Bert Hielema–Columns and Writings

September 16 2017

FAITH OF OUR FATHERS, LIVING STILL?

I grew up in a deeply religious household, solidly anchored in the Reformed faith: everything Christian: school, daily opened with prayer and bible reading, radio programs, political parties, newspapers, magazines: everything Christian.
In grade school every Monday morning we had to recite in front of the class, a song taken from the Psalter Hymnal and memorized over the weekend: for six years every week! Once all kids had had a turn, we, as a class would sing it. Yes, even now, some 75-80 years later, these songs come back to mind and I sing them, my wife joining in.
My father or mother prayed aloud with every meal, which was followed by the reading of a Scripture passage: no wonder I have acquired some insight into the Bible during the extensive exposure to the Written Word.
All this was reinforced on Sundays when we walked to church – actually in the years from 1929-48 the sidewalks were crowded with folks on their way to their different worship places – in the morning at 10 a.m. – and again at 5.30 p.m. when the Heidelberg Catechism was expounded.

As a teenager, after sitting in church twice for at least 90 minutes – if we were lucky – we, some 20 male high school students, gathered every Sunday evening, to listen to and discuss an essay on some Bible subject introduced by one of us teenagers, taking turns to do so before the intermission, followed by a general discussion on some political aspect in the second half.
We took turns being president, secretary and treasurer. Of course we opened with prayer, again an excellent training ground for later chairing meetings and learning formal procedures. It certainly made it easier for me to be a public speaker, and provided good training for debating any subject.

In those days we were seen as COVENANT children. With each baptism – and there were lots of children born in our large city church – we always, always sang Psalm 105: “The covenant God made with Abraham is confirmed in every child.”
The earlier Covenant with Noah between God, the human race and creation – confirmed by the appearance of the RAINBOW (Genesis 9) – was never mentioned.

I think Christians should reclaim the Rainbow as the sign of the COVENANT: we have first title to this divine affirmation.

There was, in my youth, some real devotion, a genuine reliance on the Lord, perhaps because the Depression – 1929-40 – followed by the War – 1940-45 – gave always plenty of reason to pray.
Today the urge to pray seems to have lessened, even though it could well be argued that the present times when we experience the relentless war between Creation and Humanity, the dangers of being sucked into the Consumer Society, and the pseudo-Christianity prevalent today are much more anti-Christian than in the Great Depression and during the wartime.

Early memories.

In our house two wall hangings stood out: an etching in copper, featuring the head of Abraham Kuyper, and a portrait of Queen Wilhelmina. We were really Royalty minded. My father often said that “God, Netherlands and (the house of) Orange” formed an unbreakable three-strand cord.

ABRAHAM KUYPER

In 1998 I attended an event at Princeton University in New Jersey, celebrating the 100th Anniversary of the Stone Lectures given in 1898 by Abraham Kuyper.
In his lectures at Princeton in 1898 Kuyper argued that Calvinism was more than just theology—it provided a comprehensive worldview, encompassing all institutions and values of modern society.

Abraham Kuyper was a uniquely gifted man. Home schooled by his father who was a minister, he attended gymnasium and later graduated summa cum laude (with the highest possible marks) from university and obtained a doctorate in theology at the age of 25.
He had a varied career: not only as a journalist, statesman and theologian, but also as a real initiative taker: he was the founder of the Reformed Churches in the Netherlands. He started a newspaper, the Herald, was the driving force behind the founding of the Free University of Amsterdam, formed a political party, the Anti-Revolutionary Party, and served as Prime Minister of the Netherlands between 1901 and 1905. In politics, he dominated the Anti-Revolutionary Party from its founding in 1879 to his death in 1920.
He also promoted the existence of diversity in social life and in education whereby Protestant, Catholic and secular elements each had their own independent schools, universities and social organizations.

Kuyper’s most famous statement.

Kuyper famously said, “Oh, no single piece of our mental world is to be hermetically sealed off from the rest, and there is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry: ‘Mine!’ God continually re-creates the universe through acts of grace. God’s acts are necessary to ensure the continued existence of creation. Without his direct activity creation would self-destruct.”

Our mental world!?

In his days – 1833-1920 – the world was still relatively pure. True, untold millions had died in the last decade of Kuyper’s life: World War I and the Spanish Flu, but the real dangers of our Carbon Age had not yet had an impact, while the population explosion was just beginning.
In other words, no real concern for the state of the planet was evident. Thus Abraham’s expression referring to “every square inch in the whole domain” had nothing to do with the physical state of the earth, and had everything to do with ‘our mental world”.
In that sense he truly was a child of his time.

Away with all symbols of the past?

There is a drive today to do away with statutes, inscriptions, symbols of the past because the names they represent had been associated with suppression of indigenous people, with advocating or tolerating slavery, and, in general ideas of male dominance that no longer are thought to be acceptable.
Abraham Kuyper, for instance, saw women exclusively as housewives, a helpmeet for the husband. In Grade 2 my teacher married: custom then required that she immediately quit her job and, presumably, get children. In grade 4 I was taught that black people were inferior and should be treated as such.
“O tempora, O mores”, exclaimed Cicero, Oh, the times, Oh, the morals.

Abraham Kuyper and his time.

In his days – he died in 1920 – the world had less than 2 billion people, and the atmosphere was still pure by today’s standards. I also believe that people then were smarter, more open to new ideas. There is increasing evidence that those who live close to nature have a greater maturity, have intelligence that sees matters more comprehensively.
Today everything is saturated with plastic particles. In the 19th and 20th Centuries the average intelligence increased but in the last 30 years this has been totally changed, especially in the developed countries, judging by international studies. Prof. Crabtree of Stanford University poses in his “Trends of Genetics” (2012) that the maximum of the human brain was reached several thousands of years ago and that now there have been unfavorable mutations.
Other scientists emphasize that intelligence must constantly be maintained, especially today in a time of automation and the preference of young adults for playing computer games rather than trying to fathom why reading certain classics deserve that label.
Professor Barbara Demeneix of the ” Musée national d’histoire naturelle”, an authority with a world-wide reputation is convinced that the main cause lies in the 300 percent increase of chemical products between 1970 and today. Last year she showed how these chemical molecules disturbed the function of the thyroid gland in pregnant women in such a way that there was a measurable negative effect on the IQ of children.

My point is that our capacity to understand what’s going on right now in church and society suffers from the stupefying influence of TV combined with a degeneration of the brain resulting from the thousands of chemicals in increasing measure invading our bodies and lowering our capacity to grasp what really is happening in our world. Now even our tap water is contaminated with plastic particles and so is the fish we eat: all carbon residues. We are simply mesmerized by our technical advances and unable to see the real state of the world out there.

The phrase “There are none so blind as those who will not see” applies not only to Religion but also to Climate Change and Economics.

Yes, Abraham Kuyper was a prominent pioneer in pursuing insight in matters Christian. We must honor him as such, but today we must advance beyond him. He also was a product of his time, building in the past: without Calvin there would not have been a Kuyper. Kuyper saw the kingdom in terms of human endeavors, such as Christian education from kindergarten through postgraduate.
But also, without Kuyper there would not have been a J.H. Bavinck who wrote that “the redemption of Creation and the redemption of a man or woman are two sides of the same coin. Personal salvation and the salvation of the planet go hand in hand.” Both Bavinck and Bonhoeffer see the Kingdom in eschatological terms: The New Creation to come!

