Bert Hielema–Columns and Writings

MY BODY.

Shortly after my wife of 67 years died in late October, I started to write a daily commentary based on the Anglican Lectionary, 500 words on weekdays and 1,000 words on Sundays. This Lectionary always features three bible readings, the Old Testament, the Psalms, and the New Testament. I usually pick a text from the New Testament, copy it into my Word document and start writing without any forethought or previous reflection.

Last week Sunday my chosen subject centered on my body: 1 Corinthians 6: 19, “Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own”.

That caused an avalanche of words. My body houses the Holy Spirit of the Trinity! By loving my body, by cherishing my mind, by favoring my heart and lungs, my legs and stomach, I honor the divinity in me. Christ, who is all and in all (Colossians 1: 15) has given me that body to look after, has given it to me ‘in trust’. It is more important than anything else I own: it is holy. It really does not belong to me at all: it belongs to Christ, reason why I must treat it with the greatest care and utmost devotion. Don’t get me wrong: my body is not an object of idolatry. It also is not something to be sold, or to become reason for veneration, or to be admired and displayed as a source of pride.

Looking after my body carries a great responsibility: as an item of trust, as a borrowed entity I am answerable to Christ alone. In eternity I will be called to give account of my body and how I have dealt with this possession. The commandments Jesus gave me, has 2 components: (1) Love God in his creation, and (2) Love my neighbor as myself. If we don’t love our own being, body, mind and spirit, then all other love is useless and it is futile to even try. Loving means treasuring, means taking care, means cherishing and valuing, means keeping the body and mind and spirit properly fed and properly rested and properly exercised. Dr. Jordan Peterson, a psychology professor, will only counsel people when they get up every morning at the same time, and start the day with a healthy breakfast: regularity is needed for the body; good living habits are the key to health because discipline and wisdom go together.

Mens sana in corpore sano.

A sound mind can only function in a healthy body. One of the most important observations gained from studying the universe is that “Everything is connected to everything else”. That especially applies to the body. By and large the American diet is atrocious, influenced as it is by corporate profits and inculcated into the American Mind through Television. If food is manufactured, it means that it is no longer genuine food, but a food-like substitute, made not for its nutritional merit, but for long shelf life and fake healthy appearance, and especially corporate profit. It’s no longer ‘real food’ such as fresh vegetables, fruits, whole grains, and, yes, a bit of fish and meat as well. The real rule is “Don’t eat anything your great grandmother wouldn’t recognize as food.”

No wonder the American Mind and its religion are all wrong. Sugar – soft drinks, any corn-based substance – is basically poison, but it is a great conserver, excellent for shelf-life and is also very addictive: once you are hooked, it’s hard to kick it. The wrong diet has made the USA and to some extent Canada as well, the unhealthiest and most unwise populace on the Western world. No wonder the COVID is so stubborn to eradicate, because the simple rules, “Keep distance, wash hands, wear a mask”, are ignored. Not following these directions is god-less, against the grain of loving our neighbors, against the gospel: Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own”.

America’s addiction to sugared food has caused its religion to become ungodly, witness its Trump addiction, equating this godless human specimen with the Gospel. Compare his behavior with the fruits of the spirit: “love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness (Galatians 5: 22).  President Biden tries to embody these biblical aims, and is ridiculed for this by Religious America.

Yes, we are innately and naturally religious, for the simple reason that our bodies ultimately are divine. The Psalms testify to that. When Jesus was accused by the Pharisees for calling himself “the Son of God”, he simply quoted what is now known as Psalm 82: 6, “You are gods, you are all sons and daughters of the Most High.” Psalm 8 reiterates that. So, don’t underestimate your being: we are God’s offspring.

All that is glorious and also frightening. The word ‘Responsibility’ has at its root the word ‘response’ which indicate that it is an answer to the WORD, the word in a threefold way: the Word Created, the Word become Mensch, the Word in Scripture.

As Revelation 22: 11 attests, humanity has reached a stalemate: “let those who do evil, continue; let those who do good, persist. No more conversions. We have reached the end of the road. Already in the globe’s animal and plant life, a severe reduction is getting worse. We see the human race on the decline, not in numbers but in intellectual and religious understanding.

America, as always, leads the way. Tens of Millions refuse to acknowledge Biden as the duly elected President, another sign that humanity no longer abides by reason. It seems to me that in the Covid-19 situation we too are at a standstill, too are at the crossroads. Environmentally matters can only deteriorate. True, there is a new regime in Washington, and optimism abounds. In how far this is based on reality remains an open question.

“Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own”.

