Bert Hielema–Columns and Writings

MARCH 9 2019

BE NOT AFRAID

Have no fear of sudden disaster

or of the ruin that overtakes the wicked,

for the Lord will be at your side

and will keep your foot from being snared.

                                      Proverbs 3: 25-26

These are wise words when everything is trapped in tragic turmoil. I cannot recall a time when there was so much uncertainty about the future.

During the 1939-45 war in Europe and the Far East, there always was hope. Having consciously lived through that period I never noticed despair: people always believed in a better future. Although it was then forbidden to listen to the BBC – it was even illegal to own a shortwave radio – nevertheless we listened to London as the German news was truly FAKE. The Dutch broadcast from England always started with the line, “Hoe moeilijk de dag, hoe zwaar ook de tijding, we zijn weer een dag dichter bij de bevrijding”, translated as “However difficult the day, however much evil in the nation, we are one day closer to liberation”. That was the hope all of occupied Europe lived by.

Today we exist in a world where hope is on the way out. Of course the politicians deny this, and so they add to the confusion, but in the bottom of their hearts they too are scared.

We, citizens, hear mixed messages. On the one hand, to avoid global disaster in the form of a catastrophic temperature rise, we are told – while everything still seems sort of normal – to enact a much more sustainable lifestyle by lowering our carbon use, by cutting back on automobile use and flying, and, in general, live so that the use of fossil fuels is drastically reduced.

On the other hand, while Governments encourage these measures, yet they still aim for economic growth, they still approve oil pipelines, because they desperately need the extra income, as the call for public assistance is growing with an aging population requiring greater medical expense and increased pension outlay.   

Combine this with a complete absence of vision, and the result is that psychic diseases accelerate and physical violence flourishes.

Of course the Bible has a line on that too,

“Where there is no vision, people cast off restraint”.

Proverbs 29:18.

Confusion is not confined to personal matters.

Take Brexit.

In three weeks, at the end of March, the person in charge – PM Theresa May – has no coherent plan to execute the parting of Great Britain from the European Union.

The vote, almost three years ago, was 52/48. After three years of haggling the political class has been unable to come to any serious conclusion about what kind of Brexit it wants. The result: confusion, the clear result of lack of wisdom:

“Where there is no vision, people cast off restraint; but blessed is the one who heeds wisdom’s instruction”. Proverbs 29:18.

When people see that there is no real leadership, when there is no obvious strategy, they say, “the heck with it”, and become indifferent and also uncooperative, which leads to the opposite of wisdom.

The times are fascinating, nevertheless.

Last week I did something I seldom do: watch day-time TV. I followed Michael Cohen’s dramatic appearance. One of the most revealing lines of his testimony was,

“Given my experience working for Mr. Trump I fear that if he loses the election in 2020 that there will never be a peaceful transition of power, and that is why I agreed to appear before you today.”

For Trump, losing is the deepest form of humiliation, and humiliation is intolerable.

Just as voting for Brexit placed Great Britain in a state of total turmoil, so too choosing Trump for president placed the Devil in charge whose sole aim is to sow dissension and force people to make the wrong choices, precisely at the very point in history, when the deepest version of wisdom is called for.  

Never argue.

In the past I have argued with people who favored Trump. Since then I have refrained from doing this, because voting for Trump is not a matter of reason: it is a matter of faith, and one cannot win a dispute that is not based on logic, or on commonsense or rationality but on some sort of fanatic belief beyond my comprehension. It’s the nature of faith that it cannot be proven.  

My gut feeling is that the hidden, unacknowledged reason for a person preferring Trump or choosing Brexit is that “All my life I have been screwed, have been taken advantage of by the rich and the elite and especially by the politicians. I have been treated as dirt by everybody, and now I will take revenge.”

I believe a significant section of society – 40-50 percent –realize instinctively that there is no rhyme or reason to their stance, but, seeing no hope for improvement, and no longer having faith in promises, they, with the famous economist, John Maynard Keynes, shrug their shoulders because: “in the long run we are dead anyway.” And that may happen sooner than later.

Today we encounter pure NIHILISM, also evident in the Rapture phenomenon, which also has a religious component. Most American RAPTURE proponents are convinced that “true believers” will be fetched up to heaven and leave behind the sinners on the evil earth, while, actually, the opposite is true. More about that later.  

So with Trumpians and with Brexiteers it’s no use to argue: their position is beyond reason, but the sad truth is that these unstated differences are ripping two countries apart, leaving both the USA and Great Britain more polarized than ever.  

And worse is to come.

 “Where there is no vision, people cast off restraint.

Proverbs 29:18.

We live in different times, godless times. No wonder people have lost their footing. Having grown up without any notion of religion, having endured 12 years of public schooling where God is never mentioned, where any reference to religion is systematically avoided, where the unspoken assumption is that the future will be like the past, a continuation of wealth and welfare, there suddenly looms a darker scenario, a less rosy prospect, especially for the male portion of the population.

One hundred or more years ago, when the machine age was just starting, younger men followed in their fathers’ footsteps and looked at the future with some confidence as tomorrow would be as yesterday: there was predictable continuity.

Even 68 years ago when I arrived in Canada the outlook was encouraging: I was able to build up an insurance business, expand it to include a real estate brokerage, and round off my business career with starting a real estate appraising career in a totally different geographical location.

Now everything has changed: anybody can be an appraiser, any bank employee, thanks to Google maps and readily accessible real estate sales information, can, with a little coaching, acquire sufficient comparable sales data to arrive at a reasonable opinion of value when a mortgage is required.

Also Artificial Intelligence and versatile robots will further eat into the job market, affecting especially men, further increasing confusion and anxiety.

The Revenge of Creation

And then there looms the Mother of All future-killing elements.

There’s a catastrophe of unimaginable proportions unfolding. Life is disappearing from the Earth and all life could be gone within one decade. Study after study is showing the size of the threat, yet many people seem out to hide what we’re facing.

In the Arctic alone, four tipping points look set to be crossed within a few years, perhaps as early as this summer:

1. Loss of the Arctic sea ice’s ability to act as a buffer to  absorb incoming ocean heat
2. Loss of Arctic sea ice’s ability to reflect sunlight back into space (albedo)
3. Destabilization of sediments at the seafloor of the Arctic Ocean 
4. Permafrost melt

Crossing these tipping points will trigger a number of feedbacks resulting in even more absorption of heat by the Arctic Ocean.

We already experience constant changes to the Jet Stream, and in the immediate future even more extreme weather can be expected. The greatest danger, however, is the release of seafloor methane. This will cause an immediate spike in temperature and further disastrous emissions from land such as methane, nitrous oxide and nitrogen oxide.

With the permafrost melting, with more storms and forest fires, temperatures will rise even more over the next few years as more black carbon and brown carbon is emitted and more wood gets burned and more forest fires occur.

Can we still change course? 

In one word: NO.

And for that answer I again rely on the Bible.

There are several passages both in both the Old and the New Testament that give us a rather accurate picture of what awaits us, not in the distant future but soon, perhaps very soon.

All  of you’ve heard of Noah and the Ark. Well, once that massive vessel had touched land again, God ( see Genesis 9) said, (verse 8-10):

“I now establish my covenant with you, and all humanity, and with every living creature that was with you”.

