Bert Hielema–Columns and Writings

NOVEMBER 16 2019

SINGING

After consulting the people, Jehoshaphat appointed men to sing to the LORD and to praise him for the splendor of his holiness as they went out at the head of the army, saying: “Give thanks to the LORD, for his love endures forever.” (2 Chronicles 20:21)

A most remarkable text.

Jehoshaphat was a wise king: he consulted his people. He also knew the power of the singing voice, especially in harmony, when first and second tenors, high and low basses united to produce melodious sounds.

Of course this was not a spontaneous, impromptu choir: these men had practiced together repeatedly. And they were not only fine musicians: they also were very courageous.

Imagine the scene: Israel, that tiny nation on the shores of the Mediterranean, then as now, surrounded by hostile nations, was again threatened with annihilation. This time the wise king knew that military superiority was impossible, that only reliance on Yahweh was the only way out.

The king remembered the nation’s history, knew how 400 men, under the guidance of Gideon, had created total chaos among the then invaders, knew how on another occasion just prior to battle, the angels of the Lord had done the slaying for them.

But having a choir go out in front of the army? Having an assembly of men, singing hymns, create such havoc among the opponents that they fled in terror and started to fight among themselves? That was then and still is now a miracle.  

There’s safety in numbers. One man alone could not have done it, but a mass of men, their voices resounding, perhaps somewhat augmented by a favorable breeze, perhaps naturally magnified by the lay of the land, not singing, “Like a mighty army moves the church of God”, but praise “God for the splendor of his holiness”, singing full out “Give thanks to the LORD, for his love endures forever,” that takes guts! Already thanking God for the victory to come that takes faith!

Life-long singing.

Yes, there is magic in singing. I know: All my life I have been singing. In the city of Groningen, the Netherlands where I was born and grew up, at an early age I was part of the Huizinga Singing Classes, a series of children choirs, with kids as young as 4 years old, I among them, tagged along by my older sisters. I still can sing fragments of the two Cantatas we performed in the city’s concert hall in the 1930’s. In elementary school, singing was a daily occurrence: every Monday morning, we had to recite a song, memorized over the weekend – with the help of my mother – to be recited in class, and sung as a body later. Once in secondary school I joined the choir there too.

When we lived in St. Catharines, Ontario, I sang with a mixed choir and was among those who started a male choir there.

Moving to Tweed in 1975 I first sang with a church choir in Belleville, and, when joining the local Presbyterian Church added my voice to its members. Now with shrinking attendance, I am the only male member there.

Singing is an important part of worship, perhaps its most important part. Singing and music go together. The entire book of Psalms, 150 in total, is basically a song book for the church.

Singing is health-enhancing. Want Long Life? SING.

There’s a wealth of research that proves the benefits of singing on health and wellbeing across the lifespan.

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Singing lowers stress and tension. Certain chemicals released while breathing deeply together, enhance feelings of trust and bonding which aids relieving depression and feelings of loneliness. It also boosts confidence, positive feelings and energy.

There’s always much going on in our bodies and minds: worries, pains, but when we sing we fully focus on the moment, allowing us to ‘turn off’ our stream of consciousness and live completely in the moment, distracting our mind from negative thoughts, concentrate on the sound, the action, the breathing, the feeling and the pleasure of song.  ?

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Singing is an intimate activity and by sharing our breathing molecules with others, we help to strengthen spiritual bonds. It creates a strong sense of community and social inclusion, and encourages healthier behavior. It even causes people to fall in love: my youngest brother found his partner there.   

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Behavioral Changes 

?By singing we exercise major muscle groups in the upper body, and improve the efficiency of our cardiovascular system and encourage us to take more oxygen into our body, leading to increased alertness. 

So no wonder singing plays an important role in the bible and in the church at large. In Acts 16, it is recorded that when Paul and Silas were in jail “they were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening to them.” Singing is a form of evangelism: biblical songs proclaim a message, tell the world by way of music what faith is all about. These courageous men in the text cited above showed the enemy that their trust was not in weapons and warfare, but in Yahweh, the God of Israel.

Just before Jesus and the disciples ended their last meal together, Mark 14: 26 tells us that “When they had sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives,” where Judas was waiting to arrest the Christ.

We will always sing: singing is eternal!

There is this beautiful text in Isaiah 51: 11,

“Those the LORD has redeemed will return. They will enter Zion with singing; everlasting joy will crown their heads. Gladness and joy will overtake them, and sorrow and sighing will flee away.”

Please note the word, “RETURN”. This means that we will go back from where we have been, and do this while SINGING our heart out.

Singing will form an important role in eternity. In my book DAY WITHOUT END  (you can order it from Lulu.com) singing plays a prominent role.

Here are some excerpts:

“I have always loved singing. As a baby I hummed in my crib – so my mother told me – and music has always been a part of my life. So I am ready to join Melodia as are many others. Our entire group comes over, some more out of curiosity than real interest in singing, and joins a group of about one hundred people. Melodia positions herself so that she is visible and audible to all.

“A woman next to me produces a flute and a man in front of me has a violin. Where do these instruments come from? I have ceased to be amazed, for the simple reason that I am in a perpetual state of amazement. Those who are skilled receive musical instruments beyond Stradivarius quality no doubt. Yet, miracles just don’t happen here, where everything is a miracle. Should I get one and start practicing? I set out to investigate and discover that their guardian angels, supply them to those who know how to use them. Of course, as their life-long companions, they know who they are.

Melodia calls for our attention again, which is not difficult for her as she has a natural authority. She says, “Even here perfection needs practice. In your former world repeated rehearsals produced only an approximate representation of the intention of the composer who also suffered from a degree of imperfection. I must admit that some earthly musicians, people you may have known in their former lives as Johann Sebastian, George Friedrich and Wolfgang Amadeus, did approach, at times, standards of eternity. I am glad to tell you that they are here, and have resumed a life of composing and performing music.

“Not all of you are natural singers or have an ear for music. I know Phronimos and Novissimus there–as she points to us– have good tenor voices; Vita, also in that group, used to compose songs and Arctica has a natural alto voice, although she may not realize this. Fidelia, how about you, will you join us?”

“No, thanks. As a child my father made me sing in the local temple but I hated it. At first I tried, just to please him, but I was a total failure. I think I was too nervous. So for the moment I prefer just to be part of the audience. Maria too declines simply because she would rather listen.

“Thousands have now gathered around the stage. We are seated on the sides of a circular hill looking into a valley so that all have a perfect view of the musicians who are still talking and playing. A real wave of undefined sound emanates from that direction. All players have now installed themselves on the podium. I let my gaze travel over the crowd and my thoughts lock in on a few people I recognize and we exchange quick INTERMIND messages of greetings. I like this quick and effortless way of communicating, with an immediate response, much more efficient than e-mail.

“Throughout the choir all voices are completely mixed with no separate soprano, bass, alto or tenor section. It takes a while before the arrangements are completed but there is no rush or panic.

“I return to my place and look over my part. Arctica is standing next to me. She has never participated in a choir before and has never sung from a score. However, the music is written in such a way that when the correct note is hit, the musical note glows a bit indicating the proper pitch. I find this a fantastic way of teaching both the untrained and those like me who have had a life-long exposure to choirs and singing. At first hesitantly, but with increasingly confidence, we try out our parts and with enthusiastic encouragement and participation from the notes on the sheets we soon sound quite professional.