Why have I not seen it before or, rather, why haven’t I paid attention to it before? I love the Psalms, “The earth is the Lord’s and the fulness thereof; the world and they who dwell therein.” (Psalm 24: 1) Not only we belong to the Lord: the entire world does! Not only we are holy; the entire world is. We, as the “top of the line” creatures are called to be the example of grace and godliness. Every thought and every one of our actions for good and bad vibrates through the universe because everything is connected to everything else.

We are not our own. No matter what we believe, we belong to God, the creator of all that exists. Bach’s music will always be his. Shakespeare’s plays will always be his. God’s creation will always be his. My body will always be his. That’s why I try to keep it healthy.

My Body? Absolutely amazing! In God’s image, using himself as the prototype! He who is Hildegard of Bingen, Erasmus, Shakespeare, Joan d’Arc, Bach, Rembrandt, Nietzsche, Bonhoeffer, Teilhard, the William sisters, Einstein, Messi, Kamala, John XXIII, all rolled into one and then some: only in the new creation will we achieve our potential. And that will take eternity!

REVENGE and VENGEANCE.

Both words are in use, and they signal somewhat the same intent: James Lovelock uses REVENGE in the title of: “The Revenge of Gaia”, indicating that Gaia, Earth, fights back. God mentions Vengeance, telling us not to retaliate when offended, but leave punishment to him who knows the heart and understands the people’s purpose when he said: “Vengeance is mine” (Hebrew 10: 30).

Revenge sounds so very human. Vengeance? I offer a new thought.

Lovelock – a famous scientist – sees the earth – Gaia – as alive and conscious, is keenly convinced that she is battling the wrongs humanity is committing against her by taking her own counter measures, such as Climate Change, rising seas, melting tundra. In other words: The earth has a built-in defense mechanism which automatically trickers Revenge.

The Bible tells me that we must refrain from either revenge or vengeance. Jesus gave the 70×7 rule: always forgive: no retaliation, no vendettas. Yet it happens, because Lovelock is right: both our bodies and the earth have built-in counter measures: when we sin against ourselves and against creation, the Lord’s vengeance is already at work. We well know that when we neglect our bodies – smoking is a common example and so is lack of exercise or eating the wrong foods – God’s vengeance kicks in. Also, in our environmental sins God has given us a free hand. That’s how I explain Deuteronomy 31: 17, where God has pledged: “I shall hide my face to see what their end will be”. To me that means that God is allowing us to muddle through without his guidance, and so learn from our mistakes. After all, our present life is a proving ground for eternity on earth, where no wrong action will ever take place.

Back to Lovelock.

Yes, Lovelock, this learned man – now 101 years old – asserts that our world is a living organism with its own consciousness and defense mechanisms. His GAIA designation means our EARTH, referring to the Greek goddess thought to be in charge of the world. In his 160 pages book he relates how we have waged war on the environment and the earth is fighting back. Lovelock writes, “Unless we see the earth as a planet that behaves as if it were alive, at least to the extent of regulating its climate and chemistry, we will lack the will to change our way of life and to understand that we have made it our greatest enemy.”

That is very ‘Christian’ talk.

Interestingly, he outlines for the inhabitants of the coming new earth (Lovelock himself is an atheist) their task, when he writes: “The universe is a much more intricate place than we can imagine. I often think our conscious minds will never encompass more than a tiny fraction of it all and that our comprehension of the earth is no better than an eel’s comprehension of the ocean in which it swims.”

Here we see an outline for our task in the New Earth: eternity will not be long enough to unveil all of Creation’s secrets!

James Lovelock subtitled his THE REVENGE OF GAIA, as Earth’s Climate in Crisis and the Fate of Humanity. He correctly states that we are trapped in a vicious circle of positive feedbacks: melting ice in the ARCTIC and melting tundra on land, releases methane that speeds up global heat. The real problem is that we are dangerously ignorant of our own ignorance. As an example, Dr. Lovelock quotes Mother Theresa who, in 1988 said, “Why should we care about the Earth when our duty is to the poor and sick among us. God will take care of the earth.” We now realize that not taking care of the earth harms the poor the most.

Enough.

Dr. Lovelock concludes, “The evidence around the world brings news of an eminent shift in our climate towards one that could easily be described as Hell: so hot, so deadly that only a handful of the teeming billions will survive.” 

ARCTIC NEWS last month reported that “No one wishes to believe in the projections made in the recent book ‘The Uninhabitable Earth’, except that these projections, made by David Wallace-Wells, are disturbingly consistent with the current shift in state of the climate toward +4 degrees and even +6 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels”. That literally means Hell on Earth.

The riot at the Capitol in the center of Washington on January 6 was seen as the ultimate crime against US democracy. That we constantly desecrate God and creation, is seen as normal.

