Bert Hielema–Columns and Writings

EXTINCTION: US, WE, OURSELVES

When I was small, I wanted to become a missionary in what then was called The Netherlands East Indies, now Indonesia. Our denomination had two missionaries there, in a remote part of Celebes called Toratja Land, where ‘head hunters’ were active, not the modern ones that recruit up-and-coming executives for important positions in the corporate world, but natives who specialized in cutting off and bringing home the severed heads of their enemies. On the so-called ‘mission day’ these missionaries, on their furlough back home after 6 years of difficult work, would make the tour of the Netherlands, always showing off one of their converts, brown, small humans, then a novelty to behold. These missionaries had learned the indigenous language and used the Bible as the only tool for conversion to Christianity, declaring the native religions as pagan and devilish.

What these indigenous people knew, and the innocent white, did not, was that they, in their historic way, practiced population control, because too many people, too few animals, too little natural edibles, would soon lead to extinction and death for all. Granted, it was a cruel way, not at all the European way of thinking, but still, death for some meant life for others: the law of the jungle, and for them the only way to prevent overpopulation. We, smart Westerners, failed to check this overpopulation phenomenon and also over-expanded our resource use, so, now we, the supposedly more humane humans, are going extinct.

Are we? Yes.

The animals know this and, in the deep recesses of our hearts, we know this too. Sensing the imminent death of all species, the subconscious understanding of our common fate is making us ill, but our nervous and physical systems cannot bear this terrible knowledge, so we bury it deep behind our shadow with the obvious result that we unknowingly suffer from a novel mental disorder: our brand-new Extinction Illness. Yes, we all know it.

Is that really true? Yes, contemplating the extent and pervasiveness of despair and violence across the globe, the rapid growth of irrationality in human and animal behavior, the melting polar ice, the unstoppable methane release, I increasingly believe that all humans and non-humans know this: the animals, the trees and birds, the insects and fish, they all know this. There is something like a cognitive consonance out there: the news traveling from tree to tree, from bird to bird, whispering through the air, magically, and affecting also us, imperceptive and inconsiderate ignoramuses.

It’s not only the Pandemic, that’s only part of it: we all are being driven to some form of madness, pain, or dysfunction. For the animals, Bear, Wolf, Elephant, Whale this results in unavoidable and unmediated terror. We humans know, with or without awareness, that we are responsible. And so, we, entirely crazed, become a species that commits ecocide even as we die of it ourselves. The different signs and symptoms are ubiquitous and no one is escaping it.

We know we are going extinct. We know this consciously and/or unconsciously.  Each person on the planet knows this. Extinction is upon us and no one is immune to it. All beings sense our/their imminent death. Not only their individual deaths, but far worse, the death of their species. An unbearable thought. And beyond that, the death of all species ….

It is possible that Extinction Illness is the root of all contemporary mental, physical, and spiritual diseases. Extinction Illness, the essential cellular knowledge and terror that one’s life, one’s people’s lives, all life is threatened, that lineage is disappearing, that we all, may well become extinct within a very short period of time, that the future will be eradicated.

The fire of knowing sweeps down upon us like a tornado and there is no place to run. There is no escape. And worse, we do not get to live our ordinary lives until the moment of Extinction. Much suffering is inevitable before our demise in whichever way it will come to any one of us. That’s why the predictable prelude arises: Extinction illness – our bodies, minds, souls reeling with the terrible reality of what we have done, are doing, because extinction is our fault.

Believe it or not…….

Whether or not we ‘believe’ the scientists who say climate change is Anthropocene – human-induced – Climate Disruption, meaning we, mere mortals, are the cause: we know extinction and our role in it. Even those who don’t want to acknowledge or accept the reality of the 6^th Extinction or Climate Change or Disruption or recognize the consequences of the bleaching of the barrier reefs, the glaciers and poles melting, the acidification of the oceans, the extreme weather shifts, deadly floods, year-long and increasingly intense fire seasons, wind tornadoes and fire tornadoes, the insect apocalypse, the collapse of fisheries, deforestation, desertification and 17,000 species threatened at this time, they know. The unconscious knows. The soul knows. The connected life system knows even if the individual isn’t consciously aware. He/she/they/we were born into the network of all life and Life knows too. Christians especially should know: the entire Bible testifies to that event conclusively. Malachi – one of the many prophets – in the Hebrew Bible, Jesus in Matthew 24, Paul in Romans 8, Peter in 2 Peter 3, John in many chapters of Revelation: they all speak of the end to come in no uncertain terms. The entire Bible speaks with great longing for the Great Coming of the Lord, the so-called Parousia.

Warnings galore.

