Bert Hielema–Columns and Writings

June 22 2022.

BORN TO WOE: 

the 14^th Century compared to our 21^st Century.

”Born to woe”, that’s how Barbara Tuchman heads her chapter on the 14^th Century, in her book, A Distant Mirror, the Calamitous 14^th Century.

Seven Hundred years ago, everything was different: then, ‘Life of the Spirit and of the after-world was superior to material life on earth”, she writes. Today this would be totally untrue. Yet, today, as a testimony to that faith, Europe still have its magnificent cathedrals, many of them built during the 12^th and 13^th Centuries, a distinct symbol of the religiosity of those bygone years, including the Martini Church in my hometown Groningen with its 100m tower. However, all are now stripped off their innards, their believing adherents.

The previous years.

The centuries prior to the year 1400, had been very productive, with great advances in art, technology, building, exploration, universities, cities, banking: they were the high Middle Ages, when the compass, the windmills, the spinning wheels, made life more interesting and prosperous. People felt good and secure, and its population expanded rapidly.

Then the weather turned. 

Sounds familiar! “A physical chill settled on the 14^th Century at its very start”. The Baltic Sea froze over twice, in 1303 and 1306-7; the cultivation of grain was curtailed: a shorter growing season heralded disaster for the population that had rapidly grown during prosperity, so quickly that already then it had reached a delicate balance.

Today?

Today we see similar signs: not cold, but heat is making agriculture and horticulture a hazardous enterprise. In 1315 the rains came so incessant that crops failed all over Europe, and famine, the dark horseman of the Apocalypse, became a familiar feature. Today….

Then, “Born to woe” accelerated 30 years later. Then, after the workers’ riots in 1346-47 which plunged Rome into anarchy, a fearsome earthquake shook the European mainland, accompanied by the PLAGUE, now labeled the Black Plague, that killed an estimated 50% of the European population. 

That same Pandemic was back in the news this past week when researchers, after decades of probing, found the plague-causing bacteria in graves in Kyrgyzstan, a country just north of Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Then too, the One Hundred Year War was waged, coinciding with religious strife that saw two Popes vying for dominance in the church.

Today?

In many ways our era resembles the 14^th Century. We too, are engaged in what constitutes a perpetual war against creation where thousands upon thousands of species are disappearing, where once fertile lands are washed away or resort to desert-like conditions, where not cold, is on the 14^th century, but human-induced heat is increasing, and melting glazier and disappearing North-and South Pole ice, make the weather increasingly volatile.

In contrast with the universal Catholic Church, dominant 700 years ago, we now see decreasing church attendance and increasing conservatism, centering especially on human sexual behavior, condemning the Lesbian-Homosexual-Bisexual-Transgender conditions, while Jesus’ life of magnanimity and tolerance is pushed away, replaced by stark rule upon rule. When the current Pope dies or resigns, the most likely scenario is a recurrence of the TWO POPES event, based on the unbridgeable divisions in the largest Christian block.

The Bible.

I know: the Bible is not a history book. But I do recommend you read Matthew 24 aloud. All 51 verses apply to today, painting a picture that eerily resembles both the 14^th and the 21^stcenturies: ‘the abomination that causes desolation’ occurring in the holy place, the earth in which we live, and which we have desecrated. It also mentions the lack of good preaching, the frequency of famines and earthquakes. And the list goes on: the similarity painted then, and what is happening today, is uncanny.

Also, both the Old and New Testament frequently mention an unbelievably large earthquake that will destroy one third of the earth. This past week a new report specifically pointed to the likelihood of such an event happening along the North American Pacific rim.

History tells me that disasters are contagious, that natural mishaps like company. Revelation 18 tells us why: “All nations have drunk the maddening wine of her adulteries”. In that same chapter it says that “The merchants of the earth will weep..” because stagflation will stop the sale of luxury goods and homes. 

Stagflation, a combination of inflation and economic stagnation, is now the forecast, plus withering weather-woes: both signs of a dying civilization.

