THE EMPEROR AND THE PRESIDENT.

Authentic Intelligence revealed.

There is this curious Bible story, worth retelling, because in it I see a striking parallel with Washington today.

It is found in Daniel 5. There Emperor Belshazzar, the President Trump’s prototype 2,500 years ago, celebrates his self-proclaimed achievements, in the company of his cheering supporters, inebriated and rowdy. There, full of himself, the emperor, convinced of his invincibility, ignores the dangers afoot, in spite of the warnings repeatedly reported by his legions of spies.

Suddenly, an ominous sign breaks the complacency: a mysterious movement on the wall behind the emperor brings an ever more mysterious message. Everybody sees it, except the emperor, who is engrossed in his self-congratulating oratory. A sudden hush, the ceasing of breathing, the stopping of any body movement, all eyes fixed on the wall behind him, makes Belshazzar turn around, and sees an ominous finger, slowly, ever so slowly, sculpturing a sentence in an unknown language, setting off a cavalcade of speculation.

The failure of Artificial Intelligence.

The national FBI is summoned. Prominent language experts are recruited. A multitude of friends and officials offer their opinions, but nobody has a solution: the earlier experts of Artificial Intelligence are baffled, t only by the appearance of the hand that writes, but even more by the obscure message.

Then the highest-ranking woman in the nation, the Queen, remembers Daniel, and speedy runners are dispatched to fetch this exile from Israel. He is roused from his bed, and appears before the emperor. Belshazzar says:

I have heard that the spirit of the gods is in you and that you have insight, intelligence and outstanding wisdom. (Daniel 5: 14).

Daniel, unique Daniel.

Not it all impressed being summoned. He has followed Belshazzar’s boastful bragging, and is not shy in his critique. His words directly apply to contemporary Trump – verse 23 – “You have set yourself up against the Lord of Heaven”.  Belshazzar had taken the temple vessels, holy to the Lord, to be used for secular purposes.

Trump too, has done this also, in a like manner. Where previous presidents have legislated environmental regulations, Trump has rescinded them all, and promoted God/Creation-damaging laws.

Where is a Daniel today?

I was struck by Belshazzar’s description of Daniel, connecting insight with intelligence and outstanding wisdom. In this I spotted the utter contrast between Artificial Intelligence and Authentic Intelligence.

Artificial Intelligence is completely based on the accumulated knowledge of human discoveries, of which we now see their culmination. And it is not pretty. As I write this, in a ‘climate-controlled’ apartment building, there is, beyond my windows, an accumulation of snow, indicating brutal weather conditions. The building itself is surrounded by parking lots, where our climate-heating mobility is guaranteed. But for how long? Authentic Intelligence starts with “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom”: Authentic Intelligence marvels at God’s divine creation, and tries to implement this amazement into curative, cosmic, care. That is true conversion.

This past week the president of the United States stood at a microphone and said:  “Climate Change has nothing to do with public health, and loudly and proudly announced that the federal government would repeal the Environmental Protection Agency’s “endangerment finding”, a determination that greenhouse gases endanger human health and welfare. “This is all a scam, a giant scam,” he said.

But it is not a scam: we are only at the beginning of climate destabilization, in which winter weather grows more erratic and extreme, leading to increased melting, which leads to more warming, while the summer temperatures soar. At the end of January, climate scientists identified that the extreme heatwave had been made five times more likely by warming from greenhouse gas emissions. No sooner had they published their findings than the heat was upon us again – in a new blast that rewrote the records. Temperatures in the opal-mining town of Andamooka (population: 262) in South Australia reached 50C – only the eighth time in recorded history that has happened anywhere in Australia.

In Australia’s Victoria, the state’s all-time heat record was broken at two locations, reaching 48.9C. In Melbourne, parts of the city hit 45C.  Writes one observer, “Stepping outside on that day, 27 January, felt – and I don’t use this word lightly – apocalyptic. The air was smothering, suffocating – like blasting one’s eyes and open mouth with a hairdryer. The heat was searing, especially in direct sunlight (where temperatures can reach up to 15C higher than official observation.”

Daniel stood before the king, and explained the mystery. Then the Bible simply says: “That same night Belshazzar was slain”, and Darius succeeded him.

Today, 2,500 years later, the writing too is on the wall. God has numbered the days of human reign, and will bring it to an end. We have been weighed and found wanting.

Yes, the Day of the Lord will come sudden, just as sudden as the collapse of Belshazzar’s empire.

