TIPPING POINTS.

What are tipping points?

They are thresholds where just a small push can propel a system, a person, a society, a church even, into a totally different state, sometimes with no possibility of return.

Take a simple example of a chair: just as you rock too far, you commit yourself to toppling over.

I have experienced a tipping point in my life, a spiritual one. In 1972 a good friend gave me a Dutch book, dealing with death: “What happens when we die?” The author, a gospel minister, questioned the ‘heaven destination’, instead favoring a new earth. I was immediately convinced, and became a confirmed earth-lover, seeing it as my eternal destination. In that same year another friend gave me “Limits to Growth”, questioning our wasteful way of life, and predicting a ‘resource crisis’ in 50 years, based on computer projections, now becoming reality. It made me an ‘environmentalist’. I experienced a ‘rebirth’.

I believe that the church, almost universally, has tipped into the ‘heaven heresy’ – with disastrous consequences for ‘the cosmos’, which God called ‘good’ upon completion and loves immensely, as John 3: 16 attests. Is a ‘rebirth’ still possible there?

An environmental paradox.

The paradox today is that, as resources dwindle, rather than husband the remaining treasures, we waste it by accelerating war-preparations, which only aggravate the problems and speed up the ascent of tipping points, of which Climate is the most impacted.

No wonder atomic scientists set their “Doomsday Clock” earlier this week closer than ever to midnight, citing aggressive behaviour by nuclear powers Russia, China and the United States, as fraying nuclear arms control, conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East and AI worries among factors, are driving risks for tipping the world into global disaster. Also, AI, Artificial Intelligence, requires enormous amounts of natural gas, and will hasten the onset of a universal Tipping Point.

A courageous stance.

When Canada’s Prime Minister, in last week’s concluded World Economic Forum mentioned of likelihood of ‘Rupture’, Tipping Points were foremost in his mind.  The recent monster winter storm embracing most of the US or the crazy hurricane battering Sicily destroying its coastlines are just two very recent examples of the new reality of intensifying winter extremes across the Northern Hemisphere.

Carney’s mention of Rupture was a direct rebuttal of Trump’s ahistorical actions rescinding measures to generate wind and solar energy, replacing them with carbon-based polluters, accelerating the most frightening of Tipping Points: Climate Collapse. Carney demonstrated Brain over Brawn, the Divine over the Devil, Ethics over Evil, Reality over Rapacity. He bravely chose China over the USA through its emphasis on renewals, making this communist state more ‘Christian’ than ‘religion-soaked’ USA. Harold Bloom, in his ”The American Religion”, writes “The American Religion masks itself as Protestant Christianity yet has ceased to be Christian.”

Tipping points galore.

What comes next?

What happened in Davos last week, at the World Economic Forum, will have lasting significance. For once, a politician spoke the Truth. In a certain sense, Carney’s speech was about a rupture, but it also clearly was a very visible effort to try to create public recognition around that rupture, from which other stuff can, perhaps, begin to happen.

Rupture is quite radical. It rips apart some important entities. After rupture, healing must set in, a new direction is required. On a world-wide scale. Prime Minister Carney, leading a middle-sized country, in the perilous position next to the foremost World Power, must be lauded for his daring, and his calculated initiative to force a tipping point in finance and commerce. I wonder whether Carney, sincere Christian that he is, foresees the USA to collapse, including its AI industry, that has so fueled the stock market there, bound to fail in its aim to replace God.

I also believe that the earth now is in “In extremis”, and stands at the point

death.

Yes, this, our planet too, has an expiry date, has a built-in closing mechanism, has a stated intolerance level that will automatically set off an all-consuming fire when earth’s atmosphere reaches a certain degree of heat beyond which nothing can exist.

Does that make sense?

Let me reread that sentence. Yes, it makes sense to me. Our planet is alive and can suffer from abuse just as our bodies do. Too much of physical torture, too many pollutants, and there is a tipping point where earth’s capacity is exceeded, and it all goes up in flames, total destruction. Even Jesus, when on earth, did not know the day or the hour when this is to happen.

Yes, there also is a Global tipping point. And Trump, in his Satan-inspired edict to spurn renewables and to bet American Prosperity and the World’s Fate on AI and the rapidly disappearing and heavily polluting oil sources, will hasten the Day of all Days, the Day of Christ’s Return.

