurts when a kick a ball.

QATAR, the world-wide soccer host.

Some $300 Billions have been spent in getting Qatar ready for the soccer tournament: new roads, shopping malls and subway stations, six stupendous stadiums of course, all built by workers mostly from India, Pakistan, Nepal and Bangladesh, toiling for up to 16 hours a day in intense desert heat; often no rest or days off; living conditions usually shantytowns without air conditioning or even the most basic of services. Reliable sources suggest that thousands died on the altar of religious soccer. A tournament built on blood.

Soccer and Church.

When I see the turnout for soccer/football games on television – where else? – the tens of thousands of people, mostly male, and younger, and then look around in my church, the few there, mostly female and seniors, then I wonder: “What is more important, momentary thrills or eternal destiny?”

I know, it’s not a fair comparison. Soccer games are a work of art, an endless enterprise in human physical skill, a cluster of cooperation, a summum of intense training and tactical expertise and tenacious teamwork, fascinating to watch. 

Comparing it to ‘religious routine’ is grossly unfair. Or is it? 

“Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize”, writes Paul to his people in Corinth. (1 Corinthians 9: 24).

Hey! Am I engaged in a race? The apostle Paul thinks so. A race? Yes. Christians are in a competitive battle that requires much more than physical agility. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms, Ephesians 6:12 tells us.

That is a comprehensive battle. It seems to me that this text foresees the evils of TV, “the spiritual forces we pull out of the air around us”, including the soccer games, financed by the advertisers who have no regard for air quality and cause climatic deterioration. It is ironic that COP 27 almost overlapped the Holy Grail of soccer, both only possible through oil-based flying and oil-based climate control. An economy built on blood.

The struggle Paul had, converting from being a Pharisee, living by the ‘law’, to becoming a participant in the freedom in Christ, was common to all converts. Just imagine the transformation, from a worshiper of idols to living as a Christ follower, alienating family, community, friends, losing one’s livelihood, customers, business associates, changing one’s diet, persecution. A church built on blood.

Being a ‘Christian’ is a 24/7 affair: we love God through the world, and we love the world as a function of God, the creator of all things. With that same intensity we love our neighbor as we treasure our own wellbeing, evident in eating real food and doing everything possible to ‘live’.

Playing world-class soccer involves total training and the utmost of devotion. Out of millions of players, less than 900 were selected, to go to Qatar. “Many are called, few are selected”, tells Jesus (Matthew 22: 14). That also applies to those who call themselves Christians. 

November 16 2022

SAVE OUR SOULS

The concept of S.O.S is well known. This disaster signal certainly applies to our world today, as COP 27 shows, where it is actually, more a S.O.B affair: Save Our Bodies, while ‘Save Our Souls’ is allotted to the church, which separates the Body from the Soul, dispatching it to heaven. Today that Soul business is in dire disarray, with the future of the church as institute very much in doubt. The church, by proclaiming for centuries the ‘gnostic doctrine’ of separating spirit from matter, has created the impression that exploiting the earth, is permissible. I believe that the church’s ‘soul and heaven’ emphasis, implying ‘leaving the earth’, has abetted Climate Change.

The first law of Ecology is that “Everything is connected to everything else”. 

Climate heating is more than a mere temperature increase: it is harming people’s health and causing weather disasters, affecting infrastructure and food production all over the planet. It also distorts people’s mind, as lower growth and bigger inequalities, intensify ideological extremism. And that extremism is making it harder to build national and international consensus around cutting greenhouse gas emissions, allowing the heating problem to steadily worsen. 

Body, Soul and Spirit.

Yes, the first law of Ecology is that “Everything is connected to everything else”. This also applies to ‘body, soul and spirit’.

I have been reading a book written by the late Dutch Philosopher, Dr. C. A. van Peursen, professor at the University of Leiden, the Netherlands most prestigious school of higher learning. Its title: Body, Soul, Spirit: A Survey of the Body-Mind Problem. 

I am interested in this topic because I struggle with this concept. Jesus refused to label ‘death’ as death. He called ‘death’ a state of sleep. My direct contact with ‘death’ is my wife who ‘died’ two years ago. According to Jesus she is asleep. I am inclined to believe that her ‘soul-spirit-mind’ is still active, even though her body is not. But, since we are a unity, something van Peursen affirms, if any part of the body/soul entity is still alive, then the total body is still alive.  If that is true then we die only after the Judgement has taken place, when we either have eternal LIFE or eternal DEATH. I did not read that in van Peursen’s book, and neither did I find it in Dr. Telder’s book, “After Death, what?” It is merely my own reasoning, based on my reflections.  

COP 27

It seems to me that the moment is at hand when Kairos and Chronos coincide, when human destruction and God’s healing merge, when God’s time and the Human hour melt away into eternity, when universal death becomes a transition to the fulness of God’s love.

Life and death are at stake at COP27 in Egypt, where 30,000 delegates try to iron out the problems caused by the steam engine, invented some 200 years ago, which made abnormality normal. They have come to make the current ‘normal’ abnormal again, an impossibility, of course, just as impossible for me, a 94 years old male, to rejuvenate myself and become a teenager again. 

This past Sunday the congregation of the church I belong to, sang a song I had written:

Tune: All people that on earth do dwell.

The Twenty Seventh UN COP 
Meets to avoid another flop

Meets to discuss world’s final choice

Meets to become earth’s healing voice.

Now every day new records break 

Too hot, too dry, for heaven’s sake

We must reduce right now and here

Or lose whatever we hold dear.

The wheat crops failed in many a’land

So, food stuff is in high demand

The rice too is in short supply 

Will we be able to get by?

War looms all over our great earth

Do pray to God for all our worth

War killing people, land and trees,

Do pray with force to bring his peace.

After this, I commented: “The Apostles’ Creed affirms: “The resurrection of the body, and Life Everlasting. That requires a new earth. That’s why we can sing with gusto”:

All people that on earth do dwell

Sing to the Lord with cheerful voice.

Serve him with joy, his praises tell,

Come now before him and rejoice.

Serving the Lord means serving creation. “It is specific to the Christian faith that God and his world are one, that life has its wellspring in this world in God, and in turn proceeds from this world back again to God”, to quote Bonhoeffer. The S.O.S is for our body/soul, for our earthly wellbeing. It entails the entire human being, body, soul, mind, spirit. The SOB in Egypt, the Saving of Our Bodies is, indeed, a ‘sob’ story: it is an exercise in futility, even though it must be pursued.