May the Lord have mercy on us.

MY PRIORITIES IN LIFE

Donald M. Murray, a Pulitzer Prize-winning writer and writing coach, famously articulated that “all writing is autobiography” in his 1991 essay of the same name. He argued that all writing—whether fiction, poetry, or journalism—is connected to the author’s life, experiences, and personal voice.

Well, this certainly is true for me, especially in this instalment. I will directly implement this obvious rule, but confine my writing mainly to my spiritual priorities, which are God/Creation, the Church and the New Creation.

First about God.

We cannot even ask the right questions about God. Augustine wrote – in Latin, of course: “Si comprehendis, non est Deus. That needs clarification, first in translating and then in understanding. The Latin sentence means: “If you understand it, it’s not God you are talking about.” Fortunately, God has given us some measure of understanding, to wit in Jesus, God’s Son, as related in the Scriptures, and in Creation. It also seems to me that the more insight we gain in our own psyche, the easier it is also is to know Jesus, perfect God, but also perfect human. Dr. Sabine Dramm in her introduction to Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s thoughts, has clarified my thinking: “What Bonhoeffer presents as specific to the Christian faith is the perception of God and the world as one.” I see this confirmed in Romans 1: 20: “For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities–his eternal power and divine nature–have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.

The Church.

The second matter that keeps my mind busy is the Church.

Where does the word ‘church’ come from? Well, in different languages – Dutch ‘kerk’, German ‘kirche’, Scottish ‘kirk’ – they are all derived from the Greek ‘kuriakon’, meaning ‘the place of the Lord’ (kurios). But the word does not appear in the Bible. Christians, in their early stage, had no buildings to meet in and gathered in people’s homes.

Another designation of ‘the church’ is ‘ecclesia’, simply indicating a crowd come together for a common purpose.

However, the church is not synonymous with Christianity. While the church is religion, Christianity is a way of ‘life’. Jesus did not bring a new religion. No. He illustrated that our entire life should be dominated by “The Kingdom”, that means LIFE, and that to the full: 24/7. “Seek first the Kingdom”, was Jesus’ message: Seek the welfare of Creation!

So, what is the church for? What is Life all about? It is our eternal quest for the Truth. I sincerely believe that the Church exists, not so much to tell us about the Bible – that too – but to prepare us for the future earth to come. What I call the ‘Heaven Heresy’ is still so ingrained in ‘theology’ that this false doctrine still dominates ‘religion’.

To discover that “Life is religion”, has defined my journey.

When I was a child, I saw God in my father. As a 4 year old – already fed on Bible stories – our family spent a day at the beach. I was thirsty and tasted the water to spit it out at once. I ran to my father, and asked him to throw in a piece of wood, as Moses did when Israel faced a similar situation.  

Life is a journey, a quest for knowledge, that never ends. There is wisdom in realizing this. Already Socrates confessed that the only thing he knew was ‘that he knew nothing: “Scio me nescire”.

Yet, the church remains for me a great mystery. Augustine famously said, “Many whom God has, the Church does not have; and many whom the Church has, God does not have.” Is that why, in Revelation 21, there is no mention of the Church? Verse 22 says: “There is no temple there”. If the church were to disappear today, would the world notice?

The New Creation.

My life is always focused, not only on the present but also on the future, the future being the New Creation. It is my sincere belief that I must try to live that redeemed life now, in preparation for eternity.

I believe that Creation is holy, and my body as well. It is God’s personal gift to me to look after and cherish and keep intact – in preparation for my ‘redeemed’ body which I will receive from God when the DAY dawns. Today, and every day that aim is a priority in my life. The reason for me having a mainly vegetarian diet can be traced to that goal: Animals too deserve God’s grace, and the way they are treated, live ‘inhumanely’ and be slaughtered cruelly, is an abomination. In the New Creation, animals, all animals, will be our friends and we will communicate with them on our different level.

Of course, the Bible is important, but only as a guide for LIFE. Jesus, as recorded in John 10:10, brought Life, and that to the FULL. That very ‘life’ is now being ‘unmade’ as outlined by Paul Kingsnorth in his recent book, AGAINST THE MACHINE, in which he correctly describes how Humanity is losing its soul, and wonders whether we control our devices or whether they control us.

Rereading my words, I realize how inadequate my musings are.

THE THREE WORDS OF THE LORD.                