“Now everyone is ready for the more formal rehearsal. No, not quite: I notice flocks of different birds flying in from various directions, settle in the trees around us. They will be part of the concert, too, of course. I recognize quite a few from the African continent. Are we in Africa? Other animals, too, are wandering in, some lazily grazing, some calmly looking around. The leaves of the trees tremble in avid anticipation.”

So far the quote from DAY WITHOUT END.

Processional singing.

When the tribes of Israel visited the tabernacle or the temple, they walked the scores of miles from the top of the land, close to Lebanon, and from beyond the river Jordan, as families and friends, singing all the way to Jerusalem. They knew their songs. Take Psalm 100, a perfect song to march by:

Cry out with joy in the Lord, all the earth.
Serve the Lord with gladness.
Come before him, singing for joy.

Go within his gates, giving thanks.
Enter his courts with songs of praise.
Give thanks to him and bless his name.

Or take Psalm 122, a pilgrimage song.

I rejoiced when I heard them say:
‘Let us go to God’s house.’
And now our feet are standing
within your gates, O Jerusalem

It is there that the tribes go up,
the tribes of the Lord.
For Israel’s law it is
there to praise the Lord’s name.

The Psalms are for all times.

Singing was difficult when Israel was exiled in Babylon: Psalm 137 testifies to that:

By the rivers of Babylon
there we sat and wept,
remembering Zion;
on the poplars that grew there
we hung up our harps.

For it was there that they asked us,
our captors, for songs,
our oppressors, for joy.
“Sing to us,” they said,
“one of Zion’s songs.”

O how could we sing
the song of the Lord
on alien soil?
If I forget you, Jerusalem,
let my right hand wither!

On Alien Soil.

We too are on alien soil. 1John 5: 19 unequivocally states that today The Evil One is in charge. Jesus affirms this in John 17.

For the time being we simply must endure the sins against creation, but, as Isaiah 51: 11 affirms: “We will RETURN to a renewed world, and do this while SINGING. 

NOVEMBER 9 2019

MY LOVE-HATE RELATIONSHIP

I admit: I have a love-hate relationship with the church.

There is this Latin phrase, “Ecclesia Reformata, Semper Reformanda”, which in everyday parlor means, “The Reformed Church, always Reforming.”

Is that true? No.

The church structure hasn’t changed for centuries.

The ecclesiastical organization is supposed to be based on the Bible.

Is that true? No.

The Bible only mentions house churches.

The church is supposed to be fashioned on Jesus’ words.

Is that true? No.

Jesus’ life was focused on LIFE: how to LIVE!  Jesus was anti-religion. He knew that the church was going to kill him.

The church’s mission is to proclaim the Lord’s return.

Is that true? No.

Preaching of “the Kingdom to come” is avoided, because it is unpopular and painful. Yet Jesus’ specific command was: “first seek the Kingdom, and everything else will automatically follow.”

(The coming Kingdom is The New Creation)

Anymore disagreements?

Lots!. Let me start with the church offices.

Question: Where in the New Testament is the Pope mentioned?

Nowhere.

Question: the office of a minister or priest of the church, the man or woman who brings the sermon each Sunday, and the office of the elder, does the New Testament sees these as two distinct offices, or are they identical?

Answer: the New Testament sees them as one and the same.

A closer look.

Upon examination it is found that the New Testament uses two different words to indicate the office of elder: episcopos (bishop, supervisor) and presbyteros (elder). The different names have even given birth to two distinctly different denominations: the Episcopalian Church in the USA and the Presbyterian Church all over the English speaking world. Nevertheless both episcopos and presbyteros indicate the same office: in the New Testament there is no difference between the two, they mean exactly the same thing.

So why then are there two classes of officials in the church:

(1) ministers of the gospel, people who themselves have chosen this route, and are licensed to speak – ordained it is called – and may do all sorts of things, and

(2) elected elders who are not allowed to do much? 

Blame it on human ambition. Somewhere, many centuries ago, there was an aspiring elder, probably a man with great oratorical gifts, who called himself – only men in those days – an ‘episcopos’ as if that were a more privileged designation, while his colleagues were stuck with the ‘presbyteros’ designation, which suddenly became a rank of less value. (In Scotland and the Netherlands, a ‘minister’ is (was?) called ‘dominee’ or ‘dominie’, meaning Lord! The Dutch designation is Ds. short for ‘dominus’. Just imagine: calling a person Lord!)

In time the episcopos person became the headmaster, the leader, the man who spoke on behalf of the local group, and was given the tasks to baptize, to administer communion, to speak at important occasions, and, when churches were established elsewhere, he was chosen to be in charge of other congregations as well, and so the office of ‘bishop’ was born, and soon afterward a man was elevated to be ‘papa’ or later ‘Holy Father’ – calling a fallible person ‘holy’!

We also know that, once a situation in the church is established, it soon becomes ‘tradition’ and it takes an act of God – or whatever – to change this. So far this has not happened.

Hans K?ng in his 650 page book on The Church writes that presbyters or elders are men who have to safeguard apostolic tradition against false doctrine and to lead the communities. Hans K?ng is highly regarded for his theological knowledge and insights not only among Catholics but by theologians of all religious persuasions. Born in 1928 in Switzerland, he studied in Rome, and at the Sorbonne. He has a Doctorate in the theology and has been professor of Dogmatic and Ecumenical Theology at the University of T?bingen, Germany until the Pope said: “Enough criticism from this professor”, and suspended his license to teach.

When we compare the New Testament references to preachers and elders then the conclusion is inevitable that frequently the same words are used to indicate both categories.

In my Greek New Testament there are a lot of instances where the word ‘elder’ is used. 1 Peter 5 starts with this verse: “The Presbyters who are among you, I as a fellow presbyter, exhort you…” Here the Apostle Peter calls himself an ‘elder’ and uses the same annotation for his fellow elders. How the Roman Catholic church managed to make this ‘elder’ the head of the church, is, of course, based on Jesus’ saying when he said that “On this rock (Peter means rock) I will build my church.” I believe he chose Peter because this fisherman was so human: quick to judge, quick to repent, loath to change.

Paul, addressing the flock in Ephesus, when he is about to leave for the last time, calls the elders there ‘overseers’ or ‘episkopoi’, a designation Paul also uses in Titus 1:7.

The apostle John always uses presbyter to refer to himself, as is evident in 2 John 1 and 3 John 1. When comparing such passages as 2 Timothy 4:2 and Titus 2:7 with such texts as Acts 20:28, 1 Peter 5: 2 and 1 Timothy 3:2, then both presbyteros and episkopos are used to describe the same situation, which leads me to conclude that the job description of elders and preachers run parallel and that their duties are identical.

In other words, the New Testament sees no difference between the office of preacher and that of elder. For example in 1 Timothy 5:17 – “The elders who direct the affairs of the church, especially those whose work is preaching and teaching”, the word ‘presbyter’ is used.