The 14^th Century was ‘born to woe’’. That woe grew worse through indigenous destruction and genocide, through further church turmoil, the holocaust, through world-wars killing hundreds of millions, and now, in the 21^st Century, through the crime of all crimes: the death of nature, God’s precious earth. This final woe which will carry its own punishment: sudden global death.

June 15 2022

“BE END-CONSCIOUS”, ADVISES JESUS.

 “Many are called, few are chosen”, (Matthew 22:14), or “Will I find faith on earth when I return,” (Luke 18:8), or “But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it”. (Matthew 14: 7).

Not very encouraging these texts: what’s the matter with us? How come that Jesus – and these are his words – is so pessimistic about his followers reaching the final goal? 

Perhaps it has something to do with our idea of what constitutes the Christian faith. Suppose you are an average, law abiding, tax-paying citizen. If you live in the city core, where the main-line churches are, on Sundays you see a few – mostly middleclass, older people – attend. The more successful churches are usually in the suburbs with large parking lots, but often the same middleclass, well – situated attendees. 

For all practical purposes, during the week, there is little or no difference there with non-church people. That’s why I think that ‘a bit of Jesus as icing on the cake’, is not what Jesus had in mind when he dwelled on earth. Actually, he was killed because he, in no uncertain terms, condemned ‘religion’, condemned the ritual, well-established outwardly successful churches, the ‘many who are called, but…..’. 

It’s all about THE END.

I guess you can accuse me of being preoccupied with the end of humanity, with painting a picture that is dripping with pessimism. I guess you can rightly accuse me of writing that “The End is Near”. And I am not alone. Jesus was of that opinion as well.

Jesus saw all of life from the perspective of the END, the TELOS. In his famous proclamation, now called, THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT, Jesus recommended that we ought to live as “Anthropos Teleios”, which is translated as ‘being perfect’, an impossibility, but really means: “Be a person living with the END – TELOS – in mind: “Be teleios as your heavenly Father is teleios”, (Matthew 6:48). Be end-conscious as God is end-conscious. A voyage is not defined by its beginning, but by its end. Life is a trajectory, has a beginning and an end -telos-, and it’s the growing process, the striving for perfection, that determines its success. 

I can see where the translators did not use this literal interpretation because it also would mean that God would have an ending. 

Well, he does. 

Once the New Creation has come, God will disappear as he merges with The New Creation, where Jesus, as the heir of the Kingdom will be All and in All. God, as Bonhoeffer has postulated, is one with Creation, his laws will be    in our hearts: no more Bible, either, or church.

And what constitutes THE END?

The End is the new creation. Simple and direct. Paul, the great apostle, blunt as always, writes that when ‘the times have reached their end-point – and I maintain that this is the case today – everything, people, animals, oceans, continent, animals, vegetation, will all be under one grand Master, Christ.  

Johan Herman Bavinck writes, “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. There is no such thing as individual salvation.”

That kingdom is his creation, the place where we live.

Jesus repeatedly tells us to “seek the kingdom” Our salvation and the salvation of creation go hand in hand. That’s why many are called, few take up the challenge.

No matter what we do, no matter how we, in the Western world, live, today ALL our acts somehow damage the very world God has created. Life today poses nearly insurmountable obstacles for Christians, that’s why I agree with Martin Luther who, more than 500 years ago, wrote (in the Latin theological language of his day) “Pecca Fortiter”, sin bravely, and constantly ask for forgiveness.

So, how do we deal with Jesus’ words, “Many are called, but few are chosen” or the other downer, Will I find faith upon my return?”

By and large, – and I am sure there are exceptions – ecclesiastical utterance is heaven-oriented. On Sundays millions of people hear sermons exclusively based on the Scriptures, God’s indirect word, called The Holy Bible, while Creation, God’s direct Word, so celebrated in Psalm 19, Psalm 8, Psalm 104 and others, is never regarded as ”HOLY”, yet Genesis 1-2-3 outline in detail how it was created by God. Psalm 33: 9 says, “God spoke and it came to be.”

