Bert Hielema–Columns and Writings

OCTOBER 27 2021

IS THE EARTH ALIVE?

“The hills are alive with the Sound of music”, sings Julie Andrews. “Praise him, you mountains and hills”, sings Psalm 148. Is the earth alive? Yes, yes.

Reading Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerrer has further convinced me that the indigenous people saw all elements of creation as alive and worthy of personality, which made me realize that I’ll need eternity to learn the lingering languages of all living matter.

I live among the hills and the forests in Eastern Ontario, and, in my daily ‘forest-bathing’ walk, welcoming the wind and the rain with their distinct melodies. Both Richard Elliott Friedman and Dietrich Bonhoeffer see God alive in his creation. Romans 8 relates how the entire creation is groaning as in pains of childbirth. I sincerely believe that these birth-pangs are now reaching its final stages, as COP26 in Glasgow meets to discuss its medical condition and makes resolutions to prolong the birthing agony.

In the coming weeks all aspects of The State Of The World will be discussed and the dire consequences of our earth-exploiting-activities be laid bare, and remedies proposed. It will be an interesting fortnight.

Dr. Barry Commoner, in his book, The Closing Circle, published 50 years ago, in 1971, wrote FIFTY YEARS AGO! that “we are in an environmental crisis because human beings driven by the urge to conquer nature to produce wealth, have broken out of the circle of life and are destroying the environment. We are on a suicidal course.”

This insightful professor, a teacher of biology and ecology, formulated the four laws of Ecology, 

1. Everything is connected to everything else
2. Nature knows best
3. There is no free lunch
4. Nothing ever disappears.

Jesus, in John 3, in his dialogue with an important Jewish personage, in verse 13 clearly states that nobody has ever gone to heaven, except Jesus himself. Then he drops this bombshell: (verse16-17 and I paraphrase), “God so loved himself, and the cosmos he created, the firmament, sun, moon, stars, planets, including Planet Earth, that God was willing to sacrifice his only beloved Son, Jesus the Christ, as a ransom to buy back – redeem – his creation from the Great Enemy, so that those who believe that this transaction is legal and binding, have LIFE forever in a new creation.” 

In short: Jesus’ mission was to ‘restore creation’ and that process includes redeemed humanity. 

Dr. Commoner, probably not a Christian in the accepted sense, has been a real prophet on par with Isaiah and Jeremiah, in seeing the consequences of our destructive actions half a century ago.

Now, Anno Domino 2021, we are reaching the final stages of our ‘trespasses,’ our sins against creation which Jesus mentioned .in The Lord’s Prayer, a prayer centering on “The Coming of the Kingdom”.

Each day we see or read about another record-breaking weather event. Each day there are more confusing stories about sexuality and Covid-related conditions. Each day the data regarding the economy and inflation and shortages have conflicting conclusions. What is certain is that nothing is certain anymore.

On October 24 our Environmental Team led the service in St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church. There our congregation sang a four-verse hymn of which the first two are:

We live in times of deepest gloom

With Covid and with Climate doom.

The future looks so dire and grim:

Our only hope now comes from Him.

O Holy Earth receive our tears

Console us, still our deepest fears,

We live as exiles in our land,

Oh where, of where, your helping hand?

I cannot sufficiently emphasize the extremity of the dangers we live in, because we keep on ignoring Dr. Commoner’s law regarding “Nature Knows Best”. 

Jesus summarized God’s laws in a few lines: “Love God above all else, and your neighbor as yourself”.

We cannot love God as he is beyond knowing, that’s why he left creation for us as THE object of love. His creation is also our neighbor, and our benefactor, the soil providing food, the trees shade and fresh air, the…. And the list goes on and on. 

The principal law of ‘nature’ is ‘service’: the sun serving the flowers and grasses, which, in turn, serve the animals and humans, with us as the servants in chief, following Jesus’ rule for his life, as he claimed repeatedly that he did not come to be served, but to serve, even to the extent of washing feet.

IS THE EARTH ALIVE?

Yes, the earth is alive, but not well. It is extremely angry at this point because we have not treated her as an equal, as our source for life, as our neighbor, as the apple of God’s eye.