“Personal salvation and planetary redemption go together!” That is revolutionary: it turns the message of the church upside down!

Our danger is that we see the Kingdom as a human initiative, regarding building Christian institutions as an end in itself, and so are tempted to see them as the final product.

Revelation 21, referring to the perfect conditions in the New Creation, explicitly mentions that there is no TEMPLE there, no special place for worship as the LAW of the LORD is written on the hearts of the redeemed. Ministers must think beyond the Scriptures.

The real problem is that most gospel preachers do not recognize God’s Primary Word. True, Abraham Kuyper stated that there is not a square inch in its whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry: ‘Mine!’ But Dr. Kuyper here does not refer to a speck of earth, with its trillions of microbes. He does not have in mind that the earth in its entirety, its animals, soil, trees, rivers, seas, oceans, belongs to God, and must be seen as divine, as holy.

The Calvinistic-Kuyperian Christian still sees Society at large, its human institutions, its churches and its educational system as the place to be God’s domain. That is still the faith of our fathers, a faith that was a necessary step, but now must progress to take the Coming of the Kingdom in mind, the imminent arrival of the New Creation.

Had Abraham the Mighty – as he was known in his days – lived today, he, due to his superior grasp of the intricacies of the total aspects of life, no doubt would have been an ardent environmentalist.

Today we must go beyond the Scriptures and see Creation as God’s PRIMARY WORD. All Christians must start to preach and practice the GOSPEL OF THE EARTH. THE BELGIC CONFESSION points to that.
Here’s what this all- important confession says about us knowing God:
“We know God FIRST by the creation, preservation, and government of the universe, since that universe is before our eyes like a beautiful book…. As the Apostle Paul says in Romans 1:20: “(the creation of) all these things are enough to convict men and to leave them without excuse.”

Creation is God’s PRIMARY WORD. We must go beyond the Written Word and beyond church walls and implement a way of life that seamlessly fits into the New Creation to come.
We must remember that in that New Creation the Bible – God’s Indirect, Secondary Word – also will disappear.
Then, in eternity, we will be fully engaged in living and studying and integrating with God’s Primary Word, in the new Garden of Eden, so beautifully described in Revelation 22: “On each side of the river stood the Tree of Life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month (thus never a worry about daily bread). And the leaves of the trees are for the healing of the nations.

The environmental crisis is there for a purpose: it makes us recognize the HOLINESS OF GOD’S CREATION.

September 9 2017

500 YEARS AGO RELIGION WAS A RACKET: IS IT STILL?

Next month – on October 31 – it is exactly 500 years since Martin Luther revealed 95 theses stating his opposition to the then all-dominating Roman Catholic Church with particular emphasis on indulgences. He nailed his objections to the door of his church in Wittenberg, East Germany.
When my younger brother was a project manager in Magdeburg, not too far from Wittenberg, he, my wife and I visited that town in the year 1996.

Today the exact church door is gone, for the simple reason that the French army in 1765 destroyed the entire church. On the front steps of this newer structure – actually quite an ugly church – we saw two young druggies, totally out of it, perhaps a symbol of the state of religion there today.

For the past few months I have been reading Heinrich Boehmer’s excellent and exhaustive book, MARTIN LUTHER: ROAD TO REFORMATION. The author must have read every piece of Luther’s writings – and there still is an amazing trove of his memos, sermons, treaties, and correspondence available.

Then, now 500 years ago, there was only one denomination which had, of course, a monopoly on religion. It dictated what people were allowed to believe. Then too ‘times they were a’changing’, because printing had been invented, so books were coming on the market. Before that only tedious copying of manuscripts – manu = hand, and script = writing – was the sole way to obtain books, and thus terribly rare. Umberto Eco’s book IN THE NAME OF THE ROSE is a perfect example of that time, the story centering on the life – and crimes – in a 14th Century monastery where dozens of monks were daily engaged in transcribing – by hand and adding beautiful illustrations – and also translating lots of ancient documents. Now suddenly through the Gutenberg invention of printing, the masses could obtain books.

SALVATION FOR SALE

Then, by the grace of God, Luther appeared on the scene. The Roman church needed money as the now famous St Peter church was under construction, a costly affair, so the clever clergy designed a perfect tool to both raise money and combine this with a spiritual bonus.
In those days HELL and PURGATORY were the most dreaded destinations, so “So soon as a coin in coffer rings, the soul from purgatory springs”. (Purgatory is the place where the dying were destined to go and be purged from their venal sins through fire). This was a true example of a racket, knowingly fleecing innocent people.

Luther, by now steeped in Biblical knowledge, decided to publish 95 theses condemning these practices, called INDULGENCES. Since it was just before the great indulgence festival of the castle church in Wittenberg (November 1 1517) he decided to summarize his doubts and critical considerations concerning the indulgence question in the more concise form of a number of theses. He had these theses printed on a placard, and through this channel invited the members of the local university to a public disputation on the saving power of indulgences. He headed his venture with the words, “NINETY FIVE THESES ON THE POWER AND EFFICACY OF INDULGENCES.

This invitation to a debate took place on October 31 1517. Before he set to work he first went on his knees to submit the matter to God.

And well he should, because his challenging the church, the all-pervasive institution, dominating all facets of life, had major consequences. Years after it resulted in the 80 year war of the Protestant Netherlands with Catholic Spain (1568- 1648), and even later caused the highly destructive THIRTY YEAR War between Europe’s North and South (1618-1648).

The Complacent Church.

True, the church in 1517 had become lax, had grown lethargic, had lost her moral moorings, and concerned members were ready for a change. Thanks to an abundance of pamphlets, thanks to an intellectual awakening, thanks to a more critical attitude toward the behavior of the clergy, all this combined to garner popular opposition to the established church: in other words the time was ripe for drastic new thinking. Luther’s act of broaching the hitherto unspeakable was the spark that set off an entire new way of behavior. People now discovered that Religion had become a racket, served not to honor God, but to elevate the instituted church to her greater glory and higher influence in all daily affairs.

A TRUE REFORMATION?

That it was a true Reformation is not correct. Yes, it loosened the shackles of the all-powerful church. Yes, it brought the Bible to the masses, and yes, it opened the door to various religious interpretations as people now were free to think for themselves and worship God in diverse ways. So, a Calvin emerged and a Zwingli; a John Knox found followers, just as Menno Simons did, after whom the Mennonites were named, the so-called Anabaptists.
However what all religions retained was the TWO REALMS doctrine: it left intact the REGNUM GRATIAE versus the REGNUM NATURAE, the split between NATURE AND GRACE, between the SACRED and the SECULAR, declaring in essence that EARTH is evil and HEAVEN is good. In that sense the year 1517 did not herald a true Reformation.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, in his ETHICS, recognized this problem. He wrote that since the inception of the New Testament church, the one thought that has determined its entire course has been “the conception of a juxtaposition and conflict of two spheres, the one divine, holy, supernatural and Christian, and the other worldly, profane, natural and un-Christian”. He continued, “There are not two realities, but only one reality and that is the reality of God, which has become manifest in Christ in the reality of the world…… (The Nature/Grace Dualism) has resulted in an ever increasing independence of the secular in its relations with the spiritual.”

