Bert Hielema–Columns and Writings

CHRISTIANITY IS NOT A RELIGION. SO, WHAT IS IT?

Christianity is not a religion, even though, over the years, it has been called this. 

Here is what makes religion ‘religion’: A religion has rites, a religion has buildings, a religion has functionaries, a religion resembles the army, where a general compares to a pope, colonels to cardinals, officers to priests, soldiers to laypeople. 

Is the church really similar to an army?

Well, religion has songs celebrating its aim, such as: “Like a mighty army moves the church of God”. And the equally unbiblical: Stand up for Jesus, ye soldiers of the cross, or, Onward Christian Soldiers. Really?

In essence, today’s Christian religion resembles more the Old Testament than the New. Religion has official feast days, just like the good Old Testament times, when everything was stipulated, and we knew exactly what to do, and when and where. Also compare how Religion has prescribed vestments, for instance: the Pope wears white, the cardinals red. Usually the Protestant clergy are dressed in black. For a reason?

New Testament Christianity has none of that. 

The adoption of Old Testament rituals leaves the impression that observing some rules will earn salvation. Old Testament rules mangle the Message. Look at Jesus, God’s Son. He dressed as a common citizen: nothing distinguished him in appearance. Certainly, no clerical collar. 

And then there is Jesus’ very final act. Mark 15: 37-38 tells us that when “Jesus with a loud cry breathed his last, the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom.” Just imagine, just picture the scene, and connect it to John 3: 16, which tells us that the reason for his death, was not that we, poor sinners would be saved, but that creation, the cosmos, the animals, the trees, the entire human race would be restored to Paradise Prime! Jesus in a cry of acute agony visualized how the church would degenerate into a pietistic portrait of non-relevance, many shamelessly adoring the Trump cohort whose devilish conduct is bent to destroy the cosmos for whose total regeneration, Jesus Christ gave his life. 

Yes, Christianity today, basically, is a continuation of the Old Testament church, and when Jesus objected, when he went against the established rules, the then church killed him.

What then is “Christianity?”

 How can I word that? How can I make that convincing? How can I get that across? First: Christianity is a constant struggle, because Christianity has no fixed rules, because Christianity always is exploratory. 

The basic message of Revelation.

The basic message of Revelation, and thus of Christianity, is that “Everything becomes what it is”. That is its ‘lesson’. All truths and lies will be exposed. Trump’s traumatic attempts to rule the economic world, will backfire, because his opponent here is God/Jesus. 

Colossians 1: 15-20, places special emphasis on Ta Panta: All Things. Since God created ‘all things’, then, as a matter of consistency, ‘All things are holy’. Karen Armstrong, with her book, Sacred Nature, shows this clearly. 

The world is becoming a dangerous place. The latest readings from the “Doomsday Clock”, which notionally measures proximity to global catastrophe, suggest that it is now at 89 seconds to midnight, the closest it has ever been to the theoretical point of annihilation.

The reasons are familiar: the risk of nuclear war, pandemics, disinformation, new technologies. Perceptions that the world is spinning out of control are heightened by environmental and health disasters like the recent Los Angeles wildfires,  outbreaks of Ebola and other lethal, infectious diseases. 

Animals too, look forward to the New World.

When Jonah went to Nineveh, God expressed special concern for the many animals there. Today the Die-off of wild creatures is rapidly accelerating. Look at the North/South Poles where polar bears, seals, penguins, will soon disappear, due to Global Heating. God made them. God loves them. 

So, what is Christianity?

Christianity is NOT a religion. Christianity is ‘a way of life’. Religion separates soul from body, but God is in the midst of everything. Religion has heaven at its goal, pure pagan preaching. Jesus tells us that ‘the meek will inherit the earth’, those who claim little or nothing. We want everything. 

Our bonds with the earth are so strong that we cannot imagine existing apart from the earth. We await Paradise, a Paradise with Jesus. Paradise is the unspoiled world where the total harmony of all creatures entwines everything into intimate cohesion. Paradise is the KINGDOM as seen by God on the morning of creation, when he saw all he had made, and concluded, ‘it was very good’. 

When Jesus taught us to pray, “Your kingdom come”, that’s what He had in mind. That’s why Christianity is NOT a religion: It is a Way of Life, simulating the perfect creation to come.