So, what about the WRATH OF GOD, HIS VENGEANCE?

Once reading Isaiah 62 I came across a curious passage: “And your land will be married”. The footnote there suggests that the relationship between the land and us, humanity, will be restored. It indicates that the Bible sees ‘the land’ as a living entity: “the land to be married”, indicates an unbreakable unity with humanity. The bride is not the church: the bride is ‘the land’, creation, the Apple of God’s Eye. Actually, the Psalms repeatedly refer to all earthly elements having a living relationship with her maker, occurrences too numerous to mention. The problem is that a vast majority of church-goers still see heaven as their destination, and so totally fail to see their task on earth. 

A real life example.

A few years ago, the Synod – the General Assembly – of the Christian Reformed Church (where I have my roots, and was an elder) had its annual meeting at the Campus of Redeemer University, and I attended many of the weeklong gatherings. At one time I joined a small discussion group, including the then general secretary of the denomination, 2 deputies from Colorado, and 2 US youth delegates. Here I was able to question the highest authority of that church. I pointed out that its confessions include the Belgic one, which undeniably points out that we know God first, by looking at creation and second, by the Scriptures. I asked, “If creation is so important for the church, why is the church exclusively concerned with the Bible, calling it Holy: isn’t Creation Holy as well?” My remarks were met with stony silence.

One of their own, Prof. Dr. Lewis Smedes, wrote in his autobiography: “God minus the universe equals nothing. If there were no universe, there would be no God.” That echoes Bonhoeffer’s words, “God is nothing without the world and the world is nothing without God”.

Gnosticism

This conversation, and other observations, have led me to conclude that the church, in its exclusive reliance on the Scriptures, has surrendered to Gnosticism. Gnosticism? In the introduction to the three letters of John it is described as “One of the most dangerous heresies”. Its central teaching is that Spirit – preaching, prayer, heaven – is entirely good, and matter – creation, trees, soil – is entirely evil.

This sort of dualism, is entirely based on pagan Greek philosophy. Dr. Harold Bloom, noted Hebrew translator, in THE AMERICAN RELIGION, with as subtitle, The Emergence of the Post-Christian Nation, bluntly stated that the American Religion has ceased to be Christian, citing Gnosticism as its true confession. A great number of those violently invading the Capitol were shouting that Trump was an agent of God and his son, Jesus Christ. Just as the shouting mass killed the crucified Jesus, now the contemporary church is killing God’s Creation. Yes, Deuteronomy 31: 17 prophesied it already in the beginning: when God ceded power over creation earth’s ultimate doom was guaranteed. We tend to forget 1 John 5: 19, “the whole world is under the control of the evil one”, all too evident today.

Vengeance? I offer a new thought.

Revelation, the last Bible book, reveals that God’s Son has prepared a new earth where everything is perfect, where God’s children will live forever. Could this be a new, parallel earth? Could the current earth remain where those who have willfully harmed it will live, totally deprived of God and his grace, the HELL Lovelock mentioned?

I know this idea clashes perhaps with 2 Peter 3: 10-13, but then, what form will God’s Vengeance take?

THE YEAR 2021: THE ENDGAME?

The harvest is past, the summer has ended, and we are not saved. (Jeremiah 8: 20)

I am constantly amazed how prophetic Scripture is: I am discovering passages written 2500 years ago, that, in my mind, predict conditions that perfectly apply to today. Of course, I know that the Bible does not give me exact details, is not a book to instruct me how to cope with specific circumstances, such as dealing with the Covid-19 pandemic, yet I believe that, by and large, it tells me how to live: a life lived in total compatibility with everything created, because everything is connected to everything else. The pandemic is the result of breaking that fundamental law.

The Bible also provides me with an outline for my salvation, but only in the context of the totality of creation: my salvation and the salvation of the cosmos go hand in hand: that is the lesson my church has forgotten, and I believe, is now learning. Because God made it, creation is holy: that, I am sure, is the new ‘lesson’ the church must proclaim TODAY, with the immediate reminder that Jesus, upon his death, purified it, which will happen it when he returns to claim his own. Now that the earth is exhausted, no longer capable of properly functioning, John 3: 16 has become my central text in Scripture: LOVE CREATION, and by doing so I express my belief in God and my love for God, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Last week I read in Lewis Smedes’ autobiography that: “God minus the universe equals nothing. If there were no universe, there would be no God.” That echoes Bonhoeffer who wrote that “God is nothing without the world and the world is nothing without God”.

My ultimate lesson.

And I? I too am nothing without the world, while the world would, perhaps, be happy without me and even more happy when I, falteringly, start to live in full recognition that I depend on the world in everything I need. The ultimate lesson I have learned in 2020 is that I finally recognize my total dependence on the world and ultimately on God!