The curious part is that the office of presbyter does not indicate an independent office, but, as in most of life, is dependent on the person’s talents. Paul often mentions this when he points out that, just as there is a variety of gifts, so is there a wide range of elders: the one elder has greater ability for a certain aspect of his or her task than another, and it makes eminent sense, also biblical sense, to take these into account. On this matter Dr K?ng remarks that ‘preaching was largely determined by the charismatic structure of the church’. In other words, those who had the gifts used them. He also writes that “the idea of ordination was presumably taken over from Judaism at more or less the same time as the idea of elders.” So again, as on so many occasions, the church simply took over Old Testament customs, so unlike Jesus and Paul who completely broke with these ingrained Jewish traditions.

It makes good sense – and good sense is often equated with wisdom – to use the talents present in a certain community. When a certain person, whether elder or not, has the time and the gift to preach, then he or she should be used in that way. This already was the case in the synagogues which Paul and Barnabas often attended as a start on their mission work in a certain locality. There all those who could offer a word of encouragement, were allowed to speak. Both women and children were allowed to read the laws and the prophets there. Acts 13:15 makes clear that Jews who came from abroad, were given the opportunity to address the assembly.

That same was true, as related in 1 Corinthians 14:26, where it clearly says that “when you come together everyone has a hymn or a word of instruction.”

It is also striking that the New Testament baptism and Communion services are not at all connected to a defined category of official functions, not even to office bearers in particular. We know that in the Old Testament a head of household circumcised his own sons and personally killed the Easter-lamb and always presided over the Easter-meal, so it is not surprising that this practice continued in the New Testament.

Actually what is surprising is that the continuation of these religious acts, now in the form of baptism and communion, remain the exclusive domain of ordained ministers, which basically means that un-scriptural clericalism is to blame.    

I can also point out that the New Testament knows no such matters as presbyteries – a gathering of regional ministers and elders – or classes in the Christian Reformed Church, a meeting of the same nature. Especially such matters as Synods or General Assemblies are totally foreign to the first church.  The real disadvantage of these large gatherings, with official minutes published in large volumes, is, that if new initiatives are introduced, not exactly in accordance with certain previously taken decisions, then these efforts usually have not much chance to succeed or even to come to the floor: there always are ‘experts in church law’ present at these ecclesiastical forums who know the precedence which often means the death for new ventures.

The curious thing about the church in general is that officials often lack the conviction that Christ will look ‘after his own’. People, also the clergy, crave for rules so that they can control the situation. The result has been that the church has erected a superstructure that exceeds all outlines the New Testament provides; there always seems to be the fear that congregations cannot manage on their own and will be overwhelmed by the events of the time unless they were assisted by an ecclesiastical edifice of human origin. All these anxieties essentially display a lack of faith in Christ and His Word, as if He would leave the church in the lurch and will not provide sufficient guarantees to safeguard his people.

In The Spontaneous expansion of the church and the causes which hinder it, R. Allen, the author, in essence writes that, if the continuity of the work in the church depends on organization, then it is plain that it is somehow different than bringing the message of Life. Human organization is necessary to make human endeavor possible. But Christ is concerned with Life itself. If the work of the church is to bring the message of Life, if it consists of bringing to people the knowledge of Christ who is Life and who gives Life, then this work cannot depend on a source that is devoid of Life. This just won’t work, because they promote a form of organization, either be design or by accident which implies that belief in human structures can take the place of Christ.

Of course, I am not against organization. In order to get matters done, some sort of coordination is needed, because, without some sort of plan in place, nothing much gets accomplished. However, in the church these actions must be either ad hoc, for the moment only, or so flexible that freedom remains assured to prevent that inflexible structures, empowered with ecclesiastical authority, obtain their own independence apart from the Word of God.

In short: churches must not be subjected to organizational systems that exceed New Testament outlines, because, once in place, they tend to stay in place for ever.

So what do I propose?

The central theme of the last Bible book, REVELATION, is that everything will be revealed, including the true nature of the church.

As I have outlined: the church is on the wrong track. That has to be corrected. No wonder its message too has become distorted. The church by and large preaches that,

(1) we are heaven oriented.

(2) Jesus came to save us sinners.

Both claims are only partly true.

The Bible plainly teaches that God loved the world, now in the grip of The Evil One. Christ died to restore ownership of the earth, our habitat into eternity. We are not heaven-bound, but our destination is the renewed Planet Earth, forever. Jesus came to restore creation to its initial pristine perfection: that’s what he set out to do and accomplished.

No wonder that the church, with its faulty structure, its ‘man’-centered emphasis, often gets its message wrong.

My love-hate relationship.

Still I love the church even though more often than not, it fails to preach THE COMING OF THE KINGDOM, the imminent arrival of God’s New Creation. I also love the church for the fellowship and the singing.

Trust and obey: there’s no other Way.

NOVEMBER 2 2019

UNDER THE WEATHER

The phrase under the weather is a nautical term from the days of sailing ships. Any sailor who was feeling ill would be sent below deck to protect him from the weather.

I have all the Hornblower books by C. S. Forester, dealing with sailing warships during the England-France-Napoleonic wars. Great reading. I also have some of the Patrick O’Brian series, covering the same period, also featuring a ship’s surgeon, Stephen Maturin, a brilliant physician who thought that below deck was actually the worst place to heal, as hundreds of sailors  were confined there and infections were rampant: above deck under a tarpaulin protected from sun and rain, breathing fresh sea-air was far healthier.

The weather.

Matthew 16: 1-4 tells us something about the weather:

The Pharisees and Sadducees came up, and testing Jesus, they asked Him to show them a sign from heaven.  But He replied to them, “When it is evening, you say, ‘It will be fair weather, for the sky is red.’  “And in the morning, ‘There will be a storm today, for the sky is red and threatening.’ Do you know how to discern the appearance of the sky, but cannot discern the signs of the times?  “An evil and adulterous generation seeks after a sign; and a sign will not be given it, except the sign of Jonah.” And He left them and went away.

Nothing very polite about this answer. Jesus could be very abrupt, especially when dealing with the clergy, who, of course, knew all about Jonah.

So, what is ‘the sign of Jonah?’ And what are ‘the signs of the times today?’

The best way to learn about Jonah is to sing about him. So I once made a song in Jonah on the tune of Psalm 8, “Lord, oh Lord in all the earth How great thy name.” I know this song is not very good poetry, but it can be sung with gusto.

REFRAIN

         Whale, oh whale in all the sea
         The greatest whale
         With its double-steepled tail
         Swallowed Jonah in travail:
         Oh what a tale!

1. God, the Lord to Jonah said:
   Go to Nineveh the bad
   Jonah did not like the charge
   Instead to Tarshish did he march
   Set out to sail.             REFRAIN

• Jonah caused the storm they got
  Sailors then did cast the lot
  In the sea they threw the male
  And at once it stopped the gale
  But not the whale!       REFRAIN

• In the belly of the fish
  Jonah made a fervent wish.
  Then the Lord spoke to the whale
  Who spew Jonah on the shale
  Quite pale and frail.              REFRAIN

• On the Nineveh he went
  Telling all now to repent.
  When they did he got so mad
  Calling God e’vrything that’s bad
  How sad, how sad.        REFRAIN

• Jonah tired and angry
  Sat himself under a tree

Which the Lord for him supplied
But the tree grew sick and died

And Jonah cried.          REFRAIN

• Then the Lord to Jonah said
  If one dead tree makes you so mad

Don’t I then have equal right
To be concerned for Nineveh’s plight:

Don’t be so trite!          REFRAIN.  

