Bert Hielema–Columns and Writings

A LONGTERM TREND IS COMING TO AN END.

Ah, we live in interesting times!

I know it is a Chinese curse, but still, from my perch in rural Eastern Ontario, midway between Canada’s two capitals, Toronto, its financial hub, and Ottawa its political place, matters look quite composed. The local Tim Horton always has a full parking lot. A new small coffee shop, smack in the centre of the village, does good business. Slowly ‘foreigners’ are finding their footing on our main street, with a Vietnamese running a successful new pharmacy, and a man from Trinidad reviving an auto-repair shop quite handily. So, yes, locally no complains. 

Churches? 

Not so rosy. While the local population is steadily increasing, and new housing and apartments are rapidly filling up, with the decline of mainstream religion in many parts of the world, all sorts of human needs – community, meaning – are being left unmet. It reminds me of one of my favorite Bible books, Amos. There I read, “The days are coming,” declares the Sovereign LORD, “when I will send a famine through the land— not a famine of food or a thirst for water, but a famine of hearing the words of the LORD.” 

Oh, yes, the Bible is still omnipresent. That’s not the problem: the problem is that the Word of God itself is a Trinity: (1) Creation, God’s manifest Word, (2) Christ, God’s Word become human, and (3) the Scriptures. The first two are from eternity to eternity: the last one, the Bible, will disappear in line with the fading church, as ‘religion’ is replaced with a way of life, in tune with creation. 

Trump, a passing problem.

The looming Trump administration will have a short life-span, as it adheres to an outdated premise, a mode of living based on Infinite World Resources.

It seems to me we are now experiencing the ‘stillness before the storm’. Next year looms, and, while weather volatility is certain to magnify, the US new regime is ignoring the cries of creation, where also monetary deficits are slated to soar. The US DEBT clock stands at an all-time high: debt per citizen close to $107,000, as the national – Washington- induced debt exceeds $36 Trillion. That means that the average family of 4.2 is responsible for close to $500,000 in National Debt, not counting mortgage, credit card and personal monetary obligations.

Cookie Jar.

I compare the world’s total resources – air, water, soil – of being contained in a simple jar, full of goodies, such as cookies, but the freshly baked delicacies are gone, and, what is left, are the crumbs, some still quite sizeable. With demand still growing, and supplies diminishing, the fight for the remainder will become intense. FIGHTS? Yes wars, all wars, are for natural resources, now also centering on foodstuff. 

Coffee, for instance. Or oranges.

Your morning – and afternoon – coffee is the latest staple threatened by climate chaos: the price of quality arabica beans shot to its highest level in half a century last week amid fears of a poor harvest in Brazil. It follows warnings that orange crops have been wiped out by the catastrophic floods in Valencia, Spain; and then there is the soaring cost of olive oil in recent years, as the southern Mediterranean has sweltered. In southern Africa drought has deprived the simple folk there of their basic staple: corn.

The messy Middle East.

It seems to me that, as civilization started in the Middle East, it also might end there. Once the presumed site of The Garden of Eden, Paradise, the reigns of Persian Emperors, its prominence has long been lost due to extreme exploitation.  Where, at one time a person could walk along Africa’s north shore entirely in the shade of towering trees, from Morocco, on the Atlantic to Syria on the Mediterranean, all these regions have turned into arid deserts. At one time the Sahara was fertile land, with savannahs supporting an abundance of wild life: now 70 percent of large animals are gone.

THIS LONGTERM TREND IS COMING TO AN END.

This phenomenon has become true for much of the fauna and flora. We, humans, are next in line, with the USA, as usual, leading the way, thanks to Trump’s triumphant victory. However, his feat leads to nature’s defeat, a form of vengeance, Holy Vengeance, I should add.

Debts and Death.

The problem with debt is that it has a deadline, is due at a certain date. That also holds true for environmental debt. Debt and Death are similar: both are unavoidable and spell trouble in the form of drastic curtailment of commercial and financial activities. 