October 20 2021

OUR VERY OWN TOWER OF BABEL

The Tower of Babel story in the Bible has become a byword. It now basically stands for human hubris, for trying to surpass God through our technical prowess. The Bible relates how God sowed misunderstanding and brain confusion among the perpetrators, and in their agitation and rancor, like-minded bands left the area and so settled the world, creating multiple civilizations.

Here is my alternative view.

 I think the Tower had run stuck on what’s now called EIOER: Energy Invested On Energy Returned. The first building blocks were easily put in place from nearby sources. But the higher the structure rose, and the further away the material was, there simply was not enough muscle power – human. Energy – and transport capacity to complete the project, so, with lebensraum elsewhere aplenty, people emigrated.

A similar occurrence happened with the city of Rome, and their One Million inhabitants. Feeding that many with horse and wagon and human labor, became increasingly difficult, exhausting first the soil nearby, then its neighbouring fields until there too feeding the plebs became impossible, and with no other feasible means available, Rome collapsed.

The first Tower of Babel basically was a local affair, a direct challenge to Yahweh for world domination. But the real outcome was global diversity, evident to all who have studied geography, folklore and regional development: the world became immensely richer, thanks to these cultural differences.  

The Second Tower of Babel too had positive results. The Pax Romana, a long period of Pax, Peace, by means of a uniform language, the disappearance of national borders and an excellent road-network made the spread of Christianity possible. Once this was accomplished, the Roman Empire collapsed.

Today again we experience a Tower of Babel situation. What will its positive outcome be?

Now, the world has not one crisis but many: religious, financial, atmospheric, political, social, to name the most obvious. Climate Change alone will rocket Inflationary confusion, with too much water here and too much drought there, fueling food prices. Fighting Climate Change will force us to rely less on carbon-based efficiency by employing more expensive human energy, forcing us to walk, bike, dig: muscle-power rather than gasoline power: the old will be new again. It will come at a price. 

Mindset change needed.

Solomon in his Proverbs says, “Out of the heart are all issues of life.” There’s where the start must be made. We need a new mindset. Today we are worshipers at the altars of carbon fuels, truly are ‘carbo-holics’: admit our addiction. Even then, can we change? 

The Covid episode has given us time to reflect: yes, there is more to life than money. Take driving a truck. It is a terrible job: away from home, monotonous, unhealthy highway air and food, long hours, lack of sleep, so people are re-thinking their priorities. Result: a sudden shortage of truck drivers is stagnating the entire economy, because we have created a system where one missing link screws up the entire enterprise. 

Then there is Climate Change: our mode of moving by car causes trillions of trillions of tiny fires in our billions of engines every minute, heating up the waters that occupy 70 percent of the globe’s surface, now causing very unfavorable weather patterns. 

Are we still capable of change? The richer we become, the less religious we are, and the less we care. And we – I – are rich by historic standards. Our addiction to our current way of life is so all-pervasive that change seems impossible. The Bible is entirely correct when it says that ‘the desire for money is the root of all evil”. It now appears that the economic system is starting to break down. Sharp changes appear to be ahead. The world economy is shifting into contraction mode, with more and more parts of the system failing.

OUR VERY OWN TOWER OF BABEL

The fall of the two previous Babel Towers caused major change, ultimately beneficial. Our very own Babel Tower will do that too. The first Babel created immensely rich diversity. The second Babel facilitated the spread of the Gospel of Christ. 

And the current one, Babel Three?

Because our Tower dominates the world, its effects too will be global. It will bring about through Climate Change and related issues, what the Apostle Peter writes in 2Peter 3: 10-11: “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 its works will be laid bare. Since everything will be destroyed in this way, what kind of people ought you to be? You ought to conduct yourselves in holiness and godliness” 

This text illustrates both the ultimate consequences of Global Heating, and also tells us to live in awe of God’s revelation in creation.