To me the Bible/Jesus tells me so: John 10:10: I, Jesus, have come to bring LIFE -24/7 – and that to the full. Live life. All the time, Live LOVE, as God loved the world. Loving Creation in all her aspects, including humans, of course, in all her expressions. and trying to care for their welfare is equivalent to “Praying without ceasing”. (1 Thessalonians 5:17): That’s what Christianity is all about.

Parousia, the Coming of the Lord, will be a total surprise.

Fifty Years ago.

I did some soul searching this past week. Fifty years ago, January 1975, I made a radical decision: I decided to leave our comfortable 2,000 square feet, home with built-in office, in St, Catharines, Ontario, located on a major city thoroughfare, and move away. This also entailed selling my General Insurance business, surrendering my Real Estate Brokerage, intending to relocate some 300 km east, halfway between Toronto and Ottawa, with the intention to join a ‘Christian’ community there. 

It was my decision, mine only (male dominance at work): My wife and my five children were hardly consulted in the matter, the oldest already in university. I did give hints: I do remember that my wife and I visited there before moving.

Why?

Several reasons, one, being disaffected with my minister, who later left the denomination. He wanted to apply church censure to me, because I had refused to send my children to Catechism, disagreeing with his right-wing views. Also, after 20 years of selling insurance, I was fed up with the increasing detail work. Then my excellent secretary left. 

Then, as now, the times were testing, with the global upheaval of the early 1970s, with wars raging from the Middle East to Vietnam, and an oil crisis looming: an era of tension and uncertainty. 

There were spiritual reasons as well. In 1975, I was an idealist. I imagine I also was naïve, perhaps stupid to leave good security to face uncertainty, not having any manual skills, yet set out to build an energy-efficient home, passive solar, intending to live closer to ‘nature’ within a group of dedicated, though unconventional Christians, all of similar Dutch Reformed Christian background, well educated, 2 having been school principals.

That small group had earlier acquired a 200-acres working farm in Tweed, Ontario, and I bought 50 acres from them. I also promised them $10,000 to kickstart a communal enterprise. 

Why: again. 

Well, in early 1972 I had submitted a 5,000 words article to the Real Estate Institute of Canada JOURNAL. Every year it held a contest selecting the best article related to Real Estate, for publication in their Journal, offering a substantial money prize and a free trip to their annual convention, that year held in Vancouver. My article was entitled, THE CITY KEY TO SURVIVAL, an Essay on Ecology and Urban Living. To my great surprise, in a Canada-wide contest, including universities, my submission was selected.

In retrospect, I believe that this award influenced my thinking on leaving the city and trying to live a more ‘creation-friendly’, ecologically responsible life. 

Back to 1975-80.

For my wife and me, the change was a challenge. The community and the house church lasted 5 years, the break-up caused by disagreement on basic matters.

 So, in 1980, we joined the local Presbyterian Church which now has aged, the services basically unaltered for decades, even though the world has changed radically. 

All is well that ends well. 

My ‘early’ retirement – in 1975 I was in my 48^th year – gave me the opportunity to re-educate myself to become a Commercial Real Estate Appraisal. I took several university courses, and prepared the required three 100 pages proof appraisals on (1) a single family dwelling, (2) a 12 units apartment building, and (3) a commercial complex.

I attained my designation in 1978, and launched a new company called, HASTINGS APPRAISAL SERVICES, covering the entire county of Hastings, an area ranging from Lake Ontario to the Algonquin Park, some 150 km, with suboffices in the North and South, while centrally located Tweed became the administration office, with a former bank manager in charge. 

I sold the business in 1993 when I turned 65.

In my 50 years in Tweed, I have learned that the village is a civil place, with a lot of good people, but with a fading religious faith – two churches closed, two more are struggling – the Christian commitment more historical than based on personal relationships with the divine. In that the area differs little from the urban population: by and large, the Christian church is basically comatose, with no vision on eternity. 

Now what?

Next month I am going back to my home denomination. Will I find it changed? Will I find deeper thinking there, based on eternity? 

Over the years I have learned to be more defined in my views, more understanding of the reigning tendencies in society. 

I do believe that there is a growing awareness of the coming collapse of the current system, yet there still exists a baseless faith that human ingenuity will triumph.