I see a similarity between the desert-creating process during the preceding 10,000 years there, and the current Oil-exploitation there, causing the entire world to suffer fatal heat. This long-term danger has now become immediate. 

Be Prepared.

WISDOM AND LOVE.

There is one line in Dr. Sabine Dramm’s book that keeps me awake at night. She thoroughly analysed Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s thoughts, and her final conclusion was:

What Bonhoeffer presents as specific to the Christian faith is the perception of God and the world as one, and the perception of life that has its wellspring in this world in God, and in turn proceeds from this world back again to God.

I am not a very analytic person. It has taken me a long time to grasp the meaning of this sentence. The first part is plain to me: God and the world are one. That is a tremendous leap. Just imagine: God is identical to his creation.

 I imagine, I could compare God and Creation to Johann Sebastian Bach and his music. Perhaps as a person, Bach was not the most pleasant of man: quarreled easily, very opiniated, but his music is still unequalled. I believe it was Sir Ernest MacMillan who wrote a biography on Bach, based entirely on his musical oeuvre. 

But God is beyond understanding, that’s why we have Creation and God’s mandate to love it, and treasure it. The well-known text: The Fear of the Lord is the Beginning of Wisdom, comes to mind. I interpret this as “Being in awe of Creation is the onset of Understanding its Maker”.

But.

We, 21^st world citizens, have exploited natural resources for our exclusive benefit: sinning against Creation is sinning against God. 

Dramm continues”: “the perception of life that has its wellspring in this world in God, and in turn proceeds from this world back again to God.” 

What does this mean? 

My thought: God is the origin of all life and it is our task in life to acknowledge this and honor God as the creator, and, I may add, to love creation as God did: by sacrificing his Son, God bought Creation back with his blood.

Dr. Dramm is not alone. There also is Dr. J. H. Bavinck.

Yes, my sleep is haunted by another line, found in another book that makes me tremble. It is written by Bavinck: Its title is, “Between the Beginning and the End”, subtitled: A Radical Kingdom Vision. This Mission Professor says: “The Central Point of the Gospel is not us poor humans and our pain and suffering, rather, its entire focus is that God wants to reinstate his Kingdom… There is no such thing as individual salvation: salvation of the person and salvation of creation go hand in hand.”

In other words, it’s not Me and God: it is Me and God and Creation: I repeat: salvation of the person and salvation of Creation go hand in hand. It is in Creation where we will spend eternity: that ‘salvation LIFE’, starts now. Jesus did not only die for our sins: Jesus – see John 10: 10 – brought us LIFE and that to the full. There’s where WISDOM starts!

Global Heating.

The implications of Romans 7: 19 suddenly dawned on me: For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do–this I keep on doing. 

Society, at large, has placed me in a straitjacket: no matter what I do, my actions affect creation, that’s why we all will suffer the consequences of our sins against Creation, sins against the Creator.

God created this world with built-in defense mechanisms. God often punishes us through Creation, as is evident from the 10 plagues in Egypt, before the Israel Exodus: water turning to blood, frogs, lice, flies, livestock pestilence, boils, hail, locusts, darkness, and the killing of all firstborn of humans and cattle, all punishments ‘creation-oriented’.  When Israel as a nation, turned to idols, drought resulted.

Thanks to our fossil fuel consumption, the average global temperature anomaly for the first 10 months of 2024 (January to October) is 0.71°C above the 1991-2020 average, which is the highest on record for this period and 0.16°C warmer than the same period in 2023. This year is almost certain to be the hottest ever recorded globally, with floods and heatwaves roiling the climate crisis, wrecking harvests by extreme weather, unpredictable rains, and driving up food prices.

How will 2025 be? 

Permafrost thaws across the globe are destroying housing and infrastructure, and disrupting ecosystems. These slumps are also harbingers of a cascading environmental catastrophe: there is twice as much carbon locked up in permafrost as in the atmosphere. But the Trump regime ignores all this: Trump and ‘his Christians’, deeply influenced by Rapture and disdain for the earth, are totally ignoring God’s ultimate LOVE for his creation.