As is now widely recognized the Pre-Reformation Church created a situation where eternal salvation could be bought with money, declared acceptable because it was spent to build religious edifices, constituting gross deception.
Although Luther challenged this sinful act, the basic problem, separating nature from grace, secular from sacred, was left in place, and has been with us as long as the church has been in existence.

SOCRATES VERSUS JESUS

From its very inception, the church has been influenced by Greek Pagan thinking, originating with Socrates and Plato. When Socrates died, he welcomed death. In The Trials of Socrates, Plato depicts Socrates’ last moments before his death. Plato quotes Socrates: “I’ll no longer stay put, but will take my leave of you and depart for certain happy conditions of the blessed”.
Socrates is certain that he’s on the way to heaven, and even says a prayer to the gods after drinking the poison: “‘One is, I suppose, permitted to utter a prayer to the gods – and one should do so – that one’s journey from this world to the next will prove fortunate”.
Socrates died to celebrate death, celebrating HEAVEN. Jesus died to assure life, celebrating life eternal in his new creation.

By and large the entire Christian church has opted for heaven, giving the faithful an erroneous message, becoming more evident each day as the entire creation is suffering from our actions, clamoring for a new earth. Scriptures are quite clear: John 3: 13 unambiguously says, ”No one has ever gone into heaven, except the one who came from heaven, the Son of Man.” John 3: 16 affirms that God loved the cosmos and was willing to offer his Son to buy it back from Satan, who today still is in charge (1 John 5: 19). That makes loving the earth our priority too.

The church, almost in her entirety has followed the Pagan Socrates faith, resulting in global neglect, now all too evident in the disaster of HARVEY and worse to come with IRMA.
Basically the church has made Jesus the recipient of sweet-sounding platitudes resulting in what Bonhoeffer called “pious secularism”. He also stated in his ETHICS, “Church-goers either seek Christ without the world, or they seek the world without Christ. In either case they are deceiving themselves.”

A NEW REFORMATION IS NEEDED.

All this begs for the final and ultimate Reformation.
Johan Herman Bavinck, in his book BETWEEN THE BEGINNING AND THE END: A RADICAL KINGDOM VISION writes, “The coming of Jesus Christ into the world has, when seen in the light of Scripture, as its sole intention the restoration of the Kingdom, the NEW CREATION. Christ’s suffering and death, indeed the entire order of redemption, has no other purpose than the realization of that Kingdom. Grace itself is not there for its own sake. The central point of the gospel is not us poor humans and our pain and suffering: its entire focus is aimed at the unique, powerful reality that God wants to reinstate his Kingdom.
It is God’s intent to unite all fractured parts of his creation into one over¬arching harmony. There is no such thing as individual salvation. All salvation is of necessity universal. The goal of our life can never be that we personally may enjoy God and be saved in him. The goal of our life can only be that we again become part of the wider context of the King¬dom of God, where all things are again unified under the one and only all wise will of him who lives and rules for ever. End of quote.
In other words: Human Salvation and the Salvation of Creation are two sides of the same coin: we can’t have one without the other. To say we love Jesus, but willfully polluting creation, is a contradiction in terms.

Sad to say, but the present-day church is no different from the pre-Reformation church. Then the Roman Catholic Church had a fire-sale on HEAVEN, guaranteeing deliverance from Purgatory and Hell, for a price. Today we have let go of Hell, and Purgatory too is no longer mentioned. Today we promise Heaven to anyone who is a faithful adherent of a denomination: nothing more than regular church attendance and a token contribution is required, and, at the graveside, the clergy will declare a safe passage to heaven. Basically the same bargain as the pre-reformation deal.

The final stretch.

All signs point to an early demise of our civilization, if that is the right word to describe our way of life. The Revenge of Creation is continuing. Our planet hosts close to Seven and a Half Billion people, the vast majority either living an extravagant life style or desiring to attain it by hook or crook.
Slowly we are discovering that our present state of consumption and our polluting ways have a definite expiry date, but we really don’t know how to end it and assume a more sustaining way.

In general the church does not have the answer to this cardinal question, mired as it is in its rites and customs, its preaching mode, its awkwardness with the Created Word, vaguely perhaps sensing that there is more to eternity than heaven, yet unwilling or unable to visualize a new creation, even though the Lord’s Prayer contains such lines as Thy Kingdom Come, and Thy Will Be done on Earth as it is in Heaven.
It is simply too stuck on semantics to be able to flesh out the entire Kingdom Idea as verbalized by Bavinck and Bonhoeffer, who both see it as an eschatological event: the perfect earth in a perfect setting, peopled by perfect people.
The heaven heresy is proving too powerful, far easier to proclaim than the advent of the Coming Kingdom, which requires NOW, TODAY, the beginning of a NEW way of Life, a PERFECT REFORMATION.

Yes, basically nothing has changed in the 500 year interval between October 31 1517 and today, in the year of the Lord 2017. Then Martin Luther affixed his 95 theses on the door of his church lamenting the error of his church and venturing with the help of God to change the church, now the task is even more difficult, and the people even more set in their ways, because it involves resisting the ways of The Evil One, who now unquestionably rules the world (1 John 5: 19).

We have, however, one advantage. Jesus saw this coming when he prayed, as recorded in John 17, “My prayer is not that you take them out of this world (no rapture, no heaven) but that you protect them from the evil one.”

The Father always hears the Son’s prayer.

SEPTEMBER 2 2017

THE REVENGE OF CREATION.

“Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord.” Romans 12: 19.

I love Romans 8, where it says that “creation is in the pangs of giving birth to a new earth.”

This brings up an interesting question: is the earth a living system, an organism that has all characteristics of such creatures as humans and animals, trees, and other thriving entities?
“Yes”, says James Lovelock, the author of THE REVENGE OF GAIA, EARTH’S CLIMATE IN CRISIS AND THE FATE OF HUMANITY. Lovelock writes, “Unless we see the earth as a planet that behaves as if it were alive, at least to the extent of regulating its climate and chemistry, we will lack the will to change our way of life and to understand that we have made it our greatest enemy”.
The Bible too is quite definite in seeing the earth as alive, as the text quoted above indicates. Only substances that are alive can give birth to a replica of itself.

When we see creation as an enemy, then creation fights back. That’s what happening now, and that’s why both the Bible and Lovelock’s book THE REVENGE OF GAIA, speak to us today. Gaia is the Greek name for EARTH. The science ‘geo-logy’ refers to that also.

Lovelock implies and the Bible confirms that if we regard Creation as a life-less entity, as a planet to be exploited, as dead matter not affected by torture, pain or even feeling, as the enemy to be destroyed, we can expect repercussions.

THE RELEVANCE OF SCRIPTURE: the earth lives!!

When we read Matthew 24 it is striking that Jesus himself uses the phrasing of ‘birth pains’.
Let me quote that passage, (verse 7) “Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All these are the beginning of birth pains.”
Yes, Jesus himself sees the earth as living matter, as PREGNANT!!