October 13 2021  JOY  I love Frances, the no-nonsense Pope. He tells his clerical cohorts – who love to talk – to have 800 words sermons, because after 8 minutes the gathered flock falls asleep with open eyes, so stop then and there.  I have taken a hint from this: from now on I will make two changes in my writings: no more than 800 words, and once per week. Actually, I am used to that format: for over 10 years I wrote an 800 words weekly column for the regional daily: Back to that old routine: thank you, Papa.  800 words?   Jesus did even better: he started his preaching career with a world-less sermon: instead of speaking at all, he opened his “kingdom” mission by making 800 litres of kingdom wine, the most delicious drink ever made, signifying JOY. He knew Solomon’s words: wine ‘gladdens the heart’. That’s what the Kingdom is all about.  Jesus made water into wine when he attended a ‘seven days’ wedding celebration. Seven days? Only the very rich today can take off 7 days! But then….  The number seven signals eternity; this wedding feast became a symbol of that ‘kingdom’ eternity, a for-runner for the perfect wedding: the holy matrimony between humanity, including Jesus, as the groom, and creation, as the bride: the very last wedding ever, a ceremony that will take place when Jesus returns. Amazing!  That’s how Jesus launched his ministry proclaiming the KINGDOM. The Germans and the Yiddish speaking Jews coined: “Wein, Weib und Gesang”: Wine, Woman and Singing and dancing. That’s what Jesus wanted to see: celebration! The crowd, well versed in the Psalms, enthusiastically sang a version of Psalm 98: Joy to the world! The Lord is come Let earth receive her King! Let every heart prepare Him room And heaven and nature sing.  Not only are we looking forward to the DAY of the ultimate wedding. But so is creation, “Let Earth receive her King!” That song somehow crept into the Christian hymnbook as a Christmas song. In reality it’s a New Creation song: It correctly sees the world as alive, capable of JOY. It correctly signals to receive its maker. It correctly sees being a partner with humanity and forming a unity with heaven as well. Yes, Jesus tells us that the life of the Christian is a life of feasting: the Kingdom has arrived. My concordance lists 250 texts with the word JOY in it, but only a few hymns: we need more joyful songs! The Westminster Confession, the cornerstone of the Presbyterian Church, tells me to “enjoy God forever”, but does not tell us how. We enjoy God when we enjoy his creation. We enjoy God when we walk in the woods. Last week, sitting in my sunroom, I saw a fawn emerging from the pine forest. That is pure enjoyment. A good glass of wine, a delicious meal with friends and relatives: that’s enjoying God. Church services? Community. Among the many guests at that wedding, were also alcoholics, but in that crowd, they were on guard. Jesus also wanted us to show that discipline is important, best exercised in community where we look after each other. Solomon always combines wisdom with discipline. Jesus wants us to be fully human: dance when the sound of music moves us, and deeply mourn when a funeral dirge is played. Indifference is total taboo for Jesus: be either hot or cold. He loathes the lukewarm fence sitters.  Jesus in Cana gave a foretaste of the New Creation. Luke 22: 10 tells us that “You will eat the most delicious food and drink the most delicious wine at the table in my kingdom in the new creation.” No wonder his opponents, the austere Pharisees called him, ‘a glutton and a winebibber’.  What to write is always on my mind. As a kid I wanted to become a missionary, so my parents sent me to the local university prep school, with an emphasis Latin and Greek. Thank God I did not become a minister. Helmut Thielecke, a well-known German theologian, wrote a book, “Kann ein Pastor selig werden?” (Can a pastor be saved?)   How to fill a service with an 8 minutes sermon? It is my experience that to write 800 words takes more thought as every word is precious. The remainder of the service should be prayer – communal not unilateral. And singing, of course, and reading Bible passages. Make new songs: we need them.  We must see the 8 minutes talk as an introduction to a general discussion, where we bring our questions, reveal our worries, share our doubts and encourage each other. That is something that we will have to learn. Break up in small groups.  800 words. Stop.