Yes, there are many warnings. The March 18 ARCTIC NEWS, endorsed by 30 scientists, is one of them: totally and frighteningly believable. It gives us no more than 5 years. Gail Tverberg, a knowledgeable actuary, in her March 20 Our Finite World, asserts that our financial system will collapse in less than 2 years, possibly taking away our electrical network: these blogs are there for all to see.

As there is no antidote for Extinction, the Extinction Illness is incurable: no anti-biotic, no anti-depressant or anti-psychotic, no sedative, no bone marrow transplant, no chemotherapy, no pesticide, no radiation therapy: not even fervent prayer will do it. There is no personal healing for these conditions and treating or focusing on the symptoms is counter-productive and exacerbates our common jeopardy.

Here we are. We are all suffering a life-threatening illness for which there is no discoverable cure. How shall we meet it?

As an innocent youngster I wanted to become a missionary. Good thing I never did, not really knowing the Message. I now know that we always lived on a planet which, almost right from the start was destined for extinction: God withdrew, and, as Deuteronomy 31 attests, “hid his face to see what our end will be.” Well, now we know the outcome.

However, Jesus God’s Son, came to restore creation and extinguish extinction. That will happen soon.

I love that text in Revelation 21, where all is well that ends well:

 Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. 

 I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.

And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying:

“Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man,
and He will dwell with them.

They will be His people,

and God Himself will be with them as their God.

 ‘He will wipe away every tear from their eyes,’

and there will be no more death

or mourning or crying or pain,

for the former things have passed away.”

When I was a grade school kid, I wanted to become a missionary. Perhaps that youthful desire really never disappeared. The most visitors to my blog, which I now see as a missionary tool, are from the USA, Canada, China and the U.K in that order.

P.S. I owe some of these thoughts to an article I read some years ago in TIKKUN, a Jewish publication.

MONEY

For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil.

1 Timothy 6: 10

Bitcoin? Is that money? Gold? Is that money maybe? Or Silver? Those shiny, stainless-steel looking coins, which were the ancient means of exchange for thousands of years? In the Roman Empire they were mined by pick and shovel through slave labor, literally moving mountains in Spain to uncover this precious metal. Then slaves’ lives were cheap and brutal, but silver – and gold – were needed to finance the legions who needed to conquer ever more remote regions to capture ever more humans there to be abused in the millions to acquire ever more silver and gold. Yes, silver and gold come at a price: human lives. I don’t have to remind you that Jesus’ life was bought with 30 pieces of silver, all showing the portrait of the Roman Emperor.

Today it’s a somewhat different story. We, the 21^st Century magician-kings, living in our climate-controlled petites palaces, finally have mastered money: at long last we have discovered the age-old mystery, the eternally evasive alchemy that was never solved before in the perennial pursuit of creating gold out of ‘nothing’. We did it! Today we create money ‘ex nihilo’ the same way God created the world. We have made it! The secret of creating wealth has emerged! Christine Lagarde, Jerome Powell, are the new high priests, with the status of demi-gods: they now have the power to create money out of nothing: just type in a figure on that magic computer screen, anywhere from zero to trillions, and the money is there: Praise the Lord, Hallelujah! After all these millennia of digging and mining, of cheating and scraping, of broken limbs and ruined lives, we now have uncovered the magic source of money: the Central Banks of the world!

Remember the Ten Lost Years, from 1929-1939, when money was scarce, had almost disappeared and governments wanted balanced budgets? Hardship; unemployment; poverty; breadlines; soup kitchens; were the result. Ach, poor people! Stupid economists. Not we: We are smart. Deprivation, destitution, are things of the past: now untold numbers of these money units: Dollars, Euros, any denomination, all created at the touch of the finger. Based on what? A trillion dollars here, a trillion euros there, pounds in abundance: based on what? On trust, while trust is collapsing everywhere? No, it’s based on future growth in a world teetering on the abyss of Climate Change, balancing on a still evolving pandemic, threatened by a melting Arctic with unpredictable weather consequences: in other words, the future of this money is as secure as the whims of the weather, is as safe as betting on an ever – higher stock market and increasing house prices, and as sure as vanishing inflation.

What we see today is the desperate last gasp of a dying world, exponentially ignoring its expiring status, and so accelerating its own demise. The biblical lesson, “For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil”, is conveniently forgotten. That same ‘root of evil’, has now grown into a gigantic tree, overshadowing all else, but no longer rooted, because its root-rot has become invisible to the naked eye.

Yet, money is needed.

I know: Many trillions of dollars are justifiably being spent to strengthen human healthcare and boost the global economy, but at what cost: deforestation and the illegal wildlife trade continue unabated, ensuring that worse and more frequent pandemics will strike again in ever more severe forms.