Verse 16 reaffirms this, “an everlasting covenant between God and all living creatures of every kind on the earth.”

A covenant is a solemn treaty between two parties considered equals, in this case between God and us. In it we promised under oath to treat all of creation as divine, as holy.

Jump to Isaiah 24: 5-6,

“The earth is defiled by its people; they have disobeyed the laws, violated the statutes, and broken the everlasting covenant. Therefore a curse consumes the earth; its people must bear their guilt. Therefore earth’s inhabitants are burned up, and very few are left.”

The prophet Hosea connects human behavior with creational pain. Hosea 4: 2-3 tells us that,

“There’s only cursing, lying and murder, stealing and adultery….. Because of this the land mourns, and all who live in it waste away; the beasts of the field and the birds of the air and the fish of the sea are dying.”

Please note: The Bible sees a direct connection between human moral conduct and climatic conditions. Of course: “everything is connected to everything else!”

The New Testament records the very words of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who calls himself the Son of Man, Humanity Personified. In Matthew 24, that terrible chapter, he said: (Verse 10), “In the end many will turn away from the faith… there will be an increase of wickedness …and distress unequaled…”

Foreseeing the false gospel of RAPTURE, he also gives the answer to that LIE. (Verse 38-39): The sinners will be “Eating and drinking until the flood came and took (all the sinners) away. That’s how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man!!”

In other words: God’s People remain(!) on the Earth!! The sinners vanish! The earth is ours FOREVER.

There are plenty of other indications in the Bible pointing to the time we live in. Take 2 Peter 3: 10,

“But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar, the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything in it will be laid bare.”

Then there is Revelation, the last Bible book.

Chapter 16 has the heading, The Seven Bowls of God’s wrath. They are: (1) painful diseases (Ebola, Aids), (2) everything in the seas dies, (3) including rivers and lakes, (4) the sun becoming dangerous: (5) terrible heat, (6) utter darkness, (no electricity?)

All these all events are occurring NOW.

Then to top it all, the seventh angel (verse 17) announces, “a tremendous earthquake, unequaled ever.” 

Bonhoeffer has pointed out the task of the church:

“The Church of Christ witnesses to the end of all things. It lives from the end, it thinks from the end, it acts from the end, it proclaims its message from the end.

Because the church has failed to do this, universal confusion is the reigning mind-setter today; people don’t know where to turn; Climate Change is beyond repair; economic problems, especially debt-creation, have no other remedy than bankruptcy: all human efforts have become fraught with disastrous outcomes.

Nevertheless.

Have no fear of sudden disaster

or of the ruin that overtakes the wicked,

for the Lord will be at your side

and will keep your foot from being snared.

MARCH 2 2019

SEX AND THE CHURCH

Of course I mean the Roman Catholic Church, our mother church and the largest Christian Denomination. Almost all churches have a hymn with a march-like melody and war-like words, “Onward Christian Soldiers, marching as to war” and “Like a mighty army moves the church of God”, totally untrue today, of course, but still appropriate because the R.C. Church is organized like an army.

Here’s the striking comparison: We all know that an army has a commander in chief: well, the church has the Pope; the army has generals, and the church Cardinals; the army has colonels, and the church Bishops, the army has officers and the church Priests; the army soldiers and the church the lay people.

For a long time, the army had no female officers, just as the R. C. church still has no females in its ranks. In the army just like any church where God is male, male is God, and that, of course, means sexual trouble.

Looking back

There was a time, long ago, when sexual matters were less complicated. Take Abraham. When this wise man charged his most trusted servant to go to his ancestral grazing grounds to find a wife for his son Isaac, the Bible tells us that Abraham secured his servant’s oath by commanding him to place your hand on my thigh.

The thigh in the Bible is often used as a euphemism for sexual organs, which represent the source of Abraham’s reproductive powers and the fate of his progeny. The image of having someone swear an oath by placing his hand on another man’s genitals might jar us, but this practice speaks to the lack of prudishness in ancient times. Actually our word ‘testify’ is based on the Latin word testes or testicles and derives its meaning from this custom.

“Pen is” becomes “Penis”

It plays through my mind that the saying, “The ‘PEN IS’ mightier than the sword”, should slightly be shortened to read, “The PENIS mightier than the sword.” Indeed, the PENIS is destroying the church. The PEN, the written and spoken word, has gone out of fashion with Fake News and a US president whose total being reflects that.  

The same is true of the church. It is not that the Bible is wrong: where the church errs is that it sees Scriptures as the only HOLY WORD, while God’s Created Word is not recognized as HOLY and thus abused to the point of DEATH.

Sex is part of the Created Word. We all are sexual beings. To deny this is to deny our humanity.

The trouble is that the church in general lives on two planes: The Sacred and the Secular. It sees the Bible and the church as HOLY, and the rest, including humanity, as secular. THAT IS WHAT IS WRONG. Sex is as sacred as the Bible, because it is created by God, and hence holy.

The church, as an institute today, has become an anomaly, is no longer a viable entity because it does not recognize CREATION as divine, which debases the value of the church.

The same happened to the Jewish religion, which was based on temple service and on a hierarchy of High Priests and lower ranks, on animal offerings and Mosaic Laws.

When Christ pledged his life to restore Creation, he made LOVE his law, so the temple became superfluous. At the precise moment Jesus died on the cross the heavy curtain between the Holy and the Holy of Holies was severed from top to bottom, a sign that Temple worship had reached its “best before date”, even though there still was forty years of grace before the temple was destroyed in 70 A.D.

With the church, as an institute, on its deathbed today, with the Bible as a guide, our main focus should be on CREATION, God’s Primary Word and the church’s ultimate destination. By denying human sexuality the church has written off creation as being God’s precious work of art.

Already in the Garden of Eden the two different sexes were present, first in animals, then in humans. That is the creation order. Just as there is homosexuality among animals, so it occurs among humans. Get used to it: it’s natural.

Jesus told us that in the New Creation there will not be marriage. This doesn’t mean that there will not be sex: of course there will be. Of course people will fall in love. Of course Jesus fell in love: he experienced all human emotions. Of course the saints in the New Creation will express their humanity in all possible ways, artistically, musically, literarily, and also sexually. How all that will be expressed, is still a mystery, but it all will come out, and is something to look forward to. It is about time that the church confronts the truth that God also created sex, an undeniable human trait.

Everything will be revealed.

We live in eschatological times, which mean that the TRUTH of all human actions will be exposed.

That was evident again when Pope Francis held a 4 day conclave involving some 190 clerics, mostly cardinals: it was all about SEX in the church. And nothing was solved. Latin is the official language of the church, so “Pariuntur montes, nascatur ridiculus mus”, is fitting: The Mountains – the Big shots – copulated and the result was a ridiculous small mouse – the results were peanuts.

How totally outdated was that spectacle, that gathering in Rome! All male, all uniformed, all only half-way formed, as a good marriage makes a person whole: woman and man are made for each other.

What the clergy in all faiths forget, is that we live in different times: the old answers are useless. I don’t think I am wrong when I say that God is not dead, but he’s no longer active: Jesus has taken over. 

Last week I spoke with a retired Roman Catholic teacher. The informed laity is fed up with the church. Basically its structure has become irrelevant: in a sex-saturated society where little is taboo, she simply stated that clergy should be allowed to marry and women ordained. That would solve the sex-problem in the Catholic Church and fill the many vacant clergy positions as well.