Dietrich Bonhoeffer had a creative and thus daring mind. Yes, it takes ‘daring’, courageous tinkering, to be different. Well, he was unique, and, in the end, it cost him his life, at the age of 39, when his valiant opposition to Hitler’s treacherous ways, led to his execution weeks before the end of WW (World War) 2.

Bonhoeffer was also very gifted. At one point he had to choose between becoming a concert pianist or a biblical scholar. Fortunately, he followed the urging of the Holy Spirit, resulting in double doctorate in theology before he was 25. (His father was a professor at the Berlin University.)

His writings are insightful and unorthodox. In an essay ‘Your Kingdom Come’ (Dein Reich Komme), he writes: “We are Christians at the expense of the earth…. We disdain the earth, we are better than it….. We have fallen into secularism, and by secularism, I mean pious Christian secularism. Not the godlessness of atheism or bolshevism (or today of Trumpism) but the Christian renunciation of God as the Lord of the earth.”  He saw Creation as ‘The word of the Lord’.

He is not alone.

Dr. Stefan Paas of the (Amsterdam) Free University, says essentially the same. Here is my translation: “A personal relationship with Jesus was for Protestants the nucleus of the Gospel. But this is not near enough. In addition to the vertical ‘contemplative’ line, there also is a horizontal, active dimension, outlined in Peace on Earth (Vrede op Aarde). That ‘active’ dimension refers to hands-on love for creation”.

He too, sees Creation as God’s Holy Word.

And then there is Bavinck’s Radical Kingdom Vision.

J. H. Bavinck, in his book, Between the Beginning and the End, in the chapter “The Kingdom”, writes, “It is God’s intention to unite all fractured parts of his creation into one overarching harmony. There is no such thing as individual salvation. All salvation is of necessity universal. The goal of life can never be that we personally may enjoy God and be saved in him. The goal of our life can only be that we again become part of the wider context of the Kingdom of God where all things are again unified under the one and only all wise will of him who lives and rules forever.”

Bavinck’s summation: “Salvation of the person and salvation of the cosmos, go hand in hand. You cannot have the one without the other”.

The Belgic Confession indicates: The Means by Which We Know God.

We know God by two means:

First, by the creation, preservation, and government
of the universe,
since that universe is before our eyes
like a beautiful book

in which all creatures,
great and small,
are as letters
to make us ponder
the invisible things of God:

God’s eternal power and divinity,
as the apostle Paul says in Romans 1:20.

All these things are enough to convict humans
and to leave them without excuse.

Yes, we have no excuse.

These four quotes are striking examples of Creation being God’s Holy Word.

The Cross also symbolizes these multiple Words.

Look at the striking image of the Cross! It too illustrates the comprehensive outreach of redemption: on the horizontal bar, Jesus, with open arms – literally – embraces our entire Whole Wide World, while the vertical beam is deeply vested in the earth, and from there reaches to the heavens and God’s throne.

And the Church? Does it too embrace these multiple Words?

When in a church-service, the gospel is read, it often is concluded with the phrase: ‘This is the Word of God’, as if there is only one Word: the Scriptures. Yet, the Gospel of John opens with the wonderful words: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was God and with God. He was with God in the beginning.”

The “He” there is Jesus, as Colossians 1: 15-20 affirms. That points to Jesus being The Word become Flesh, assuring that we ‘bodily’ will live forever in God’s world.

 

The question: “How do we make these words alive for us?”  

Psalm 24 simply states that “The Earth is the Lord’s”. Psalm 115:16, tells us: “The Highest Heaven belongs to the Lord, but the earth he has donated to us”.

God gave this earth to us to beautify and improve it. Think about this, and ask ourselves how to live this. After all, the world we live in, is a personal gift from God to us. God wants us to treat it as holy, a near impossible task today when almost all of human life depends on climate-destroying, creation-poisoning, carbon-based, fuels, now impossible to reverse.

If salvation is both vertical, God-honoring, and horizontal, creation/divinely ordained, then Jesus’ words are truly prophetic: Matthew 22: 14: “Many are called, but few are chosen.”; and also, Luke 18: 8: “Will I find faith on earth when I return?”

Jesus, only Jesus, has the overall view, from creation to uncreation, from beginning to end.

I am starting to see that our present – pollution-dependent world – is making genuine – horizontal/vertical – Christian living, impossible. I try, and, in spite of conscious, intentional efforts, my sins against creation, and thus my efforts to live up to, what I see as my God-given goal in life, is no longer possible.