So, what is the sign of Jonah? The above verses pretty well cover the Jonah story. So, what do I deduce?  

• Jonah refuses to preach the gospel of judgement “Repent or else!”
• Jonah did not want Nineveh to repent: they were Israel’s sworn enemies. Nationalist Jonah said to himself “The Lord is wrong”: the people of Nineveh don’t belong to God’s crowd, only we, the sons of Abraham, do”.
• When Jonah was buried alive this gave him time to change his mind, also a sign of what was going to happen to Jesus.
• Not repenting means Total Destruction. That is true for today as well.

Thus the sign of Jonah was political, religious and ecological: the religious leaders of Israel saw salvation only for their own people. Jesus came for all, a lesson his followers of all times have to learn as well. He also hinted at his own death. Not repenting meant destruction.

Today we see something similar: white supremacy, nationalism and misdirected religion: the gnostic heaven heresy, anthropocentric salvation, while honoring God’s cosmos has little significance for the church. Unless we repent, en bloc, we too will suffer the fate Nineveh was to undergo.

Down Under

Australia is also known as “Down Under”. Last week I read that: “Drought is weighing on economic growth, and the dire conditions have prompted Australia, a major wheat exporter, to import the grain for the first time in 12 years.”

“Down under” is “under the weather”. Rivers are running dry. Fish are choking by the thousands, and sheep are dying for lack of pasture.

Today the whole world is UNDER THE WEATHER, not only Down Under, pointing to severe food inflation in the years to come.

California: a sign to come!

Already California is experiencing pre-industrial conditions – no electricity – because for millions electricity is cut off to prevent live wires from igniting more fires. California has always been a trendsetter. Whatever first happens there soon will happen everywhere!

Fragile.

We have built a society based on essentially one single power source: electricity. Everything depends on a steady supply of this magic substance that heats and cools and provides light and makes internet and computers function.

Today’s climate abnormalities everywhere tax an already fragile system through increased energy requirements triggered by extended periods of heat, drought, or cold. If the power grid were to collapse, we all would experience disastrous consequences.

• Loss of perishable foods and medications
  • Loss of water and wastewater distribution systems
  • Loss of heating/air conditioning and electrical lighting systems
  • Loss of computer, telephone, and communications systems (including airline flights, satellite networks and GPS services)
  • Loss of public transportation systems
  • Loss of fuel distribution systems and fuel pipelines
  • Loss of all electrical systems that do not have back-up power

A rise in insect-borne disease is another potential danger. China is trying to contain African Swine Fever, so far only affecting the small farmers. Still some 200 million pigs have been killed because there is no known cure for this.

If a highly infectious disease were to emerge, there are only very few places in the world with sufficient social cohesion and a strong public health system to respond adequately.

We live in a world that is becoming totally abnormal. For weeks now Alaska has been 30 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than normal, accelerating the de-icing of the Arctic, where trillions of tons of METHANE are on the verge of emerging, jumping the Global Temperature by at least 5 degrees Celsius. But the USA Mid-West, where corn is grown, is covered with ice and snow in October, burying about half the corn crop.

UNDER THE WEATHER.

One of the laws of ECOLOGY is that “everything is connected to everything else”. We all know that when one part of our body is sick, it affects our totality. The same is true for our planetary body. We have abused it for centuries and now we, who are part and parcel of creation – soil we are and to soil we shall return – will suffer.

A short history.

The Garden of Eden’s idyllic, fruit gathering, state did not last long. Farming brought dense human populations and centralized control: our Capitalistic Society has been the result, stretching back some five thousand years, coming to us, after many collapses.

In what is now Iraq, the Sumerian civilization (one of the world’s first) withered and died as the irrigation systems it invented turned the fields into salty desert. Some two thousand years later, in the Mediterranean basin, chronic soil erosion steadily undermined the Classical World: first the Greeks, then the Romans at the height of their power. And a few centuries after Rome’s fall, the Classic Maya, one of only two high civilizations to thrive in tropical rainforest (the other being the Khmer), eventually wore out nature’s welcome at the heart of Central America.

In the deep past these setbacks were local. The overall experiment of civilization kept going, often by moving from an exhausted ecology to one with untapped potential, as human numbers were still quite small. At the height of the Roman Empire there are thought to have been only 200 million people on Earth, while at the height of the British Empire a century ago, there were two billion, now we have nearly eight billion, thanks to electricity, fully carbon-fueled. While population increases are slowly declining, consumption of resources — from fossil fuel to water, from rare earths to good earth — has risen twice as steeply, roughly doubling our impact on nature. True, the outrunning of population by economic growth has lifted perhaps a billion of the poorest into the outskirts of the working class, mainly in China and India, yet those in extreme poverty and hunger still number at least a billion.

Will they too see better lives? Not likely. Predicted consequences of global warming — blighted coral reefs, melting glaciers, spreading deserts, and extreme weather — are already upon us.

Yes, we, our own children and grandchildren will face growing pains. We have saddled us and them with creation-loath luxuries and frivolous gadgets while we squander away what’s left of the wealth and wonder of the God’s dearly bought Earth.

We are leaving them monstrous debts, having colonized both past and future, having drawn energy, chemical fertilizer, and pesticides from the planet’s fossil carbon, and throwing the consequences onto us and our progeny and other species, many already bankrupted and extinct.

We, the human race, have become the world’s top predator, and predators crash suddenly when they outgrow their prey. Fortunately awareness of our predicament is spreading as we are beginning to see the world dying before our eyes, as global protests are mounting.

The failure of democratic governments to stand up for the greater good over the long run is fueling disillusionment with democracy itself. There is something badly wrong with an economic regime in which 26 mega-billionaires own as much as half the world’s population. Such extreme disparity has never been seen before. Inequality is the main driver behind rising population and consumption. The highest birthrates are in the poorest places, mainly Africa and the Indian subcontinent. At the other end of the seesaw, obscene wealth — the kind which owns mansions around the world and gigantic yachts with helicopter pads — has a colossal footprint, while its undue influence amounts to a dark tyranny.

Of one thing we can be sure: if we fail to act, nature will do so with the rough justice she has always served on those who are too many and who take too much.

Given the history of humanity, so briefly outlined above, the story of Jonah is relevant today. He was unwilling to go to Nineveh and plead for conversion, until God intervened and made his trip successful, even though he resented the outcome.

Then it was more or less a local conversion, and one that proved to be only temporary, as today’s Nineveh, located on the outskirts of Mosul in Northern Iraq was almost totally destroyed while wrested from the oppressive regime of ISIS, that fanatical Muslim regime.

UNDER THE WEATHER

The entire world is UNDER THE WEATHER, is sick to the core.

Jesus urged us to discern “the signs of the times.” We instantly know the weather, often days in advance. Jesus does not care about the immediate future: he always wants us to look beyond tomorrow and into eternity. There is where our future lies!