God wants to restore Creation: that’s why Jesus died. In the process he also makes the new occupants holy. 

This is the gospel, the Good News: many are called, few are chosen.  

June 8 2022

THE LEAST IN THE KINGDOM……

Schrijven betekent: jezelf lezen. (To write means: reading your own life-story). Max Frisch.^.

How true.

Here’s my daily routine. I always get up at 7.30. Make tea, 3 cups of a mixture of Red Tea, Green Tea, Peppermint and Gingerroot. At 10 I have 2 cups of coffee. Why that much liquid? Twice I had kidney stones: not recommended.  

I then read aloud a portion of the Psalms, doggedly going through the 150 separate poems year after year, then ask the Lord for a blessing on the meal and on the day.

After my standard breakfast of oatmeal porridge – made the night before in a slow cooker – spiked with a bit of ground-up flaxseed, blueberries, fruit in season and baptized with homegrown applesauce, plus an egg (I also take vitamin C, D and minerals), I sit down and write 500 words on a text of the daily lectionary. I first read the prescribed Bible passages and then select a part that appeals to me. That takes me about one hour.

For me “Life is discipline”.

Proverbs always connects wisdom with discipline. My morning routine has not changed since my wife of 67 years died, now almost 2 years ago. Actually, my life has become more regimented, now that I am alone. 

I then read 3 daily newspapers on my computer, The Toronto Globe and Mail, The New York Times, and the British Guardian. This provides me with a somewhat balanced overview of what goes on in the world.

At 11 o’clock, I start preparing my hot meal, always vegetarian, and mostly homegrown. In the afternoon, after a nap, I walk for an hour, often on the nearby Canada Trail. A very light supper: yoghurt and a slice of bread, and in bed by 10 pm. 

One of my five children, three in Ontario – 250-350 km away – two in the US, visits every week, my oldest daughter every other week, who also phones daily. Yes, I am a fortunate father. Lesson: treat your children well: you will need them someday.

Life is change.

When I was a youngster, I wanted to become a missionary. My parents, devout Christians, encouraged that aim, and sent me, far too young, to the prep school for ministers, with emphasis on Greek, Hebrew and Latin, the languages in which the Scriptures were written.  By the grace of God, I did not turn out that way, but being keen on matters religious remained with me all my life.

Yet here I am: a missionary, of sorts, with readers world-wide: primarily the USA, Canada, China, but from all over. As an ardent promotor of the New Creation (I wrote a book about it), I see my long life, as preparatory for eternity. 

I’ve often had trouble with the church, but I always remained a member. The church, any church with officers, hierarchy, confessions, is like John the Baptizer, who was the Billy Graham of his day: fiery, flamboyant, and yet… Jesus said of him, “The least in the Kingdom is greater than he.” (Matthew 11:11).

I now see why. Both the church and the John who baptized people, were and are KINGDOM ignorant, saw heaven as the goal, creation as disposable, yet it is our future: the Kingdom to come!

That’s why the views my parents had on eternity are no longer mine. Their ‘heaven and hell’ belief has been replaced with totally different concepts. “By the Sea of Crystal saints in glory stand”, however beautiful the melody, white robes and choirs don’t reflect the LIFE Jesus taught us. To me today’s church is so Old Testament, so un-kingdom. I now completely endorse Bonhoeffer’s view that God and creation are one, that sin against creation is a sin against God. The renewed earth, populated by ‘the redeemed of the Lord’ – Isaiah 35 – is the kingdom we have to seek and promote. 

Life is looking ahead.

“Imagining good things ahead of us makes us feel better in the current moment,” said Simon A. Rego, the chief psychologist at Montefiore Medical Center and Albert Einstein College of Medicine, who has written extensively on the effect of anticipation on mood. “It can increase motivation, optimism and patience and decrease irritability.”