Money always reminds me of that curious episode in the Jerusalem Temple when Jesus got so angry at these merchants doing their quite legitimate thing. That temple there had its own currency, so exchange was necessary. Also, people wanted to honor Yahweh through offerings, and that too was made possible. All these actions were completely legit, so why his sudden burst of rage?

Well, I offer an explanation.

Here Jesus portrays something hardly ever talked about: Jesus embodies the New Creation, the Kingdom to come and this is equally true for the temple: it too foreshadowed the New Creation. Its Holy of Holies contained replicas of trees and flowers, depicting Paradise, the Garden of Eden. Jesus, correctly, saw the temple as a symbol of that New Creation, where everything is available in natura, where commercial trade does not exist, where money is taboo, where the gifts of the earth are available free, where equality in the purest sense is the norm, where there are no class differences, no hoarding, no gold or silver as an exchange medium. Jesus, reflecting on the New, Perfect world to come, seeing it in the temple, saw the evil money was causing his beloved cosmos to degenerate into total depletion. That, I believe, is the correct way of explaining this event and his rage. Jesus loathed the way commerce was done: saw money, and our desire to acquire more, as the root of all evil, fully well knowing that money will betray him for a lousy 30 pieces of silver.

Can we function without money?

In spite of all its drawbacks, money, as a tool to facilitate the commerce between human beings, was and is, nevertheless, an inspired invention, with tremendous potential for both good and evil. That is why, when first invented, it was administered by the priestly class. Today, more than ever, Money makes the world go round and goes around the world with a velocity equal to the speed of light and in torrents unequaled in history: the daily flood amounts to Trillions of Dollars. Because of Money the global economy is like a jet plane, fast, comfortable and when it crashes, its fall is also spectacular.

Can we function without money? Jesus did to some extent. When he came to earth, he could have been a human being of any description, stature, degree and condition; and yet he chose to be poor. The English poet Christopher Harvey said of him in the Seventeenth Century:

It was Thy Choice, whilst Thou on Earth didst stay,

And hadst not whereupon Thy Head to lay.

Where Jesus mostly lived without money, our lives are centered around it. Jesus once made a severe statement: “You cannot serve God and Mammon.” But in our Western world everything is about money/mammon: the stock market, the strength of the dollar, the price of gold, three items mentioned in almost every newscast. Let’s not kid ourselves: Mammon is God, the Dollar is King in the world and its possession a holy grail. We now put a price tag on everything. First on Jesus – 30 pieces of silver – and now also on God and creation: the woods are paved, the mountains mined, the seas eaten, species eliminated: all offerings to Mammon. We all participate in that criminal act. Jesus was sold for the price of a slave: we are selling creation to serve us as a slave. We, white Westerners, a 10 percent of the world’s population cause 40 percent of the world’s pollution, in perfect accordance with the aims of Capitalism which defines itself as Creative Destruction. I am more and more inclined to think that Capitalism and its exponent, the global money economy, is the Megamachine, the Anti-Christ.

Now, approaching the End, today’s transmissible disease simply discloses something that we surely have known already: it clearly gives us a taste of the things to come. And at the root of it all is “our lust for money!”

PRAYER AND MY BODY.

I am a ‘new earth’ person. The concept of the coming new creation plays a decisive role in my life. I even wrote an entire novel imagining this situation. Just Google: “Bert Hielema, Day without End.”

However, becoming a New Earth inhabitant is not an automatic matter. And, sorry to say, admission is restricted. There are people who believe in universal salvation, which assumes that everybody will be saved. Some clever folk have calculated that about 70 billion people have been born over the millennia. Today the world really cannot support the near 8 billion of its current customers. They only exist because they (we) are using much of our children’s inheritance, leaving only a ravaged and depleted earth.

Why only a limited number? Jesus’ words come to mind, ““For many are called, but few are chosen.” (Matthew 22: 14.)

Of course, being a sort of Calvinist, I know my Bible and I know my doctrine. Romans 4 tell me that we are saved by grace through faith, but James 2 unambiguously makes it plain that “What good is it if a person claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save?”

And here comes my premise: our saving act starts with our personal living habits, especially since, as I keep on repeating, we live in the last stages of a disappearing world. This past Sunday morning, when my driveway was too icy to go to church, I read this quote:

“Disturbance seems constant now, and everywhere at once. How to describe this time when the world has slipped its moorings? Democracy fragile and cracking, a global pandemic that could well be the first of more to come, a warming world. It feels as if we are living amid a great unraveling, a time when our lives are being stripped and harrowed over and over. Humanity has been kicked out of the nest of the Holocene, where we’ve evolved over the past ten thousand years, and though some say we’ve begun the Anthropocene, I tend to favor E. O. Wilson’s locution: the Eremocene, the Age of Loneliness. In the midst of so much coming apart, I wonder, where is home? Where is our unshakable core, that place beyond which no harm can reach?”