As I enter a new year, I leave behind a world in deep decline. 2020 was a La Nina year, when a cool Pacific was supposed to generate cooler temperatures. Yet we saw disastrous weather with extreme heat, record forest fires, melting tundra, and a host of hurricanes. That signals that the weather this coming year will be much worse, as heat in the Arctic is jumping at double the rate elsewhere. Right now, huge storms are pumping massive amounts of warm water into the Arctic, likely unleashing methane Cyclades.  Once these trillions of tons of methane there explode, God help us. Methane is an incredible potent greenhouse gas, up to One Hundred times more dangerous than our still increasing car exhausts.

Are we in the ENDGAME for our earth?

Yes, we are in THE ENDGAME: we have entered the last stage before it all ends, and the disorienting and sad message is that: The harvest is past, the summer has ended, and we are not saved.

Here’s a quote from the New York Times December 28 2020:

Having sown the wind with greenhouse gases for centuries, we’re reaping the whirlwind, sometimes quite literally. Add pestilence to this picture of drought, fire and flood and you have a scene straight out of the Book of Revelation, with the coronavirus, as invisible to the naked eye as it is from space, playing the role of the fourth Horseman, sent by nature to counter our continuing assaults on the natural world.

That citation sets for me the tone for the year, 2021. We are witnessing the ceasing of civilization: a winter of discontent, a spring to nowhere, an inferno – infused summer, a fall into the abyss, the endpoint of everything. Already, we live in the shadows of hell. All reserves are gone, we have robbed everything valuable from the earth, have plucked all the easy fruit, have fished the seas nearly dry. Now that we have exploited all the ready-to-obtain treasures, and, with depletion at hand, and 8 billion mouths to feed, with billions of cattle and poultry to sustain, with soils degraded, with forests denuded, with Climate Change knocking ever louder, we face mass starvation, an earth full of our carbon-thirsty playthings, but empty of God’s gifts: “The fulness of time” has come.

I like that expression: “the fulness of time has come”. In my reading Galatians 4 it popped up: “When the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son.”

It’s the second time we face this fulness. It came 2000 years ago when Christ was born, right at the cusp of history, when the Pax Romana was in force, when the world spoke or understood the Koinonia, the language universal, made ready for the spreading of the Good News. Now, anno 2021, we again face ‘the fulness of time’. Again, a Koinonia, this time the English language, the language of my blog, where China is among my four most readers, after the USA, Canada and the UK. Again, the church had run stuck, again mired in man-made mandates. Again, the church has emptied itself in miters and rites, in customs and slogans. Again, the time is full, while the church is empty.  

Why 2021? Why not?

The Scriptures repeatedly state that the Parousia will happen without advance warning, even though there will be telltale signs aplenty. What is becoming more evident, is that I live in a Finite Earth. Its resources, its water supply, its arable soil, even the air and the seas, seemingly infinite, are subject to limitation. This makes me live in the expectation of Christ re-appearance, this time not as a tiny human, but as “The Lord of Creation”, calling me to account, challenging me to answer questions on how I have lived and acted and taken care of God’s precious earth.

It increasingly looks that we are at a turning point in the world. With population growth marching ahead, resources are diminishing. Water, clean, unpolluted aqua is disappearing. The same is true for ores, where too the high quality has been used up and the next phase will be more costly. This applies to much of what we need: food, fish, fossil fuels.

Is Collapse in the cards? Are we in the ENDGAME for the earth?

In chess the ENDGAME is at hand when only a few pieces are still in play. That holds true for our earth as well: extinction is the topic of the day, the disappearance of trees, of animals, of fish…. The list goes on. Even the very necessities of life are at the edge: collapse is in the cards. The Pandemic and Global Heating are sure signs of the ENDGAME. At the start of a new year optimism usually is the main message. This year will be the same, of course, but, not unusual, let me be the odd man out. With the Bible as a witness, such as 2 Peter 3: 10-13, I believe that:

the Day of the Lord will come like a thief, in which the heavens will pass away with a roar and the elements will be destroyed with
intense heat, and the earth and its works will be burned up. (The Arctic’s exploding Methane might do that!)
 

Since all these things are to be destroyed in this way, what sort of people ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness, looking for and
hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be destroyed by burning, and the elements will melt with
intense heat! But according to His promise we are looking for new heavens and a new earth, in which righteousness dwells.

December 23 2020

A THEOLOGY FOR DUMMIES.