There are numerous places where the Bible sees creation as alive. Psalm 98, credits the earth with ‘eyes and voice’, “All the ends of the earth have SEEN the salvation of our God. SHOUT to the Lord all the earth, RING out your joy.” Later in that same Psalm, “Let the rivers clap their hands and the hills ring out their joy.”
Isaiah 55: 12 expresses similar emotions: “the mountains and hills will burst into song before you, and all the trees of the fields will clap their hands.” Even the stars join in, as recorded in Job 38: 6, “While the morning stars sang together, all the angels shouted for joy.”

Does Creation portray God?

Of course. In the hearing of the Bach cantatas, in the presence of a portrait by Rembrandt, in the rhythm and import of a sonnet of Shakespeare, we are in direct contact with the truth and spirit of these creators. The same and more is true when we regard God’s creation: there we hear and taste and sense the presence of the divine. When harming it, we harm the Creator. A person openly destroying a Rembrandt painting is severely punished. Will God condone the harming of his creation? Of course not. That’s why we have HARVEY.

Something unexpected.

Then there is Isaiah 62, where in verses 4-5 it says, “But the Lord will take delight in you, and the land will be married. As a young man marries a maiden so your sons marry you.” Isaiah states here that THE LAND WILL BE MARRIED.
That passage finds fulfillment in Revelation 21. There the New Earth appears, prepared as a BRIDE beautifully dressed for her husband. That means that the New Humanity will marry the Earth, the Bride of Christ. That’s why John 3: 16 is the most important text in the Bible.

Yes, that’s what the Bible tells us: NOT THE CHURCH but the Renewed Earth is THE BRIDE.

BIRTH PAINS: HARVEY, the Herald of what is to come.

However, the earth giving birth to another earth is not a smooth matter but a very, very difficult affair, a painful process as the gestation period is taking millennia, but now, in our time, this actual event is about to happen, right on schedule.

That birth is the end of the old world and the start of the new one. Once the birth has taken place, the old earth and everything in it will vanish, but the shell will remain. It will not be a new earth, no, it will be a renewed planet, in a renewed atmosphere, as the immediate space around the earth is full of space junk.

Giving birth goes in stages. Today there are certain indications that birth is imminent, evident in the current contractions, which are painful, and the shorter the intervals, the closer the time of giving birth.
Today we live in such a contracting time.

Hurricane HARVEY is directed at the State of Texas and City of Houston where OIL IS KING, where CLIMATE CHANGE is seen as a joke, where its subdivisions have paved over the wetlands with no regard for NATURE. That very area is now undergoing THE WRATH OF GOD.

FUKUSHIMA is another example.

Just like Texas, Japan should have known better. As the only country on the receiving end of two ATOMIC bombs, it built nuclear reactors so close to the ocean that a disaster could be predicted. And the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in March of 2011 received the full Revenge of Creation.
Of course, no one could have foretold the timing and scale of the tsunami, and virtually nobody expected that it could overwhelm the facility as spectacularly as it did. But that changed as the first of several hydrogen explosions was observed among the reactors. Now more than 6 years later much of the Pacific Ocean is contaminated with radioactive particles. Thankfully the radioactive fuel that melted through containment still remains in a molten state, so the worst-case scenario didn’t materialize.

The speeding up of the arrival of THE KINGDOM.

The signs are all around us for discerning eyes. Ever since we entered the CARBON AGE, some 200 years ago, we have speeded up history. That in full agreement with the Bible where, in that awesome chapter Matthew 24: 22, Jesus tells us that those days of utter destruction, will be cut short, which means that everything will accelerate, will increase in speed, will have overwhelming momentum. That’s what we are experiencing now, from the horse-and-buggy-stage to automobile to jet planes to space travel in record time; from snail-mail to Internet, from still photography to instant physical recording, all at the speed of light.
This is also true throughout nature. Glaciers that took millennia to form calve off into the sea in a matter of moments. The entire ARCTIC, with its 10,000 plus years of ice-cover, suddenly becomes ice-free, with catastrophic consequences for the World’s weather, analogous to a household without warning losing its air-conditioning. Or take Greenland, the largest island in the world and also the largest accumulated ice volume anywhere, except the Antarctic. Greenland is buried under 3000 meters of ice. Yet, for the first time in recorded history, there have been fires there on the few exposed spots, endangering the ‘permafrost’.
Or look at the old-growth forests filled with thousand-year-old trees decimated by a single wildfire. Should I mention the mysterious sinkholes in Siberia, spontaneously spouting methane-filled flames?
Fast change is also a hallmark of human society. Movements and ideas — oftentimes simmering for years, decades or longer – now, today, reach a critical state in which the populace is swept up into history-making action. Today we see that in the TRUMP tragedy, the unexpected shift from benevolent, more or less democratic rule, to autocratic anarchy in the USA.

Also today we see the disappearance of marriage. Is that an indication of what Jesus said that in the New Creation people will neither be married nor be given in marriage? (Luke 20: 35). We again see it in the weather where ‘once in a thousand year’ events become commonplace to the astonishment of insurance companies, governments, people along rivers and coasts, or those poor depending on glaciers to provide timely irrigation.
When these changes come, they happen swiftly. And life after — for better or worse — is forever different.

2008 Financial Crisis

You may remember how Queen Elizabeth visited the LSE, the London School of Economics shortly after the 2008 Financial Crisis and asked the professors of this supposedly best school in the world, why they had not seen that crisis coming.
Good question, no answer.
How quickly the bubble popped: between September and October, the S&P 500 lost one-third of its value, and continued falling through March, ending at over 50% lower than its pre-crisis high. Millions of jobs were lost over these months. And the prices of other major assets from houses to bonds were savaged, too.
Today the stock market, the house prices, all assets, except gold are again in maximum territory. Will financial history repeat itself? Of course.

No one can predict when the next market downturn will happen.

HOW THEN SHALL WE LIVE?

That question must always be uppermost in our minds. They are different for each age. Today the laws of Ecology must rule us. Ecology is the science that busies itself with the ‘eco’ a word that is based on the Greek word OIKOS which means ‘house’, now more used for the house humanity lives in.

ECOLOGY has four rules which are valid for all times. These simple directions are important enough to remember. Print them out and look at them every day, and try to live by them.

These directives are:
(1) There is no free lunch.
(2) Everything is connected to everything else.
(3) Nothing ever disappears, and
(4) Nature knows best.

Not adhering to them has brought us where we are today, as captured in my original statement:
THE REVENGE OF CREATION.
And the quote from the Bible: “Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord.” Romans 12: 19.
The four (4) laws of ecology give us an indication on how to live to avoid God’s wrath and consequent revenge.

(1) There is no free lunch.
We are discovering that the use of any carbon-base device, whether that is an automobile or a lawnmower, an electric kettle or a refrigerator has consequences for the environment. We simply cannot keep on driving or cooling and not expect consequences for the world we live in: there’s no free lunch.

(2) Everything is connected to everything else.
Whatever we do has consequences far beyond our immediate vicinity. We see it in HURRICANE HARVEY. Because of Climate Change the water in the Gulf of Mexico was 30 degrees Celsius. Hurricanes intensify in fierceness when it passes over warmer waters. We can expect more and stronger hurricanes in the future. The ferocity of Harvey will result in higher fuel prices; the US deficit will balloon, the emotional despair will accelerate and general wellbeing decline. Indeed everything is connected to everything else.