That cry cuts me to the heart: “Day without End”, seems to be God’s greatest secret, the place where REAL life is lived, the life we are intended for. That’s why prayer is both personal and cosmic, constantly involving being in touch with creation, which I see as a form of prayer. Of course, if we think that we go to heaven, then loving the earth is not a priority, however, if we confess that our destination is a renewed earth, then life takes on a different dimension altogether. Then prayer becomes practical, influencing all our actions, because I sincerely believe that this present life is a proving ground for the REAL life in eternity, especially now when Climate Change starts to bite and endangers us all. That’s why our first responsibility is to our own body, God’s personal gift to us, and, according to the Bible, the temple of the Holy Spirit, thus HOLY.

The times, they are a’changing.

A Tale of Two Cities comes to mind, which opens with, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity”. It is plain that ‘Gone is the best of times; gone is the age of wisdom; gone is the epoch of belief’. Left is “it is the worst of times”, evident in climate change; left is “the age of foolishness”, plainly visible in ‘perpetual economic growth’ in a finite world; left is “the epoch of incredulity”, witness the worshiping of Donald Trump.

I read last week a line that stayed with me: “I have two health providers with me all the time: my right leg and my left leg. That’s why I walk every day.

What does ‘pray without ceasing’ mean?

1 Thessalonians 5: 17 tells me that we have to “Pray without ceasing!”. Of course, we have to pray for our loved ones, but prayer is more than a personal matter, prayer is also active, also planet related. Action is prayer as well, because we constantly have to ask ourselves whether this or that act benefits or harms creation: is this car trip really needed? Is that food good or bad? Does this light need to be on? We constantly must ask ourselves whether our actions are good or bad for creation, and beneficial for us. That’s why walking, all exercise is an action akin to prayer, is one of the conditions of gaining eternal life, is, as the Bible Book James claims, ‘to be among the good deeds’ we have to do. “Love your neighbor as YOURself”, is one of the two laws upon which eternal life depends. Of course, the other is “Loving God through his creation”.  

Barring unforeseen conditions or impossible obstacles, we are responsible for keeping our bodies healthy and in good shape. For most of us there are no real impediments not to walk, the simplest form of exercise. More body movement, and healthy eating habits, are among the keys to the Kingdom to come. We reflect the divine image. That is no idle talk. Colossians 1: 15 -20 tells us that Jesus Christ is the human image of the invisible God. He, Christ, was the first human being, not Adam or Eve or whoever: He is “The firstborn of all creation!” If the Scriptures are correct, then by Jesus, the Christ, the first-born as a human being, all things – Ta Panta – came into being. No wonder that we human beings are so smart: we have Jesus as our model, whether we believe in him, or not! And we have to imitate him in our entire life, because he taught us how to live, and that to the full. Here is the full Colossians text:

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.  For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things have been created through Him and for Him.  He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together. He is also head of the body, the church; and He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that He Himself will come to have first place in everything. For it was the Father’s good pleasure for all the fullness to dwell in Him, and through Him to reconcile all things to Himself, having made peace through the blood of His cross; through Him, I say, whether things on earth or things in heaven.

For a healthy – Christlike – body, more movement, less bad food – preferably no meat and alcohol (even though Jesus’ first miracle was making water into wine, when wine was the national beverage, not water), because walking, running, any exercise, stimulates blood movement and widens the arteries, preventing clots, and stimulates the brain. Think of body movement as a form of prayer: it enhances our physique and so honors our creator. Also, anything that makes creation more beautiful, whether through art work or gardening, through poetry or prose, through music or dance, is a tribute to the creation, for whose restoration Christ died: John 3: 16!

Yes, I am a ‘new earth’ person. The concept of the coming new creation plays a major role in my life. I even wrote an entire novel imagining this situation. Just Google: “Bert Hielema, Day without End.”

IS THE MEGAMACHINE THE ANTICHRIST?

There’s a new book out: “The End of the Megamachine”, written originally in German by Fabian Scheidler, now translated into English. In it Scheidler attempts to retrace the entire history of our civilization under the umbrella concept of the “megamachine.” He sees the Megamachine as a giant creature devouring the world, now on the verge of collapse, taking everything with it.

He paints the earth today as a fossil-fuel-fed monster, growing from a hesitant start in the late Middle Ages, then finding its footing with the unexpected source of nutritious, carbon-rich food causing it not just to grow, but to become fat, obnoxious and all-consuming, because the more it grows, the faster it can grow.