So, now that the year 2020 is almost over, it’s been a memorable year for me. For the first time in my life, I had a 4 day stay in the hospital with pneumonia. Also, my wife of 67 years needed more care – she had for years suffered from dementia – and in January she was moved to the new local Long Term Care home, where she died in late October. Fortunately, I was able to visit her almost daily until the very last. So, now at 92 I am a widower, and since I spend a lot of time alone, I started writing a daily meditation based on the bible lectionary – Anglican – on my word processor, 500 words on weekdays, 1,000 on Sundays. A bright spot: in a small church group we had a very productive book discussion on Dr. Douglas John Hall’s book: “What Christianity is NOT”, in which he often quotes Augustine and Bonhoeffer. The book gave me the impetus to verbalize what has long been gestating in my mind on church and the bible.

Augustine, a great thinker, revered by Catholics and Protestants alike, some 1600 years ago, when Latin was the world’s Lingua Franca, said: “Si comprehendis, non est Deus”, which, freely translated, means, “If you think that you understand, it isn’t God you are talking about.” Take creation, the very expression of God’s intentions: Slowly we are discovering that our lifestyle is totally destructive and that the church no longer provides answers, so the young people, not surprisingly, drift away. What this tells me is that we need a new Theology: we need “A Theology for Dummies”. From the way the world and the church are going it is obvious we all are dumb and ignorant.

We need a new perspective. 

Augustine also has said, “Many whom the church has, God does not have, and many whom God has, the church does not have.”

I had a good friend, Dr. Harold Goldsman. I met him when I was part of a panel discussion, a longtime ago, and my presentation was so different that, after the meeting he sought me out, and we discovered that we had a lot in common.

After that, I brought him along to my occasional get-together with three Christian Reformed (CRC) leaders, a school principal, an environmentalist, a leading authority on mental health, and me, a lapsed CRC person and attending the Presbyterian Church in Tweed. Here was this psychologist, a former professor at Concordia University in Montreal, a Jew, confronted with four confirmed Christians, and fitting right in. He was, by my description, a “Mensch”, a truly human being, loving, compassionate, considerate, a wise person who would have loved Jesus, and whom Jesus loved. In Belleville he successfully initiated early Childhood education and was the Education’s Board’s last resort for counselling difficult students.

He was not a Christian, yet I expect to meet him in the New Creation. I believe that “Many whom the church has, God does not have, and many whom God has, the church does not have.” That fits Harold. At his memorial I made a word-play on his name: “You may know that the Hebrew word for God is “EL”. Well, when we take ‘the “L” out of Goldsman, when we take God -el – out of his name, we are left with “Godsman” and that he truly was.

Last week I had a different encounter. I was walking – I walk an hour every day – and a fellow stopped his car to have a chat. I knew him to be a devout Catholic, so, I mentioned that I just had bought a book on Teilhard de Chardin, a Jesuit Priest. He suddenly walked away and shouted, SHOUTED “He is a Heretic!” (Teilhard, a paleontologist with a Sorbonne doctorate, saw evolution at work). That sort of attitude is religion at its worst, the sort that killed Jesus. Yes, many whom the church has, God does not have, and many whom God has, the church does not have.

So, what would I emphasize in the Theology for Dummies?

I sincerely believe that God wants only those in the paradise to come who are truly Mensch. Jesus was the true Mensch. He represented genuine humanity, that’s why in the New Testament Jesus constantly calls himself, “The Son of Man”, humanity personified. I love it when Bonhoeffer writes, “Jesus did not come to bring a new religion: he brought us LIFE, and that to the full.” A true Mensch lives in full symbiosis, in fall awareness of the Living Earth, because upon the resurrection, we will live forever on the earth, which sustains us, which feeds us, which loves us. And which God loved. In other words: we need increased emphasis on THE CREATED WORD, and less, or even little emphasis on THE WRITTEN WORD.

That calls for a new definition of SIN.

Jesus did not start a religion. He taught us how to live, live within the means of creation, live to make the earth better. His great commandment is LOVE. The Bible, subject to manifold interpretations, seems to promote to have ‘dominion’ over the earth – dominion meaning dominating! Jesus came to serve and we must serve creation, the cosmos, representing the best of God.

Of course, it’s sin to steal and kill, but our greatest SIN is stealing from and killing God’s creation. In the Lord’s Prayer, which in its entirety is focused on THE KINGDOM, the line “FORGIVE US OUR TRESPASSES basically refers to our ‘sins against creation’ (God’s Kingdom, remember!). Since we constantly commit these sins – in our Technological Society switching on a light, causes our carbon-god to kick in – Jesus also tells us to be tolerant and not to be vindictive. Therefore, He specifically asks us to forgive those who TRESPASS AGAINST US, who likewise harm creation, because we all are in the same sinful situation. It bears repeating: The Good News is that Christ died to restore creation.