My deep faith tells me that God will renew this world:  Then I saw “a new heaven and a new earth,” for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. (Revelation 21:1)

Even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— (Ephesians 2:5)

MUSINGS ON ‘METANOIA’.

Why, in the world, would I choose such a topic? Just like you, I want to be popular and quoted, so why such a mysterious heading?

Well, bear with me. My quest this week, is to rectify a misconception concerning the Message. Sounds quite pretentious, I know.

So, first an explanation on ‘Metanoia’.

The word metanoia in Greek, usually translated as “repentance” or “transformation.”  It is derived from two primary Greek roots: meta meaning “after,” “beyond,” or “with”, and noia/nous referring to “to think,” “to consider,” or “mind”. Literally, it signifies an “afterthought” or a “change of mind”. 

So, what is the problem? Why question the obvious?

Here’s one point: translating is highly subjective. I know, because I have done my bit of translating: 4 books, all published. I can attest from experience that translating is an art, not a science.

Take the Bible: The entire Bible comes to us in translation, the Older Testament from Hebrew, the Newer Testament from Greek. Of course, the translators were tops in their field, so I am sure that, in the main, their versions are reliable.

Me: I did have a bit of Greek in my schooling for 6 years, which does not make me an authority. Nevertheless, I have long questioned the translation of “Metanoia” into “Repentance”, and so have others. It now is my opinion that this rendering has been influenced by a particular theology, a certain philosophy that governed their work, and also tried to popularize it, through using the ‘KISS’ method – Keep It Simple, Stupid. That too, but especially, ‘kingdom-ignorance’ has entered into the picture, I think. I also believe the ‘heaven heresy’ played a role.

Don’t for a minute think that the Bible – in its translation – is perfect. This is not the only time that a word has been mistranslated. A famous instance occurred in THE LORD’S PRAYER, an error, based on the same theological interpretation.

An error in the prayer Jesus taught us? The prayer we repeat ad nauseum?

Yes. Again, it is about translating. The word translated as ‘daily’ as in ‘daily bread’, actually is totally in dispute. Prof. Dr. MacCulloch, of Oxford University, in his 1,200 pages book, Christianity, writes that the Greek word epiousios, now translated as ‘daily’, actually ‘may point to the new time of the coming kingdom’.

That sounds true to me, as Christ’s mission for us, is to “Seek First the Kingdom of God: The rest will fall into place”. That ‘seeking’, by the way, urges us to live for the welfare of God’s beloved creation.  

With this little detour, simply illustrating the human touch in Bible translating, back to ‘metanoia’, invariably translated as ‘repentance’, and I can quote you a dozen examples. Let me just give one. In Luke 5: 32, Jesus said: “I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.”

Well….

Long ago Martin Luther read the Latin translation of the Greek New Testament called the Vulgate. Luther discovered that the meaning of the original Greek word ‘metanoia’ didn’t involve doing any acts of piety. Rather, he found, it meant “change your mind.” But, what does that “change of mind” mean?

Luther wondered: “Does it mean that if you’re sorry enough, if you confess enough, if you weep enough, if you do such and such things to prove yourself, then your penitence (repentance) is received and you can go on your way?

“No. This does not at all convey the Great Meaning of Metanoia, the Greek word that has been translated “repentance” in almost every English version of the Bible.”

So…..

Actually, metanoia means a profound shift in thinking, in consciousness, in living NEW life, which reminds me of John 10: 10, where Jesus says, “I bring you LIFE, and that to the full”. Metanoia means “Life to be lived, as in the New Creation, the Kingdom to come”. In essence, this ‘now’ life, our contemporary existence, is really our ‘proving’ ground for LIFE to come.

Think about that: no more polluting cars, no more mind-distorting TV, no more UPF – no Ultra Processed Food: Only pure lasting life.

That’s what Metanoia really means!

Is that still possible in this late hour?

Enter Rupert Sheldrake. He invites us to take an entirely new look at our consciousness and the universe we live in. His research has uncovered a field of conscious-like energy which emanates from all living beings and permeates throughout everything in our universe. It has the ability to transmit information and alter the material world. Laboratory tests have proven the effects of the morphic field, showing us the creative potential of human consciousness. Enter Morphic Resonance.

Rupert Sheldrake is a biologist and author of more than 80 scientific papers and 10 books including Science Set Free. He worked in developmental biology at Cambridge University, where he was a Fellow of Clare College. His theory of morphic fields and ‘’morphic resonance leads to a vision of a living universe with its own inherent memory.