Rejoice! God is in charge. He loves creation!

THIS WAS THE WEEK THAT WAS.

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This week reminded me of WAR. Visions of wartime welled up in me. I vividly remember May 10 1940, now more than 85 years ago, the day Germany invaded the Netherlands. That day I sat on a low brick wall, on the street corner where the large Reformed Church was situated. I had a beautiful view of the inner city’s skyline, silhouetting its contours, dominated by the 100 meters high Martini Tower.

The weather that day, was picture perfect, peaceful, and a lone single engine plane hovered in the bright blue sky: a German reconnaissance plane, I imagined.

I, a 12 years old boy, was alone there. Nobody else stirred. Everybody was indoors, clustered around the radio, listening for news and expecting the worst. What could tiny Netherlands do to stop Germany’s colossal war-machine?

My reflections on what happened in the Netherlands so many years ago, were kindled by this week’s headline in the Globe and Mail, Canada’s National Newspaper: MILITARY MODELS CANADIAN RESPONSE TO HYPOTHETICAL AMERICAN INVASION.

Will I again experience a foreign occupation in my life-time? I dread the thought, not for me, an old man approaching 100, but for my multiple offspring, numbering scores.

 

Prepared for hardship.

 

I was a child of the Dirty Thirties, the economic malaise that taught us to be frugal, and sparing, and economical, and self-sufficient. In that sense we were well prepared for the hardship awaiting us, already always mending clothes, always watching every penny, always praying, religious to a fault: “Trust and obey, there’s no other way”. The churches were packed. Living next to a large church – not the one my family attended (that one, equally large was more orthodox, also quite close) – on Sunday afternoon, for the second service, me, then a 5 years old, I noticed the many cigarette ends, discarded just before the men entered the church.

 

Back to the war, now known as WWII -1939-45. According Eric Hobsbawm, well-known historian, in his book, The Age Of Extremes :1914-1991, he posed that the WWI 1914-18 war never satisfactory concluded, and simply continued in 1939, ending in 1945.  

 

Back to my youthful observations.

 

When Germany attacked my ‘old country’, the defeat was quick. May 10 1940 followed by May 11. My younger brother, by 3 years, and I, in midmorning – no school, of course – rushed to the city centre – a mere 10-15 walk – and found there a German Army Brass band already playing Teutonic tunes, while long lines of motorized occupation forces – fierce looking soldiers – drove past, on the way west, toward the “Afsluit Dijk”, that long “Closing Dike”, connecting Friesland to the Dutch economic centre, Amsterdam, Rotterdam and The Hague.

 

That occupation lasted 5 full years, almost to the day.

 

This week a turning point?

 

Now more than 80 years later, not only Europe, but the entire world is in an inescapable bind: at war, not so much among each other – that too – but fighting “The War of All Wars: Humanity against God: Technology against Creation”.

 

My mind goes back to the Scriptures, and to Jesus’ observation concerning “The End”.  He said, “Now learn this lesson from the fig tree: As soon as its twigs get tender and its leaves come out, you know that summer is near. ³³ Even so, when you see all these things, you know that it is near, right at the door.”

 

Did this week signal the beginning of the End?

 

We don’t like Jesus’ reference to The End. We are too comfortable. Yet Revelation 18 pulls no punches: “All the nations have drunk the maddening wine of adulteries.” We do well to read that chapter, and visualize the luxuries we enjoy – at the expense of God’s creation, which the author of the book calls ‘adultery’, aptly named, as they are abnormal intrusions.

 

Both Jesus and John on Patmos, tell us to be on the lookout for THE end, the Telos, of which the Bible speaks all the time. The signs are everywhere, as this past week’s events show: even the weather participates in the parade of perils.  No wonder the Atlantic Magazine claims: “Americans are entering the most dangerous world they have known since World War II, one that will make the Cold War look like child’s play and the post-Cold War world like paradise.”

 

Everything is connected to everything else.

 

The above law of Ecology, is also an important Biblical given: Our world face tough choices, as we have reached “The Limits of Growth”.

Now a new order has come, the fight for the rapidly disappearing natural resources.

 

Will the church sound the alarm?