Basically, this Theology for Dummies has three main points:

God created all there is, giving evolution a free hand.

We uncreated.

Jesus Christ recreated.

The Theology for Dummies must center on Creation, because our cosmos is so imperiled that we fear for the end of life. The young people intuitively sense that and shun the church as irrelevant.

Take the VIRUS, now dominating all human existence. COVID-19 is not a disease; it is a symptom of an exhausted planet. The renewal of a healthy relationship with our source of life, planet Earth, is the cure. That’s what the church must advocate! Lack of a healthy, natural habitat weakens the immune systems of animals and the resulting sicknesses pass rapidly through the birds, prairie dogs, pigs, and bats, and end up in us. With each infection, a chance for a virus to mutate into one that can sicken and kill humans and sometimes affect global livelihoods, becomes more pronounced. As such, a vaccine alone, no matter how effective, will not tip the balance toward health because, I repeat, COVID-19 is not a disease; it is a symptom of an exhausted planet. The renewal of a healthy relationship with God’s beloved Earth, is the cure.

And the church?

The church is there, not simply to teach the Bible, but is there especially, to re-acquaint us with God’s earth and discover how to live in complete symbiosis with everything and everybody created, because The EARTH is God’s PRIMARY and DIRECT WORD, while the Bible is God’s indirect and secondary word. That’s why we must NOW engage in a tentative approach to ‘religion-less Christianity’, a term first broached by Dietrich Bonhoeffer 75 years ago. That time has come!

Remember: Revelation 22 tells us that there is NO ALTAR in the New Earth. That means: no church and no Bible. That’s why today we need a new THEOLOGY, a theology with major emphasis on THE CREATED WORD, and little on THE WRITTEN WORD: a total reversal of today’s practice. A THEOLOGY for DUMMIES is needed desperately, because if ever there was a generation that is ignorant, irresponsive, and dumb, it is ours.

Remember: “The fear of the Lord, living in awe of creation, is the beginning of wisdom.”

December 14 2020

THE ANTICHRIST

There’s a new book out. It’s called THE ANTICHRIST, written by Philip Almond, an Australian professor, and published by Cambridge University Press, 354 pages. I saw a description of the book in the ECONOMIST issue of November 21 2020. In it the Economist reviewer writes, “It is all too plausibly the Antichrist’s moment now, with wildfires, plague and climate change all converging. It might be good to know one way or another”.

Well, I will probe that phenomenon, as I believe we are about to find out soon, because there is a general feeling that we are entering a new phase in the fate of humanity. How are we going to cope with the five (5) interlocking crises, each on its own enough the derail our world: the pandemic; the economic downturn; social upheaval; political friction; environmental decay?

Oh, yes, we live in interesting times! So, where does the Antichrist enter the picture, and how? The Antichrist? Christ’s opponent? Isn’t Christ dead, eliminating the Antichrist as well? No, for many the Antichrist is alive and well. In the “Left Behind” books he/she is the secretary-general of the UN. That’s too simple an answer, just as Rapture is a copout. Yes, both Christ and his opponent are still out there, so it is an opportune time to aim a renewed focus on Christ’s counterpart.  The Bible is clear that, indeed, there is such a given or personality embodying evil, but what it is and how we will recognize it or him/her/it, remains a mystery, which I will try to solve, so read on.

One fact is that the Antichrist is a product of the last days, and it is my belief our time fits that description. In the book, THE YEAR 1000, the author Robert Lacey, writes; ‘With horrendous famines which formed men into cannibalism…………the order of the seasons and the elements…….had fallen into perpetual chaos, and with it had come the end of mankind,……it could portend nothing than the advent of the cursed Antichrist who, according to divine testimony is expected to appear at the end of the world.”

Well, the year 1000 came and went. The year 2000 came and went and nothing happened. Actually, that’s not quite true. A lot happened and is still happening, and the book of Revelation may serve as a guide here.

It so happens that I have translated a book on Revelation (86,000 words) written by Johan Herman Bavinck, the third book from this author I have transferred from the Dutch into English. Of course, in the course of this book the Antichrist pops up here and there.

Here’ what J.H. Bavinck, with a doctorate in theology and psychology, and professor at the Amsterdam Free University, writes:

“But what is sure beyond doubt is that humanity will be hit exactly there where it imagines itself to be the strongest, in its technical knowhow and in its mastery over nature. Nature will fall upon the human race as a provoked lion: nature will breach all the constrains humanity has laid upon it, and will explode into extraordinary catastrophes, earthquakes, floods, failed harvests, pandemics.”

Remember, this was written 60 years ago, and is now happening!