(3) Nothing ever disappears.
We live in a closed system out of which nothing escapes.
Gasoline burns and is broken down into different gases, all harmful, witness Climate Change and destructive storms.

(4) Nature knows best.
Anything that harms Creation is an affront to the Creator and constitutes SIN, that dirty word we are loath to utter.
The Government of the USA and those in charge of the State of Texas and the City of Houston believe that all regulations are wrong, so with no laws to protect wetlands, and an abundance of paved surfaces, the excess water could not be absorbed. Wetlands and flood plains are there for the sole purpose to absorb excess water supply. Draining them, allowing construction there, as happened in Houston, is inviting disaster, and that’s exactly what happened.

Our entire economic system will collapse because of the WRATH AND REVENGE of creation, God’s HOLY DIRECT REVELATION.
God will not be mocked. His creation has her direct defense mechanisms and we see them at work today.

August 26, 2017

IS IT TOO LATE?

Is it too late to return to the days when matters in minds and atmosphere were more balanced? Is it too late to return to a saner world?
My short answer is: yes, it is too late.

I will stick my neck out and say that the good days were those decades when immensely creative spirits were alive, composing major pieces of art which found a ready reception.

And when was that? What were the years when great artists thrived because there were responsive audiences?

My instinct tells me they were the decades of the 17th and 18th Centuries. Then in England there was Shakespeare, in France Moli?re, in the Netherlands (then known as the United Provinces) outstanding painters were at work, such as Rembrandt van Rijn, Jan Vermeer, Frans Hals, just to name a few. In Germany there was the music of Johann Sebastian Bach, born in 1685 and died in 1750, and also Georg Friedrich Handel, born in the same year as Bach, but lived 9 years longer. This period also included the Austrian born Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-91) who was a worthy successor to these musical giants, followed by Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827).

So basically the good old times were the 200 years from 1625-1825. During that period the world had less than One Billion people. It immediately preceded our CARBON AGE. From 1825 -1925 the world’s population doubled to two billion and from there it almost quadrupled, thanks to the brain-dulling convenience of our mechanical slaves. It is a sign of our times that a man like Trump has gained prominence, an outcome of the presence of false religions and lack of intellectual discernment, fostered by ubiquitous television and technical brainwashing.

The enormous increase in our world’s population in the past century is a definite example of OVERSHOOT. The world is a FINITE system, with limited resources. What will happen to these billions of ever more greedy mouths once the resources are gone and the pollution they caused becomes an untamed killer?

I dare say that people in the time of Handel and Bach would have recognized the consequences of today’s foolish use of carbon-based fuels and mind-dulling entertainment. Would a man such as Isaac Newton who lived around 1700, or Galileo, who lived a century before that, also physicist, engineer, philosopher, and mathematician, have identified its dangers and would their warnings then have been heeded? Were people then wise enough to recognize truth and follow their advice?
I do believe that people then were more willing to recognize genuine leaders, witness the REFORMATION in 1517 which spread rapidly in the 16th and 17th Centuries.

Even in the late 19th Century in the Netherlands an Abraham Kuyper emerged and was a true politician with an enthusiastic following, my parents and grandparents among them.
Of course there also was Germany, in the 1930s, where an Adolf Hitler arose, and influenced a large percentage of the German people, exploiting the uncertainty caused by the Great Depression of that time. Trump today is tapping into that same sentiment.

Overshoot.

Fact is that we are saddled with the aftereffect of our carbon overshoot, and I believe that it is too late the remedy this situation.
Addiction to a substance usually ends in death. Take my family: my father was a heavy smoker and died of lung cancer, and so did 3 of my 4 sisters and 2 of my 4 brothers. We now, as a generation of earth-dwellers are in the same position: we, as a world, are carbo-holics, are addicted to carbon fuels. Thanks to CARBON FUELS everything has gone into overdrive, everything is on a permanent high, and also everything will come crashing down.

Over the past two centuries enormous amounts of cheap energy from fossil fuels has enabled the rapid growth of resource extraction, manufacturing, and consumption. These in turn has led to population increase, pollution, and loss of natural habitat and hence biodiversity.
In my lifetime I have seen the world population increase 350 percent, overshooting Earth’s long-term carrying capacity for humans while upsetting the ecological systems we depend on for our survival.

Our bitter harvest.

We now live with the consequences of this exuberance. Oh yes, we do what we can, we try to save threatened species, hope to feed a burgeoning population with genetically modified crops, but these are mere band aids, are simple stopgap measures that are bound to fail. That doesn’t mean that we should stop: as individual citizens we must do everything within our limited means to live differently, in the full knowledge that Jesus demands this of us as future citizens of the COMING KINGDOM.

It reminds me of an episode I wrote in my book DAY WITHOUT END (available via LULU- Google it) where one of the principal characters, INITIA I called her, a former Chinese empress, rejected during her reign the invention of gunpowder as it would have resulted in undue deaths. She was a wise ruler and became a character in my novel which is set in THE NEW CREATION, a manuscript repeatedly refused by numerous publishers, including Eerdmans, because the theme clashed with the generally accepted HEAVEN destination.

Today we proceed in spite of many warnings.

In Limits to Growth (1972) Jay Forrester investigated the interactions between population growth, industrial production, food production, resource depletion, and pollution, and issued a warning, which, of course, was not heeded. In Overshoot (1982) William Catton named our systemic problem and described its origins and development in a style any literate person could appreciate.

Suppose I would approach my Liberal Member of Parliament and tell him that “We have to change everything, including our entire economic system—and fast”. He is a nice guy, and probably would agree with me, but he would be powerless to change that. I am sure that Justin Trudeau, Canada’s Prime Minister, knows the score, but he too, as well as Germany’s Angela Merkel, are unable to change direction.
We, as a society, simply can no longer change, and I believe that this notion has penetrated the minds of many, either acknowledged or lingering without being verbalized.

That does not mean that we can do nothing. Since 1993, thus about 25 years ago, I have had solar panels and battery storage and so have reduced my electricity usage. Since 1977 I have driven a diesel powered automobile in the understanding that its better mileage would benefit the air. I now know better, a victim of false information. I do use canola oil to compensate for its destructive impact, and also use my car as little as possible by biking more but that is not a year-round possibility.

It is believed that technology will save us. Fact is that since technology has been the main culprit, more technology will not cure our predicament. It reminds me of Jesus as related in Matthew 12: 26-28 where he says that `If Satan drives out Satan, then he is divided against himself, and his kingdom cannot stand.` The same is true for our beautiful and marvelous technological fixes, but in the end they only aggravate the situation.

Everybody loves technology. It already does nearly everything for us. During the last century it solved a host of problems: it cured diseases, expanded food production, sped up transportation, and provided us with information and entertainment in quantities and varieties no one could previously have imagined. Why shouldn’t it be able to solve climate change and all the rest of our problems?

Well, I stick to Jesus’ words, my ultimate source of wisdom: technology cannot cure what technology has caused.
That begs the question: “What is wisdom?” The Bible is a bit vague on that score when is says that “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. And the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding”. (Proverbs 9:10). We have to translate these words in terms that speak to us today. Just as we KNOW Bach by listening to his music, so we KNOW God by studying his works – Creation – and his Word, the Scriptures, and regard Creation too as holy. This makes “Loving Creation” the key to wisdom.