Life today is merely proving grounds for eternity. That also means that, if we love Christ, we must emulate his life, which was perfectly reflected in his love for creation, so beautifully expressed in John 3: 16, the Bible’s most important text, certainly today when our actions totally contradict this.

It bears repeating:

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

That LIFE will be lived on the earth from which we are taken: God’s Holy Earth, because he created it and called it good SEVEN TIMES.

October 26 2019

DEATH.

If you don’t like reading about DEATH (and most people don’t), you can skip this, but you can’t skip death.

But first, some money-news.

Last week all the financial brains in the world were in DC: Mark Carney, governor of the Bank of England, Christine Lagarde, still head of the International Monetary Fund, but soon taking over from Mario Draghi, head of the ECB, the European Central Bank. Of course he was there too – as well as Jerome Powell, ruling the Federal Reserve in Washington, just to name the head ponchos in our financial world. They were there to listen to Mervyn King, he ruled the Bank of England for many years, which earned him the LORD title. Canadian Mark Carney succeeded him six years ago.

When I read the comments on his speech, I was astounded: he warned that unless we adopt policies that enhance growth, we are heading for collapse.

Lord King’s speech reminded me of a Latin saying: Pariuntur montes, nascetur ridiculus mus: The mountains copulated – the big shots of the world gathered – and a tiny mouse was born – and the result was a total flop.

In his speech Mervyn King did not mention the consequences of Climate Change but later Mark Carney did. He said that business as usual will lead to a temperature increase of FOUR DEGREES CELSIUS, in other words: COLLAPSE, DEATH.

We are caught in an impossible situation: the world economy will collapse if there is no growth. It also will collapse when there IS growth. Take your pick. Business wants growth. No economic school of thought, except Herman Daly, former economist with the World Bank, taught in the Universities, deals with a No-Growth Society.

Just imagine having TV commercials (paid by the government, of course) pleading not to buy automobiles, not to buy Jet Skis, or not to travel to exotic destinations. Impossible, of course, but having no TV commercials signals the death of TV. That’s alright with me, but it’s the life-line for most people – or should I say death-trap?

But I digress.

The economy will remain a competitive battlefield with one company vying to best the other, with GM vying for prominence over the Japanese manufacturers, while they will try to outdo the Koreans. And then there are the many billions who, exposed to the clamorous lifestyles shown on TV want to enjoy the benefits of the wealthy Westerners.

So brace for sudden collapse, something nobody is prepared for, just as very few realistically face the collapse of one’s vital organs, more commonly known as death.

You know what set me off to write an article on DEATH?

Well, it was an Israeli academic. He discovered that we mortals can visualize the death of others, but not our own going to the grave.

That’s because, researchers say, our brains do their best to keep us from dwelling on our inevitable demise. A study found that the brain shields us from existential fear by categorizing death as an unfortunate event that only befalls other people.

“The brain does not accept that death is related to us,” said Yair Dor-Ziderman, at Bar Ilan University in Israel. “We have this primal mechanism that means when the brain gets information that links self to death, something tells us it’s not reliable, so we shouldn’t believe it.”

We have that saying: ”Only death and taxes are sure.” We give credence to the taxes, but the reference to death we ignore.

I am not a psychologist so I have no professional qualifications to comment on this, but, with more than 91 years of living experience, it seems to me that the phenomenon not to dwell on death stems from what I could call the Paradise Syndrome, where people were initially created to live forever.

Sin and Death.

Sin and Death are intimately connected. The Bible says somewhere that “The wages of sin is death,” or in plain English, The wages, the true reward or compensation for going against God`s commandments is death: Sinning against Creation leads to death.

Why do I call it “sin against creation?”

It is curious that the Bible relates how sin involved two items: Trees and Food. The human pair mentioned in Genesis had been given specific instructions about fruit trees, described as ‘beautiful to look at and good for food.’ Their specific assignment was to maintain these standards, with enhancing the garden, making it more beautiful, having priority.

There were plenty of other sources for food in the garden, so abundant, in fact, that obtaining nourishment became a secondary matter, while creational enhancement was the divine priority.

BUT……..

But by preferring food over artful decoration this has become the original sin, now manifest in ‘the lust for money as the root of all evil’, and thus the true cause of death.

Sin and death are synonymous. We don’t like the word ‘sin’, that’s also the reason why we don’t like the word ‘death’ and avoid thinking about it, preferring to live in the present. That’s also why we don’t want to hear about the ‘death of nature’.

About 30 years ago Bill McKibben wrote “The End of Nature.” I bought the book in February 1990. All the writings, all the warnings, the ever more dire predictions, have made no difference: we refuse to think about death, we refuse to think about “The End, the DEATH of Nature, the agony and final gasp of Creation.”

That is also the reason why church has become so unpopular: if it is true to its calling, the church deals with death, the death of Christ, the death of humanity, the death of creation, the death on the cross, but also the resurrection of the body and life everlasting.

Today we live in a culture of death. THE SIXTH EXTINCTION, written by Elizabeth Kolbert, has been listed as one of the most important book of the 21^st Century. It tells us that over the last half billion years there have been five major mass extinctions, when the diversity of life on earth suddenly and dramatically contracted. We, you and I, we have induced the Sixth Extinction: we have altered life on earth to the point of death for everything that lives: we have created a death culture: death of insects, of birds, of mammals, of trees, the list goes on.

Where in Paradise, the Garden of Eden, food was for the taking, we have made it into an industry, but……… it now takes 10 carbon – death dealing – calories to bring one ONE food calorie to the table, unless you grow your own. The only way to stop Global Heating is to stop eating, which means that there is no solution, no matter what the politicians and experts say: we have created a culture of death, and it started with agriculture.

Today animal agriculture is one of the highest sources of greenhouse emissions. Starting a vegetarian diet is now our God-given duty. Sorry farmers. It’s also our future in the New Creation: cutting out meat is a simple, but necessary small first step toward eternity. And it ensures LIFE. We, my wife and I have avoided meat for more than 40 years and our physical health is excellent.

Yet we will die, but we live in the hope of eternal life.

I have tried to describe that phase in the book I wrote, DAY WITHOUT END. There I visualized the End of the World, an event coming totally unexpected, yet predicted in the Bible time and again: “like a thief in the night”, with “merchandize piling up – Revelation 18: 11 – and the Amazon warehouses and Walmart stores – the two main employers in the USA – chockful with stuff”. The drones still active, delivering stuff people don’t need, bought with money they don’t have, a typical description of the American economy.

Here’s how in DAY WITHOUT END – available at LULU.com for less than $10.00, – I describe this last day:

“Suddenly there was a blinding light, like lightning, but not one streak, thousands of them, surrounding us with streams of fire flashing to the earth. Trees were struck, but instead of bursting into flames they simply dissolved. Like a rapidly rewinding film, they shrank from full-grown to seedlings, dwindling to seeds buried in the earth. Uncreated. The highway along which we walked melted, not into a puddle of hot tar, but right to dust; concrete and asphalt reduced to their basic elements. Cars dissolved, even as they moved. And the people in them? Gone. Evaporated. A little wisp of smoke was all that was left. Or was it a trail of dust?