 

Data from the 1950s record that over half of Americans were in the membership rolls of a mainline church in 1958. Today 8–8.5 percent of Americans are mainline Protestant, with the average age of about 60 years old. Will the church sound the alarm? Did it “In the week that was?”

 

TRUMP’S THREESOME TRAITS.                                                                      

Three psycho-analysts, this past week, have given their verdict on Trump’s psychic state, and it is devastating. In the New York Times I read that: “From a psychoanalytic perspective, his narcissism is malignant in the sense that it is organized around a profound inner emptiness”. Another suggested that his “Malignant narcissism is a combination of narcissism and psychopathology. Because there is little internal capacity for self-soothing or self-valuation, he requires continuous external affirmation to feel real and intact. Power supplies that affirmation. Visibility, dominance and constant stimulation temporarily fill the void.” A third ‘soul expert’ stated that “He represents what researchers call the dark triad of three interconnected, malevolent personality traits: narcissism (grandiosity, self-centeredness), Machiavellianism (manipulation, cynicism) and psychopathy (impulsivity, lack of empathy/remorse).”

That painfully paints the present US president.

Trump wants to be seen as the greatest president of all time and his make-up causes everything to be about himself (narcissism), viewing the world as only functioning through manipulation and exertion of power (Machiavellianism), making him impulsive, without any empathy: a  psychopath, in other words.

Trump may think his own morality and his own mind are the only constraints on his otherwise limitless power, but if we are dependent on either — not to mention Trump’s lack of empathy, compassion or sympathy for the underdog — we are in deep trouble. The nation, the Western Hemisphere and the world at large need to figure out how to place restraints on this ethically vacuous president, or we will all suffer continued and ever-worsening damage.

Connection to Babylon!

A few years ago, I translated – from the Dutch – a book on ‘Revelation’, that mysterious Bible entry that has baffled so many readers, and still does. It was written by Dr. J. H. Bavinck, a professor of Mission at the (Amsterdam) Free University, some 70 years ago, and published by Cascades Books in 2019, under the Title, “And On and On the Ages Roll”, with as subtitle, Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow.

I mention this, because, curiously, in this book Bavinck describes a world ruler afflicted with the same characteristics as the current US president.

The first episode takes place as narrated in Revelation 17.  Chapter 17: 14 has a brief statement: “They will make war against the Lamb, but the Lamb will overcome, because he is the Lord of Lords and the King of Kings, and with him will be his called, chosen and faithful followers.”

How do I interpret this? I believe – and I write this with a great deal of trepidation – this passage can only be understood at the time it happens, and it is happening NOW. Trump’s triple trouble has a ‘war against the Lamb’ component’. His anti-creation, anti-God, anti-Christ measures, are a human-proud proposition, as the above Bible text clearly outlines, therefore bound to fail, but also bound to involve us all.

Trump, in his overweening pride – the definition of ‘hubris’ – takes on God Himself! His Satan-inspired, his outspoken disregard for man, beast and everything created, in short, his fight against God’s good creation also signals Parousia, and reveals to me a definite sign of Christ’ imminent return.

If that is the case, we are in deep trouble.

Dr. Luke Kemp of Cambridge, in his book, “Goliath’s Curse”, lists three imminent dangers:  Climate Change, AI, and Economic Collapse. I could add a 4^th one: Donald Trump.

We are in deep trouble. Trouble threatens from within, and that same threat also comes from above. God infects Trump’s empire with itself, curses it with insanity. That, in short, is the theme of this amazing Revelation 18, with the telling title: The Fall of Babylon. This world-city, this Babylon, with her constant clamor of human voices, her illuminated squares, her theatres and concert halls, her display of beauty, this amazing human world, still seems to function well.

But…..

Here’s what, I think, is in store, considering Trump’s triple mind-troubles.

Things are not going well politically for Donald Trump. The polls show him underwater on every major issue. And while he insists that these are fake, it’s clear that he knows better. He recently lamented that the Republicans will do badly in the midterms and even floated the idea that midterms should be canceled.

Bavinck has foreseen this. He writes: “The situation of the world empire is quite shaky, much more vulnerable than first suspected. There are riots, and here and there are signs of popular uprisings. The core of the realm is becoming unsafe.”