Morphic Resonance, perhaps? The ways of the Spirit are mysterious.

TIPPING POINTS.

What are tipping points?

They are thresholds where just a small push can propel a system, a person, a society, a church even, into a totally different state, sometimes with no possibility of return.

Take a simple example of a chair: just as you rock too far, you commit yourself to toppling over.

I have experienced a tipping point in my life, a spiritual one. In 1972 a good friend gave me a Dutch book, dealing with death: “What happens when we die?” The author, a gospel minister, questioned the ‘heaven destination’, instead favoring a new earth. I was immediately convinced, and became a confirmed earth-lover, seeing it as my eternal destination. In that same year another friend gave me “Limits to Growth”, questioning our wasteful way of life, and predicting a ‘resource crisis’ in 50 years, based on computer projections, now becoming reality. It made me an ‘environmentalist’. I experienced a ‘rebirth’.

I believe that the church, almost universally, has tipped into the ‘heaven heresy’ – with disastrous consequences for ‘the cosmos’, which God called ‘good’ upon completion and loves immensely, as John 3: 16 attests. Is a ‘rebirth’ still possible there?

An environmental paradox.

The paradox today is that, as resources dwindle, rather than husband the remaining treasures, we waste it by accelerating war-preparations, which only aggravate the problems and speed up the ascent of tipping points, of which Climate is the most impacted.

No wonder atomic scientists set their “Doomsday Clock” earlier this week closer than ever to midnight, citing aggressive behaviour by nuclear powers Russia, China and the United States, as fraying nuclear arms control, conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East and AI worries among factors, are driving risks for tipping the world into global disaster. Also, AI, Artificial Intelligence, requires enormous amounts of natural gas, and will hasten the onset of a universal Tipping Point.

A courageous stance.

When Canada’s Prime Minister, in last week’s concluded World Economic Forum mentioned of likelihood of ‘Rupture’, Tipping Points were foremost in his mind.  The recent monster winter storm embracing most of the US or the crazy hurricane battering Sicily destroying its coastlines are just two very recent examples of the new reality of intensifying winter extremes across the Northern Hemisphere.

Carney’s mention of Rupture was a direct rebuttal of Trump’s ahistorical actions rescinding measures to generate wind and solar energy, replacing them with carbon-based polluters, accelerating the most frightening of Tipping Points: Climate Collapse. Carney demonstrated Brain over Brawn, the Divine over the Devil, Ethics over Evil, Reality over Rapacity. He bravely chose China over the USA through its emphasis on renewals, making this communist state more ‘Christian’ than ‘religion-soaked’ USA. Harold Bloom, in his ”The American Religion”, writes “The American Religion masks itself as Protestant Christianity yet has ceased to be Christian.”

Tipping points galore.

What comes next?

What happened in Davos last week, at the World Economic Forum, will have lasting significance. For once, a politician spoke the Truth. In a certain sense, Carney’s speech was about a rupture, but it also clearly was a very visible effort to try to create public recognition around that rupture, from which other stuff can, perhaps, begin to happen.

Rupture is quite radical. It rips apart some important entities. After rupture, healing must set in, a new direction is required. On a world-wide scale. Prime Minister Carney, leading a middle-sized country, in the perilous position next to the foremost World Power, must be lauded for his daring, and his calculated initiative to force a tipping point in finance and commerce. I wonder whether Carney, sincere Christian that he is, foresees the USA to collapse, including its AI industry, that has so fueled the stock market there, bound to fail in its aim to replace God.

I also believe that the earth now is in “In extremis”, and stands at the point

death.

Yes, this, our planet too, has an expiry date, has a built-in closing mechanism, has a stated intolerance level that will automatically set off an all-consuming fire when earth’s atmosphere reaches a certain degree of heat beyond which nothing can exist.

Does that make sense?

Let me reread that sentence. Yes, it makes sense to me. Our planet is alive and can suffer from abuse just as our bodies do. Too much of physical torture, too many pollutants, and there is a tipping point where earth’s capacity is exceeded, and it all goes up in flames, total destruction. Even Jesus, when on earth, did not know the day or the hour when this is to happen.

Yes, there also is a Global tipping point. And Trump, in his Satan-inspired edict to spurn renewables and to bet American Prosperity and the World’s Fate on AI and the rapidly disappearing and heavily polluting oil sources, will hasten the Day of all Days, the Day of Christ’s Return.