My hope, the dawning of the new creation, makes me optimistic about the future, makes me look forward to the immensity of newness, a world so perfect, a world so enticing, a world so beautiful, a world so engaging that we need eternity to explore it, eternity to beautify it, eternity to embrace it, eternity to know ourselves.

Even the least in the kingdom, God’s new creation, is greater than any Pope, is greater than any archbishop or cardinal, is greater even than John the Baptizer.  

June 1 2022

DOWN TO EARTH.

I am very fortunate in that I have a large property with lots of trees, and enough open space to cultivate a patch of earth. I also have a well – some 70 feet, 23 meters, deep. When, in 1975, I bought my 50 acres (20 hectares), I asked a ‘witcher’ to walk the property near where I was going to build. He detected, with his miraculous talent, two separate underground streams and advised me to drill where they crossed. He also was able to gauge the depth. The well-driller came, and bored through the granite 70 feet, and up shot the water: crystal clear, a real gusher, at a rate of 150 liters per minute!

In 1979 I qualified as a commercial property appraiser, and was asked to evaluate all sorts of real estate, including river dams. I remember being called by a lawyer in Bancroft who had a peculiar problem. His client had bought a house and the vendor had given him a well certificate, stating that it pumped 10 liter per minute, sufficient for a household. Upon occupancy the new owner discovered that the certificate had been altered from 1 liter to 10 liters, greatly depreciating the property value. My job was to calculate that amount. 

Water is essential.

With the weather becoming more and more unpredictable, agriculture, horticulture and water are closely related. Living today involves many new hazards, including getting ticks, of which I ‘ve had my share. While I am writing, my solar power kicked in, as, suddenly, access to the grid was interrupted. Always prepared: few years ago, I had a frost-free handpump installed on my well, assuring that, when electricity is out, the old-fashioned way to water supply would be ready. There is that ‘three’ rule, three minutes without air, 3 days without water, 30 days without food. 

Yes, I have solar back-up, with batteries enough to provide lights as long as the batteries remain charged. Today, with the turbulent weather, either solar power or a fuel-powered generator is a necessary tool wherever we live.

Food supply threatened.

Access to good food is a growing concern, world-wide. Now that global heating has kicked in with disastrous results, with too much water where it is not needed, and not enough where it is, expect growing food deficits everywhere. Yet, I curtailed my vegetable garden somewhat, because I now live alone. But I did make my patch more productive with extra compost and organic fertilizer and spreading a thick coat of mushroom compost over the entire 1,250 square feet, reduced from 2,000.

I use raised beds and between the beds I spread thick carton paper, covered with difficult to decompose leaves, keeping weeding to a minimum.

I each year rotate my crops, and planted 2 beds with potatoes, yellow and red, one bed with green beans and one with red beets. The fifth one has an assortment of vegetables, red, white cabbage, kale, of course, four tomato plants, and both red and wawa onions, plus zinnias.

The Bible, Genesis 3: 19, tells me that, “Earth we are and to earth we shall return”. That has tremendous implications for us. God formed us from the earth, and, when we die, we simply remain there, to be revived on the New Day. That’s why Friedrich Nietzsche, steeped in biblical knowledge, wrote in his Thus spoke Zarathustra, “Remain true to the earth”. 

The earth, by divine order, is holy. When we cultivate it, we do a gesture of worship. When we plant flowers, we act divinely, because we beautify what God intended to be beautiful, and when we grow food, we also do sacred business: pulling weeds is equivalent to what God does for us in forgiving our sins. 

So, yes, gardening is a holy business, especially since the entire world is struggling to grow sufficient grains and legumes to feed an ever-growing number of people. Now with war in Europe’s breadbasket, Ukraine, with increasing risks of natural disasters, we do well to secure our own food supply and do it in such a way that it enriches the earth, rather than deplete it. In the USA, due to overuse of pesticides and fertilizer, 20 million acres are on the verge of becoming desert, imperiling our situation even more.