I have come to believe that the church ought to prepare us for eternity, lived here on God’s renewed earth. The major challenge today is the swiftly changing climate, and our total inability to stop its rapid march to human oblivion. Yes, I believe that the End is near. Trump will not triumph: The evil he is doing will speed up earth’s destruction and hasten the Lord’s return.

That’s why Parousia, the Coming of the Lord, will be a total surprise.

HUMAN MARRIAGE REMOVED; COSMIC MARRIAGE RESTORED.

Christianity is NOT a religion: it is a Way-Of-LIFE.

But those who are considered worthy of taking part in the age to come and in the resurrection from the dead will neither marry nor be given in marriage. Luke 20: 35

For the Lord will take delight in you,
    and your land will be married. Isaiah 62: 4   

I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband.

                                                                                 Revelation 21: 2

Changes coming: 

In the USA half the marriages end in divorce. The emotional pain! The financial hardship! The suffering children! The Lord, in his wisdom, has looked at this institution and decided that it won’t work in eternity: a forever union is simply too long. 

No sex there.

At the resurrection people will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven. Matthew 22: 30.

In eternity life will be different, totally so. Jesus is quite explicit on this score. He lived the Kingdom life in his short stay on earth. And he remained single, even though he had lots of female friends. 

I was married for 67 years, and it was a good marriage. In eternity I will meet my wife again, as total equals. Sex, even though I delighted in it, will be over, forever: no more childbearing with its pain and uncertainty, because, basically, marriage always was an unequal situation. 

Yet, marriage will be maintained.

But marriage will not disappear: The Land will be married! The Land? Yes. Again! That bond God established in Paradise: then humanity was married to creation, was broken but was healed on the Cross. Again, the land will be married to humanity, with Jesus included, perfect man among perfected people, NOT, I repeat NOT with Jesus as the groom and the church as the bride. Forget it: the church will disappear: totally. Jesus will be Immanuel, God with us, the Primus Inter Pares, the First among Equals, the equals being the Redeemed of the Lord. 

I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. Revelation 21: 2.  

That IS the new creation: It is the bride. We, the redeemed of the Lord, together with Jesus, are the groom: The new state of Marriage, lasting forever.

We again have been hoodwinked by Greek pagan philosophy, which saw matter – creation –as evil and spirit as good. 

In ecclesiastical circles, the church is touted as the Bride of Christ. Now, don’t get me wrong: I am not a theologian, have no academic qualifications to lend authority to my musings. I believe the biblical truth of John 3: 16, that God loved his creation above anything else. That to me makes it my utmost priority to do the same. Romans 1: 20 confirms this in a somewhat negative way, where, in essence it says that the perfection of creation should lead us to believe in God, and we stand condemned if we don’t. 

Then there is 1 John 5: 19, blandly stating that in today’s society not Christ is in charge: We know that we are children of God, and that the whole world is under the control of the evil one: The powers of evil dominate, all too visible everywhere.

Am I correct? 

So, keeping these texts in mind, here is my reasoning, purely human, and thus fallible, but it happens to be my view on my path to eternity, based on 2 Philippians 12, I try to work out my salvation with fear and trembling.

“The whole world, including the church, is under the control of the evil one”. Exceptions there are, I know.

That’s the premise from which I start. The church, as we see it with its pompand circumstance, its rites and its new High Priest, Donald Trump, who yields more ‘spiritual’ power than the Pope, have, by and large, abandoned God’s Creation in favor of a fictional heaven, even though Jesus repeatedly states that ‘Where I am going you cannot come”. (John 3: 13, John 8: 21-22, John 13:33), but the ‘know nothing’ Christians insist to know better. 

The reason why we have a world on fire – with worse to come – is that organized Christian Religion, has surrendered God’s cosmos to be exploited to the point where, today, it is a tinderbox. Had the church, 500 years ago or so, insisted on treating the earth as HOLY, as God’s precious possession, the church’s then undoubted authority, would have prevented our current state of decomposition. 

Yes, I see the church as the main culprit in this matter. Just as the church of Jesus’ days killed him, this time the church is well on its way to kill God’s Holy Earth. Harsh words, but I see them as true.