Back to the review article on THE ANTICHRIST. Here’s another line: “If the great eschatological conflict and the triumph of good are dispensed with, history and human existence may seem to have no purpose. “Cosmic nihilism” is all that’s left.”

This secular reviewer tells us that the existence of evil is necessary to seek the good.

Enough on Philip Almond’s book, back to Bavinck.

Another snapshot.

“Sin is shown there in the full sense of the word, in its breathtaking hubris, in its self-elevation to God’s throne, in its all-out discarding of everything that stands in the way… humanity in its totality, as collective species, rises up in its dream of the totalitarian world empire, lauding its greatness, its power. It now only has the one idol, but the idol carries the same bizarre and distorted feature that it itself has. This idol is its own image, magnified into infinity. That is the Antichrist, the culmination of the world’s history.”

I like to emphasize this last line: “The Antichrist is the culmination of the world’s history”. Think about that for a moment. Where are we? Coping with a pandemic, battling an economic downturn, facing social upheaval (Trump), political friction (Brexit) and environmental decay (Climate Change) all at the same time: this suggests to me that we have passed our peak, and that it is downhill from here. “For this world in its present form is passing away” (1 Cor. 7: 31).” That is a given, and that ‘passing away’, that ‘death’ will come about by the Antichrist, so, if all this is caused by the Antichrist, what, who, is this entity? If this is the doing of the Antichrist, who is the Christ? Answering that last question might give us a clearer idea of the first.

Colossians 1: 15-20 give a real picture of Christ:

“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.”

The Ant1christ therefore is the opposite: instead of making peace, instead of reconciling all things, the Antichrist has done the opposite. By cutting down the Trees of Life, by destroying the Global forests, we opened them up to the potential of the Pandemic. By reckless borrowing we have ensured a disastrous economic downturn. By favoring the rich, we have alienated the masses, causing social upheaval and political friction. Environmental decay, Climate Change, Arctic melting has now proceeded beyond repair.

The underlying and all-penetrating factor in all this is our precious and so revered Carbon Fuel. Just as Christ has reconciled all things to Himself, so our Carbon god has penetrated everything, has spread plastic from the very top of the Himalayas to the deepest crevices in the oceans. This same Carbon god has powered our food, making it necessary to need TEN (10) Carbon calories to bring ONE (1) food calorie to our table. This same Carbon idol lies at the root of disastrous Climate Change, now beyond remedy.

The Book Review in the prestigious British weekly, The Economist, ends with the prophetic words, “The Antichrist today …in the words of the 17^th – century radical ranter, Joseph Salmon, is “This great whore is in thee.”

Today we stand at the entrance of God’s ultimate act. Many generations before us have looked forward to what they knew would come. Wars, involving the entire world, were waged, empires rose and disappeared, cities were built and were ruined. New thoughts and new expectations were tried and found wanting. Science opened up new perspectives and new possibilities arose from everywhere. On and on the ages rolled.

Here we are: more tired, more desperate, duller and more depressed. In the maelstrom of the world-happenings, we all are carried along and sometimes, in the middle of a nightmarish dream we wake up and worriedly we wonder where we are and where we are going.

As always, we are placed for a choice: Christ or Antichrist, Life or Death.

December 5 2020

THE COMING RE-SET

1972 was a decisive year for me. I was converted, I was born-again. For the first time in my life I gained a new perspective on LIFE. Unknowingly, two friends were instrumental in my personal re-set. One gave me a book which convinced me that the ‘heaven destination’ was wrong. When shortly after, I spoke at a chapel meeting of a Christian High School, I voiced my new insights with the enthusiasm of a new convert. However, the local minister felt compelled to send a letter to the parents disputing my views and promoting his heaven heresy. Oh, my!

Another friend – so true, we all need them – gave me a copy of “The Limits to Growth”, a book projecting a financial and ecological collapse in 50 years. That was my second conversion, this time becoming an environmentalist, rounding out my metanoia, my completely new outlook on life.

Yes, conversion is an all-out affair: it affects the whole person, physically, mentally, spiritually. John 3:16 points out: “God so loved THE COSMOS – ALL that lives and moves and has a being – that he sacrificed his beloved Son to restore it.” That makes conversion a matter of the heart and a matter of all day-to-day actions involving LIFE.

That total new outlook changed my life, and was a factor in moving from the city to the country.

Now almost 50 years later, we have arrived at the last phase of humanity. The Great Unraveling followed by the Great Re-set, has begun, visible in such obvious ways as the Covid-19 plague and Climate Change, noticeable also in less revealing occurrences such as the disappearance of species, both plants and animals, and the decline in ‘faith-based’ institutions, in churches and synagogues.