“Earth we are”, is a rule well to remember. The earth’s DNA is almost totally identical to human DNA. “Down to Earth” is more than being sensible. Being ‘down to earth’ is God’s will, and an act of worship when we treat the earth with love and tender care. We also do ourselves a tremendous favor when we cultivate a more fruitful and longer life for ourselves, because by divine design: “Earth we are and to earth we shall return”

May 25 2022

THE FOUR GALLOPING HORSES.

The last Bible book, Revelation, is big on horses: horses of different colors, white, black, red, pale. They are feared because they foreshadow the last days of the world we live in, and warn us that before the end comes, terrible disasters will take place. That’s why these four horses are called apocalyptic. Their different colors, too, have different meanings, and warn us that The End is near, almost always totally ignored by us.

THE WHITE HORSE

The first horse is white, and the rider carries a bow and arrow, and wears a crown. White indicates ‘holiness’. That’s why the Pope’s official attire is white. The Pope, just like this horse, is charged to bring the Good News, and the arrow to me suggests that, in the last days, the bringing of the gospel resembles the random shooting of an arrow, which yet finds its intended target, something that happens when we browse the World-Wide-Web. 

THE RED HORSE

The book of Revelation does not see the rider on his red horse as a normal phenomenon, not as something that belongs to the usual course of events. Here God himself dispatches this rider, as he starts his journey from the heavens.  The Red Horse has the mandate to “take peace from the earth.” (See Revelation 6: 4). It indicates that God’s no longer restrains the forces by which humanity will destroy itself. 

Wars have a tendency to spread. We already see that the war in Ukraine has become a world war, as many nations are directly involved in supplying weapons to that beleaguered country. This also means that OUR WAR AGAINST CREATION, is pushed from the headlines, as hot wars intensify this conflict, making climatic disasters grow worse, and excessive heat, historic drought, floods, unheard-of storms become the norm. All these, too, are part of the Red Horse curse.

THE BLACK HORSE

After the red horse always come the black horse. War always brings scarcity, so prices always go up. A war sucks out so much raw materials for destructive purposes that shortages are the inevitable result. Today’s inflation is only the beginning. While the Environmental War greatly diminishes yields, causing hunger, hot wars, with the two-fold disasters of destruction and the need to manufacture war materials, always accelerates the price of goods.

THE PALE HORSE.

The Pale Horse represents death, pure and simple, magnified by the likelihood of more pandemics, overtaxing an already stressed medical system. 

A LOOK BACK.

Of course, wars, weather events, terrible pandemics, have been the makers of history. But then, these happenings – the ‘Calamitous 14^th Century’ comes to mind – were more or less regional, occurring before the Americas, Africa and Australia were discovered, and before the world population ballooned from millions to billions in my lifetime. Today all events are global and totally intertwined: that too, indicates the End.

For all the efforts of various activists, and promises by governments to restrain dangerous global heating, carbon emissions leapt world-wide last year as we reverted back to the polluting status quo before Covid lockdowns. Wildfires are now a year-round menace to the US west and especially to Siberia. Last week Friday, May 20, it was 51C in Pakistan, while India baked in such extreme, record heat that dozens of people died and birds were falling from the sky. And the real heat has yet to come!

ARCTIC NEWS regularly points out that: once the buried methane in the shallow Arctic Ocean is released, a sudden flareup will cause total global death.

As the food “apocalypse” approaches, the poorest peoples will suffer, as they always do, while we, in the wealthiest part of the world, may be insulated for a little while longer. When, not if, that happens, we will see extreme political turbulence, humanitarian crises, instability and geo-strategic rivalries across a hungry world. Already the USA is a deeply divided country, where LIE and Political Untruth is rampant, where guns abound, steroid deaths are skyrocketing, and, in general, the mood is bordering on desperation.

Of course.

Natural disasters and the human condition go hand in hand. Religious thinking is totally opposite of biblical givens: Rapture and Heaven feature prominently in the ecclesiastical world. Churches are pre-occupied with abortion and related issues, while Christ’ return to reclaim creation as his own, is ridiculed as heresy.