Heed the teaching of the TWO WISE MEN: God’s foremost love is for his creation: love what God loves, and have eternal life.

­DOES THIS BIBLE TEX REALLY APPLY TO TRUMP?

History

 “I am going to tell you what will happen later in the time of wrath, because the vision concerns the appointed time of the end……

He will cause deceit to prosper, and he will consider himself superior. When they feel secure, he will destroy many and take his stand against the Prince of princes. Yet he will be destroyed, but not by human power.

                                                                        Daniel 8: 25 

In applying this text to today. Yes, I am a fool, rushing in where angels fear to tread. 

The above reading is from this week’s lectionary. In my judgement, the ‘he’ there could be Donald Trump. So, read Daniel 8: 25 again, and substitute his name.

My daily routine.

Just a bit of history: mine. In 1990, thus 34 years ago, I started a daily routine, writing 400 words on weekdays, and 800 words on Sundays, dealing with a text from the ‘lectionary’, the daily readings from the Old and New Testaments, and the Psalms. I used the Upper Room Publications Journeying through the Day, and when after 26 years, it stopped publishing the book, I, continued my daily habit by reading the prescribed passages in the Vanderbilt Lectionary, and choosing a text to meditate on, writing some 250-300 words. That’s how I, this past week, was confronted with Daniel’s visions, as recorded in his 8^th chapter.

Karl Barth.

I love the advice of Karl Barth, a well-known theologian. “Preaching”, he said, “should be done with the Bible in one hand, and the Daily Paper in the other.” These words of wisdom apply to all who meditate.

Well… the current news is Trump and his choices for his cabinet, the people that will set the tone for Trump’s second term as President of the USA. It so happens that this week, November 17-24, the reading deals with Daniel. 

As a kid I loved that book, with the Lions’ Den, the experiences of his three friends had, sticking to their organic diet, and abiding by worshiping the God of their ancestors. And then the dreams Daniel was able to explain! 

But also, much mystery, and minds much sharper than mine have tried to explain how many events point to the Telos, the proverbial End. By the way, my blog is read all over the world, Russia, China, with lately many visitors from Lebanon and an undisclosed country, presumably North Korea.

So, here is what stirred my imagination: He will cause deceit to prosper, and he will consider himself superior. When they feel secure, he will destroy many and take his stand against the Prince of princes. Yet he will be destroyed, but not by human power.

Could this really apply to President-elect Donald Trump?

Context.

Yes, I am playing the fool here, but just as the Fool is Lear’s court jester, he also functions as a wise advisor the King, because he is the only character who is allowed to criticize Lear or question his decisions.

I believe there are no such things as coincidences: this text is an example. Today, Anno 2024-5, we have a perspective of planetary happenings, unequaled in times past. Thanks to satellites and universal surveyance, thanks to instant communication everywhere, there no longer are secrets. The human race has seen how we have moved from the Primeval Times, where Chaos was King, through endless cycles of human activities, each phase leaving historical traces, while ‘progress’ became the norm. Now the End looms, confirmed in the just concluded COP 29 conference. All official promises to reduce Global Heating, have become just words. We are in a relentless race, which will end in our total obliteration. 

Donald Trump’s election victory in the US will accelerate environmental dangers: his next four years will see the fulfillment and implementation of that prophecy, uttered 2,500 years ago.

Daniel was not alone in his prediction, although he was the first. Jesus quoted him in that terrible chapter of Matthew 24: 15: “So when you see standing in the holy place ‘the abomination that causes desolation,’ spoken of through the prophet Daniel–let the reader understand. That ‘holy place’ refers to God’s Holy Creation. The caution Jesus interjects, “Let the reader understand”, means that these words can only be understood, when the time for ‘desolation’, read Climate Change, is happening. 

Let me repeat Daniel’s words:

He will cause deceit to prosper, and he will consider himself superior. When they feel secure, he will destroy many and take his stand against the Prince of princes. Yet he will be destroyed, but not by human power.

We are on the cusp of irreversible, undeniable climate change: that ‘prediction’ is coming true, so, why not the Trump tragedy?