Morris West – who was a monk for 12 years – wrote a trilogy on the papacy: “The shoes of the Fisherman”, “The Clowns of God”, and “Lazarus”, all good descriptions of Vatican intrigue and the stubbornness of the Curia. It seems to me that Pope Francis has become a victim of the bureaucracy there. Too bad: I had high hopes for him.

New Reformation impossible.

By failing to recognize CREATION as God’s PRIMARY word, I am increasingly convinced that the church, any church, is beyond reform: most buildings are ecological disasters, the ecclesiastical offices too ingrained, the confessions too ossified, and the preachers too prone to please. So the churches slowly die, and in their dying cause a lot of grief, because, I must confess, I love the church.

Yet there are refreshing voices.      

One of them is Hans Küng, now retired- he’ll be 91 in March – and living in Switzerland. He is the most famous Roman Catholic theology professor, author of many books, of which I have a number one simply entitled, The Church, another Eternal Life?

Here’s what he wrote a while ago:

The rule that Catholic priests must be celibate is responsible for the crisis in the church. Now is the time to challenge that requirement. From the United States to Ireland to Germany, the widespread abuse of children and adolescents by Catholic priests has done enormous damage to the image of the church. It also reveals the depth of the crisis.

In Germany Archbishop Robert Zollitsch of Freiburg, speaking as chairman of the Conference of German Bishops, has made a public statement on behalf of the Church. His declaration that the cases of abuse were “heinous crimes”—together with the bishops’ statement of February 25, 2010, asking forgiveness from all the victims—are first steps toward dealing with the crisis. But much more must be done.

Zollitsch’s statement, moreover, contains serious misrepresentations that need to be challenged.

Consider his first claim: sexual abuse by priests has nothing to do with celibacy. Objection! Although there is no question that abuse also occurs in families, schools, and youth organizations, as well as in churches that do not have the rule of celibacy, why are there such an extraordinary number of cases specifically in the Catholic church, whose leaders are celibate?

Of course, celibacy is not solely responsible for these crimes. But it is the most important structural expression of the Catholic hierarchy’s inhibitions with regard to sexuality, evident also in its attitude toward birth control and other questions.

In fact a glance at the New Testament shows that although, Jesus and Paul led celibate lives, they left others complete freedom to do so or not. Based on the gospel, clerical celibacy can be advocated only as a freely-chosen calling (charisma), not as a compulsory rule for everyone.

Paul decisively contradicted those contemporaries who were of the opinion that “it is good for a man not to touch a woman.” As he wrote, “to avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband” (1 Corinthians 7: 1-2). According to 1 Timothy 3:2, “A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife” (not “of no wife”!).

During their ministry, Peter and the other apostles were married. For many centuries, married life was normal for bishops and presbyters and—outside the Roman Catholic Church—remains so today, at least for priests, in all the churches of Eastern rites united with the Holy See as well as in Orthodox Christianity. Rome’s rule of celibacy contradicts the gospel and ancient Catholic tradition. It should be abolished.

The second claim by Archbishop Zollitsch: it is “completely false” to trace the cases of abuse to defects in the structure of the church. Objection! The rule of celibacy did not exist during Christianity’s first millennium. Under the influence of monks (who lived in voluntary abstinence) it was instituted in the Western Church during the eleventh century, in particular by Pope Gregory VII, against the staunch opposition of the clergy in Italy and especially in Germany. Only three German bishops dared to promulgate the decree from Rome; thousands of priests protested it. In a petition at the time, the German clergy asked rhetorically whether the pope was “unfamiliar with the word of the Lord: ‘He that is able to receive it, let him receive it?’” (Matthew 19:12). In this, his only statement on the question, Jesus advocates voluntary abstinence.

Yet the rule of celibacy, together with papal absolutism and exaggerated clericalism, became one of the pillars of the “Roman system.” Unlike priests in the Eastern churches, the celibate clergy of the West remain completely separated from the laity, primarily by abstaining from marriage. They constitute a dominant social class of their own, fundamentally superior to ordinary Christians, but completely subordinate to the pope in Rome. The rule of celibacy is the main reason for the catastrophic shortage of priests, the serious neglect of the Eucharist, and the widespread breakdown of pastoral care—a problem that has been papered over by merging parishes into “pastoral units” ministered to by badly overworked priests.

What would be the best way to attract more young people to the priesthood? Abolish the rule of celibacy, the root of the whole problem, and allow the ordination of women. The bishops know this and should have the courage to say it out loud. They would have the vast majority of Catholics behind them. All recent polls show that the laity favor allowing priests to marry.

So far Dr. Hans Küng.

The Roman Catholic Curia will not heed these words, and so keep on tacitly condoning sexual abuse and prolonging the crisis besetting the entire ecclesiastical system.

In these last days everything is coming to a head. All human structures are being challenged, and found wanting, including the ecclesiastical entities.

It simply means that we must get ready for the Greatest Surprise of all times: the sudden and unexpected return of Christ in all his glory.

FEBRUARY 23 2019

THE RIDDLE OF LIFE

He who saves a single life, saves the whole world.

                                                     The Talmud

I found that quote in a book I bought in 1998, WRESTLING WITH ANGELS, subtitled, “What Genesis teaches us about our spiritual identity, sexuality and personal relationships,” written by psychotherapist Naomi Rosenblatt, born in Israel now living in Washington, DC..

Jews are a people apart, still the chosen race. Remember: Jesus was a Jew and the entire Bible was written by Jews.

My mission in life is: fighting the HEAVEN HERESY. The renewed earth is our eternal destination. That’s why Jesus came.

I have fought the Heaven Heresy ever since I read Dr. Telder’s Dutch book in 1972, Sterven… en dan? (AFTER DEATH…. WHAT?), questioning the Heaven Destination. Each Sunday I am annoyed how the Presbyterian Hymnal is full of this heaven claptrap. It is high time that songbooks and church hymnals are updated, scrapping all references to this basically pagan concept.

Yes, this is what I see as my mission in life. If I can – with the impetus of the Holy Spirit – convince one person that we have to live NOW so that the cosmos can last forever, then I have gained the whole world and the whole world has been saved for that person. That attitude solves The Riddle of Life.

Here`s a quote I found in Rosenblatt’s book, “Regardless of our spiritual aspirations, we never stop living and navigating in the real world. This emphasis on land – rather than the kingdom of heaven – is a daily reminder to us that our human destiny is to live on earth among people, not as astral beings detached from earthly concerns.”

It appears that the Hebrew Bible believers also question this celestial concept, which tells me that there are many Jews among the elect.  

I believe this ties in with what the Talmud states when it says, “He who saves a single life, saves the whole world”. To me that means that we must live in such a way that the earth lasts forever: Love the earth as God loves it. Saving a life includes our own.

I can appreciate the Jews with their long and black clothing. I respect their desire to live by the Mosaic rules and show their FAITH in tangible terms. I really value the outward display of their commitment – as do the Amish – and wish that Christians were visible by their way of life, such as carbon-free living, and openly display their love for God and creation by their lifestyle.

The Bible also talks about that One Person. Look at Luke 15: 7. It says “I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over One Sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent.”