Rejoice! God is in charge. He loves creation!

THIS WAS THE WEEK THAT WAS.

­

This week reminded me of WAR. Visions of wartime welled up in me. I vividly remember May 10 1940, now more than 85 years ago, the day Germany invaded the Netherlands. That day I sat on a low brick wall, on the street corner where the large Reformed Church was situated. I had a beautiful view of the inner city’s skyline, silhouetting its contours, dominated by the 100 meters high Martini Tower.

The weather that day, was picture perfect, peaceful, and a lone single engine plane hovered in the bright blue sky: a German reconnaissance plane, I imagined.

I, a 12 years old boy, was alone there. Nobody else stirred. Everybody was indoors, clustered around the radio, listening for news and expecting the worst. What could tiny Netherlands do to stop Germany’s colossal war-machine?

My reflections on what happened in the Netherlands so many years ago, were kindled by this week’s headline in the Globe and Mail, Canada’s National Newspaper: MILITARY MODELS CANADIAN RESPONSE TO HYPOTHETICAL AMERICAN INVASION.

Will I again experience a foreign occupation in my life-time? I dread the thought, not for me, an old man approaching 100, but for my multiple offspring, numbering scores.

 

Prepared for hardship.

 

I was a child of the Dirty Thirties, the economic malaise that taught us to be frugal, and sparing, and economical, and self-sufficient. In that sense we were well prepared for the hardship awaiting us, already always mending clothes, always watching every penny, always praying, religious to a fault: “Trust and obey, there’s no other way”. The churches were packed. Living next to a large church – not the one my family attended (that one, equally large was more orthodox, also quite close) – on Sunday afternoon, for the second service, me, then a 5 years old, I noticed the many cigarette ends, discarded just before the men entered the church.

 

Back to the war, now known as WWII -1939-45. According Eric Hobsbawm, well-known historian, in his book, The Age Of Extremes :1914-1991, he posed that the WWI 1914-18 war never satisfactory concluded, and simply continued in 1939, ending in 1945.  

 

Back to my youthful observations.

 

When Germany attacked my ‘old country’, the defeat was quick. May 10 1940 followed by May 11. My younger brother, by 3 years, and I, in midmorning – no school, of course – rushed to the city centre – a mere 10-15 walk – and found there a German Army Brass band already playing Teutonic tunes, while long lines of motorized occupation forces – fierce looking soldiers – drove past, on the way west, toward the “Afsluit Dijk”, that long “Closing Dike”, connecting Friesland to the Dutch economic centre, Amsterdam, Rotterdam and The Hague.

 

That occupation lasted 5 full years, almost to the day.

 

This week a turning point?

 

Now more than 80 years later, not only Europe, but the entire world is in an inescapable bind: at war, not so much among each other – that too – but fighting “The War of All Wars: Humanity against God: Technology against Creation”.

 

My mind goes back to the Scriptures, and to Jesus’ observation concerning “The End”.  He said, “Now learn this lesson from the fig tree: As soon as its twigs get tender and its leaves come out, you know that summer is near. ³³ Even so, when you see all these things, you know that it is near, right at the door.”

 

Did this week signal the beginning of the End?

 

We don’t like Jesus’ reference to The End. We are too comfortable. Yet Revelation 18 pulls no punches: “All the nations have drunk the maddening wine of adulteries.” We do well to read that chapter, and visualize the luxuries we enjoy – at the expense of God’s creation, which the author of the book calls ‘adultery’, aptly named, as they are abnormal intrusions.

 

Both Jesus and John on Patmos, tell us to be on the lookout for THE end, the Telos, of which the Bible speaks all the time. The signs are everywhere, as this past week’s events show: even the weather participates in the parade of perils.  No wonder the Atlantic Magazine claims: “Americans are entering the most dangerous world they have known since World War II, one that will make the Cold War look like child’s play and the post-Cold War world like paradise.”

 

Everything is connected to everything else.

 

The above law of Ecology, is also an important Biblical given: Our world face tough choices, as we have reached “The Limits of Growth”.

Now a new order has come, the fight for the rapidly disappearing natural resources.

 

Will the church sound the alarm?

 

Data from the 1950s record that over half of Americans were in the membership rolls of a mainline church in 1958. Today 8–8.5 percent of Americans are mainline Protestant, with the average age of about 60 years old. Will the church sound the alarm? Did it “In the week that was?”