COP 29 AND JUDGEMENT 

For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to everyone by raising him from the dead.”  (Acts 17: 32)

According to Luke, the physician, whose name appears as author at the start of the book of ACTS, Paul, the apostle, said this, while visiting Athens, Greece, somewhere between the years 40-45 A.D. 

Then Athens and, in particular ‘the Areopagus’ was the centre of the scientific world. It was there, on that famous hill, where the world’s wise and learned debated the topics of the day, and where newcomers were openly welcomed to air their views. 

So, Paul went there. But Paul, the apostle, educated in the world’s most ancient and unique school of thought, falling back on a thousand years of divine Jewish wisdom, was soon silenced when he mentioned “judgement and the resurrection of the dead”. The dead coming back to life, clashed with the Greek philosophy of the separation of body and soul, ingrained in Greek thought until this very day, and, sorry to say, prevalent in contemporary Christianity even now, evident in the dominant belief that upon death, we go to heaven. 

And then there is judgement. 

That brings me back to the present, and COP 29.

Is the church’s teaching to blame for CLIMATE CHANGE? Is that why judgement is waiting in the wings? In the text quoted above, it mentions that Jesus will return, heralding a day of reckoning, an occurrence often overlooked in churches.

In the King James Version of the Bible, the word ‘judgment’ appears 294 times, while the word “grace” is shown only 170 times. In my long life, with some 90 years of weekly church attendance, I cannot recall a sermon on ‘Judgment’, even though Paul uses that dreaded concept in his opening statement to the then World’s First University. 

Judgement and Sin.

In my opinion our generation is the most ‘sinful’ of all times, because a ‘sin against creation’, is a sin against the Creator. Yes, carbon use is sinful.

Creation/God is taking revenge.

Now creation is fighting back: we only are experiencing the opening salvos: COP 29 is a religious event: treasuring Creation is our main task in life. The thousands of COP delegates only increase earth’s vengeance. You may know that this week, Cop29 officially opened on Monday 11 November in Baku, Azerbaijan, a conference scheduled to end 11 days later. Had the church chosen to live by Genesis, describing the earth as God’s possession, and regarding it as ‘good’ and ‘very good’, in line with God’s opinion, this world gathering with 197 nations present, plus the European Union represented there, and the 28 preceding ones, would not have been necessary. Had ecclesiastical Christianity seen God’s grace to include the entire spectrum of life, believing God’s Earth and what it contains, as HOLY, following Psalm 24, “The Earth is the Lord’s and the fulness thereof, the world and all it contains,” a conference, such as COP 29, would not have been needed.

The conference is all about reducing, if not eliminating, the use of Carbon Products, known to cause our Climate Heating Predicament. The irony is that the host country Azerbaijan, relies on fossil fuels for more than 90 per cent of its exports. This, combined with the election of Trump, a Climate Change Denier, offer little to inspire confidence in this year’s conference.

So, why did Paul, the famous missionary, go there in the first place?  Paul, trained as a biblical scholar, wrote in the first letter to his church in Thessalonica (verse 5: 21), that we should ‘test all things and retain what is good’. 

That’s why he went to Athens, the centre of learning in his day, to learn first hand what ‘the world’ was teaching. 

He came, he saw, did not argue, and left.

In my previous blog I wrote: “Yes, Socrates, as recorded by Plato, welcomed death and eagerly drank the poison, sending him, supposedly, to a better life, because death could not be evil, as it frees the soul by guiding it to eternal truths, which, after all, is the entire point of life”.

And today?

Both, in their writings, Paul and Socrates are still around. At first blush, Socrates has been the winner, although his name is seldom mentioned. A casual look at English and American hymnbooks, reveals that heaven is almost universally praised as our ultimate destination. The fact that Trump has the overwhelming support of both Roman Catholic and Protestant believers, is a signal that Socratic beliefs are still particularly popular. Today we are witnessing the fulfillment of Socrates’ wish: the earth is seen as ‘evil’, as something to be destroyed.