October 13 2021  JOY  I love Frances, the no-nonsense Pope. He tells his clerical cohorts – who love to talk – to have 800 words sermons, because after 8 minutes the gathered flock falls asleep with open eyes, so stop then and there. I have taken a hint from this: from now on I will make two changes in my writings: no more than 800 words, and once per week. Actually, I am used to that format: for over 10 years I wrote an 800 words weekly column for the regional daily: Back to that old routine: thank you, Papa. 800 words?  Jesus did even better: he started his preaching career with a world-less sermon: instead of speaking at all, he opened his “kingdom” mission by making 800 litres of kingdom wine, the most delicious drink ever made, signifying JOY. He knew Solomon’s words: wine ‘gladdens the heart’. That’s what the Kingdom is all about.  Jesus made water into wine when he attended a ‘seven days’ wedding celebration. Seven days? Only the very rich today can take off 7 days! But then…. The number seven signals eternity; this wedding feast became a symbol of that ‘kingdom’ eternity, a for-runner for the perfect wedding: the holy matrimony between humanity, including Jesus, as the groom, and creation, as the bride: the very last wedding ever, a ceremony that will take place when Jesus returns. Amazing!  That’s how Jesus launched his ministry proclaiming the KINGDOM. The Germans and the Yiddish speaking Jews coined: “Wein, Weib und Gesang”: Wine, Woman and Singing and dancing. That’s what Jesus wanted to see: celebration! The crowd, well versed in the Psalms, enthusiastically sang a version of Psalm 98:Joy to the world! The Lord is come Let earth receive her King! Let every heart prepare Him room And heaven and nature sing. Not only are we looking forward to the DAY of the ultimate wedding. But so is creation, “Let Earth receive her King!” That song somehow crept into the Christian hymnbook as a Christmas song. In reality it’s a New Creation song: It correctly sees the world as alive, capable of JOY. It correctly signals to receive its maker. It correctly sees being a partner with humanity and forming a unity with heaven as well. Yes, Jesus tells us that the life of the Christian is a life of feasting: the Kingdom has arrived. My concordance lists 250 texts with the word JOY in it, but only a few hymns: we need more joyful songs! The Westminster Confession, the cornerstone of the Presbyterian Church, tells me to “enjoy God forever”, but does not tell us how. We enjoy God when we enjoy his creation. We enjoy God when we walk in the woods. Last week, sitting in my sunroom, I saw a fawn emerging from the pine forest. That is pure enjoyment. A good glass of wine, a delicious meal with friends and relatives: that’s enjoying God. Church services? Community. Among the many guests at that wedding, were also alcoholics, but in that crowd, they were on guard. Jesus also wanted us to show that discipline is important, best exercised in community where we look after each other. Solomon always combines wisdom with discipline. Jesus wants us to be fully human: dance when the sound of music moves us, and deeply mourn when a funeral dirge is played. Indifference is total taboo for Jesus: be either hot or cold. He loathes the lukewarm fence sitters.  Jesus in Cana gave a foretaste of the New Creation. Luke 22: 10 tells us that “You will eat the most delicious food and drink the most delicious wine at the table in my kingdom in the new creation.” No wonder his opponents, the austere Pharisees called him, ‘a glutton and a winebibber’. What to write is always on my mind. As a kid I wanted to become a missionary, so my parents sent me to the local university prep school, with an emphasis Latin and Greek. Thank God I did not become a minister. Helmut Thielecke, a well-known German theologian, wrote a book, “Kann ein Pastor selig werden?” (Can a pastor be saved?)  How to fill a service with an 8 minutes sermon? It is my experience that to write 800 words takes more thought as every word is precious. The remainder of the service should be prayer – communal not unilateral. And singing, of course, and reading Bible passages. Make new songs: we need them. We must see the 8 minutes talk as an introduction to a general discussion, where we bring our questions, reveal our worries, share our doubts and encourage each other. That is something that we will have to learn. Break up in small groups.  800 words. Stop.

More

IS ATONEMENT ON THE AGENDA AT COP 26?

Twenty-Six Times, every year since 1995, have thousands of delegates, representing the nations of the entire world, gathered to combat the ever more expanding CLIMATE CHANGE and GLOBAL HEATING. 

We have now come to the point of no return. Only a total change, what the Bible calls a METANOIA, can avert universal collapse.

This change must start with asking God for forgiveness. It is exactly for this very reason that the Lord, knowing human nature as no other, prescribed A DAY OF ATONEMENT, as outlined in Leviticus 35: 16, and I quote,

“This is a LASTING ordinance for you: Atonement is to be made once a year for the SINS of the people.”