Now the natural resources enabling it to expand forever are dwindling and this awful automaton starts stumbling around in a frantic, fruitless search for more.

Where does this machine originate?

Here I deviate from the book. In my opinion, the Megamachine started with murder when Cain killed his brother. Jacques Ellul, in his The Meaning of the City, believes – and I agree – that the city, which Cain founded as an answer to Eden, symbolizes the supreme work of humanity, and as such represents humanity’s ultimate rejection of God: hence the start of the Megamachine.

Now, in these last days, our urbanized world has morphed into the Megamachine, embodying the Antichrist, which stands for everything evil; its power is fueled by 0101001 (the modern version of 666), the Almighty computer and its Artificial Intelligence (AI), and by fossil fuels, the ultimate destroyer: both city products, both contrary to divine wisdom.

Contrast this to wisdom.

I don’t have a lot of wisdom, but that doesn’t prevent me from trying to make sense of the world I live in. The book of Proverbs, that chapter in the Bible that follows the Psalms, gives me a lot of hints about wisdom. “The fear of the Lord,” it says, “Is the beginning of Wisdom”. I understand this to mean that, when we are awed by the greatness of creation, and love it dearly, we are on the first steps to wisdom. I try to do that because I wholeheartedly believe that God’s wisdom is evident in creation. Isn’t there a line where it says, “By wisdom you made it all?”  Yes, Proverbs 3: 19: “By wisdom the LORD laid the earth’s foundations, by understanding he set the heavens in place”.

Genesis, the very beginning of the Bible, tells me that: “The earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters”.

How do I visualize that? With the boldness of ignorance, I venture to fathom this scenario. It seems to suggest that there was a chaotic, turbulent mass of seething seas, an enormous ball of boiling brew, shapeless suds, piles of water purposelessly posturing, the entire scenery undeniably negative. And over and above all this cauldron of nothingness hovered God’s Spirit. “God is a Spirit”, Jesus told us, so, in essence, God was there surveying the scenes.

Then a miracle occurred; the wonder of wonders took place: “God spoke, and it came to be; he commanded, and it stood firm,” (Psalm 33: 9).

That line, “God spoke and it came to be”, reminds me of an article I read last week in the Aeon Magazine on GENIUS. In it, Craig Wright, professor of music at Yale and the author of The Hidden Habits of Genius (2020), wrote, “Over the course of 20 years, I went in search of Mozart in libraries in Berlin, Salzburg, Vienna, Krakow, Paris, New York and Washington, studying his autograph (or handwritten) music manuscripts. I found that Mozart could effortlessly conceive of great swaths of music entirely in his head, with almost no corrections. What Salieri said of Mozart in Amadeus no longer seems so fanciful: here ‘was the very voice of God’”.

Craig Wright again: “If Mozart could hear in his head how the music ought to go, Leonardo, judging from his sketches, could simply see them in his mind’s eye………Leonardo’s natural technical facility is manifest, as seen in the hand-eye coordination that results in correct proportions and the cross-hatching lines that suggest three-dimensional perception.”

These two men, genius, both, had something god-like about them. “God spoke, and it came to be.” Both Mozart and Leonardo in their minds envisioned totally complete works of art. For them it was simple to put it on paper. God went a step further: he spoke, and, pronto, it materialized in totality, not yet fully formed, still, in principle, but its potential has now been fully realized, has developed as we, the latter-day creatures experience them. God is a God of order.

Order and Disorder.

I try to be a man of order, perhaps too much so, but it makes life easier. I always get up at the same time, feed the wood stove, eat my oatmeal porridge ready in my slow cooker, add my blueberries, fruit in season, apple sauce – I am still working on the 2019 crop in my freezer – and so have a healthy start of the day. First thing, after breakfast, I copy the lectionary readings and select a passage for elaboration. That’s my routine.  Every morning I prepare a hot lunch at noon, followed by an hour-long nap, a concession to my age. I diligently exercise every day without fail, either walk or use my treadmill, stationary bike and rowing machine.

In my reading of Proverbs, I have noticed that wisdom and discipline go hand in hand. My discipline extends to my reading which these past weeks has centered on Walter Brueggemann, and his Interpretation and Obedience. The book was written some 35 years ago, but certainly is not outdated. In it he writes a lot on ‘the land’, quoting Psalm 24: “The earth is the LORD’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it.” He is more direct there, emphasizing that “THE LAND” belongs to God. I have 50 acres of land, mostly woods, rocks and wetland, but I have a patch, surrounding my home, our guesthouse and my workshop, where there is also some 2,000 square feet of ‘land’ precious soil where I grow much of what I eat. Preserving and enhancing it is my divine duty.