I taste the irony there: the churches and synagogues are packed with ‘righteous people’ who don’t need to repent. Yes, the angels are closely watching where we are up to. Of course, Jesus here was referring to the Pharisees who believed that by following their rules people will be saved, such as visiting the temple (and pay the tax, of course), go to church, attend mass, do this and that, and pronto God is on your side.

But today God has a different way: no rules at all: just one word, LOVE, love for creation, love for neighbor. Love rules over all. John 3: 16: God so loved the cosmos!

Can we go back?

Naomi Rosenblatt relates how there was a hidden social dividend of the Great Depression (1930-39). She writes, “With so much unemployment and so little expendable income, everyone had plenty of time to sit around the table drinking tea and talking. Conversation and storytelling were the poor man’s entertainment”.

I wonder, will these ‘story-telling’ events still be there when the next ‘depression’ comes, and television and texting is no longer possible? Having a smart-phone does not make a person smarter: on the contrary.

I remember my paternal grandfather (1868-1959) who lived in a remote part of the Netherlands, on the border between the Provinces of Groningen and Friesland. He told some gruesome tales involving bad men in his neck of the woods, who celebrated the Satan’s Supper, a parody on the Lord’s Supper, and actively engaged an unseen Devil’s Agent, who carried away empty liquor bottles, and brought back full ones, the bottles traveling mysteriously by themselves through the air.

More than one hundred years ago ‘evil’ was more easily spotted. Today matters are more insidious: Satan has gone main stream. We no longer recognize evil, because it is everywhere: we live it: witness our addiction to fossil fuel. No wonder we live in all-around disintegrating times. Ecologically, economically and politically: Capitalism is failing as catastrophically as communism has failed. It is beset by unacknowledged but fatal contradictions, such as Infinite Growth, inherently corrupt and corrupting. But its inherent power, and the vast infrastructure of thought that seeks to justify it, makes any challenge to the model almost impossible to contemplate. Even to acknowledge the emergencies it causes, let alone to act on them, feels like electoral suicide. In a sense it is easier to imagine the end of the world than to imagine the end of capitalism.

Naomi Rosenblatt writes that before the FLOOD both animals and people were strictly plant eaters, but after the FLOOD humans and animals stopped being vegetarian.

Last week’s Toronto’s Globe and Mail had long articles about the increasing popularity of vegetarianism: those who avoid meat have half the carbon footprint of those who eat meat, something to consider for us who love Creation, because the diet in the New Creation will also be solely plant-based, just as it was when Adam and Eve dwelled in the Garden of Eden.

Disintegration.

Today the old order has frayed to the point of dissolution. Take truth. It was based on the conviction that words have meaning. For Trump, they do not, as his declaration of a “national emergency” on the southern border with Mexico underscores. Without meaning, no law, no treaty is worth the paper it’s written on. This is the real danger confronting the West.

Still the Trump believers insist that his ascendency is heaven-inspired, and is an unmixed blessing for the church.

Well, strangely, there is some truth is this: it proves that Christianity, USA style, is totally false. It may convince those who recognize Trump’s satanic pedigree –The Lust for Money is the root of all EVIL – to look for alternatives, which may force them to seek the TRUTH. In the same way Trump’s chaotic reign, dispensing with all environmental rules will speed up the Coming of the Kingdom.

The Coming of the Kingdom? What’s that?

The fallacy of word distortion and truth negation is true for the church as well.

What does the word “KINGDOM” mean?

Ask any church member, and most likely a shrug is the answer. Yet it is the central message of the Bible.

Ask any church member why Jesus came, and the answer is to bear our sin, yet the real answer is that he came to restore the KINGDOM, God’s Holy Creation.

Ask any church member where we go when we die, and the answer is Heaven.

Yet John 3: 16 tells us that God so loved the world that he sacrificed his son to regain it. Satan has so brainwashed us all, that this text is interpreted strictly in human terms: only we are saved, and not a word about creation,

THE INTERNET.

A fabulous invention. This blog you are reading goes everywhere in the world: it is read most in the USA (34%), Canada (20%), and CHINA (18%), followed by a host of other countries in Europe and Asia. The statistics also tell me what is read most. Today all intelligent human beings are connected, and it takes mature minds to recognize true from false, because it’s a free-for-all, where everyone shows up armed with his or her personal opinions, convictions, and truth.

Reading WRESTLING WITH ANGELS and the Sodom and Gomorrah episode and the lot of Lot’s wife, made me think of the many Jews in war-time Europe (1939-45) who had ample warning what awaited them but, as Naomi Rosenblatt related, “in many cases people couldn’t bring themselves to abandon their homes, furniture and friends.”

It made me wonder whether we face the same predicament. We today live in Sodom and Gomorrah; we today cherish all the fruits from the crimes we commit daily against God’s Holy creation, but today there are no angels to warn us, no Abraham to plead our case before God.

Has God disappeared?

That’s how Richard Elliot Friedman, Professor of Hebrew, in THE HIDDEN FACE OF GOD starts his book, “God disappears in the Bible”. He ends the book with, “There is some likelihood… that we are created more in the divine image than we have suspected. There is some likelihood that the universe is the hidden face of God.”  

He also writes that the way God deals with people has changed over time. Adam was like a child, and God treated him as such. Noah was good at following instructions, but not much else. Abraham successfully argued with God and Jacob had a physical fight with God and prevailed. Adam disobeys God, Abraham questions God, and Jacob fights with God. Human beings are confronting their creator, and they are increasing their participation in the arena of divine prerogatives.”

The most stunning episode is found in Genesis 22: 2. There God tells Abraham: “Take your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love, (this marks the first mention of the word “love” in the Bible) and offer to God the son of your old age.”

This made me think about our own situation. We may fault God for asking Abraham to bring this cruel sacrifice (averted at the last minute) but isn’t it true that through our way of life we are sacrificing our children and grandchildren to the idol of convenience?

I started out with the statement: “He who saves a single life, saves the whole world.” Of course, we can’t save lives. Only God through Jesus Christ can do that, but somehow we through the spoken or written word are God’s tool: he uses us to bring the Good News.

When we talk about saving lives, then it refers to eternal life. Our earthly existence is simply a brief proving station for eternity but it determines life forever. God wants us to grow up: be independent, think for ourselves. That’s why God told Moses (Deuteronomy 32: 20), ‘I shall hide my face from them. I shall see what their end will be’.

That’s exactly what is happened today: God has hidden his face and we face the END without God.

That’s why Bonhoeffer calls himself an Anthropos Teleios, a person who always keeps the End in mind. The End does not mean our finish, but rather our ultimate future.

In these last days God expects us to be adults. He assumes that we have reached maturity.

However, it seems that the opposite is true. We are running stuck because we are living the LIE, embodied in an extraordinary way in Donald Trump. We are living the LIE because we have assumed the life of Sodom and Gomorrah by building an existence based on the fallacy of perpetual growth in a Finite Earth, fueled by poisonous substances.

But we are ‘coming of age’, approaching old age. Humanity is tired, suffering from affluenza, and living in a poisoned world.

Whether we are ready or not, we are about the see the God who has been hiding his face. God has been hiding his face to let humanity go its own way, apart from God, “to see what they on their own, will make of it”.