I have emphasized two words: Lasting, and Sins. I sin all the time. My spirit is willing but my flesh is weak. At this point in history, where we all – except perhaps the Bushmen in Africa – pollute without letup: we have become “Carboholics”, and Climate Change is the inevitable outcome, and a direct sin against creation, God’s work of Art. Now more than ever do we need ‘atonement’ for our sins.

In connection with the upcoming COP 26, we, everybody, Jew, Christian, Muslim, Atheist, Agnostic, people of all stripe and faith, color and persuasion, need to gather wherever we meet, in an act of ATONEMENT, because only a universal confession of sin, and a consequent change of conduct will avert total annihilation. 

Our challenge is to focus on the ancient concept of ATONEMENT, a feeble attempt to help our personal and communal struggles, by setting aside a period of lament before the COP 26 starts. 

Here is a song I have modified that may help to set the scene: there is a tune to it. See below.

                  Where are the birds that sang in tall tree towers,

                  Why are the woodlands now full-soaked in ash,

                  Where are the eyes to see the fire showers,

                  Where are the tears when birds no longer dash?

How clean the water, how tall the grain?

                  How green the forest, can the earth renew again?

                  When will the deserts stop their massive spreading?

                  Where will we plant so food can freely grow?

                  When will we hear no more of species dying?

                  When will we care enough to cherish all?

                  How clean the water, how tall the grain?

                  How green the forest, can the earth renew again?

                  When will the sea be free from human binging?

                  Safe for the whales that frolic in the deep

                  Who will arise and send alarm bells ringing?

                  Now is the time and for our voice to weep.

                  How clean the water, how tall the grain?

                  How green the forest, can the earth renew again?

We can sing it in a 11.10.11.10 meter, based on TIDINGS: James Walch 1875. P.D.

We are not alone.

‘

The entire world is struggling with extinction. You and I are not alone.

Despair is mounting.

When anxiety for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and pray, Maranatha, Lord Come, 
and visualize the new creation,
where all is at rest, where the wolf and the lamb feed 
together, and swords have become instruments of peace.
I then see shalom emerge, everywhere
in earth and sky and seas.
In my dreams I see Jesus, walking hand in hand
with his woman friend, amidst a throng of children
Happily dancing around that pair.
I see flowers in manifold colors and shapes,
And I see above me the balmy sun,
with healing in its wings, 
friendly, soothing, refreshing, blessing
those who have waited for the Lord.                 

O holy earth receive our tears

Console us, still our deepest fears.

We live as exiles in our land,

Oh, where, oh where your helping hand?

                  The people all are drunk with wine

                  In blinded daze see no decline

The nations’ rulers spread the lie

Insist all’s fine, the truth defy.

                  But one day soon God’s wrath will come

                  With death for many, life for some.

                  What evil thought gave life to birth

                  That made us kill God’s Holy earth?

                  (Tune: The Old Hundredth: O people that on earth do dwell)  

I read last week that:

“Just as industrial civilization flourished at the expense of Nature and now threatens to cost us the Earth, an information civilization shaped by surveillance capitalism and its new instrumentarian power will thrive at the expense of human nature and will threaten to cost us our humanity”.

Yes, we are at a critical juncture, where technology bleeds the earth dry, and information dominance threatens to sucker our brains.

WHAT CAN WE DO? 

WHAT MUST WE DO?

I know, the way to Hell is paved with good intentions. Yet, Atonement starts with verbalizing our intention, and, by the grace of God, try to act on them.

Here is a feeble beginning, based on Genesis 9:

“A Covenant between God, Humanity and all created matter.”

         Atonement declaration #1

In our arrogance and pride 

We have grabbed what was not ours 

and have abused what was entrusted 

to us only for safekeeping.

Forgive us for breaking our covenant.

Atonement declaration # 2

We have flouted your fixed order, and

In willful defiance and deliberate ignorance,

We have shut our ears

To the pleading of your people and

To the groaning of creation.

Forgive us for breaking our covenant.