Our environmental situation can be traced to the way we treat The Land: the right way spells ORDER, the current wrong way DISORDER, which will backfire on us dramatically. There is more ingenuity, harmony and coherence in a cubic inch of my soil than in the tallest condominium tower anywhere.

As the Bible tells us, the fall will be sudden and unpredictable. Disorder versus Order. The End of the Megamachine spells it out, completely in tune with the Scriptures.

In the final chapter of Interpretation and Obedience this well-known Old Testament scholar, writes, “That the world is dying before our eyes is no idle speculation, but a daily experience of change so massive, of alienation so powerful, of anxiety so unending: there no going home. It will never be the same again.”

And then there is foolishness.

This monster we have fashioned destroys God’s creation on purpose because it hates God, hates wisdom and loves foolishness: the result is the Disorder we see today.

That’s the Megamachine in operation, the Antichrist at work, trying to thwart God and his beloved work of art.

Brueggemann again, “Because world-ending is so scary and so painful, we do not want to face it. Patients, clients, or parishioners (even the clergy, I might add) do not want to face it. And in the end, neither do we.”

Is the Megamachine the Antichrist?

Yes. From the very inception of civilization God’s opponent lived only for revenge, aimed at destroying God’s wonderful creation. God allowed this to happen, as shown in Deuteronomy 31, “I will hide my face to see what the end would be.” Now we know the end. In the process we are learning how to live eternally.

Thank you, Lord.

IS GOD DEAD?

Is God dead? That’s what Nietzsche thought. In his Thus spoke Zarathustra he wrote”,

“I conjure you, my brethren, REMAIN TRUE TO THE EARTH (Capitals in the original) and believe not those who speak unto you of super-earthly hopes! Poisoners are they, whether they know it or not.

Despisers of life are they, decaying ones and poisoned ones themselves, of whom the earth is weary: so away with them!

Once blasphemy against God was the greatest blasphemy; but God died, and therewith also those blasphemers. To blaspheme the earth is now the dread-fullest sin, and to rate the heart of the unknowable higher than the meaning of the earth!”

Wow! Nietzsche holds nothing back! He truly despises those ‘heaven’ preachers and their earth-detesting sermons. No wonder his words were twisted and, of course, ignored. His passion for the earth and its occupants cost him dearly. He loved horses, was a cavalry officer in the Habsburg army. When he saw a poor horse whipped to death, he embraced the dying animal, ‘lost his mind’ and never again spoke for 12 years, until his death in 1900.

Nietzsche himself was slated to become a minister in the Lutheran church, like his father and his two grandfathers, one even a bishop there. Steeped in Bible knowledge and a thorough knowledge of classical literature – he became a professor at the age of 22 – this brilliant man saw the basic theological fraud of Protestantism, the heaven heresy, which lead him to abandon a clerical career, seeing not heaven as the goal, but the new earth. That’s why he shouted, REMAIN TRUE TO THE EARTH. He sensed that a church that worships heaven has a God who is dead. And that applies to much of current day Christianity, and, sorry to say, lies at the very root of the environmental crisis.

God is not dead.

Well, I can tell you that God is not dead, even though, in a sense, he is dying. I mean that literally. Readers of my blog know that I am a great admirer of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, that young theologian who became a martyr for Christ when he was hanged on the explicit instruction of Hitler, weeks before the end of World War II. Dr. Sabine Dramm, in her important book, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, an introduction to his thought, concludes that, “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”.

Actually, this makes eminent sense: Take Bach, the greatest composer of all times. Two of his three wives died on him: he had 20 children, many who did not survive. He probably was a hard taskmaster, living for his work as kapellmeister, composer, church organist, choir director. We don’t much care about his personality: we only know him by his works, his beautiful music: that’s how we still admire him (1685-1750). We must see God also that way, because, as he is beyond knowing, we must love him by his works: John 3: 16, if “God so loved ‘the cosmos’ that he offered his beloved Son to buy it back from evil,” shouldn’t we do the same? Believing that fundamental truth gives us Life Eternal.

Bonhoeffer was not alone. Richard Elliott Friedman in his intriguing book, The Hidden Face of God, comes to an identical conclusion, even though he poses it as a question mark. This professor of Hebrew and Bible translator, concludes this masterpiece with, “There is some likelihood that the universe is the hidden face of God”. (The emphasis on ‘is’ is his.)

On the Reformed scene there is J. H. Bavinck who wrote that salvation of the person and salvation of creation go hand in hand.

Aspects of Christianity and Jewry are united on this score, and so are Roman Catholics.