“We didn’t say a word. We didn’t even have time to wonder why all this was happening before the intense heat engulfed us, too. There was no pain, no discomfort, just purifying fire. I remember smiling as I faded away. My last glance was toward the sky, where I could see the sun, blackened as if all its fire had descended to earth, and the moon, too, was different: a dark, bloody red. I felt my body glow, and then I fell asleep, warm and cozy.

“All this was accompanied by glorious sound: the all-pervasive resonance of a trumpet. At least it sounded like the music of a single instrument. Some virtuoso player repeated the same theme in innumerable variations: wake up; reveille; rise from your sleep; the hour has come. It was as if the very energy of God was conveyed in these notes, penetrating to the very bottom of the seas and the very top of the mountain peaks: the universe was simply saturated with this utterly compelling rhythm.”

That’s how I envisioned what the Bible calls, The Day of the Lord.

THE DAY OF THE LORD!

Until now, on this very day while I am writing this, the day does not belong to the Lord, even as we used to call Sundays “The Day of the Lord”. 1John 5:19 unequivocally states that “The Evil One is in charge.” That’s why the Day of the Lord is needed to reclaim creation!” The Bible pulls no punches there:

“See, the day of the LORD is coming –a cruel day, with wrath and fierce anger– to make the land desolate and destroy the sinners within it”, says Isaiah 13:9.

On Climate Change we are staring death in the face.

We all are somewhat acquainted with Handel’s Messiah, especially the Hallelujah Chorus. There also is another line in that oratorio: “But who can endure the day of his (Christ) coming? Who can stand when he appears? For he will be like a refiner’s fire. (Malachi 3: 2).

Prepare the Way of the Lord.

Another musical comes to mind, God-Spell, in which John the Baptist sings: “Prepare ye the way of the Lord”, repeating that line Twelve times, increasing the tempo and the music volume. “Prepare the way of the Lord”, the opening words of that enchanting and up-to-date melodious play, is s timely reminder to us, more urgent than ever.

How do we prepare ourselves for the most epoch-changing event ever? There’s nothing that even remotely compares to this literary world-shaking event.

Oh, yes, there already are many indications! Right now Climate Change is one of them. Another is the disappearance of organized religion, and the increasing godlessness. Also the deaths of wild mammals, as well as ….. you fill it in.

How do we prepare? Pray for the Lord’s coming: pray without ceasing, and believe that your prayer will be heard: THAT’s the only WAY to overcome DEATH AND LIVE!

Be faithful to his creation. The first human pair as described in early Genesis took God’s world for granted, preferring possessions over beauty. Nietzsche, that misunderstood genius, cried out in Thus Spoke Zarathustra:  “I entreat you, brothers, remain true to the earth, and do not believe those who speak to you of super terrestrial hopes! They are poisoners, whether they know it or not…..To blaspheme the earth is now the most dreadful offence”.

We have not honored God in his creation, ensuring DEATH for all that lives: the wages of sin is death.

Loving Christ, who loved creation so much that he died to restore it, and for us loving Christ and his creation, is the only way to LIFE. 

OCTOBER 19 2019

RELIGION-LESS CHRISTIANITY.

There’s a very telling text in the Bible, a wise reminder from the apostle Paul written to the sophisticated believers in the then world’s capital city, ROME, today still the headquarters of the Roman Catholic branch of Christianity. Here it is:

“For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities–his eternal power and divine nature–have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.”

When in our church the Bible is read, the reader often adds, “This is the word of God”. This is true, but the text quoted above points to another word of God: Creation. Never reading the Bible is not seen as a sin, but looking at creation and not attributing it to God: That is seen as inexcusable.

INEXCUSABLE!

Looking at creation and ignoring the creator, is like listening to THE ST.MATTHEW PASSION and refusing to attribute it to J. S. Bach, or admiring Rembrandt’s NIGHTWATCH, stubbornly maintaining that he did not paint it, instead suggesting that these master pieces evolved by themselves.

I realize these examples pale in comparison to the unfathomable intricacy of creation, where everything is connected to everything else.

There is one issue of overriding importance today, and it is: “If God created the cosmos, does that mean that creation is Holy? If that is the case, then mistreating it, is sin.”

I believe that the Belgic Confession is correct: “We know God by two means:

First, by the creation, preservation, and government
of the universe,
since that universe is before our eyes
like a beautiful book
in which all creatures,
great and small,
are as letters
to make us ponder
the invisible things of God:
God’s eternal power and divinity,
as the apostle Paul says in Romans 1:20.

All these things are enough to convict humans
and to leave them without excuse.

Leave them without excuse!

The “THEM” are us. Yet, our entire society floats, moves, flies, focuses on abusing creation.

What can be concluded here is that creation exists to affirm the reality of the Scriptures and that the Scriptures exist to affirm the reality of Creation.

All signs signify that we are in the END TIMES. The differences between denominations are disappearing, as the matters that once divided these various churches are fading into irrelevance. Bonhoeffer predicted this when he coined the phrase,

“Religion-less Christianity”.

We all stand in history. The animal does not know history: it is aware, shows love and compassion and has many admirable attributes, but it stands outside what’s happening in its surroundings.  Only we –men and women – have a place in history, and that place determines our life.

That place is now exclusively determined by the way in which we treat God’s creation, and how we care for it, especially now when the End is approaching.

Let’s face it: of course we have to enact our love for our neighbor, but if, in the process we poison the air, what good does our love do when we bring disease and death?

Just as the Bible, in a few sober words, depicts the beginning of it all, so it outlines for us the end-times as well, the confluence of everything, where cosmos turns to chaos.

We are getting a taste of this nowadays: wherever we look, wherever our eye turns, whether to China and Hong Kong, whether to the Arctic and ever higher temperatures there, whether to Indonesia and its fires, whether to the Middle East and its explosive situation, whether to Europe and Brexit, whether to the USA and a simmering civil war, it becomes increasingly clear that the history of the world ends in God’s judgment, a judgment that originates with humanity.

It is also becoming clearer by the day that not God, but The Evil One, is in charge of this world, and now that the coming of the Lord is fast approaching, the Devil and his legion of angels are redoubling their destructive efforts, using us as the executors.

Just as our life-story starts with TREES, so today, in the end-times, all things turn to the beginning. Just as the book of Genesis paints paradise for us, the place where human life started, so the Revelation of John brings us back to the same place.

To be human means to have a place between the beginning and the end, between the two trees in the beginning, the Tree of Life and the Tree of Knowledge of Good and the Evil, and the END, with self-imposed, self-inflicted punishment and Judgment.

That’s in short how the Bible depicts, in living color, the life of us men and women, each with their own life to live, each directly related to eternity, and each simultaneously caught up in history.

And at the center of it all is CHRIST, who did not bring religion, but who taught us how to LIVE! CHRISTIANITY means LIFE and that to the fullest!

Crunch time.

Everything becomes what it is. It’s becoming increasingly clear that by treating creation as disposable we are cutting our own throat. By denying Creation as holy, we deny God. But when we love creation, then we do God’s will, then no other doctrine, no other religious rule is required: then we practice Religion-less Christianity, then, as Bonhoeffer has stated, we can live Etsi Deus Non Daretur, live “As if God does not exist.”