Jesus in John 10:10 is quite explicit: I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full. Christ, in his life and actions, represented the New Creation. What he thought about the then reigning religion is well documented in Matthew 23, and is as true today as it was then.

HUMAN MARRIAGE REMOVED; COSMIC MARRIAGE RESTORED.

DIRE RHYMES WITH FIRE.

Dire rhymes with FIRE.                                                    

We may not realize it, but we, in the end, are doing God’s work. Just read on.

In my long life – well into year 97 – I have never seen world conditions as bad as they are now. Everything is in disarray: Political, social, financial, ecclesiastical, environmental, everything, everywhere.  

During 1940-45, when I as a teenager, from age 12-17, experienced the cruel German occupation in the Netherlands, the BBC in their daily broadcasts from London, always ended their Dutch programs with the words, “How dreary the day,” how cheerless the situation, we are one day closer to liberation”.

That hope kept us alive and upbeat, and united the people as never before, immensely sustained by full, uplifting church support and neighborly generosity.  That hope is no longer there.

Dire rhymes with FIRE.

The word ‘dire’ comes from the Latin ‘DIRUS, meaning ‘fearful’. Today one of the laws of Ecology is in direct display: “Everything is connected to everything else.” We see it in full force: Everything is in disarray: Political, social, financial, ecclesiastical, environmental, everything, everywhere. 

Should I mention Trump, whose regime is blind to the signs of the times, denying the obvious ravages of a changing era. If ever the words of Paul: “The love of money is the root of all evil”, apply to a historic moment, it is today, Anno 2025, when the richest of the world have a place of honor at Trump’s inauguration: the Biblical reminder of LOVE has been replaced with GREED, the love of money. The Trump regime will accelerate immensely the coming of the Lord: Thank you, Lord. 

Again: We may not realize it, but we, in the end, are doing God’s work. Just read on.

Jeremiah is one of my favorite prophets. The concept of ‘Jeremiads’ originates from him. He, more than any other prophet connects Creation with punishment. Take Jeremiah 3: 3: “Therefore, theshowers have been withheld, and there has been no latter rain”.

No rain spells fire.

In layperson’s terms, that means “out of control and burning at will”. It’s a common designation for a wildfire – in the wild. But when a fire like this enters an urban area such as Los Angeles County, the most highly populated metropolitan area in the US, it becomes an exploding bomb, and this one has been detonating for a full week.

Here follow some citations from John Vaillant.

“By now, the energy release from this wind-driven, drought-fuelled firestorm turned urban conflagration is into the megatons, and the nuclear-scale destruction is there for all to see: block after block and neighbourhood after neighbourhood levelled – roughly 12,000 structures destroyed or rendered uninhabitable, 55 sq miles of city and mountain burnt, nearly 200,000 residents evacuated – so far. There is more to come.

“The death toll has risen above 25 but, given the hurricane-force winds, the ignescent blizzards of flying embers, the frantic just-the-clothes-on-our backs evacuations, the gridlock, the wholesale terror, and the massive scale of this already historic event, such low fatalities are a kind of miracle.

“So integral has fire become to our daily activities, and to our identities, that we scarcely notice it any more. Almost invisibly now, its superhuman potency enables and amplifies virtually everything we do: cooking our food, heating our homes, powering our energy grids, and driving us – in our teeming billions – through the world at lethal speeds by land, sea and air.

“Due to the colossal scale on which our fire-powered civilisation now operates – including 50,000 seagoing ships, 30,000 jet planes, and nearly 2bn motor vehicles, powered by 100m barrels of oil every day – we have also supercharged the atmosphere.”

A Day of Reckoning coming.

The Bible tells us so.

Genesis 19 relates how God acted through fire: Then God rains sulfur and fire on Sodom and Gomorrah and all the Plain, because of their wickedness. 

Malachi 4: 1: “Surely the day is coming; it will burn like a furnace. All the arrogant and every evildoer will be stubble, and the day that is coming will set them on fire,” says the Lord Almighty.

2 Peter 3 also is very telling: ¹⁰ But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything done in it will be laid bare. 

¹¹ Since everything will be destroyed in this way, what kind of people ought you to be? You ought to live holy and godly lives.

We ought to live holy and godly lives, in tune with God’s Holy Creation!

We may not realize it, but we, in the end, are doing God’s work: fire will pave the way for the New Creation! Trump is doing God’s work in a Satanic Way.