Not only are there Jewish and Protestant sources identifying God with his creation, there are ever louder voices in the Roman Catholic Church proclaiming identical views. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin is the most outspoken one. The title of his most famous book is Le Milieu Divin. The title says it all. In connection with ‘the coming of the kingdom’ he writes, “But in fact how many of us are genuinely moved in the depth of our hearts by the wild hope that our earth will be recast?” (Emphasis his). He speaks with great longing for The New Earth to come.

Of course, this is not real news for many: songs often speak louder than sermons. In “This Is My Father’s World”, we have that line, “He speaks to us everywhere.” Creation IS God’s Word, and as Pere Teilhard writes, ‘It is Divine”, is Holy.

Sister Ilia Delio, founder of the Omega Center, sees the New Creation as the heart of Christianity. With a double doctorate in Pharmacology and Theology, she is an ardent promotor of Teilhard’s New Creation beliefs.

 Is God dead? If our life is dominated by ‘going to heaven’, then, indeed, God is dead, leading to a totally distorted Christianity: “Poisoners are they!” The Bible tells us that the stagnant Jewish Theology, centering on Temple worship, killed Jesus because he flouted their rules and regulations. When Jesus died on the cross, the heavy curtain in the Temple, separating the Holies from the Holy of Holies, ripped from top to bottom, a clear signal that a new era of worship had begun: away from organized religion and heralding freedom, where humans could become fully human, not bound by church dogmas and outdated rites and rules and clerics.

Yet, still today, much of churchy Christianity worships a god who, basically resides within the walls of a building featuring a spire that points to heaven. Its adherents worship a book, the Bible, whose very words in Psalm 119: 105, tell us that it is “a lamp for our feet and a light for our path:” a means, not an end. However, the church has made that lamp the sole source of wisdom, staring into that light that it has become blinding, not only ignoring creation, but purposely harming it, killing the God=Creation in the process.  

Sister Delio of the Franciscan order, points out the difference between Pantheism and Panentheism. In Pantheism we see everything -pan – as god -theos, while in Panentheism we see God in everything: that’s how we have to go through life, especially now in Pandemic time: not a return to the pre-pandemic era which got us where we are today, but progressing to a post-pandemic time, where we live, try to live, seeing God in everything.

In the Lord’s Prayer, that plea with the Creator God to speed up the coming of the New Earth, the first line is HALLOWED BE THY NAME. That has nothing to do with God’s name, whether it is Jehovah, Yahweh, Lord, Adonai or whatever, but has everything to do with God’s signature on all that lives and moves and has a being, thus making every species HOLY.

And the church?

nbOh, oh, touchy subject. Look at it this way: Just as Christ’s death ensured new life, God’s death in creation promises the same: a NEW creation. where “there is no altar”, says Revelation 21. That’s why, frankly, I don’t see a future for the church in its present form: its basic premise – buildings, offices – has become outdated. If it is ‘heaven-oriented’, even half-heartedly, God and the church are dead, not worth supporting. Communion of saints will continue, of course, directly engaged in ‘new’ earth-centered, holistic activities, which, by the way, will lead to greater non-church participation. That this will make preachers superfluous, is an extra bonus. The funds freed can be used to promote human responsibility in honoring creation by example, in green eating, in carbon-free living, and, of course, in praying without ceasing for the Kingdom to come, and effectively working toward that goal.

HOPE

In the beginning,” that’s how the Bible starts. Whatever has a beginning, also has an End. I am afraid and also delighted it’s the End that we are witnessing today. We all know that the last Bible book reveals, to some extent, what’s going to happen before the END. Revelation 18is a typical example That chapter deals with ECONOMICS, the religion that has dominated our world for centuries, and now threatens our very existence. Here’s a line from an Oxford economist I found in last week’s Guardian, “The world is being put at “extreme risk” by the failure of economics to take account of the rapid depletion of the natural world and to find new measures of success to avoid a catastrophic breakdown.”

Revelation 18 very much applies to today: And the merchants of the earth will weep and mourn over her, because there is no one left to buy their cargo— cargo of gold, silver, precious stones, and pearls; of fine linen, purple, silk, and scarlet; of all kinds of citron wood and every article of ivory, precious wood, bronze, iron, and marble; of cinnamon, spice, incense, myrrh, and frankincense; of wine, olive oil, fine flour, and wheat; of cattle, sheep, horses, and chariots; of slaves and souls of men.

How do I translate this in today’s economic environment? It points to deflation: the peddlers of luxury items are stuck with their inventory and longingly lament the good times, never to return, because even the affluent are no longer in the market for their merchandize.

Why do the rich buy expensive stuff? They want to show them off, want to be seen as rich, able to indulge in such useless, but expensive expenditures as precious stones, pearls, famous brand wines, horses and pricy cars, and especially have poor, unregistered immigrants at their bidding. This time around all this is no longer possible because multi-millionaires too have become victims, catch the VIRUS, and so they too are housebound, confined to their monster dwellings. Even personal aircraft cannot help, because in a pandemic, there’s no safe place to fly.

And, curiously, Revelation also mentions inflation: food inflation, especially as heat waves, cold spells, spoiled soil, polluted water all reach extremes. Remember the four horses, those ominous beasts that herald the Apocalypse? The footnote on Revelation 6 mentions that famine had inflated food prices to at least ten times their normal level: “A quart of wheat for a day’s wages and three quarts of barley for a day’s wages.” Both that scale and these words signify poverty, hunger and inflation. Money loses its value and the costs of the normal daily needs goes higher and higher: deflation of what we own; inflation of what we need.

Suicide or adoration.

I am re-reading Teilhard de Chardin this week, that Jesuit priest-scientist, who, some 100 years ago, wrote, “You are on a testing ground where God can judge whether you are capable of being translated into his presence. He also prophesied that, “The day is not far distant when humanity will realize that biologically it is faced with the choice between suicide and adoration”.

Well, that day has come: the most outspoken part of churchy Christianity is engaged not in adoration, but in an aberration, a Trump Religion. True adoration focuses on the Creator-God, but today Americanism, the world’s dominant Religious System, centers on suicidal, meaningless Bible prattle that condones or even promotes nature-destroying actions. The sad truth is that the world is going through hell for the sake of economic growth: there’s no turning back, the choice has been made, and global suicide is the only option left: the die has been cast

Witness the facts.

It’s easy to forget that last year gave us not just the pandemic, but also the West Coast’s worst fire season, as well as the most Atlantic hurricanes ever. And, as ARCTIC NEWS repeatedly told us, 2020 also was the year that the sea ice there retreated at near record pace, and gave numerous hints that significant methane releases from Arctic permafrost and the Arctic Ocean are happening, while high temperatures in both Canada’s and Siberian north, shattered heat record, even now as I look.

We are now facing positive feedback, with exponential capacity: never mind the Paris Accord; never mind America going on a Climate Change binge; never mind the electric cars: we have passed beyond the point of no return.

True, I commend President Biden, who has recommitted the United States to the Paris Agreement, which is great except that it doesn’t really mean much, since the agreement’s commitments are voluntary. All indications are that it has become a fruitless exercise because, even if the countries fully abide by the pledges, the cutbacks are not nearly enough to keep global warming below the two degrees Celsius, or 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit above preindustrial levels. According to the Arctic News website we already are 2.5 Degrees Celsius above pre-agricultural level, some 12,000 years ago. Methane is the real big factor. The Arctic Sea is quite shallow: some 50-100 meters deep. There on its bottom are buried trillions of tons of methane, a greenhouse gas more than 80 times stronger than the stuff that comes from the exhausts of our diesel and gasoline powered trucks, cars and farm machinery.

Meanwhile, the earth’s climate seems to be changing faster than expected. Last week I read that, “We are 50 years to 100 years ahead of schedule with the slowdown of this ocean circulation pattern, relative to what the models predict … The more observations we get, the more sophisticated our models become, the more we’re learning that things are happening faster, and with a greater magnitude, than we predicted just years ago. Last year the Greenland ice sheet briefly reached daily melt rates predicted in what were once considered worst case scenarios for 2060 to 2080.” The same applies to the thawing of the permafrost.

Going back to normal now means returning to a course that will destabilize the conditions for all human life, everywhere on earth. Normal means more fires, more category 5 hurricanes, more flooding, more drought, millions upon millions more migrants fleeing famine and civil war, more crop failures, more storms, more extinctions, more record-breaking heat. Normal means the increasing likelihood of civil unrest and state collapse, of widespread agricultural failure and collapsing fisheries, of millions of people dying from thirst and hunger, of new diseases, old diseases spreading to new places and the havoc of war. Normal could well mean the end of global civilization as we know it.

So, where is the HOPE?

The world does not offer hope. We are past the point of no return. Only Christianity offers hope. Jesus died, not only to save sinners, but to restore creation. We have learned an expensive lesson with God’s earth in the balance and, through trial and error, have realized that loving God means loving his creation. John 3: 16 spells it out.

Where do I find my hope? I believe the Revelation 21 text: “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.”

Who is the bride? Who is the husband?

Isaiah 62 spells it out. The land is the Bride. We, the redeemed of the Lord, the new human race, wise and mature, are the groom, with Jesus as the PRIMUS INTER PARES, the First among equals.

“for the LORD will take delight in you,

and your land will be His bride.”

That is our HOPE