My initial question was IS IT TOO LATE? E.O Wilson recommends that we preserve 50% of the earth for rewilding: excellent idea which will never happen under current conditions.
The NEW YORKER MAGAZINE a few weeks ago published
THE UNINHABITABLE EARTH.
Famine, economic collapse, a sun that cooks us: What climate change could wreak — sooner than you think.
Its opening words are:
“Peering beyond scientific reticence.
It is, I promise, worse than you think. If your anxiety about global warming is dominated by fears of sea-level rise, you are barely scratching the surface of what terrors are possible, even within the lifetime of a teenager today. And yet the swelling seas — and the cities they will drown — have so dominated the picture of global warming, and so overwhelmed our capacity for climate panic, that they have occluded our perception of other threats, many much closer at hand. Rising oceans are bad, in fact very bad; but fleeing the coastline will not be enough.”

That is one of the many warnings. THE ARCTIC NEWS website scares the wits out of me.

With the Arctic Ice gone, the extra heat will instead reach sediments at the seafloor of the Arctic Ocean that contain huge amounts of methane in currently still frozen hydrates.
The danger is that more and more heat will reach the seafloor and will destabilize methane hydrates contained in sediments at the bottom of the Arctic Ocean, resulting in huge methane eruptions.

Methane is in the long run 100 times more dangerous than simple car exhaust, the GHG, the CO2 we produce when we drive. The Arctic Ocean is quite shallow – and the waters there float over trillions of tons of methane clusters which, when suddenly released, would cause the earth temperature to quickly rise by TEN DEGREES CELSIUS, burning everything on earth to a crisp.

The Apostle Peter, in his second letter to us (2 Peter 3), writes:
7 By the same word the present heavens and earth are reserved for fire, being kept for the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly.
8 But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day.
9 The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.
10 he 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 done in it will be laid bare.a
11 Since everything will be destroyed in this way, what kind of people ought you to be? You ought to live holy and godly lives
12 as you look forward to the day of God and speed its coming.b That day will bring about the destruction of the heavens by fire, and the elements will melt in the heat.
13 But in keeping with his promise we are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth, where righteousness dwells.
14 So then, dear friends, since you are looking forward to this, make every effort to be found spotless, blameless and at peace with him.
15 Bear in mind that our Lord’s patience means salvation, just as our dear brother Paul also wrote you with the wisdom that God gave him.
16 He writes the same way in all his letters, speaking in them of these matters. His letters contain some things that are hard to understand, w which ignorant and unstable people distort, as they do the other Scriptures, to their own destruction.

Sam Carana of ARCTIC NEWS estimates that this could happen before 2026. He even has mentioned 2021 as a likely date, based on his close examination of the ARCTIC as published in his ARCTIC NEWS.

When the New Earth comes, not 50% but One Hundred Percent will be reserved, so that all species and all humans can live in perfect symbiosis.

Those are the days, my friend, and they will never end.

August 19 2017

WORSE THAN THE DEPRESSION OF THE 1930s?