Atonement declaration # 3

We have enslaved the poor of the earth,

Uploaded on them our surplus garbage

And our unwanted pollution,

Endangering their health and refusing

Their rightful place among us.

Forgive us for breaking our covenant.

Atonement declaration # 4

         We have paved your planet with

our greed for speed and

our need to escape from ourselves.

We now have upset the laws of creation 

at our own peril. 

Forgive us for breaking our covenant

Atonement declaration # 5

         We have done business 

to enrich ourselves at the expense of all 

creatures and creation and 

now have imprisoned our souls and imperiled our planet.

Forgive us for breaking your covenant

.

Atonement declaration # 6

Teach us, Lord, to live again 

the true life of joy and peace, 

of loving you as you want to be loved and 

truly loving creation and all creatures 

and truly love ourselves.

Atonement declaration # 7

Teach us to live the true life of joy 

and peace and justice 

as your covenant children 

in a life of obedience, in a true response to your 

created and living word.

Atonement declaration # 8

Give us the courage and faith 

to prepare ourselves to live the full life 

in tune with creation, so that we can become 

what we are when we see you as you really are.

Atonement declaration # 9

May we look forward to your coming 

when all hurts will be healed, 

when the total creation will again be 

utterly good and pristine again.

Atonement declaration # 10

May we look forward to the time 

when everything on earth and 

everything in the starry expanse 

will be made new, 

when total justice will reign and 

each eye will see at last that this world belongs to God.               

IS ATONEMENT ON THE AGENDA AT COP 26?

No. Instead Psalm 2 applies.

The kings of the earth rise up

and the rulers band together

against the Lord and against his anointed, saying,

 “Let us break their chains

and throw off their shackles.”

(However) The One enthroned in heaven laughs;

the Lord scoffs at them.

Climate Change will persist because it is pure revolt against God and creation. It’s nothing else but an extreme effort to defy God and his laws.

Yes, The One enthroned in heaven laughs;

the Lord scoffs at them.

JESUS AND THE CHURCH

I have this book to which I return at least once a year: The Hidden Face of God, written by a Jewish Professor of Hebrew, Dr. Richard Elliott Friedman. In it he frequently quotes both the Old- and the New Testaments, as well as Bonhoeffer, Nietzsche and also Dostoevsky, whose passage from The Brothers Karamazov has intrigued me for a long time. 

Here it is: 

Dostoevsky presents ‘The Grand Inquisitor’, as a story that Ivan, the atheist Karamazov brother has composed and recounts to his younger brother Alyosha, the aspiring priest. In it, Jesus returns to the earth during the Spanish Inquisition….”It is fifteen centuries since man has ceased to see signs from heaven. And now the deity appears once more among men in human shape in which he walked among men for three years. The divine visitor performs miracles: a blind man sees, a dead child rises. Everyone recognizes him. And then the aged cardinal sees him and has him seized and taken to prison (and tells him) not to speak for ‘Thou hast no right to add anything to what Thou hadst said of old….. Why hast Thou come now to hinder us?…..All has been given by Thee to the Pope….the Church is the authority now.’ The Grand Inquisitor then tells Jesus that he erred when he resisted the devil’s three temptations in the wilderness: miracle, mystery and authority, and Jesus rejected them. But, the old cardinal reveals, the Church accepted them. The Church rules the masses precisely by miracle, mystery and authority; and he argues that is what the masses need…., but Jesus wanted them to have freedom of choice. But freedom is too difficult and frightful for them, says the Inquisitor and so the church has taken the three awesome gifts from the devil, and he concludes, “We are not working with Thee, Jesus, but with him: that is our secret.” The Grand Inquisitor opens the cell door and says, “Go, and come no more…. Come not at all, never, never”. And the divine visitor leaves.

Dostoevsky is entirely correct when he writes that ‘Jesus wanted us to have freedom, but freedom is too difficult and frightful for the common folk’. 

That still is true today. Preachers and sermons essentially have replaced the old cardinal with their ecclesiastical preaching monopoly. The monologue method of communication is not only outdated but essentially deprives the laity of the ‘freedom’ to explore and question, something Jesus wanted his followers to be engaged in, all the time. “Work out your salvation with fear and trembling”, says the Gospel. That requires ‘freedom’ to search and ‘freedom’ to experiment, something ministers and priests in particular and the church in general through their dominance make very difficult for the communion of saints to implement.