Looking back

For centuries now we have treated God’s Creation, God’s Primary Word, God’s Direct Revelation, as an item to be abused. We have scratched out God’s signature on every created entity, and written in our own name, even though the Ten Commandments explicitly state that “You shall not misuse the name of the LORD your God, for the LORD will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his name.”

That’s why Romans 1:20 bears repeating:

“For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities–his eternal power and divine nature–have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.”

But we must treat creation as God’s precious GIFT to us, remembering Psalm 115: 16 “The highest Heavens belong to God, but the Earth he has given to us:” all our actions must be geared to better the earth, because it’s our eternal HOME: Christ gave his life for it. We now can throw out all church teachings. We now have only ONE goal to live for: loving creation.

Confessions are useless when we deny them in reality, which we do constantly in our daily life: it’s easy to say “God is Love”, when we our actions scream that this does not apply to his creation, which we can and do abuse without ceasing. We are asked “to pray without ceasing” and that is true. My constant prayer is “Maranatha, Lord come quickly”, because my life, everybody’s life has become denial of God’s majesty in creation, God’s Primary and Direct Word, as Romans 1: 20 asserts.

It’s easy to intellectually love God. But he demands more than tokenism. Both in the Hebrew Bible and in the New Testament, the basic commandment is: Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ (Mark 12: 30).

The Hebrew Bible says exactly the same in Deuteronomy 6: 4, 5. Jesus calls that the greatest of all laws.

In other words we have to love the Lord with all our facilities, just as the Lord loves us with his totality, including Creation. There is no more beautiful Psalm than Psalm 19: “The heaven proclaim the glory of the Lord…… The Law of the Lord is perfect, it revives the soul. The fear of the Lord is pure…. In keeping them is great reward”.

Those lines refer to CREATION.

Dr. Barry Commoner, a man who taught biology for decades, by studying creation coined the LAWS OF ECOLOGY.

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

At our own peril we are disregarding these rules for life. While there is great reward in keeping them, there is immense danger in ignoring them, and that’s what we have been doing: hence Climate Change; hence Global Heating.

With that in mind we must read – with new eyes – John 3: 16. It too bears repeating.  

“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”

The Greek word for ‘world’ is “cosmos”, which embraces everything that exists: you, me, the earth out of which we were formed, the trees, the air and oceans, the elephants and whales: nothing excluded.

That’s why “Our own deliverance and the deliverance of creation go hand in hand.”

James 2: 14 points to this: “What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save them?”

Today the overriding issue involves the disintegrating of creation. Since everything is connected to everything else, we, the citizens of the earth too are affected, bringing protests, dissatisfaction, chaotic minds, confusion.

Organized religion has lost its relevance: only creation matters.

I know: I have mentioned this before, but I am fighting the generally accepted belief that Jesus died ONLY for our sins. He Did Not. Yet almost every hymn sung in church mentions that line. Also every other hymn wants to make us believe that we go to heaven. We Can’t Go to Heaven because Earth we are and to Earth we shall return: there’s where our destiny and future lies. I am fighting givens that the church has adopted for centuries, if not millennia, and they are LIES. Jesus – as John 3: 16 unambiguously states – died because he loved the earth, because He made it. He cringes in agony every time we abuse it.

That’s why the only way to ensure our future is to treasure the earth, to love it as Jesus loved it and gave his life for it.

Sorry to rehash this but new ideas have to be repeated to us constantly…What we read at nine in the morning will be forgotten by lunchtime and will need to be reread by dusk”.

John Calvin was wrong when he wrote that, “For anyone to arrive at God, the Creator, he needs only Scripture as his Guide and Teacher”. That may have been true 500 years ago when the earth was still pure. Protestants then agitated against Roman Catholicism, where all churches were replete with the replicas of saints and depictions of heaven.

Now often the Roman Catholic Church members are keener in their treatment of the earth than Protestant Christianity.

What counts today is Revelation 21: 22. There John was allowed to have a peak into the future and discovers that on the re-created earth he sees no temple there: “I did not see a temple in the city, because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple.”

No temple means the absence of church denominations. No temple means the disappearance of the Bible. No temple means the disappearance of all doctrines and church teachings that has caused so much confusion on earth. No temple means that God – his creation – is all and in all. God’s law will be in our hearts. No temple in the new creation means Religion-less Christianity.

That’s why we now, in these last days, seconds before Christ returns, must give priority to the welfare of creation, show our love, our utmost devotion, to the Created Word, which before our eyes is

like a beautiful book
in which all creatures,
great and small,
are as letters
to make us ponder
the invisible things of God.

Any other way is a denial of God. That’s why today John 3: 16 must dominate our life: since God so loved the cosmos, we too, to ensure eternal life, must follow Christ’s example by loving creation as the primary goal in life.

Here’s an exercice:

Repeat every day four times, before breakfast, before lunch, before dinner, before bed time:

“Christ did not die for our sins, he died to restore Creation.”

Repeat every day four times:

“We don’t go to heaven: we will inherit God’s Earth.”  

October 12 2019

“666” OR “777”?

Oh, that mysterious number 666! How many have broken their brains to decipher it. Johan Herman Bavinck in his 85,000 word book on Revelation wisely avoids dealing with the number. Eugene H. Peterson, in his excellent exposition REVERSED THUNDER, The Revelation of John & the Praying Imagination does mention it. He writes, “666 is a human number….It’s a religion that makes a show, that vaunts itself, that takes its eye of the poor and suffering and holy Christ. In the language of numbers, 666 is a triple failure to be 777, the three-times perfect, whole, divine number.”

That confounding number – 666 – is found in Revelation, the last book of the Bible, Chapter 13: 17-18. There is says,

“No one will be able to buy or to sell, except the one who has the mark, either the name of the beast or the number of his name.  Here is wisdom. Let him who has understanding calculate the number of the beast, for the number is that of a man; and his number is six hundred and sixty-six.”

To me it looks more complicated than Peterson asserts. Bavinck wrote his book some 70 years ago. Then the most advanced technology was radio and a land-line telephone. Peterson’s book dates from 1988, also well before the advent of I.T., Information Technology, which has changed everything, including us humans and, I think, has made us ready to embrace THE BEAST.

Of course, that needs some explanation. The BEAST is a creature that devours everything. I believe that the time has come to identify that creature: it’s us: HUMAN GREED, causing societal collapse.

I also believe that, in line with the main motif of that last Bible book, eventually everything will resort to its true nature. Assuming this given, the meaning of 666 will be revealed.

How?

Let me repeat the words of caution, “Here is wisdom. Let him who has understanding calculate the number of the beast, for the number is that of a man; and his number is six hundred and sixty-six.”

That man – humanity at large – operates without God, as Cain did who built the city, an open challenge to Eden. It’s also a number-game on which the computer is based: 010101010, now dominating and absorbing everything.

So, what is ’Wisdom’?

T. S. Eliot, some 100 years ago, coined the familiar saying, “”Where is the Life we have lost in living? Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?”

Eliot really was a prophetic questioner. I too have a question: “Did we lose wisdom when we abandoned ‘the fear of the Lord’”?

The Bible repeatedly reminds us that “The Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom”. What does ‘The Fear of the Lord’ really mean?”