And here is where Trump’s Triple Trouble shows its fatal flaw: the November elections may become a Congress and Senate turnaround, deeply curtailing his authority.

Bavinck, the prophet, writes: “There is only one solution, one radical and total cure: a nuclear bomb. For the sake of preserving the realm, the capital must be sacrificed. All these grand buildings and its beautiful squares, all its magnificence has to go. It takes a while before they dare to make that decision, but in the end the world ruler, in consultation with his ten governors, is not afraid to execute this extreme edict. During the night one single plane, from a remote airport, flies high in the sky over the sleeping city, never to wake again. A bomb is released, slowly a mushroom cloud ensues, and a rebellious Babylon – read Washington – is abolished forever.”

Is there where TRUMP’S THREESOME TROUBLES will lead us?

Stay tuned.

ON THE MERITS OF READING BOOKS.

I take a break from global insanity.                                                               

Going back 86 years.

When I was 11 years old, I contracted a bladder infection. Nowadays, almost any illness is treated with penicillin with quick results, but then, in 1939, this wonder drug was still a few years in the future, so, the cure described was bedrest – 6 weeks – and some dietary directions, precisely what, I forgot, not being in charge of my food preparation.

My doctor, whose father, a retired minister, lived next door, visited me a few times each week, driving a big car, probably took my temperature, and, perhaps looked at my urine.

So, here I was, in front of a large window on the third floor, overlooking the street, always teeming with activity: kids playing hopscotch, kicking a ball, rolling a steel loop, skipping ropes, while vendors on their three-wheel freight-box bikes, loaded with fresh bread, made the daily rounds of their customers. Horse-drawn vegetable wagons displayed fresh produce, and, in the summer, ice cream hucksters shouted: “large cones for a nickel”.

I remember that in those prewar days – May 1939 – a large store was about to open, some Walmart type, down town Groningen, with the curious name of T.A.N.T.E: no idea what the acronym stood for. The day before the Grand Opening, it went up in flames, and, while my older siblings rushed to see the spectacle, I remained bedridden.

However, I had my distractions: books. The corner tobacco store also had a lending library, and my older sisters kept me bringing books, while fetching my father’s daily supply of cigarettes and cigars. Yes, he died of lung cancer at 79, but then the slogan was: smoking is manly.

My mother calculated that I had read 100 books in my convalescence, books about the Boer War, books about the American Indians – Old Fire-hand and old Shatter-hand and that wonderful Indian chief, Winnitou, or something like it.

My grade 5 teacher – the school was just around the corner – would bring me homework, so, really, I was never bored: books were my life, even now.

How times have changed!

Forward to today, and a section from the Toronto-based ‘Globe and Mail’.

“In a world where the internet teems with content and people generate millions of AI prompts daily, it could be argued that the act of reading is alive and well. Unfortunately, there’s a malady hidden by that apparent health.

“Although there are Canadians who read avidly, and some of our authors are world-famous, we are not a nation of readers. Not of books, anyway.

“In 2022, only one-third of Canadians picked up a book every day. And a 2024 survey found that even self-identified readers didn’t read very much. Barely half of them read more than five books annually.

“There’s an important distinction to be made here between the sort of browsing done online and sitting down with a book. An artificial intelligence-generated summary can tell a person what happened in The Odyssey – spoiler, he got home – but that doesn’t replace the value of actually reading the epic poem.

“Reading helps us focus and makes us reflect. It stretches our intellect even as it nourishes it. And the private act of reading can, ironically, help make people better citizens.

So, let me begin with the personal benefits that reading brings. Because they are plentiful.”

Why read books?

Books have the power to transport. While reading about another country is not as illuminating as travelling to it, a book offers a much more affordable sort of visit than a plane ticket. Books are an escape that open the world as they open the mind. And they are the only way that people can journey through ages past.

Reading can educate and inspire. Knowing that others have faced similar situations provides comfort, or solutions. The sense of being part of a greater whole prompts action and promotes humility. Open-minded reading is the antidote to misanthropy.

Books encourage valuable focus in a world trying hard to distract. Research shows that attention spans are dropping. A study published in 2023 found the average adult had an attention span of barely longer than a minute. The ability to focus is like a muscle that can atrophy unless exercised. Reading is a great way to make it stronger.