Will we soon experience that our life savings will be vulnerable, our pension plans go broke and government financial generosity and its medical system cease to be because we live too long, and/or because our financial framework will falter?
These questions are more than mere academic. They are to be seriously considered because of recent developments.
Decades ago, when I was associated with a Life Insurance Company, I took special courses to qualify for CLU -Chartered Life Underwriter-, and learned that pensions, for instance, depend on two factors: the interest earned on the contributions, and the life expectancy of the participants. You can be sure that the pension planners would be delighted when the interest earned would be higher than assumed, and equally thrilled when people die before they are supposed to go to their rest. The aim of the pension people is the opposite of their life insurance colleagues who like to see their clients live forever because the final payout only comes with death.
In those days- 1950s-1980s – a standard condition in the life insurance policies I sold was that it guaranteed 6% on its cash values.
All through the 19th and 20th century this was seen as a fair return on the money – until some 10-15 years ago. My first and only mortgage in 1963 carried 6.25% interest and that was considered normal. We all know how low the rate is now!
Oh Those Pension Plans Today!!
It so happens that people live much longer than projected, and the rate of return on money invested is much lower than assumed, so guess what? You might not receive what you were promised: pension plans everywhere are going broke if they contain the clause that they will pay a guaranteed amount, so-called Defined Benefits.
But there’s some good news: Longer lives, especially for men!
Longer lives are now actually favoring men judging by the mortality tables. I have in front of me a Period Life Table, the latest being from 2014 , and applying for US conditions, which are a tat less favorable than Canadian statistics, but that’s all I could find, and it affirms that “The older you get, the older you get.”
Here is the proof of my premise. In the good old USA – BT: Before TRUMP – in 2014, a male baby at birth had a life expectancy of 76.33 years, while a female one had 81.11 years, a difference of almost 5 years. Canadians, thanks to their country-wide health insurance, do a bit better.
Of those who are alive at 65, men still live, on average, till 82.84 years, and women till 85.44 years. That means that men have gained almost 7 years since birth and women just less than 5. It gets even better: at age 70 when life expectancy narrows even more: 84.32 versus 86.53.
Thus slowly the men are gaining on the women. That trend continues, narrowing the gap at 75 to 86.11 and 87.59, and almost getting even in life expectancy at 90, with a difference of a bit less than a year, at 94.08 and 94.85.
Perhaps I should add that a man lives an average of 15 years after becoming impotent. So, keep IT up, you guys. Moses, at 120, still had excellent eye-sight and was still going strong, his natural force- including sexual drive- unabated. (Deut. 34:7).
But….Yes, there always is a ‘but.’
Getting older comes at a price, a steep monetary one for the nation as a whole. Scores more of seniors mean huge tax increases in the near future…for the young. With a growing number of aging people and with fewer workers entering the economy, tax dollars to support our generous old age allowances and the increasing medical costs are becoming harder and harder to come by. The current stimulus injections, already causing immense deficits on all government levels, will make matters worse, especially in the USA.
So what are the real ’old age’ numbers?
I am a great one for statistics: in 1900, 4.1 percent of U.S. citizens were older than 65, but by 2000 that number had jumped to 12.6 percent; by 2030, 20 percent of us will be in that category.
Canada is not ready for that, even though it is in better shape than most other industrial countries.
How do we prepare for the unavoidable?
Although it is not a bible text, nevertheless it is true to some extent, that “God helps those who help themselves”. By this I mean that only you can take it upon yourself to become and stay in good shape, and so grow older without becoming dependent on waning government assistance, because next to rapidly growing pension outlay, the cost of medical care is also growing exponentially, making it certain that our welfare state will not be able to continue in its present state.
Expect the unexpected.
It is simply impossible to keep on conducting business as usual. Circumstances have changed dramatically. Look what’s been happening: wages are flat or declining, consumer debt is up in the stratosphere, and job security is disappearing, while our natural habitat is suffering and the air is being saturated with our carbon deposits. Student debt is sky high. Don’t expect them to pay for environmental repair. Nobody will, so…………
In other words: the old track is broken. The new track has fewer jobs, less income, larger deficits, increasing hardship and greater weather volatility. This simply means that the current economy can never “recover”, can never go back to where it was before the crash and before the air-water-soil was relatively pure.
So instead of asking when the recovery will start, we should be asking what the new economy will be and when the new economy will begin. Expect the unexpected.
First the good part: so far the elderly enjoy the best of all worlds: they are diligent voters and the politicians have greatly rewarded them, so they have a lot to be thankful for.
For my wife and me, there are definitely great blessings in being older. For one, we are at peace. Tranquility is the word for us. No more battles to wage, no more arguments to win or lose. Let go, let God. We can’t solve the world’s problems, so we don’t get worked up as we sometimes used to do, although Trump is something else.
We two ever more clearly see the interconnectedness of us with the entire creation. I love my vegetable garden – and now that the beans are picked, I don’t mind that a few rabbits eat my green bean plants.
I pray for my trees even though our four apple trees have taken this year off. I treasure my bike and often pray while pedaling on my frequent trek to the village, almost 6 km away, along a busy highway to get our groceries.
How can we enjoy life, even in old age?
Love for creation is the first holy commandment. The second love commandment includes our holy duty to love our neighbors as ourselves. To love takes effort. To love one-self means to purposely keep fit: “Old minds and bodies are like old horses; you must exercise them if you wish to keep them in working order.”
It is exercise that supports the spirits, and keeps the mind in vigor. Healthy older adults can do much more than had been assumed even a few years ago. Now middle age can go well into the 80’s. If you want to stay alert, read, and limit T.V. to the minimum. If you want to stay healthy: walk, bike, run, write a blog, mow the lawn not on a riding mower, but a push one, preferably an electric one. All others spout out pollutants, and lawn mowers are the worst for the environment, especially your own lungs. I would not be surprised that there is a connection between prostate problems and gas-powered mowers.
Even moderate levels of physical activity can limit declines in brain function. The best kind of exercise is aerobic, a sustained movement, such as in running and biking, something that makes you sweat: it improves verbal and nonverbal memory and gives you new ideas. My best thoughts come when I run, which I do 2-3 times per week.
A startling statistic reveals that for every hour we RUN (not bike or walk), we gain seven hours in our lifespan.
Basically there is no such thing as being old as long as we stay active, socially involved, eat well – not too much – and consume genuine food, preferably home-grown, like our grandparents did, visit with friends and relatives, stay optimistic, agreeable and open to new experiences and new theological concepts, such as seeing CREATION as God’s PRIMARY word.
Let’s face it: the church has lost THE GOSPEL OF THE EARTH. It must REGAIN CREATION. Instead of aiding in the birth of new ideas it has caused the dearth of them.
No wonder there are dark and ominous clouds on the horizon.
Today one of the questions affecting us all is: how long will the generous pension support for seniors and free medical care continue to be?
A few weeks ago the Board of Trustees of Social Security sent a formal letter to the United States Senate and House of Representatives to issue a dire warning: Social Security is running out of money. Tens of millions of Americans depend on this public pension program as their sole source of retirement income, so you’d think this would have been front page news, and that every newspaper in the country would have reprinted this perilous projection out of a basic journalistic duty to keep the public informed about an issue that will affect nearly everyone.
But that didn’t happen.
It’s astonishing how little attention this issue receives considering it will end up being one of the biggest financial crises in US history. That’s not hyperbole either– the numbers are very clear. Mind you, the same is true of CLIMATE CHANGE. There too nobody seems to care.
The US government itself calculates that the long-term Social Security shortfall exceeds $46 TRILLION.
In other words, in order to be able to pay the benefits they’ve promised, Social Security needs a $46 trillion bailout.
Fat chance. Tax cuts for the rich, yes, that is important.
The Social Security shortfall is more than TWICE the national debt, and nearly THREE times the size of the entire US economy.
Even so, though the Social Security Trustees acknowledge that the fund is running out of money, their projections are still too optimistic.
Back to the INTEREST PROBLEM. What will interest rates be in the future and how high (or low) will inflation be? Or take productivity growth. TRUMP promised 3 percent growth. This will not happen. No growth is more likely, and that means collapse, because our total economic model is based on growth.
Social Security assumes that productivity growth in the US economy will average between 1.7% and 2% per year.
This is an important assumption: the higher US productivity growth, the faster the economy will grow. But -actual- US productivity growth is far below their assumption: over the past ten years productivity growth has basically been stagnant and last year it actually was NEGATIVE.
The refusal to admit immigrants to the USA will cut the birthrate, meaning a shortage of workers. This is important, because a higher population growth means more people entering the work force and paying in to the Social Security system.
And of course, the most important assumption for Social Security is interest rates, which are far below projections. Some even predict negative rates. Trump is rapidly achieving the opposite of his campaign slogan.
An ominous warning.
Gail Tverberg, an actuary with an international reputation, in her August 14 blog, OUR FINITE WORLD, concludes:
“We seem to be sleepwalking into an even worse version of the Depression of the 1930s. Even if economists were able to figure out what is happening, it is not clear that there would be a good way out….We seem to be facing a predicament with no solution.”

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August 12 2017

AM I AN OPTIMIST OR A PESSIMIST, OR…….?

Optimism (from the Latin optimus, best) and pessimism (from the Latin pessimus, worst) are two opposing worldviews or states of mind. An optimist has an overall positive view of things (the glass is half full), while the pessimist holds a negative view of happenings. (the glass is half empty).

So I ask my readers: what am I? An optimist, a pessimist, or what? I know what I am, and at my age I don’t think I will change.

A brief life history.

I was born in 1928, the year before the Great DEPRESSION started, then lived through 5 years of German occupation (1940-45), experienced 8 years of rigorous academic training (1941-49), and endured 18 months of compulsory military service (Sept.49-Mar.51). In June 1951 I immigrated to Canada.

There I worked on a farm and a feed mill for a year, after which I became permanently self-employed – insurance, real estate, real estate appraising – always dealing with people and their properties, and also always involved in church affairs – elder- and serving on Christian school boards. Married in 1953 we successfully raised 5 children, all becoming professionals.

I have always been a reader. In 1972 two books changed my life: THE LIMITS OF GROWTH gave me an awareness of the Finiteness of the earth, and a Dutch book, given to me by one of my salesmen, AFTER DEATH….WHAT? convinced me that HEAVEN was a heresy based on Greek pagan philosophy, a teaching that has conquered most of Christian thinking and still doing irreparable harm to creation.

In 1959 I quit smoking and started running. Even now I do this 2-3 times each week, at least 5km. I should also mention that we, since 1975, have basically been vegetarian, both for health reasons and environmental concerns.

The 1975 energy crisis – when oil suddenly shot up to $100 per barrel – influenced my thinking to the point where a move to the country, building an energy-efficient dwelling, trying to live more simply, was the result.

In the year 2000 I started writing a weekly 750-800 words column for the daily Belleville-based INTELLIGENCER. I did that for 10 years, when the chain was sold, and all columns were syndicated from Toronto, so my contribution was suspended. Before that I wrote a bi-weekly column for THE CHRISTIAN COURIER, basically a Christian Reformed magazine, both commenting on the news and also writing the odd feature article.

I quit that about 5 years ago when I no longer agreed with its editorial policy.