The word ‘fear’ has nothing to do with anxiety or fright or scare. It has everything to do with reverence and humility. But reverence for what or for whom?

Psalm 8 comes to mind:

“When I behold Your heavens,

the work of Your fingers,

the moon and the stars,

which You have set in place—

what is man that You are mindful of him,

or the son of man that You care for him.

It is that kind of awe I am hinting at.

Years ago our family visited Banff. When I stood in front of Lake Louise and saw the glaciers on the horizon, I spontaneously burst into tears, overcome with emotion, overawed by the majestic panorama.

“The fear of the Lord” starts with that frame of mind. There’s where wisdom has its origin, its start, humbled by the marvel of God’s creation. I emphasize the verb ‘start’. From there on in, it is hard work, and I confess: I am very much a novice in knowing creation, having barely made the first step in attaining the creational wisdom needed for knowing God.

The trouble is that today everything conspires to deprive us of wisdom. Churches are no help there. On the contrary: their heaven talk, and the widespread acceptance of Rapture, with its pre-tribulation nonsense, is just another hindrance to deal with the lack of wisdom.

The basic question today is: “Are we becoming an extension of the machine?”

Here’s where a Jewish historian, a professor by the name of Yuval Noah Harari, comes in. He is Worried about Our Souls. He thinks that “The big-data makeover of humanity could be a recipe for disaster.”

Just a few years ago Yuval Noah Harari was an obscure Israeli academic with a knack for playing with big ideas. Sapiens, a sweeping, cross-disciplinary account of human history landed on the bestseller list and remains there four years later.

Now he’s got a new book, “21 Lessons for the 21st Century”.

Harari is openly critical of how Facebook and other tech companies exploit our personal data, and he worries that online interactions are replacing actual face-to-face encounters. Much of the book speculates on the revolutionary impact of artificial intelligence (A.I.) He wonders if computer algorithms can know us better than we know ourselves, is there any room left for free will?

He thinks that we are on the precipice of a revolution that will change humanity for either our everlasting benefit or destruction. “For the first time in history,” Harari said, “we have absolutely no idea how the world will look in 30 years.”

Well, I disagree there, and so do a lot of young people: world-wide they are demonstrating against Governments’ failure to combat Climate Change. Given human nature to ignore obvious signs, the world is in a death spiral, and the youth know this.

Climate Change will be worse than war-time conditions. Then there was HOPE. The war on nature is final.

I am old enough to remember the conditions in German-occupied Europe 1939-45 when the purchase of food and clothing involved coupons and identification. This time there won’t be paper coupons, or documented ID, but a chip in the shoulder or an eye-scan. Conform, or no food. That’s the future. And that’s what worries Harari.

HOMO MACHINA

Harari fears that “We have become HOMO MACHINA, no longer afraid of the machine, because we have become it. We no longer search for information. We Google. We trust the Google algorithm and we lose the ability to search for information independently.”

Harari thinks that we have entered a new phase in human history, where the twin revolutions of artificial intelligence and bioengineering can hack human beings and other organisms, and then re-engineer us and create new life forms.

“This can change our imagination, too. If our imagination is too limited to think of new possibilities, we can just improve it.”

666.

Here’s where “666” comes in. We can manipulate the human mind to see Climate Change as normal, can be bent to accept a man such as Donald Trump as a divine ruler, can be conned to see heat and drought and storms and tornadoes as perfectly normal, and poor Africans and Asians as purely disposable, as long as we have a tankful of gas and a bellyful of fabricated food and, of course, the proper number, the right combination of identification and personality.

Says Harari, “We’re about to start combining the organic with inorganic bots to create cyborgs……………..One of the most important forces in history is human stupidity. We should never underestimate human stupidity.”

That last statement, about human stupidity, is already all too evident, witness Climate Change, Brexit, Trump, Rapture, and the list goes on.

He writes, “Experiments are already under way to augment the human immune system with an inorganic, bionic system. Millions of nano-robots and sensors monitor what’s happening inside the human body. They could discover the beginning of cancer, or some infectious disease, and fight against these dangers for your health. The system can monitor not just what goes wrong. It can also regulate our moods, our emotions, our thoughts. That means an external system can get to know us much better than we know ourselves. We go to therapy for years to get in touch with our emotions, but this system, whether it belongs to Google or Amazon or the government, can monitor our emotions in ways that neither we nor our therapist can approach in any way…….. Fear and anger and love, or any human emotion, are in the end just a biochemical process. In the same way we can diagnose flu, we also can diagnose anger. You might ask somebody, “Why are you angry? What are you angry about?” And they will say, “I’m not angry about anything, what do you want?” But this external system doesn’t need to ask this. It can monitor our heart, our brain, our blood pressure. It can have a scale of anger and it can know we are now a 6.8 on a scale of 1-to-10. Combining this with enormous amounts of data collected 24 hours a day can provide the best healthcare in history. It can also be the foundation of the worst dictatorial regimes in history.”

No longer God the creator: only MAN the manipulator.

Harari fears that an external system can know us better than we know ourselves. It can predict our choices and decisions. It can manipulate our emotions, and it can sell us anything, whether a product or a politician.

The fear Harari has is that we will shift authority to THE MACHINE, indicating the frightening scenario that the robots will make better decisions than we.

And then Harari asks the most important question: “What is human life all about?”

He says, “For thousands of years we have constructed this idea of human life as a drama of decision-making. Life is a road with many intersections, and every couple of days or months or years, we need to make decisions. If we make good decisions, we go to heaven; if we make bad decisions, we go to hell.”

Earlier this week I watched the leaders of 6 (Canadian) political parties debate. Climate change being one topic. They all projected a future as an extension of the past, while all around us the world is boiling. Literally.

Today two things are happening at the same time.

First: we’ve gained the ability to hack human beings. If you believe in free will, you will say this is impossible. Nobody can know me better than I know myself. Nobody can predict my choices or manipulate my desires, because they are a reflection of my free will, of my free spirit.

Secondly: thanks to loss of religion, mentally and spiritually wounded by TV and media, we have become the easiest persons to hack and to manipulate.

This brings me to the question: “What does it mean to be human?”

We are made in the image of God. We perfectly fitted in the Garden of Eden, where we were charged to develop creation, make it more beautiful, explore its potential, live in full unity with nature, always learning, always caring, always serving. Especially the latter: servants in chief, honoring God as Creator in everything, singing his praises.

God gave us full authority, trusting that we would do it right and knowing that we could.

Well, it did not pan out that way. So Jesus, God’s son, also the perfect human, out of pure love for his COSMOS, sacrificed his life and straightened out the mess we created. That’s why John 3: 16 is perhaps the most important text in the Bible. His death of the cross ensured our eternal life on earth, to be made perfect again when Christ returns. I am eagerly awaiting his coming, while trying to live as our original mandate requires.

That effort is now threatened by today’s technical development, robbing us of our initial calling: our very humanity is at stake. We were created to serve. Instead the real danger is that we become slaves to the technological society, a system that will abuse creation till it succumbs into chaos, implementing the aim of God’s adversary who wants to see it destroyed.

We are at a crossroad: which way? 666 or777?

There’s a song: “I want to follow Jesus.” Jesus once said: “Small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.” (Matthew 7: 14.) Be among the few.