Well, the verdict is in: we can’t manage. We let things go to pot: animals eliminated, plants disappeared, water wasted, air desecrated, soil soiled, seas saturated with plastic. Nothing has been left pristine.

Jesus knew all that: that’s why he came. God loves the world and wants it restored and populated with ‘wise’ people, who ‘fear’ the Lord, who ‘respect’ his laws.

He who saves a single life, saves the whole world. The world is contained in each of God’s children. That’s the Riddle of LIFE.

FEBRUARY 16 2019

THE WORLDS TO COME

Human kind cannot bear very much reality. -(Archbishop Thomas in Murder in the Cathedral)

It’ll take a few years before I have read all the books in my library, but I am making headway. Last week it was the turn of T.S. Eliot’s MURDER IN THE CATHEDRAL which I bought in 1981 in North Bay of all places. I am slowly finishing Homer’s ODYSSEY, which I bought in 1994. It brings back memories when in 1948-49 I had to read it in the original Greek. At my final verbal exam in June 1949 the examiner, a professor in classical languages, asked me to translate a section, such an important event that on its successful outcome depended my entire school career where I was tested – both verbal and written – in 6 languages and 7 branches of science. That Homer exam still haunts me after 70 years, so perhaps this explained my reluctance to read it.

That self-examination brings me to take a closer look at the world around me, because in order to know what I know, I must feel.

That emotion was brought home to me last week when I made a financial decision that was based on my assumption that human extinction will occur in my lifetime. It is becoming to me increasingly clear that today’s insect losses are a serious global problem. “The evidence all points in the same direction,” said Prof Dave Goulson at the University of Sussex in the UK. “It should be of huge concern to all of us, for insects are at the heart of every food web, they pollinate the large majority of plant species, keep the soil healthy, recycle nutrients, control pests, and much more. Love them or loathe them, we humans cannot survive without insects.”

That is the reality and “human kind cannot bear very much reality”.

Statements like this move me emotionally, not so much for my sake, being now well into my 91^st year, but for our offspring, still steadily increasing. My emotional reaction to this and other calamitous news caused in me a spontaneous and brief bout of weeping, tears and sobs that overwhelmed me. This unexpected outburst proves to me that my feelings confirm what I know. Human kind cannot bear very much reality, but when it does, it hits home.

WHERE ARE WE GOING?

Last week I also re-read Walter Brueggemann’s REALITY, GRIEF, HOPE. “There’s no doubt”, he writes, “that the destruction of Jerusalem in the year 587 B.C.E. is the defining historical event in the literature of the Old Testament.”

I was struck by the similarity of Israel’s plight – the destruction of the temple and the Holy City and the ensuing exile – and today’s destruction of creation, God’s Holy Temple. Sad to say, we have become so estranged from our life-source that this life-killing event does not even register with us anymore.

Today’s weather events remind me of the TEN PLAGUES in Egypt, needed to convince the Pharaoh to ‘let the people go’. Here too ever worsening weather disasters this winter – and the season is only half-way gone – will also fail to convince the nation, until ‘all the first-born have died’, which already is starting to happen via the opioid crisis and suicides.

Brueggemann writes, “YHWH wants to flee the scene, unbearable as it is….wanting to be elsewhere, to ‘weep day and night.’”

Imagine the situation today, where creational carnage is universal. He cites 2 passages which, he says, points to ecological collapse, Jeremiah 4: 23-26, and Hosea 4: 3.

“I looked on the earth, and behold, it was formless and void;
         And to the heavens, and they had no light.

I looked on the mountains, and behold, they were quaking,
         And all the hills moved to and fro.

I looked, and behold, there was no man,
         And all the birds of the heavens had fled.

I looked, and behold, the fruitful land was a wilderness,
         And all its cities were pulled down
         Before the LORD, before His fierce anger.

And Hosea 4: 3: “Because of this the land dries up, and all who live in it waste away; the beasts of the field, the birds in the sky and the fish in the sea are swept away”.

A closer look at today.

Here’s an excerpt of a column by Farhad Manjoo in the New York Times earlier this week.

“The Uninhabitable Earth” by David Wallace-Wells is the most terrifying book I have ever read. Its subject is climate change, and its method is scientific, but its mode is Old Testament. The book is a meticulously documented, white-knuckled tour through the cascading catastrophes that will soon engulf our warming planet: death by water, death by heat, death by hunger, death by thirst, death by disease, death by asphyxiation, death by political and civilizational collapse.

And should they escape death, your children and grandchildren might subsist instead through proto-apocalyptic ruin. There is a strong chance that warming will reduce global economic output by more than 20 percent and a chance that output could fall by half — a toll you might better describe as at least one, and possibly two or three, Great Depressions. War will not merely break out; a continuing, all-out resource war might be the steady-state of the next chapter of human civilization…..

“Four degrees of warming will wreak devastation unparalleled in human history. Hundreds of millions will die prematurely, large sections of the planet will be rendered uninhabitable, great herds of humanity will be on the run, and in the most prosperous remaining places, economic growth of any kind might be the exception rather than the norm.

“That’s the current path.”

We live in interesting times.

Walter Brueggemann, America’s foremost Old Testament scholar, again, ”It is clear that limitless, undisciplined use of fossil fuels, coupled with Enlightenment rationality, provides the distorted content of the ideology of American self-deception.”

Yes, indeed, human kind cannot bear very much reality.

Instead of heeding the warnings of impending climatic disasters, the USA is doing the opposite: Trump has rescinded the limits imposed by the previous Obama administration in the misguided notion that these restrictions will impede ECONOMIC GROWTH, the mantra of so-called Evangelical Christianity.

The Worlds to Come.

It does not take a prophet to predict the future. There is a host of signs out there that already have determined what will happen. You may say that I am a pessimist, but this is not the case. Take Climate Change again. So far the most pessimistic predictions have been proven to be far too optimistic: imagining and planning for the worst-case scenarios are far more effective than placing blinkers on our eyes and ignore the obvious.

The obvious is that we live in a Finite World which means that it is mathematically impossible to continue our ways of life permanently. However, human kind cannot bear very much reality.

We are so locked in our luxurious life that it has become impossible to change. The bitter truth is that we have created an impossible future for our progeny which we claim to love, but we love our enchanted lives even more.

APOCALYPSE NOW

The Book to read today is REVELATION, also known by its Greek name APOCALYPSE, which does not mean final disaster, but does mean that the ultimate truth is being revealed.

Revelation 12 plainly reveals that all things will come to their destination, that all false fronts will fall away and the full horror be revealed.

Now, in the last days, Revelation reveals that the spooky, frightening figure of the dragon “who seduces the entire world” will be REVEALED. It is plain to the discerning eye that all falsehoods to which we have been exposed, are coming into full view. Yes, there is a lot of FAKE NEWS out there.

A look back.

Of course what’s happening today is not a sudden event. During all of history the battle has raged between the powers of evil and the power of good: Cain murdered his brother; Lamech spouted his haughty, offensive language; those who started to build the tower of Babel defied God by their actions; the princes of the ancient Ur of the Chaldeans forced Abram to flee; the Egyptian king threatened Moses and pursued him later; Philistines, Moabites, Edom and Ammon, they all suppressed Israel, and so did Nebuchadnezzar, Antioch Epiphanes and Herod. It’s a long list of kings and potentates who all in their time and in their way were forerunners of the grand drama now unfolding.  