God loves the earth. We are killing it. Climate Change is God’s built-in Judgement.

FROM CHAOS TO COSMOS TO CHAOS TO COSMOS.

Cycles

The world turns on cycles. I define a ‘cycle’ as a regular recurring event, that goes around and around, endlessly repeating its course.

Yes, everything turns in cycles: each day sees the switch from night to dawn to daylight to evening to night. Each month we see the moon in her 28-day cycle. Each year we experience the four seasons, or used to, anyway. 

All these phenomena are so familiar that we hardly pay any attention to them: they are the built-in laws of nature.

There also are huge cycles. Take ‘religion’. It seems that every 500 years something happens there. King David initiated the temple service around 1,000 before Christ. The Israel exile to Babylon occurred around the year 500 BC, also the era when Buddhism emerged. We start tabulating our time from the year Zero, the birth of Christ. The year 500 saw the birth and rise of Islam. The Christian Church had its top monopoly in the year 1,000. Luther challenged that hegemony with the Reformation in 1,500. Now, around 2,000 all religions are under attack, most certainly the Christian one.

But.

There is one cycle that is never cited: ‘From Chaos to Cosmos to Chaos to Cosmos. That’s the longest cycle that runs from eternity to eternity, from the Beginning – whenever – to the End (Telos) – whenever.

That’s the one I want to dwell on.

While Cosmos indicates beautifully orchestrated regularity, Chaos denotes a gaping void or chasm, a formless primordial matter. The concept comes to us from the French, the Latin, originating from the Greek, hkaos. 

The Bible starts with that Chaos. Genesis 1: 2 describes it as “Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep.” Chaos personifies lack of order, devoid of meaning, without purpose or goal, directionless, serving no cause whatsoever. 

In the Beginning.

The Bible starts with three simple words, ‘In the Beginning”. Yes, our world, the world we live in, love in, are born in, and die in, had ‘a beginning’. 

Psalm 33: 9 describes the second stage: “God spoke and it came to be”. 

That short phrase is beyond human conception. When we build a structure, many factors are involved: an idea, an elaboration, a plan, blueprints, financing, backers, implementation: all this may take years. But with God, 1,000 years is as one day. Imagine: “God spoke and it came to be!” All phases, every step, all stages, from concept to implementation, from scratch to completion, from chaos to cosmos, done in no time. 

And then we came.

Then we came along, us, you, me. A long time ago, but now, in the last 200 years or so, when our CARBON age emerged, matters accelerated, speeded up out of control. Now, with Trump in charge, and the ‘heaven-oriented, earth-hating’ “Christians” in the drivers’ seat, events are in overdrive, hell over heels, racing towards God’s future. Yes, from Cosmos to Chaos. That’s what we now are witnessing. 

The election result will send shockwaves through annual UN climate talks that start in Azerbaijan on Monday, November 11. The election of a climate denier to the US presidency will prove fatal for the world, thanks to organized religion, operating totally under the influence of Greek Pagan philosophy. 

What? 

Yes, Socrates, as recorded by Plato, welcomed death and eagerly drank the poison, sending him, supposedly, to a better world. Socrates believed that because of the immortality of the soul, death could not be evil, because to free the soul by guiding it to the eternal truths was the entire point of life.

Today we are witnessing the fulfillment of Socrates’ wish. The earth is seen as ‘evil’, as something to destroyed.

Never mind.

Never mind the Bible! Never mind Jesus’ death, dying to restore the cosmos, dying to conquer death. Never mind: John 3: 16!! For God so loved the world, the cosmos, that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. Never mind: John 3: 17: For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.

Save the world!!  That’s why Jesus came: To save the world. Personal Salvation and creational salvation go hand in hand. You can’t have one without the other. 

Just as the Old Testament Church killed Jesus because he offended the church-rules, so much of the heaven-oriented New Testament Church is killing the COSMOS, the world that God bought back through Jesus’ death.

From CHAOS to COSMOS to CHAOS to COSMOS. 

We are coming full circle. History, church history, is repeating itself. 