In 1972 the authors of THE LIMITS TO GROWTH projected a 50 years outlook and painted a disastrous scenario if we continued on the path we were on. At the time of publication, the book was ridiculed as being unrealistic and pessimistic, and so its warnings went unheeded, showing that our Fossil Fuel affinity is more than just a convenience: it is an addiction. Just as with tobacco and alcohol for some, we all have become incurable Carboholics, and there is no Carboholics Anonymous, which means that our future is determined and its guaranteed consequences. With alcohol or tobacco, we either quit or die, either stop cold-turkey or collapse, but the trouble with carbon is that we have burned our bridges, have painted ourselves in a corner: we have shaped a society that no longer can function without that poison.

A new daily habit.

A few weeks after my wife died on October 23, I started writing a daily 500 words meditation (1000 words on Sundays) on the Lectionary, the prescribed Bible readings as recommended by the Anglican Church. Last week here’s what I read in Luke 21:

Be careful, or your hearts will be weighed down with carousing, drunkenness and the anxieties of life, and that day will close on you suddenly like a trap. ³⁵ For it will come on all those who live on the face of the whole earth.

That Day, mentioned in this text, is THE DAY of the Great Re-set. We are living immediately prior to it: for all of us the END time has arrived: the great Unraveling, followed by the great RE-SET.

The COVID-19 pandemic triggered and amplified a series of effects that were the result of much stronger irregularities, such as Climate Change and resource depletion. We are waking up to the fact that we live in a FINITE WORLD, unable to provide adequate sustenance to close to 8 billion ever more greedy customers: the CONSUMER SOCIETY is over, and COLLAPSE is the next step.

Already we are forced to travel less: mass tourism has disappeared forever. We are also forced to consume less, threatening the livelihood of millions. Yes, governments created out of nothing trillions of dollars to make matters easier for those thrown out of work or whose business depended on the now defunct industries, but that’s money down the drain. It simply means that more trillions need to be assumed by the next generation that has no viable future and will never be able to repay the combined debt of today’s monetary shortfalls and the restitution of the immense environmental deficits.

More bad news.

Already, in addition to the alarming pandemic risk now also looms the specter of worsening economic conditions. The US Congress has so far failed to pass a renewed and expanded stimulus bill; if one isn’t quickly forthcoming, the bending economy may break. Businesses—including hundreds of thousands of restaurants, hotels, bars, movie theaters, and retail outlets—that were barely holding on are now starting to shutter for good. Households that are behind on mortgage and rent payments are facing foreclosure and eviction, with as many as 40 million Americans at risk of homelessness in the coming months. Food banks are already at a breaking point, and the specter of famine is on the horizon. If something doesn’t change, we may be headed toward a depression the likes of which hasn’t been seen in nearly a century.

We could also see fuel shortages. Oil, gas, and coal companies harvested fossil fuels using the low-hanging fruit principle, targeting the highest-quality and easiest-to-get resources first. After many decades of this, what’s left are largely low-grade resources that require extra effort to extract or process, and costs a lot more to bring to market.

As Gwen Tverberg in her blog, THE FINITE EARTH, has demonstrated repeatedly: an economy running on fossil fuels, needs low prices, but the current price is unsustainable for the oil industry, so we are caught in an impossible bind: higher fuel prices means higher inflation, and higher interest rates which, with the trillions of debts created, make repayment impossible. That is just one facet of our daily life. Climate Change and Inflation will accelerate as forests burn, methane escapes and public health deteriorates, causing further economic hardship.

I am glad that Joe Biden is the next president, but he faces impossible hurdles. What is called for is total political unity as the problems today are the greatest ever faced, but cooperation is the last thing on the minds of the Republican Party, still dominated by the Trump mentality. A nation divided in itself cannot function.

The Bible pulls no punches. “Be careful, or your hearts will be weighed down with carousing, drunkenness and the anxieties of life, and that day will close on you suddenly like a trap. For it will come on all those who live on the face of the whole earth.”

We are living in days of anxiety, in days that precede the END. There’s no way out. And it will ascend on us suddenly, like a trap. We are in for a total re-set, a change of life imposed upon us from above, as in many ways the earth and its creator are synonymous, are one and the same: sinning against creation is sinning against the Creator: he is not to be mocked.

So why do I write in such seemingly negative tones?

I do this because I love creation and those who dwell therein, love God and the Son, love myself and my family. Love does not blind: love is revealing and makes me suffer with the abused, with all and everything that undergoes change for the worse.

The GREAT UNRAVELING has started: the great RE-SET is coming. Creation knows that. Rejoice: the great ADVENT is the New Creation bought by the blood of the Lamb.