Revelation 12: Then another sign appeared in heaven: a huge red dragon with seven heads, ten horns, and seven royal crowns on his heads.  His tail swept a third of the stars from the sky, tossing them to the earth. And the dragon stood before the woman as she was about to give birth, ready to devour her child as soon as He was born.

That refers to Jesus in the manger, that supposedly powerless and helpless Child, but destined to triumph over all evil powers.

So, how will the world end?

I really don’t know. I think it will be a combination of events, with an enormous earthquake to begin a succession of disasters, with    nuclear bombs being part of the destructive mix. I believe that the start will be something quite surprising, but, because everything is connected to everything else, equally fatal. It could be the disappearance of insects; it could be sudden outbursts of METHANE from melting permafrost and Cyclades from the Arctic Ocean. ARCTIC NEWS reported last week that “Mantle Methane, Methane Hydrates, Pingoes, Perma Frost, Fracking, are emitting Methane NOW over 40 – 50 Billion Toxic Tons of Carbon each year Globally”. It could, indeed, be a total nuclear war, the expression of total foolishness.

The truth is that today people regard themselves autonomous, act on their own, and never realize that they are being led.

That was and is the case then and is now. These ill-fated decisions, involving both climate and war, contain something of God’s sense of humor over against this proud world, the chuckle that the poet of Psalm 2 already had heard: “The One in heaven laughs, the Lord scoffs at them.”

The final judgement is upon the world in the form of natural disasters, earthquakes, pandemics, and so one, all happenings which neither human technology nor medical science can prevent. It will reveal itself in the inevitable self-destruction of the culture.

Emperor Nero set his own capital, Rome, on fire. He had no clue what he was doing. He had not the faintest idea that his act foreshadowed the horrible fate that as a sword hangs today over all human might and civilization.

Humanity, totally estranged from God, has become drunk on her own delusion and impressed by her own grandeur: this same humanity ends itself by means of her own radical self-destruction. She bombs herself into oblivion, destroys what she has built, commits suicide. World history is, indeed, a suicidal tale; world history is nothing else but a leap into the abyss. That is what humanity does without prompting: God does not have a hand in all this.

Revelation calls for a world-ruler before the end comes. Well there IS a world-ruler: the need for fossil fuel rules the world. Everybody and everything is dependent on the ‘essence’ (the French word for fuel = essence), as fossil fuel is totally essential to keep the military and industrial machine of all nations running smoothly. We may buy the occasional all-electric vehicle and have a few solar panels –I have three- but manufacturing these and obtaining the basic materials all require oil.   

The immediate world to come, fashioned by fossil fuel, is shaping up to be disastrous, so disastrous that “And if those days were not shortened, no flesh would have been saved; but because of the chosen, shall those days be shortened.” (Matthew 24: 22)

THE OTHER WORLD TO COME

Then there is the other scenario as related in Revelation 21: “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and earth had passed away, and the sea was no more.  I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.”

FEBRUARY 9, 2019

A. I. AND THE TOWER OF BABEL

God, the earth and humanity belong together. Draw a triangle. Place God at the top; on the base corners position the earth and humanity: draw lines to a fro from God to Earth, from Earth of Humanity, and from Humanity to God. This indicates that earth and humanity depend on God and also that earth and humanity are interdependent. When there is perfect harmony then Shalom is all around. When the earth suffers, as it does now, then the other entities, God and Humanity suffer too.

The USA and the business world in general give the wrong picture. Last week at a press conference Sarah Sanders, spokeswoman for Donald Trump, said that it is up to God to heal the damage done to the earth: we don’t have to repair it: that God’s business.

In other words we can exploit the earth with abandon. That shows that the USA – and its boss and what is wrongly labeled Evangelical Christianity – sees no need to preserve and engage in Environmental Protection, something clearly evident in the current policies.

Implied in that mindset is unlimited technological progress, regardless of human dignity and meaningful engagement of every citizen, man, woman, child. 

What prompted me to write all this?

It was Thomas L. Friedman’s recent column in the New York Times. It made we think of THE BRAVE NEW WORLD. After reading it, my first reaction was to give up my Credit Card, my debit card, my TV package and Internet access, but then, on second thought, I looked at the consequences, buying everything in cash or paying by cheque, even though there would be fewer bills to pay. Yet I think there will come a time, perhaps in the very near future, where I may have to take that step.

So why am I so concerned?

Here’s what Friedman wrote.

“Warning! Everything Is Going Deep: ‘The Age of Surveillance Capitalism’

“Deep learning, deep insights, deep artificial minds — the list goes on and on. But with unprecedented promise comes some unprecedented peril.

“Why? Because recent advances in the speed and scope of digitization, connectivity, big data and artificial intelligence are now taking us “deep” into places and into powers that we’ve never experienced before — and that governments have never had to regulate before. I’m talking about deep learning, deep insights, deep surveillance, deep facial recognition, deep voice recognition, deep automation and deep artificial minds.

“Some of these technologies offer unprecedented promise and some unprecedented peril — but they’re all now part of our lives. Everything is going deep.”

That’s what scares me and reminds me of THE BRAVE NEW WORLD.

Friedman then traces technological development in the last 2 decades. We all are well aware of this: in many ways – my life included – we have been sucked into this phenomenon so gradually, that our lives are now dominated by our electronic devices.

Friedman again, “Scientists and doctors can now find the needle in the haystack of health data as the norm, not the exception, and therefore see certain disease patterns that were never apparent before. Machines can recognize your face so accurately that the Chinese government can punish you for jaywalking in Beijing, using street cameras, and you will never encounter a police officer.

“Today “virtual agents” — using conversational interfaces powered by artificial intelligence — can increasingly understand your intent when you call the bank, a credit card company or an insurance company for service, just by hearing your voice. It means machines can answer so many more questions than non-machines, also known as “humans.”

“The percentage of calls a chat-bot, or virtual agent, is able to handle without turning the caller over to a person is called its “containment rate,” and these rates are steadily soaring. Soon, automated systems will be so humanlike that they will have to self-identify as machines.”

So far the Friedman column.

What I am really concerned about is AUTOMATION. Here’s what the Davos billionaires are contemplating, “Now they’re saying, ‘Why can’t we do it with 1 percent of the people we have?’”

All over the world, executives are spending billions of dollars to transform their businesses into lean, digitized, highly automated operations. They crave the fat profit margins automation can deliver, and they see A.I. as a golden ticket to savings, perhaps by letting them whittle departments with thousands of workers down to just a few. People no longer matter: only money talks.

FRAUD!

Money motivates the Bad Guys exclusively. Everything can be exploited for fraud. The bad guys can fake your face and voice so well that they can create a YouTube video that will go viral of you saying racist things or make it look like the president of the United States just announced a nuclear attack on Russia. They can use technology to fake a bank manager’s voice so well that it can call your grandmother, and, with a voice command, ask her to transfer $10,000 to an account in Switzerland and she’ll do it — and you’ll never catch them in time.”

All this thanks to A.I. ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE. And that brings me to the Bible and very early human history: THE TOWER OF BABEL.

There our early ancestors got carried away and put God on the alert. He said, as recorded in Genesis 11: 6, “If as one people speaking the same language, they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do this will be impossible for them. Come let us confuse their language.”