Reading is also good for the brain. It improves memory and allows for better sleep. It reduces stress and promotes relaxation. It may slow cognitive decline.

Finally, digging into a book is one of the few remaining socially acceptable ways to be quiet and alone. In a loud and busy modern life that demands connection, reading is a reprieve. It is a licence for solitude.

Today we live in crazy times.

Rather than trying to live within the boundaries of creation, rather than adhering to ‘the limits of growth’, we pursue war, and disregard environmental rules. Reading can create awareness and teach us God’s directives.

And those directives are? Prepare our lives for eternity.

THE AGE OF THE ANTICHRIST.

Human nature.                                                                  

By some quirk of history, the Antichrist is in power because ‘Christians’ have put him there. Just as Jesus was arrested, tortured, sentenced to death by the church of his day – motivated by ‘religion’ – so, in like manner, the Antichrist too, has been placed in power by ecclesiastical entities.

What has shaped my thinking?

I admit that my views are heavily influenced by the writings of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a brilliant theologian, born in Germany in 1906, who had a double doctorate in theology before he was 23. He was executed by the Nazis weeks before the war ended in May 1945. During the years he was in prison – he sensed that his life would end soon – his writings had an apocalyptic propensity, deeply reflecting the New Creation.

Dr. Sabine Dramm wrote a book introducing his thoughts. Toward the end, she summarized his thinking as follows: “What Bonhoeffer presents as specific to the Christian faith is the perception of God and the world as one, and the perception of life that has its wellspring in this world in God, and in turn proceeds from this world back again to God.”

I have not quite fully digested this formulation. To me its suggests that, just as Shakespeare’s writings portray his being, so God’s acts in and through creation show us his utmost essence.

I realize that my explanation is inadequate, but I also rely on Karen Armstrong’s book “Sacred Nature”, in which she argues that, because of ‘nature’s holiness’, we must start and feel, experience and believe differently about the world in which we live, and treasure the world as God’s direct Word.

Dr. Dramm in her Bonhoeffer-book, devotes an entire chapter to “Love the World”, using the Latin heading, “Amor Mundi”. She writes, “Love for the world springs from the midst of his faith. It is the basis for the Christian existence in the here and now of the world. It embraces the person as a whole.”

Dr. Stefan Paas, a professor of Christian Mission at the Amsterdam Free University, in his (Dutch) book, Vrede op Aarde (Peace on Earth), writes – and I translate – “Our life is not directed to be saved ‘from’ this world, but be part of the salvation ‘of’ this world”. A few lines later, he writes, “To be lost really means to live in a way that lacks the New Creation goal.”

Take your time to absorb that! It’s revolutionary!

In other words: Not the Bible is God’s direct Word, but Creation is! Living within creational means, and loving it – see John 3: 16 – is an integral part of our faith-life. Believing that Christ died for its restoration, is the key to eternal LIFE. In creation, I might add.                                                         

And that brings me to the Antichrist.

We all live in God’s creation, and, as I have shown, multiple writers, quoting Scripture, regard Creation as Holy, because it directly originates from God. A sin against Creation is a sin against God.

Jesus, in the Lord’s Prayer, starts with “Hallowed (holy) be God’s name.” Karen Armstrong in her book Sacred Nature, lists 50 names for God. God cannot be named. God’s name represents God, as any facet of God points to his totality. When Jesus asks us to regard God’s name as Holy, it really means that everything that God created is holy, and thus a sin against Creation is a sin against God.

The current president of the USA, in his position of power, has become the Antichrist by purposely revoking all measures enacted to save creation, and promoting the increased use of environmentally harming substances. Here is what the apostle John writes (2John 8):

Dear children, this is the last hour; and as you have heard that the antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have come. This is how we know it is the last hour.

I know, we too harm creation daily, as our current ‘carbon-generated’ lifestyle, is ungodly, affirming Psalm 51: Surely, I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me.

However, there are different kinds of sin, and God will graciously forgive them. But one kind is unforgiveable: The sin against God’s Holy Spirit, where we purposely, for the sake of greed and self-interest, exploit his creation, and thus God himself.

In a sense, we all are little Anti-Christs. We have, over the years, especially in the last 2 centuries proudly built our carbon-driven economy, culminating in AI, our attempt to equal God.