IS CHURCH REFORMATION STILL POSSIBLE?

A look back.

In the 1930s, Dietrich Bonhoeffer came to Union Theological Seminary in New York, looking for fellow believers. What he found instead disturbed, angered, and perplexed him. There is no theology here, he wrote to a German colleague. The New York churches, if possible, were even worse: They preach about virtually everything; only one thing is not addressed… namely, the gospel of Jesus Christ, the cross, sin and forgiveness, death and life. 

What Bonhoeffer is today and was for American Protestantism, Alexis de Tocqueville is today and was for Democracy in America, a cultural and political analysis of the new republic, which appeared a century earlier. But what the German theologian found was, if possible, more significant than the observations of the French aristocrat: Protestantism in America was a Protestantism without Reformation.

Is a Reformation at this late hour, still possible?

In 1987 – now almost 40 years ago – my oldest son gave me a book by Walter Brueggemann, an Old Testament Scholar, published in 1978, entitled, The Prophetic Imagination. Dr. Brueggemann was then – 47 years ago – at the start of his long career. Now, at 91, he is still active, still writing books and essays. 

On the very first page of this significant book, Brueggemann wrote – confirming Bonhoeffer’s observation – “The contemporary American church is so largely enculturated to the American ethos of consumerism that it has little power to believe or to act… That enculturation is true not only of the institution of the church but also of us as persons.

On the very last page of this slender book – 113 pages – he points to a  concept dear to my heart: “Jesus’ concern was finally, for the joy of the Kingdom. That is what he promised and to that he invited people.”

Books galore: who will inherit them?

I also have this book of 1,100 pages by the Oxford Professor, Dr. Diarmaid MacCulloch,“CHRISTIANITY, The First Three Thousand Years. This learned man points out that the church has seen ‘the Kingdom concept’ as too controversial and too difficult for the person in the pew, to understand. He cites the Lord’s Prayer, where the phase “Give us this day our daily bread”, appear mistranslated, based on a wrong interpretation of the Greek word epiousios which does not translate as ‘daily bread’ at all. He states that it may point to the new time of the coming Kingdom. 

Dr. MacCulloch writes on page 89: in The Lord’s Prayer, Jesus “moves straight from addressing the Father in heaven to the plea ‘Thy Kingdom Come’,” adding that apparently, Jesus sees THE KINGDOM and its coming, as the most pressing of all present and future events. 

Another scholar, Dr. Herman Ridderbos, wrote The Coming of the Kingdom, in which he asserts that the entire Bible has been written with THE KINGDOM as its central message.

My question: “have you ever heard a sermon on the meaning of THE KINGDOM? Have you ever heard an explanation of this? Matthew 6: 33 urges us to “Seek first the Kingdom and his righteousness.” J.H. Bavinck, in his book Between the Beginning and the End: A Radical Kingdom Version, devotes an entire chapter to THE KINGDOM. 

Here is how he starts this chapter: “The concept of the Kingdom of God resounds like a majestic chorale through the Bible, from Genesis to Revelation.” He summarises the chapter by stating: “The central point of the gospel is not us poor humans and our pain and suffering, rather, its entire focus is aimed at the unique and powerful reality that God wants to reinstate his kingdom. And a sentence later comes this hammer blow: “There is no such thing as individual salvation. All salvation is of necessity universal”.

All salvation universal?

Yes: That indicates that personal redemption and the redemption of Creation, go hand in hand. That’s why our task in life is to LIVE for the welfare of Creation!

That is the radical gospel.

“Is a church Reformation still possible?” I asked. 

That is an important question, but the church has painted itself in a corner, prioritizing the Bible over Creation, in defiance of John 3: 16-17, where it states – and I will say it again – For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. Jesus came not to condemn the world, but to save the world.

Jesus’ death and resurrection took place to restore creation so that, when he returns – now more imminent by the day – a New Creation awaits us. That old creation – the one we daily experiencing – is worn out and in danger of becoming a threat rather than a refuge. We have abused it – and still are – to the point of imminent collapse. Jesus came not to save souls – whatever than means – but to bring LIFE as John 10: 10 testifies: “I have come to bring LIFE and that to the full. 

That’s the Reformation we need, because: Christianity is not a religion: It is a way of life! It no longer is Ecclesia Reformata, Semper Reformanda, no longer a church always reforming. Now it is Homo Reformatus, Semper Reformandus, meaning, A Reformed Person, Always Reforming. The Bible disappears: a new Creation dawns, while the meek – those who claim little – will inherit the earth. (Psalm 37: 11).

 

WE DIE: THEN WHAT?

 

We all die. The rich, the super-rich, hate death, hate to become like those in the grave, of which there is no escape. Apparently, many of these billionaires don’t believe the Apostles’ Creed, which ends with the words: “I believe in the resurrection of the body and Life Everlasting.”

My real topic is exploring the connection between body and soul. Since nobody has come back from death – except Jesus and Lazarus – and he is not telling – I rely on what the Bible says. I remember that, as a youth, I questioned Lazarus’ resurrection because, spoon-fed on the glories of heaven, I wondered why Lazarus was pulled away from that beautiful place, to face this ‘vale of tears’ again. 

 

Jesus consistently called death ‘sleep’, indicating a temporary condition from which people will be awakened, to face ‘judgement. Being clinically dead, does not mean death of consciousness. 

 

I have this book, given me by my brother Drewes, in the Netherlands, written by Dr. Pim van Lommel, entitled “Eindeloos Bewustzijn” = Endless Consciousness. In it, this medical doctor, a cardiologist, describes how he has witnessed scores of “Near Death Experiences”. I, too, had one: My father, about to die, said to me: “I hear music: is the radio on”.

Van Lommel, in his 400 pages book, writes that – and I translate – “In the end, it is difficult not to conclude that endless consciousness always has existed independent from our body, and always will continue to exist. There is no beginning and there never will be an end to our consciousness.”

 

The Apostles’ Creed says that Jesus, in clinical death ‘descended’ into hell’. That speaks volumes: his spirit was still alive, and, while dead, he experienced hell, so that we need not go through hell. Hell being ‘God’s absence.

We, humans, are more than a mere body: we are body and soul. The body dies, the soul lives on. 

Where does the soul go? It is not, as Greek Philosophy proclaims, that death frees us from a sinful body, from which the pure spirit can, finally, come into perfection. That’s what Socrates believed. He gladly drank the poison that killed his body, seeing it as a release from a sinful entity, his body. This view has been adopted by the Roman Catholic Church, and by many Protestants as well: they see heaven as the refuge for the soul, contrary to Scripture which categorically states that nobody has gone to heaven, except Jesus who came from there. (John 3: 13} 

 

So, what is soul?

 

The soul is not the spirit that, after death, goes to heaven or hell, but the soul is our deepest being, the nucleus of what we are, the real ‘me’, our very essence. The soul is our true self, shorn of all personal embellishments, devoid of any vanity, completely naked before God. In that intermediate state, between death and resurrection, we see ourselves either in our lostness – perhaps called hell – or our salvation, perhaps called heaven, that blessed state, when our souls will be united with our bodies upon Christ’ return in all his glory.

 

My dreams.

 

I have had, in my dreams, indirect contacts with my wife, who died more than 4 years ago. In my first dream I saw her, confused and somewhat at a loss. Her father, a minister in a large – 1,300 members – church in the Netherlands, died when she was 9 years old, the eighth child, with the twelfth yet to be born. It left a mark on her, I believe, especially in the first two decades of our marriage, which also saw one child, a boy, die within 24 hours of birth. 

We were married for 67 years, of which the first 20 years had their rocky moments. She really wanted to study. Her intellectual gifts, fortunately, were transferred to our five children. She did become a talented grapho-analyst – a handwriting professional, and public speaker.  

 

So, she lives on in my dreams. Just last week, I had a dream in which she, relaxed and happy, swam in a large waterbody while I was walking on the shore. She loved swimming.

 

I believe we will be re-united in eternity, not as a married couple, but as friends. Jesus is quite clear that in eternity there will be no marriage, and complete equality. Whether there will be sex in eternity is doubtful, citing Jesus’ words that “When the dead rise, they will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven,” (Mark 12: 25.).

 

In my book, Day without End, available on the web, I reason differently. There I pose the possibility that, rather than we become like the angels, angels want to become like us. 

Well…..