Well, today the computer language, the A. I. Artificial Intelligence Language is all English. We also have the Tower of Babel in the form of our satellites in the high heavens. And, exactly what God feared, today nothing is impossible for the human race, and also today, thanks to increasing computer power, it seems that a major portion of the human race is becoming superfluous.

In order to know what I know, I must feel.

I know this because I feel this to be true. The march of ‘progress’ is unrelenting. Bonhoeffer was right when he wrote that, “Technology is the power with which the earth seized hold of humankind and masters it. And because we no longer rule, we lose the ground so that the earth no longer remains our earth, and we become estranged from the earth”.

We see that in the way Capitalism uses the earth. We see that in the remarks by Sarah Sanders, speaking on behalf of the current US government denying any responsibility for what is happening to the earth, totally estranged from the very substance out of which we were formed.

Today the computer rules, in all its ever growing capacity already outclassing the human brain, already making human muscle power redundant, already alienating people from each other much more than even television was capable of doing.

Rereading Friedman’s article and reading how God dealt with the Tower of Babel crowd, when technology was in its infancy, then I feel how it all fits into the totality of creation, because believe it or not, “It’s all part of the unfolding of creation”.

God expected all these events. In God’s design the Fall into Sin was a foreseen possibility. It is all part of God’s plan that his kingdom shall be built, even though Satan aims to destroy that kingdom. Satan brings into the world the principle of division, negativity, and unbelief in the power of God’s Word and Spirit. But all these recent developments – Satanic as they are – have a place in God’s design and are made to serve the Coming of the Kingdom.

The appearance of devices and tools, basically the unleashing of the powers of sin, can also bring about God’s grace. Who knows: in the New Creation Artificial Intelligence may be an important factor, just as the confusion of tongues as the result of The Tower of Babel, brought about multi-faceted cultures and different approaches to art and science.

This does not mean that we have to go all out to embrace these innovations: the dangers of losing our humanity are too great. That’s what my feelings tell me, anyway. I feel that we are losing the feel of creation.

I am beginning to realize that in order to know God – and that must be our goal in life – we first have to know ourselves, and in order to know ourselves we must constantly learn about the earth. It is from the earth that we are formed: it made us, it feeds us and sustains us. Estrangement from the earth – so easily done in our urbanized world – makes us foreigners to ourselves, so we no longer recognize what is good for us and what kills us

We are more than simple matter, flesh and blood: we are body, soul and spirit, just as God, earth and humanity are integrally related.

I am convinced that by killing the earth – as we are doing constantly – we are simultaneously killing God. In order to know what we know, we must feel: we must feel what God feels when we destroy his earth, his artful design. We must feel what the earth feels when we abuse it.

Current technology kills, kills God, kills the earth, and kills ourselves. If we can’t feel what the earth feels, we can’t love God and we can’t love ourselves and we can’t love our neighbors. Everything is connected to everything else: that also applies to our love relationships. Look again at that triangle you drew.

There is a caveat: the universe –the world around us – is conscious only to the conscious person. We must see the earth as alive, as a human is alive. The Bible, especially the Psalms, is full of living language: hills clapping their hands, mountains skipping like lambs, and in Romans 8 the earth suffering as in Childbirth. There too the Grand Law applies: love your neighbor as yourself.

Our fight is total.

Today everything conspires to sever us from reality, and reality requires us to be consciously in touch with the earth.

Nietzsche in his “Thus Spoke Zarathustra” wrote, “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.”

By Super Terrestrial he means, of course, Heaven.  In that same book – also decades ahead of his time – he wrote. “To blaspheme the earth is now the most dreadful offence.”

In the Lord’s Prayer, the first line, after the salutation, reads, “Hallowed be Thy Name”. We drone it automatically but it really means that whatever is done by God, whether in his name, or by his hand, is HOLY, and thus sanctified. “God spoke and it came to be”, says Psalm 33: 9. That’s how the earth came to be, making it holy. By polluting it we ‘take God’s Name in vain.’

After reading Friedman frightening column I took out my copy of SMALL IS BEAUTIFUL written by E. F. Schumacher. It has as subtitle, “Economics as if People Mattered”.

Had we followed the directives given in this 1973 book, we would have avoided the situation we are in today, where people no longer matter, where THE MACHINE rules thanks to Artificial Intelligence. A.I. replaces humans, makes living bodies superfluous, kills off human dignity, destroys communities, and shatters minds.

Schumacher shows that there is wisdom in smallness if only on account of the smallness of human knowledge. We are small, have no clue what we are doing – witness Climate Change – and therefore, small is beautiful. To go for GIANTISM is to go for self-destruction, all too evident today.

Friedman wrote, “Warning! Everything Is Going Deep.

Yes, we have to go “deep”. But a different ‘deep’ than where Thomas Friedman talks about.

What we need first of all is a ‘deep’ reverence for God the creator. Without a ‘deepening’ of our faith, a ‘deepening’ of our devotion, a ‘deepening’ of our love for God’s creation and for our universal neighbors, all our efforts are in vain.

This does require a ‘deepening’ approach to life in preparation for the NEW LIFE to come, something that we must work out in ‘fear and trembling’ (Philippians 2: 12).         

FEBRUARY 2 2019

LAST MINUTE, ANYONE?…….

I always have a book or two on the go. Last week I reread most of BETWEEN THE BEGINNING AND THE END, “A Radical Kingdom Vision”.
In this book J. H. Bavinck wrote extensively about Jesus’ last days, and I was struck how his disciples related to him. This group of 12, mostly fishermen, were chosen to accompany Jesus on his three year odyssey to bring the MESSAGE to the world at large.

Here’s what struck me.

One would expect that Jesus, Son of God, would have perfect powers of persuasion, and have no problem to instill in his disciples the true gospel, without any distortion or ambivalence.
Jesus repeatedly told them that his journey would not go smoothly, that the temple officials and theologians would openly oppose his teaching, and that he himself would suffer immensely.
But whenever Jesus brought up the subject, their reaction was one of vehement denial. When Jesus told them that he would be killed, they rejected this scenario out of hand and refused to believe him.
They closed their mind to this possibility so much that Luke, in exasperation wrote, “The disciples did not understand any of this. Its meaning was hidden from them and they did not know what he was talking about”, (Luke 18: 34).

These Twelve had their own ideas about what should happen to Jesus. Among themselves they had it perfectly figured out: he would become King of Israel and they would serve as his ministers: they even quarreled who would be Prime Minister. That suffering scenario that Jesus was talking about and even a possible death had no place in their minds. To the very last they expected Jesus to go secular, and use his magic powers to heal the wounded, revive the dead, make wine and bread, command the weather and with his arsenal of secret weapons would have no trouble to defeat even the best of Roman legions.
That’s what they discussed behind his back. That’s where their minds were fixed upon: no other options were ever considered.

So when the unexpected did come – it always does – they were not at all prepared. The night of terror did arrive.

That night started serenely with the entire group leisurely walking to the nearby Garden of Gethsemane. It was nothing unusual when Jesus left them to pray. After a long evening of eating and drinking – lots of wine of course – the disciples, his personal support team, did not notice that Jesus behaved differently and so they took a well-deserved snooze.