Must I conclude that Trump and his ‘Christians’ are the Antichrist? 

Think about it.

FACING DEATH.

Pray non-stop.

Last week I was about to cross the busy road running through the village. I saw no traffic coming from the South, and the traffic light to the North was red, so, I proceeded my way without a worry, when, suddenly a heavy gravel truck rushed past me, missing me by inches, having ignored the red light: I had been a few seconds away from sure death. 

That episode reminded me of Psalm 91: “God will command his angels to guard you”. Yes, I believe in guardian angels. In my book, DAY WITHOUT END, the very first person I meet in the New Creation, is my guardian angel, whom I have named Cornelius for no obvious reason. He welcomes me to my ‘perfect after death LIFE,’ and is, in my story, eager to introduce me to life in eternity.

Quitting TV.

Months ago, I simply abandoned watching TV. I suddenly saw it as sheer superficial, with its constant advertising and sensational stories. 

Television is, in my opinion, leading and has led to our spiritual death by giving us a distorted view on the immense dangers we face as a society. Neil Postman, in his AMUSING OURSELVES TO DEATH, was right when he wrote a book with that title in 1985. With him, I believe that Television has contributed to the ascent of the godless Trump, has sped up the decline of ecclesiastical Christianity, and totally obscured the rise of Climate Change. 

And then there is Political Death.

On November 5, the day of the American election, ‘DEATH’ is on the ballot. 

Choosing Trump and the Republican ticket, is choosing death over life. It is not that Kamala Harris is perfect, but at least she stands for democratic principles and regard for creation as we experienced the deity in ‘nature’.

How do we live out the ‘last days?’

Now more than ever, to live ‘religiously’, means walking in the footsteps of Jesus. He simply told us in John 10: 10 “to live LIFE and that to the full.” Jesus did not call us to a new religious setup, of whatever color and stripe, but to LIFE in all its manifestations. Christian living does not mean being ‘religious’ in some way, rather it means being a true human being.

Television tears us away from ‘true’ life, and leads us to death.  Christ’s first miracle was to make the best wine ever, at a 7-days (!) wedding celebration. No wonder his opponents – the religious authorities – called him ‘a glutton’ and a ‘winebibber’. The loudest laugh came from Jesus!

Pray without ceasing.

More than ever, we need prayer, and pray for Christ’s return, as we now live in pure godless times.

Here is my prayer to sustain me in the perilous period ahead:

God of heaven and earth, listen to me.

Teach me respect and solidarity with all created matter.

Teach me to remain of sound mind.

Teach me to live in peace with each other, as members of households, as relatives, as community, as nations, as humanity.

Teach me to assume responsibility, to have patience and hope, even in these testing times, always ready to extend and embrace love.

Gracious and merciful God, teach me to choose 

The way of goodness. 

When I stumble, help me to get up.

Teach me assist others, and do so unconditionally for the benefit of the earth that sustains me.

I pray to walk in your Light, and so see Light.

I pray that the breath of your words may surround me and

Teach me to taste the goodness of life,

And embrace peace, shalom.

I pray to always look forward to the New Creation 

That is rushing on, and always live in

The full expectation and confidence of its imminent 

Arrival.

I pray for love, love that extends beyond my immediate communities, so that what I do and say reflects your love.

May I live the resurrection life,

I pray, Merciful Lord, to be a helper and protector on my way.

I see so much suffering in your world.

Please Lord, hasten your coming, so that pain and dislocation, 

Through wars and natural disasters, may cease, and your glorious future 

May arrive.

Amen.

Death is inevitable.

There is a saying: The only certainties in life are death and taxes: of the two, death is the ultimate inevitable, our own death, and also the death of our current way of life, which is totally unsustainable, as the symptoms of death and extinction become more evident by the day.

In the Lord’s prayer we often say, “Forgive us our trespasses”, without realizing, or even wanting to know that almost all of our actions mean ‘trespassing’ in your holy creation, simple matters such as driving our cars, and turning on a light, and heating our large homes cause pollution

Forgive us.