Since then I have translated 4 books, of which 3 have been published. Google “Bert Hielema” for details.

So what sort of label can you hang on me? I will not keep you any longer in suspense: I see myself not as an OPTIMIST, nor as a PESSIMIST but something totally different: I see myself as a PROPHET, PRIEST and KING.

That sounds quite presumptuous. Being a prophet …. OK that would not surprise you, judging by my writings, resembling somebody like the prophet Jeremiah, of whom the terms “Jeremiads” comes from, those ominous predictions, calling for doom and gloom. So where do the “priest and king” office come from?

This threefold office originates in Jesus Christ, and is a Christian doctrine based upon the three functions in his earthly ministry – those of

prophet (Deuteronomy 8: 14-22),

priest (Psalm 110:1-4), and

king (Psalm 2 and 8).

I agree: admitting to these callings sound pretentious, different, unreal and, perhaps, out of touch with daily living in a secular society where God is hardly ever honored. It smacks of hubris, of elevating oneself beyond one’s status.

Yet, whether we like it or not – and I guess as a Christian we have to be obedient to Christ – we must follow in Jesus’ footsteps, and live with him as an example.

So what does this entail?

PROPHET

The average human thinks that a prophet is a special person who speaks for God or one who foretells the future, at least that’s what my dictionary tells me, but I take issue with that explanation, because it would limit the office of prophet to crackpots, since nobody can predict the future.

In the Old Testament there were prophets galore. There are the major ones, such as Isaiah and Jeremiah, and a host of minor prophets, twelve in total, such as Amos, Jonah – perhaps the most well-known for that Big Fish story.

Prophets, then and now are always unpopular.

Prophets in Old Testament times were shunned and avoided, because the Lord always sent them to remind the people of Israel that they had strayed from THE COVENANT, that treaty between God, his people and creation. Prophets were bringers of bad news, warning them of the consequences of breaking the Promise.

Today this is no different because that same Covenant outlined in Genesis 9 – when God allied himself with us and creation – is still in force today, so I think that now more than ever prophets are needed, and, yes, equally held in contempt as pessimists and doomsayers.

One thing prophets always do is questioning the status quo: people hate that, hate change, loath being reminded of occupying The Comfortable Pew, as Pierre Burton called it.

Matters have not changed. A line from Amos comes to mind when he, pointing to worship proceedings said, (Amos 5: 21) “I hate, I despise your religious feasts, I cannot stand your assemblies”. It’s so easy to see this now that the extent of Christian service is often fulfilled in an hour of church attendance.

So if prophets don’t foretell the future, what do they do?

In the Bible they were called ‘seers’ not because they could see into the future, but because they could see the truth, could understand the deeper meaning of life and have a holistic view on events, not stating what’s going on in isolation, but grasping the true consequences of the day’s happenings, and the deeper spiritual message of the present moment.

Today that is plain in the matter of CLIMATE CHANGE, which solely is the result of our day-to-day energy use. Prophets point this out, issue warnings and call for obedience to God’s creation, because God’s Primary Word is the world we live in.

Thus a prophet is first and foremost a believer who is convinced that a new present requires new thinking and different approaches. They openly and unabashedly dare to look at what is happening ‘out there’ and advocate to assume full responsibility for the immense changes needed to live according to God’s laws. Prophets also have the courage to critically look at past doctrines, to test them on their relevance for today and tomorrow, and advocate changes reflecting more inclusive thinking.

All this means that they tell the TRUTH about the Way of Death we are pursuing and proclaim as the only hope in life and death the advent of The New Creation, which Christ promised to bring with him upon his return.

That’s why prophets see Scripture as a lamp for their feet and a light for their path in God’s wonderful creation, knowing that Christ, as the Son of Man, the Ben-Adam, the Son of the Soil, will return to make all things new. That’s why a prophet, in spite of all the sin and evil in this world, looks to the future with full confidence. That’s why a prophet already can visualize what this future will be like and thus can critically evaluate the present in the light of the glorious newness that is coming.

OK, that sounds very much like me, and it should, because, as a believer, that is my mandate, and, dare I say, the mandate of all believers.

Looking back how we have arrived at the circumstances we are in today I detect that the economic boom that made America in the 20^th century the globe’s largest economy and the envy of the world can be traced to some fortunate circumstances.

Where Europe and the rest of the world suffered ruinous wars, North American industrial hinterlands were not only spared destruction, but benefited immensely as producers of war materials and the providers of the black gold in Texas and elsewhere in its territory: the United States, in the 20^th     Century, produced more petroleum than all the other countries on Earth put together. The oceans of oil on which the US floated to victory in two world wars made it the economic super power of the by-gone era.

That domestic oil-flow must now be reduced, which also holds true for global supplies, as we now know the ultimate dangers inherent in its continued use, which makes the task of a prophet a precarious one. Breaking our addiction to the conveniences on which our way of life is based, makes the task of a prophet not an easy one.

With the ongoing CHANGE IN CLIMATE it is not difficult to predict for those who have ears to hear, eyes to see and minds to embrace, that the big challenge facing today’s industrial societies is managing the end of abundance, rather than the onset of greater wealth for the Rest of the World.

The brief period of cheap and plentiful energy, must end. For an all too short a period this was in itself an exceptional occurrence in historical terms. It amounted to nothing else but a tremendous acceleration of human history- of which the more than tripling of the number of humans in my life time is just one example – so that the Coming of Christ would be sooner.

A realistic look at what’s happening makes plain that the period of unprecedented prosperity, extraordinary extravagance and gigantic growth, is ending, perhaps suddenly. That means that society has to relearn the lessons of more normal and less unusual times, times where we can once again truly and purposely honor creation. That’s what Peter alluded to in 2 Peter 3: 11-12 when he asked us “to live holy and godly lives as we look forward to the Day of God and speed its coming.”

In this connection I’d like to draw your attention to a line in the Lord’s Prayer, where we ask the Lord “Your Kingdom Come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” That is a direct appeal for the speedy coming of The New Creation.

Enough about our task as PROPHET.

So what about being a PRIEST AND A KING?

Psalm 110: 14 points to our eternal priesthood.

We live on God’s earth, God’s Holy Earth, the place where he dwells as we sing:

1. This is my Father’s world,
   And to my list’ning ears
   All nature sings, and round me rings
   The music of the spheres.
   This is my Father’s world:
   I rest me in the thought
   Of rocks and trees, of skies and seas—
   His hand the wonders wrought.
2. This is my Father’s world:
   The birds their carols raise,
   The morning light, the lily white,
   Declare their Maker’s praise.
   This is my Father’s world:
   He shines in all that’s fair;
   In the rustling grass I hear Him pass,
   He speaks to me everywhere.

 This is our Father’s world. Living in his holy temple, in his world, means that we are priests. As priests we have to obey his order of creation, which means loving creation, caring for it and engage in holy living.

I admit that’s a different view! God’s presence is not in a church building or cathedral or basilisk or synagogue. No, God’s temple is his creation, and we are called to administer this on God’s behalf. That is our priestly function.

KINGS.

So no, I am not an Optimist, not a Pessimist, but in essence I am a servant, a servant to God’s command to be A PROPHET, A PRIEST AND A KING.