Hours before, in the Upper Room, Jesus had told them that one of the Twelve would betray him. That Jesus was under great tension, that Jesus, who usually when eating with them, was jovial and lighthearted, was now downcast and quiet, escaped their attention altogether.

These naïve men, solemnly vouching that no matter what, they would stand by him, had no idea how Jesus felt, did not sense his silence and somber mood. When he left them to pray, upon his return, he found his disciples fast asleep. When he sadly remarked that they did not offer him support, they just shrugged their shoulders, yawned and went back to sleep.

When Jesus was arrested, all except Peter abandoned him, and then, chicken he was, he stubbornly denied three times to ever have known him: swore by high and low that he never had set eyes on that traitor. That’s how he saw Jesus when he meekly submitted to arrest and humiliation.

And the sad thing was that Peter here spoke for all the disciples: they all were deeply disappointed in Jesus, and promptly left him to his fate.

BUT NOT THE WOMEN.

Jesus’ female followers were there right up front, following Jesus on his Via Dolorosa, his path of suffering.
They were there wailing and crying on his death march, already anticipating his final breath.
They were there within vocal reach when Jesus addressed them, having a last thought for his mother.
They were there when his body had died and were ready to give his the last honor.
They were there, first thing on the third day, and were the first to see him alive. Of course they were in love with him. Of course they loved him, and which woman would not? He treated them as equals, something unheard of then.

History repeats itself, sort of.

Frankly I see a striking parallel to today. The RAPTURE crowd believe in PRE-TRIBULATION, meaning that, yes, they admit that there are difficult times ahead, but, thanks to their own piety and good works, the Lord will call them home to heaven, leaving behind on that dreadful earth all the “unbelievers”.

If Trump is re-elected, expect Christian fascism to gain the upper hand, wrapping itself in a purifying piety, promising moral as well as physical renewal.

Beware.

We may poke fun at that notion, but basically mainstream Christianity resembles Rapture. It too believes in heaven; it too, in their daily behavior, does little or nothing to show the world that their day-to-day practises are different. It too lives exactly the same, drives exactly the same cars, flies exactly the same planes, lives exactly in the same mansions.

Where is the hope and goal of the New Creation?

Mainstream Christianity behaves exactly as the evidence denying disciples. In the churches hardly ever is mentioned the present creational suffering, so well pictured in Romans 8.
We know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until the present time. Not only that but we ourselves who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons (and daughters): the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved; but hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he can already see? But if we hope for what we do not yet see, we wait for it patiently.

Basically this passage says that creation is pregnant and God’s children, women and men, are eagerly waiting for the birth of the new creation.

So what about the church?

Exactly like the disciples who refused to see that Jesus was in agony, so today the church is blind to the suffering of creation.
Yet the world is becoming desperate. Each day new revelations about unusual weather patterns – too hot here, too cold there – and species die-offs are becoming routine.

Christians should hope for the New Creation, and that is a realistic. The world hopes too. But its hope is vanity, a waste of time, is wishful thinking which assumes a positive future without supporting evidence.

Dr. Guy McPherson points out in a recent post, “Hope and fear are the twin sides of the same coin, and the coin assumes others will fix whatever is broken. Sadly, there is no ‘fix’ for the predicament known as abrupt, irreversible Climate Change.”

There are all-too-clear signs of COLLAPSE. Trees are dying all over the globe, suddenly and mysteriously, trees that survived happily for 2,000 years.

Insects any one?

The Guardian recently issued this warning: “Insect collapse: ‘We are destroying our life support systems’”. Researchers in Puerto Rico’s forest preserves recorded a 98% decline in insect mass over 35 years. Does a 98% decline have a natural explanation? Or is something bigger going on?

Remember: everything is connected to everything else: trees one day, insects the next, then butterflies, birds….. and then us?…..

There’s only ONE HOPE: PARADISE!

When Jesus hung on the cross, he promised his fellow victim PARADISE.

That PARADISE is nothing else but the restored universe, the cosmos, re arranged under the one head, united again in a meaningful relationship under the rule of the Son of Man.

Those who are part of the re born universe: they are in that universal Kingdom—they live! Their lives have regained their purpose and re-attained their goal; they know themselves to be a tiny part of the totality of things, a single note in the overwhelming new world symphony. This murderer on the cross had an inkling of this, understood how through Jesus’ death cosmic unity would become reality and how Jesus would become king through the cross and through death.

Jesus’ answer to the murderer is utterly remarkable. Not for one min¬ute does Jesus dispute the truth about the kingdom. Yet he does not refer back to the word kingdom but replaces it with the word paradise. “I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise” (Luke 23:43).

The word PARADISE evokes a world of memories and in one stroke brings us back to the Urzeit of humanity. We again hear the burbling of the water of life, we again see the tree of life, stately rising high, loaded with God’s promises.

PARADISE is the unspoiled world, where the total har¬mo¬ny of all creatures entwines everything into intimate cohesion. PARADISE is the Kingdom as seen by God on the morning of creation when he saw all that he had made and behold it was very good.

PARADISE!

To be sure, it was barred by cherubim whose flaming swords guarded the Eastern gate; but in reality paradise never went away. In the temple the Holy of Holies was a permanent reality in the midst of Israel, cordoned off with tightly woven curtains and guarded by the true watchmen of God’s holiness. That paradise is the world now open for Jesus, his kingdom. After all, he is Adam, the human being to whom God had deeded paradise.

No, that paradise is not the realm of the dead, even though it is situated behind the dark gate of death. Neither is it the heaven where God dwells. It is the whole creation renewed. It is the cosmos in which heaven and earth are joined together in one accord and where everything is again ordered and subjected to the Will of Him who rules over all.
”Today you will be there!” That means that today all these long centuries disappear.
Today the num¬bering of the years ceases. Today you are, in one movement, there where the cradle of humanity stood. And there you will be, together with me.
But now paradise is different; it is different because it is a paradise with Jesus. Something is left, however, that is a reminder of those long centuries of history, the nightmare of wars and sickness and death, and that is Jesus the Redeemer.
You will not be there all by yourself, but you will stand there with me, the Redeemer, and I will be your guide in that paradise, in a world of pure light.

The church must proclaim the END.

BONHOEFFER in his introduction to CREATION AND FALL, at the very start writes, “The CHURCH OF CHRIST witnesses to the end of all things. It lives from the end, it thinks from the end, it acts from the end, it proclaims its message from the end.”

As he and J. H. Bavinck make exceedingly clear the END is PARADISE, the New Creation, the world we live in cleaned and totally overhauled so that we, having learned our lesson, having seen what SIN is capable of doing, have a second chance, made possible by Christ’s death on the cross.

I had a good friend, who was an alcoholic. He followed us to live in Tweed. He told me that he would do “a murderer on the cross” conversion, turning to Christ at the last minute. Alas, in a drunken stupor he veered into the path of a lumber truck and died instantly.

Christianity also suffers from an addiction more lethal than alcohol: fossil fuel, which will also end in sudden, unexpected death, too late to change its message. Conversion usually is a slow process. A last minute change of heart is God’s gift, based on a lifetime of struggle.

“Therefore keep watch, because you do not know the day on which your Lord will come. But understand this: If the homeowner had known in which watch of the night the thief was coming, he would have kept watch and would not have let his house be broken into. For this reason, you also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour you do not expect.” (Matthew 24: 42-44)