Jesus, just like I, had his run-ins with the church. In his hometown they wanted to kill him when he spoke in the ‘church’. The same happened when he ventured into the temple, that’s also why his preferred podium was the natural open space, God’s real holy temple.

That brings me back to both Friedman and Bonhoeffer. There is a striking similarity between the conclusion Dr. Friedman reaches in the book I mentioned, and what Bonhoeffer, after a lifetime of reflection writes. After almost 300 pages of exploring The Hidden Face of God, Dr. Friedman concludes in his very last sentence, “There is some likelihood that the universe IS the hidden face of God”. Being a cautious professor, he really means that he is certain that creation and the deity are synonymous. 

It is also quite startling that Bonhoeffer, the eminent protestant scholar, has reached the very same outcome. Dr. Sabine Dramm, in her spiritual biography of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, also on the very last pages, writes, “What Bonhoeffer presents as specific to the Christian faith is the perception of God and Creation 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”.

That’s why God in his grace has shown me that not heaven, but the earth   has become the centre of my life: Think about that for a few hours. I am NOT heaven-bound, but now my freedom encompasses the entire creation. 

The Belgic Confession is also quite explicit on that score, stating that we know God primarily through his creation which, “like a tapestry, like a marvelous picture book, in which all creatures, great and small, are as letters to make us ponder the invisible things of God.”

God and Creation are co-existent: harming creation is cursing God, is ‘using God’s Name in vain’. 

On his departure from America in 1939, where he was offered a teaching position at a prestigious seminary, to return to Hitler Germany and certain death, Bonhoeffer wrote:  

God has granted American Christianity no Reformation. He has given it strong revivalist preachers, churchmen and theologians, but no Reformation of the church of Jesus Christ by the Word of God. 

Dr. Harold Bloom, famous literary critic in his The American Religion writes that “The American Religion is Post-Christian”, in which “The Flag and the Foetus” dominate. It has ceased to be Christian”. Gnosticism has penetrated it from top to bottom. In ‘Gnosticism’ it does not believe or trust: it ‘knows’. (Gnosis). It knows it goes to heaven. James Watt, former secretary of the Interior (charged with the preservation of ‘the land’), opposed conservation because, as he explained, “this world would pass away within a generation or two.” That outright heresy now dominates most regular religious organizations.   

Oh America, which calls thyself “A City on the Hill”, a shining light in a dark world. How little dost thou know thyself. 

How then shall we live?

Implement Jesus’ words, as recorded in John 10: 10. 

I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.

That is more fully outlined in John 3. In verse 13 Jesus tells an upper-class Bible scholar, Nicodemus – who had come to Jesus by night, sneaked into the home were Jesus was staying – “Nobody has gone to heaven, except Jesus himself”, a direct refute to all ‘know-nothing’ evangelicals. Jesus then tells this theologian, 

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.  For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. 

Here Jesus instructs this theological expert, a Teacher of Israel, how to live. This text proves again that the ‘know-nothing’ Fundamentalists really know nothing. This text plainly states that Jesus did not come to save sinners. His primary mission was to ‘save the earth’, and included in that ‘saved earth’, would be those (1) who ‘loved the earth’ as God did, and (2) believed in the saving act of Jesus Christ, God’s Son. That’s the message the church has to proclaim, all the time. That truth will set us free.

Want to live forever in a perfect world? 

In perfect freedom?

Remember: God and Creation are co-existent: harming creation is cursing God, is ‘using God’s Name in vain’. Old Testament religion killed Jesus, and New Testament religion killed God.” 

Yes, I admit: Jesus and the church is a very contentious issue. 

What I have learned is to beware of religion, and to beware of the church. What I have learned is to: “Love the earth, and so love God”. 

What I have learned is to: “Believe in Jesus Christ, who taught us how to live and that to the full”. 

What I have learned is that: “Redemption of the planet and personal redemption go hand in hand: you can’t have one without the other.”