In all this, the words of Revelation 18: 10-17, will come as a total surprise: “In one hour your doom has come……….in one hour such great wealth has been brought to ruin.” This passage signals STAGFLATION, now expected to happen, before the sudden end. That great wealth is concentrated in North America and Western Europe! It points to us, you and me.

The Parousia, the Lord’s Coming, will come as a total surprise: no advance notice: only the signs, now everywhere.

May 18 2022

WHERE IS GOD?

“Where is God?”, Jesus wondered when he was dying. “Where is God”, people ask, when they see a senseless war in Eastern Europe. “Where is God”, we wondered, when the future of the most talented people was cut short in the Holocaust? “Where is God”, is today the perennial question for us, the dreading disaster, living in fear, humanity?

I could also ask: Where is Bach and his music, or where is Rembrandt and his paintings, or where is Shakespeare and his plays? We would have never heard of these marvelous creators if they had lived their lives in Leipzig or Amsterdam of London and had not been given their abilities free reign. They did, and the world is richer because of their works of art. 

So, what has all this to do with God?

Simple. God would not be there without his creation. No Matthew Passion without Bach. No King Lear without Shakespeare. No God without Creation. Why then, I ask, why do we not honor God the same way? We pay untold many millions for a Rembrandt. Bach is still the standard by which all music is judged. But God, His creation, His marvelous act of making this world, still, the subject of all our investigations, and the basis of all that lives and moves, and has a being, what have we done with it? That is the ultimate question facing us to day.

Where is God? 

“I shall hide my face, to see what their end will be,” says Deuteronomy 32: 20. God has disappeared on the corporate level. 1John 5:19 tells it all: The Evil One reigns, and his aim is to destroy creation, even though God is still there for you and me. 

And the Bible?

We call the Bible Holy, but my reading how the different books in the Hebrew Bible, and their origins create many questions about when and where and how and who wrote the different books, makes the holiness of the Bible a question. That does not mean that I value the Scriptures less, but it does mean that these inspired books are infused with human thoughts and their inconsistencies. But creation is – was – perfect.

Where is God?

We know him by two means: first, by the creation, preservation and government of the universe; which is before our eyes as a most elegant book, wherein all creatures, great and small, are as so many characters leading us to contemplate the invisible things of God, namely, his power and divinity, as the apostle Paul saith, Romans 1:20. All which things are sufficient to convince men, and leave them without excuse. Secondly, he makes himself more clearly and fully known to us by his holy and divine Word, that is to say, as far as is necessary for us to know in this life, to his glory and our salvation.

So, what does Romans 1: 20 say?

 For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse:

The above is a direct quote from the Belgic Confession, a standard of many Reformed Churches.  Dietrich Bonhoeffer has drawn the logical conclusion, as summarized by Dr. Sabine Dramm, in her book, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, an introduction to his thought. 

Her conclusion is, actually, quite striking: “What Bonhoeffer presents as specific to the Christian faith is the perception of God and the world as one.”

This is fully in line with Romans 1: 20, That’s why Revelation 11 is a direct condemnation of our generation, the 21^st people. Here’s what it says:

The time has come for judging the dead,
and for destroying those who destroy the earth.”

The time has come for destroying those who have been “Destroying the earth”. That is a clear indication that destroying the earth is an unforgivable sin, unless we confess and change our ways. We have to admit to ourselves that creation is holy, is akin to God, something the indigenous people have always regarded as such. We have to believe that Jesus died to restore creation to the state before Adam and Eve fell for Satan’s wiles. Of course, he also died to forgive our sin.

We must constantly, without letup, see that the world and all it contains, plants, animals, trees, stars, sun and moon, air and oceans, is of divine origin, and reflects God’s wisdom and unfathomable greatness. 

Where is God?

We find him in Creation, just as we find Bach in his music, Shakespeare in his plays. Creation is our final destination. Its renewal is at hand.