I fondly remember both my grandparents, basically living in climatic purity, having a lifestyle independent from oil-pollution. A daily update on global heating, suggests to me that, with a 3C increase – by some measures we have topped 2C already – all human life will die. By our hands, I should add: this has nothing to do with God.

To sum up:

The Antichrist is here: sinning against creation sums up his government. In an ironic twist, however, he speeds up the coming of the Kingdom, the very God’s reign he tries to prevent from arriving.

ANOTHER ‘TOWER OF BABEL’ EVENT IS AT HAND.

The New God.

The old world is dying,” Antonio Gramsci once wrote. “And the new world struggles to be born.” In such interregnums, the Italian Marxist philosopher suggested, “every act, even the smallest, may acquire decisive weight”.

The LORD said, “If as one people speaking the same language, they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them.

Genesis 11: The Tower of Babel Story

I greatly admire Ezra Klein, columnist in the New York Times. He interviews knowledgeable people, and is a master in eliciting interesting information.

This past week his topic was AI.

Here are his words.                                                                      

“Let me zoom in on that. I’ve covered these A.I. companies for a long time. I covered the Anthropic guys when they still worked at OpenAI.

And that is how they all used to talk about it — that it is a race to build superintelligence, the one A.I. that will rule them all. (That refers to The Lord of the Rings, I might add)

Alloway: To build God.         

Klein: Yes, to build the machine God.

So far this dialogue.

Alienated from this earth, the world needs a new God.

Let me quote again The Tower of Babel verdict.

The LORD said, “If as one people speaking the same language, they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them.

My question: the Lord stopped the building of the Tower of Babel. How about AI? Will the Lord tolerate competition? No. Then what?

A bit of a detour.

I am rereading BRAIDING SWEETGRASS. When I reread a book, I always discover items, overlooked in my first reading. In this book, written by Robin Wall Kimmerer, an indigenous woman and professor of environmental biology, she records how a question to her 200 students, revealed that they consider humans and nature to be a bad mix. Asked whether they know about any positive interaction between people and land, their response was ‘none’. (This question was directed to third year students in an environmental protection course.)

That brings me to Christianity. Throughout the Scriptures, when God is referred to, God is described as ‘Creator of Heaven and Earth’. I am writing this in the days leading up to Christmas and New Year, and the newspapers I daily read have their pious pieces, outlining the views on Christianity, invariably seeing ‘heaven’ as the goal. Even the most devout among the many Christians I encounter, share that view.

However, this anthropocentric – human oriented – view grew directly from the philosophy of Aristotle’s teacher Plato, who focused his philosophy on separating humans from nature while popularizing the feel-good notion that humans have immortal souls. Basically, this makes the ‘heaven’ faith a pagan notion, exploited by the most godless of humans in power today, Donald Trump, who daily advocates ‘sins against creation’. In my opinion this is equivalent to ‘the sins against the Holy Spirit’, for which there is no forgiveness.  

When God finished creating, he called creation ‘good’ seven times. That’s why God wrote: “you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for earth you are and to earth you will return.” Genesis 3: 19.

When my wife of 67 years was buried in the Anglican cemetery, overlooking the Village of Tweed, now more than 5 years ago, the only words I spoke, were: “Earth we are and to earth we shall return”.

How do I tie these yearend ramblings together?

We today live in a new ‘Tower of Babel’ event. The God/Creator has become an unknown quantity. The time of ‘one language rules them all’ has reappeared: AI- Artificial Intelligence – is the new God. That God has revealed itself in Creation – John 3: 16 – is ridiculed: heaven is the preferred destination, giving us licence to destroy the earth which God called ‘good’ seven times. Religious movements thrive, the one more charismatic than the other. The BIBLICAL truth is that Jesus died to restore creation: this means that salvation of the now universally polluted cosmos and our personal salvation, go hand in hand, are the two sides of the same coin.

The first Tower of Babel resulted in world-wide development. The second Tower of Babel has led to THE MACHINE, Man the Machine.

The time is short. Another “Tower of Babel” event is at hand. This time the earth is saturated with people. This time we are ‘over-developed’ to the point of overheating. This time the only solution possible is outlined in Revelation 21:1:

Then I saw “a new heaven and a new earth,” for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea.