Bert Hielema–Columns and Writings

August 5 2017

AMERICA: A NATION IN DECLINE?

Half of our immediate family lives in the USA. Of our 5 children 2 make their home there; of our 13 grandchildren 7 work or study there. Of our two greatgrandchildren, each country hosts one, so it is about even between it and Canada.

The USA has always been attractive to others, perhaps because it always was a trendsetter: the telephone was invented there and more recently so were the Internet, Google, Facebook and Apple, all setting the tone in communications.

On two occasions America’s intervention was the deciding factor in global cliffhanger situations: in 1917 when it entered the war against Germany and its troops changed the outcome and again in December 1941 when Japan bombed Pearl Harbor and the USA fought on two fronts, giving priority to Europe.

Just as it pioneered modern progress the United States of America is now leading the world into decline in spite of current good economic conditions. And Donald J. Trump is the catalyst there. His campaign slogan “Make America Great Again” is an indirect admission that God no longer is blessing America as he used to do in the heydays of old, when General Motors fully manufactured half of the autos bought there, and the UAW, the United Automobile Workers called the shots, with a guaranteed annual wage and full pensions and health benefits.

Through the Marshall Plan the USA gave billions of dollars to help its former enemy and set Europe on the path to prosperity. That was then, the glorious fifties and sixties, when America was really great and a force for good.

The paradox today is that “to make America great again” Trump is pursuing the exact opposite. Now, in the most decisive war ever, the fight that will decide the fate of the world, the struggle against CLIMATE CHANGE, the USA has decided not only not to participate but even to exacerbate this ever more dangerous situation. The USA wants more economic growth and sees Climate protection as an impediment, as an enemy to prosperity.

How totally stupid.

Economic development always has come at a cost. Growth and wealth today is increasingly based on borrowed money, used to purchase something now against the uncertain promise of paying it back in the future.

Growth has especially been at the expense of the environment, now causing changes which are impossible to reverse. The ever higher living standards rely on the unrestricted use of underpriced, finite resources, especially water and energy, which have been exploited without concern about conservation for future use.

Oh, Wisdom, where art Thou?

That the USA is on decline was foreseen by Paul Kennedy, a Yale University historian. He, in his classic THE RISE AND FALL OF GREAT POWERS, written in 1989, in its introduction, says something that relates directly to the USA today, ”Great Powers in relative decline instinctively respond by spending more on “security,” and thereby divert potential resources from “investment” and compound their long-term dilemma.”

That’s exactly what the Trump budget proposes: a$30 billion increase in ‘defense’ spending, reducing support for the needy, the bulk of whom supported the president.

Yes, Donald Trump’s promise to make America great again is indeed a tacit acknowledgement that the United States is a power in decline, long reflected in the Vietnam disaster and today evident in the unending wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the war on drugs where now more people than ever before are dying of ODs.

These events point to exaggerated views on what America can do: it portrays a sense of hubris, a lack of measure, an unrealistic expectation in what armed responses can accomplish.

This is coming to a head in Washington, where the State Department – in other countries called The Foreign Office – the diplomatic arm of the USA, is being gutted and where now career soldiers – my generals, as Trump calls them -call the shots. Soldiers are dangerous people: they kill: that’s their inclination and occupation.

A military dictatorship.

Here’s what I think happened earlier this week when Trump needed a new Chief of Staff and approached General Kelly.

I think Gen. Kelly made a few conditions. He’s no fool, unlike his boss. Here’s what he told Trump: “I accept, but first Saramucci, that foul mouth, has to go,” to which Trump replied, “OK”.

Next, as a straight shooter the general probably said. “Here is my other condition. If you fire me or force me to resign, the other two generals plus the secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, will leave as well, making it difficult for you to continue.”

Trump, desperate, accepted, which could well mean that, in essence, the USA now has a military dictatorship.

Let`s face it: basically Trump is a MONEY MAN. He is not a politician, he is not a mediator, he’s not a person who tries to persuade people by pointing to reason and seeking a wise middle ground, which is what politics is all about: he only sees two things: himself and his family.

He totally lacks maturity and has not a grain of wisdom. That he is revered by a third of the US population is both frightening and revealing: frightening because they share and admire his nihilism, his psychic void of conscience and morals; revealing, because it shows the total absence of genuine religious insight among his followers.

Here is a thought.

I believe that the present day political play in the USA can be traced to what Dietrich Bonhoeffer observed when he was a visiting scholar at Union Seminary in 1939. He then stated that, “America has not seen a Reformation.”

Here are his exact words:
“God has granted American Christianity no Reformation. He has given it strong revivalist preachers, churchmen and theologians, but no Reformation of the church of Jesus Christ by the Word of God”.

500 years ago Luther stirred up the religious scene of his time in a small town in East Germany, called WITTENBERG, where he challenged the all-powerful church, the institution which dominated ALL OF LIFE then. His action has had an immense influence on Europe, an impact that has lasted until today.

Thanks to Luther taking on – with the help of God – the Religious Monopoly of that day, Europe became more ‘people’ oriented, resulting in SOCIALISM, with its CHRISTIAN basis.

The word SOCIALISM has as root the Latin word ‘socius’ which means companion, associate, and indicate concern for one’s neighbor.

The essence of Christianity can be formulated in TEN words:

“LOVE GOD’S EARTH ABOVE ALL AND ONE’S NEIGHBOR AS ONESELF.”

That rule still lingers on the European continent. That’s why all countries there plus the British Australia and Canada have universal healthcare and greater environmental concern.

The USA has not been influenced by the REFORMATION, and it shows it in the absence of ‘social’ provisions and its lack of love for the earth, which are totally deficient by European – Reformational – standards.

Dr. Harold Bloom, in his classic THE AMERICAN RELIGION, categorically states that what is called religion in the USA has ceased to be Christian, and this is all too evident in the way the Christian Republican Party conducts itself during the TRUMP regime, both in the matter of Health Care and Climate Change.

YES, CLIMATE CHANGE IS THE DECIDING ISSUE TODAY.

The climate crisis is starting now. Mass migration, in part due to climate change, is already starting. Deaths by weather extremes are increasing as we watch them. The three hottest years on record are the three immediately behind us. We’re so close to +2 degrees Celsius warming already that we can almost taste it.

So what’s happening?

Simple. We have ceded control of climate policy to the greedy capitalists and crowd-pleasing politicians and spineless preachers, all who are marching to their final destination, unconcerned for leaving a depleted planet behind.

I believe that politics in the USA is dominated by Hal Lindsey’s THE LATE GREAT PLANET EARTH. There is a definite suicidal tendency in the USA, which is totally frightening.

REMEMBER EASTER ISLAND?

Jared Diamond in his book, appropriately called COLLAPSE has related several of such instances, of which the Easter Island is just one example.

The peoples settling the isolated Easter Island around 900 AD engineered their own collapse after several hundred years of expanding their population and quarrying gigantic stone statues (weighing up to 270 tons) which they then moved to the perimeter of the island. They deforested the island and the surrounding waters filled with silt, while at the same time vast energies were expended on rivalries over which clan could build the biggest stone head.

The first-recorded European contact with the island was on 5 April (Easter Sunday), 1722. Then Dutch navigator Jacob Roggeveen visited it for a week and estimated a population of 2,000 to 3,000 inhabitants.

When Captain Cook arrived at the island in 1774, he found a tiny population (down perhaps from a peak of 20,000) that he described as “small, lean, timid, and miserable.” The civilization had collapsed in a cannibalistic endgame.

Now picture this happening to our SEVEN BILLION poor souls, rapidly doing an imitation of the EASTER ISLAND TRAGEDY.

Imagine some concerned villagers on Easter Island. They see people cutting down trees right and left, and many are getting worried. At some point, the number of worried people reaches critical mass, and they go as a group to the island chief and say, “Sir, we have to stop cutting trees.”

The chief, who’s also CEO of a wood products company, checks his bottom line and orders the cutting to continue.

Do the villagers walk away? Or do they depose the chief?

There’s always a choice.

Do we depose the banks CEOs and the offending politicians and save the island, or fail to act while action is still possible? Or is it already too late in the game? Are we too drugged by our ‘carboholic’ lifestyle?

GNOSTICISM BACK IN STYLE.

GNOSTICISM is the dominating American religion. It separates nature from grace, the earth from the Creator. It preaches ‘HEAVEN’ and RAPTURE, both heralding a total disregard for the planet, again a typical American phenomenon.

The American “Christian” Right has fully endorsed Trump in his aims to call all environmental rules RUBBISH. For them this makes sense because they see the earth as evil and escape from it is seen as freedom. There is not a shred of Christianity left with the Republican Party, which now has a majority in Congress, in the Senate and in the White House, but is unable to rule.

AND NOW THE GENERALS CALL THE SHOTS.

Trump got elected by telling lies, half-truths and cover-ups, all manifestations of fatal weakness. When we can no longer tell the truth because the truth will bring the whole rotten, fragile status quo down in a heap of broken promises and lies, we’ve reached the perfection of dysfunction. When the truth cannot be told because it threatens the power structure of the status quo, that status quo is doomed.

Is America in decline?

A nation that has never been touched by the REFORMATION, that never really saw creation as a gift from God but always saw it as a source of exploitation; a nation that refuses to see human beings of all color and creed as equals, is a nation signing its own death warrant.

The USA is leading the world again: this time into chaos. It is too late to change course: the system has become ungovernable.

It is time to change course, individually and as families, “so that you will not share in her sins, so that you will not receive any of her plagues, for her sins are piled up to heaven”, (Revelation 18: 4).

The Bible says that THE TRUTH SHALL SET YOU FREE, John 8:32.

The TRUTH is that under the leadership of the USA this planet will self-destruct by human action and that Jesus, when he returns, will bring with him a perfectly cleaned planet where the saints will come marching in.

That’s why we now must train ourselves to live the kind of life that will be practiced in what the Scriptures call THE NEW CREATION, where pious people pursue perpetual permanency.

July 29 2017

WHY GOD HAS DISAPPEARED

In THE HIDDEN FACE OF GOD Richard Elliott Friedman, professor of Hebrew and Comparative Literature in California traces God’s physical appearances in the Bible, and also how, on several occasions, God hides his face.
One of the most intriguing statements in the Bible is found in Deuteronomy 31: 17-18; 32: 20. There God for the last time talks to his ‘friend’ Moses, and says, “I shall hide my face from them. I shall see what their end will be.” Dr. Friedman, who knows his Hebrew, writes that the word ‘end’ does not mean their finish, but rather their distant future. I believe we now live in ‘that distant future’.

God hiding his face indicates two things: (1) It gives humanity an opportunity to grow up; (2) it also means his abandonment. Both events are intimately connected with the COVENANT God made with Humanity and CREATION.

God’s gradual disengagement.

God initially was quite involved with humanity, evident in the first Bible chapters where we can easily trace God’s direct concern with the human race. This was quite extensive with Adam and Eve, intimate even. God personally breathes life into the first human being, personally forms the first woman, personally shapes the Garden of Eden and fashions the animals.
Then each day he walks there where the humans hear him. There’s constant contact between God and Adam and Eve. God sees them as children, tells them to multiply, what to eat and what not. In other words, Adam and Eve take little responsibility themselves. When they are embarrassed over their nudity God even makes them their first clothing. All this makes them appear quite immature.

Noah is completely different. While God gives him the broad outlines about the building of the Ark, Noah does all the work: a gigantic task, involving decades of hard labor.

Then there is Abraham. He is told to start a journey without really knowing where he would end up, and when he arrived, he is told to “take your son, your only one, whom you love, Isaac, and offer him”. Imagine being tested that way! The stakes of human responsibility are raised sky high. His implicit trust in the Lord gives him the audacity to argue with God about the fate of Sodom and Gomorrah. Quite a change in attitude!

Then, except for an appearance with Moses on Mount Sinai, God never appears again in person. His voice is heard – Samuel – and his presence felt, but, he’s never seen again.

THE COVENANT WITH CREATION!!

Because Noah believed in God, his family was chosen to make a new start in creation. For that purpose God made a Covenant involving all of creation.
In this Covenant, related in Genesis 9, we read that God repeats six times that this Covenant is with every living creature and with the earth. It sets the tone for the entire Bible. In essence God says here: “People of the earth, I am the Creator. Here I now pledge to form a triad, a Covenant with three parties (1) With the Earth, (2) With you as my image bearers, and (3) With me, as the Head of the Covenant.”
It should be noted that the parties to the covenant are considered to be equals!!

“Remember,” God said, “the line of the Covenant is not vertical: first Me, then you, then the earth, with the earth not really in touch with Me. No, no, the earth, the trees, the rocks, the bees and buffaloes, all are my creatures, the works of my hands. Consider them equal partners and treasure them as you treasure me!”
Picture a triangle: God is on top and the two corners occupy us and the earth, with two lines extending to and from each corner as we all are interdependent, as the Earth gives life to us humans, but also receives input from us. We are dependent on the earth, but must also enhance it. God gives life to us and the earth and both praise God in return: “the hills clap their hands, the mountains leap with joy”, the Psalms say.

In other words, when we look after the earth and after ourselves and our fellow creatures, caring for the crocodiles in the jungle and our cousins next door, then God will look after us. That’s what Genesis 9 says. That’s what a COVENANT is all about: a mutual help society, like a marriage.

This Covenant, said God to Noah, will endure throughout eternity. God, People, the Land are an inseparable Triad. To seal it all, God sent his Son, as the New Head of the New Covenant. Jesus, God’s Son: Jesus, the heart of our religion; the Head of the Covenant.

The signs of the Covenant.

In 1 Samuel 18 we read that David and Jonathan made a covenant. As a sign of the Covenant Jonathan, the crown prince, took off his clothes and gave them to David. He also gave his sword and other weapons. And David did the same.
They completely exchanged their personal belongings, as a sign and symbol that they were one. Imagine!! God did that with us!! He gave all he had, his creation and his Son, and we do the same with God!

David and Jonathan also did something else, not related in the Bible, but part of the general rule of personal Covenant. This ritual required an incision in their wrists. Both parties would then raise their wrists to heaven and let the blood mingle. In the incision they would rub dirt to leave a scar as a permanent sign of their mutual allegiance. They then would sit down, make a list of their possessions, and exchange those lists with the promise that whatever the one part owned would become the rightful property of the other.
In order to seal all this they would walk in the figure of an 8 around two altars as a sign of eternity. Then the two parties to the covenant would eat a special Covenant meal, a lamb and unleavened bread, with each party bringing its own bread and offering it to the other, and the same with wine, pouring the wine of the one into the goblet of the other.
That’s what God did with us!! Made us equals!
Jesus’ blood flowed for us. His wounds are still visible as an eternal sign of the Covenant, an everlasting scar on the God of the Trinity, that whatever is God’s, is also ours.

Yes, the Lord of Creation gave it all to us. He is the God of the Universe. He signed over the ownership of this cosmos to the people of the Covenant, those who confess Jesus to be their Lord.

An amazing treaty!

Yes, God and we have become one in Jesus Christ. Look at the Lord Supper. There Jesus says the familiar words: “This is my body, given for you, and this cup is the New Covenant in my blood poured for you.”

Now not God, but Jesus is the party of the Covenant. God has disappeared from the scene and Jesus is now at the center. Paul tells us to clothe ourselves with the cloak of righteousness, with the Lord Jesus Christ, and so become a new creation, for God has reconciled the cosmos to himself in Christ’s full-bodied Covenant language.

The Covenant idea is woven throughout the entire bible. In essence the Bible is the Covenant story. God made a covenant with us and with all creation. The covenant between God- Jesus- humanity-creation is the intimate foundation, the meaning and purpose of creation.

Creation is the visible basis of the Covenant, its ultimate realization. Creation is there because God in Jesus desires to enter into a Covenant with humanity. We, as human beings, exist because God continuously calls us to the Covenant. God makes us discover our existence more and more as the daily experience of living in the Covenant, in his creation. All this is derived from the loaded expression of “created in God’s image and likeness.”

Our day-to-day life refers to God. Our life resembles God because we, as men and women, as conscious persons, experience our living as participants in the Covenant. We realize the meaning of God’s self-revelation in creation through the Covenant. In the created world, we are the visible representatives of the invisible God. Psalm 82: 6 says, “You are all children of the most High,” so we must not sell ourselves short.
Jesus is the original human pattern, the prototype of all human existence. God, in his plan of salvation, revealed himself fully in Jesus, who represents humanity for us and in this way completed creation and attained the perfect life in God.

We are created after the pattern of Christ. Through the Covenant we experience that likeness to God in a personal response of love. As Children of God, as his heirs, through the Covenant with God we share our humanity with the Son, who is the Lord of all that exists, and through whom the universe was made. The entire creation is there because it is permanently willed in Christ by the Father, because the Father loves it as the Christ.

SO, WHY HAS GOD DISAPPEARED?

Two reasons. (1). God withdrew his presence when we refused to abide by THE COVENANT, the treaty between God, the Earth and Us, when we ventured on our own, and declared God irrelevant.
When one of the parties to the Covenant reneges, that’s it. That is the tragic situation we now experience every day, as is evident from an article in THE NEW YORK MAGAZINE, entitled
THE UNINHABITABLE EARTH,
an essay that has been widely circulated. The article predicts famine, economic collapse, a sun that cooks us: total chaos: soon.

Genesis 15 gives an illustration of what happens when we break the conditions of the Covenant. There it is related how God and Abraham covenanted. Abraham is asked to cut animals in two and both God, in the form of fire, and Abraham in person, pass through these severed animals. The cutting of these beasts illustrates that if the covenant is not kept the bodies of the parties concerned would be cut in half as punishment. But those who abide by its terms will, when Christ returns, share in his glory and complete the work of creation: an eternal assignment, because Creation is Infinite as God is Infinite.

I started this essay by stating that, “One of the most intriguing statements in the Bible is found in Deuteronomy 31: 17-18; 32: 20. There God for the last time talks to his ‘friend’ Moses, and says, “I shall hide my face from them. I shall see what their end will be.”

The warnings are out.
Just as all future forecasts have been far too optimistic, with the NEW YORK MAGAZINE article the most pessimistic so far, it will also turn out to be too optimistic, with far worse to come and far sooner. It paints the world without God.

Hebrew 10 relates what happens when we break THE COVENANT. Verse 31 says, “It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.” God’s revenge is built-in into Creation. By breaking our treaty with God and creation, a Covenant sealed by the blood of Christ, we have heaped on our heads the wrath of God, who so loved the world, the cosmos, that he offered his Son to buy it back from the Satan.

(2). Another reason why God has disappeared is that he wanted us to become what we are: mature enough to stand on our own feet, without God’s help.
God made a virtue out of us breaking the Covenant by giving us the opportunity to live ‘etsi deus non daretur’ to quote Bonhoeffer, ‘to live as if God no longer exists’.
Bonhoeffer calls this our “coming of age.”
God wants us to grow up to be ready to inhabit the New Creation. Adam and Eve needed God’s help. Over the many millennia God has directed us to maturity. Yes, this time we will be and can be on our own.
Thanks be to God.

July 29 2017

WHY GOD HAS DISAPPEARED

In THE HIDDEN FACE OF GOD Richard Elliott Friedman, professor of Hebrew and Comparative Literature in California traces God’s physical appearances in the Bible, and also how, on several occasions, God hides his face.
One of the most intriguing statements in the Bible is found in Deuteronomy 31: 17-18; 32: 20. There God for the last time talks to his ‘friend’ Moses, and says, “I shall hide my face from them. I shall see what their end will be.” Dr. Friedman, who knows his Hebrew, writes that the word ‘end’ does not mean their finish, but rather their distant future. I believe we now live in ‘that distant future’.

God hiding his face indicates two things: (1) It gives humanity an opportunity to grow up; (2) it also means his abandonment. Both events are intimately connected with the COVENANT God made with Humanity and CREATION.

God’s gradual disengagement.

God initially was quite involved with humanity, evident in the first Bible chapters where we can easily trace God’s direct concern with the human race. This was quite extensive with Adam and Eve, intimate even. God personally breathes life into the first human being, personally forms the first woman, personally shapes the Garden of Eden and fashions the animals.
Then each day he walks there where the humans hear him. There’s constant contact between God and Adam and Eve. God sees them as children, tells them to multiply, what to eat and what not. In other words, Adam and Eve take little responsibility themselves. When they are embarrassed over their nudity God even makes them their first clothing. All this makes them appear quite immature.

Noah is completely different. While God gives him the broad outlines about the building of the Ark, Noah does all the work: a gigantic task, involving decades of hard labor.

Then there is Abraham. He is told to start a journey without really knowing where he would end up, and when he arrived, he is told to “take your son, your only one, whom you love, Isaac, and offer him”. Imagine being tested that way! The stakes of human responsibility are raised sky high. His implicit trust in the Lord gives him the audacity to argue with God about the fate of Sodom and Gomorrah. Quite a change in attitude!

Then, except for an appearance with Moses on Mount Sinai, God never appears again in person. His voice is heard – Samuel – and his presence felt, but, he’s never seen again.

THE COVENANT WITH CREATION!!

Because Noah believed in God, his family was chosen to make a new start in creation. For that purpose God made a Covenant involving all of creation.
In this Covenant, related in Genesis 9, we read that God repeats six times that this Covenant is with every living creature and with the earth. It sets the tone for the entire Bible. In essence God says here: “People of the earth, I am the Creator. Here I now pledge to form a triad, a Covenant with three parties (1) With the Earth, (2) With you as my image bearers, and (3) With me, as the Head of the Covenant.”
It should be noted that the parties to the covenant are considered to be equals!!

“Remember,” God said, “the line of the Covenant is not vertical: first Me, then you, then the earth, with the earth not really in touch with Me. No, no, the earth, the trees, the rocks, the bees and buffaloes, all are my creatures, the works of my hands. Consider them equal partners and treasure them as you treasure me!”
Picture a triangle: God is on top and the two corners occupy us and the earth, with two lines extending to and from each corner as we all are interdependent, as the Earth gives life to us humans, but also receives input from us. We are dependent on the earth, but must also enhance it. God gives life to us and the earth and both praise God in return: “the hills clap their hands, the mountains leap with joy”, the Psalms say.

In other words, when we look after the earth and after ourselves and our fellow creatures, caring for the crocodiles in the jungle and our cousins next door, then God will look after us. That’s what Genesis 9 says. That’s what a COVENANT is all about: a mutual help society, like a marriage.

This Covenant, said God to Noah, will endure throughout eternity. God, People, the Land are an inseparable Triad. To seal it all, God sent his Son, as the New Head of the New Covenant. Jesus, God’s Son: Jesus, the heart of our religion; the Head of the Covenant.

The signs of the Covenant.

In 1 Samuel 18 we read that David and Jonathan made a covenant. As a sign of the Covenant Jonathan, the crown prince, took off his clothes and gave them to David. He also gave his sword and other weapons. And David did the same.
They completely exchanged their personal belongings, as a sign and symbol that they were one. Imagine!! God did that with us!! He gave all he had, his creation and his Son, and we do the same with God!

David and Jonathan also did something else, not related in the Bible, but part of the general rule of personal Covenant. This ritual required an incision in their wrists. Both parties would then raise their wrists to heaven and let the blood mingle. In the incision they would rub dirt to leave a scar as a permanent sign of their mutual allegiance. They then would sit down, make a list of their possessions, and exchange those lists with the promise that whatever the one part owned would become the rightful property of the other.
In order to seal all this they would walk in the figure of an 8 around two altars as a sign of eternity. Then the two parties to the covenant would eat a special Covenant meal, a lamb and unleavened bread, with each party bringing its own bread and offering it to the other, and the same with wine, pouring the wine of the one into the goblet of the other.
That’s what God did with us!! Made us equals!
Jesus’ blood flowed for us. His wounds are still visible as an eternal sign of the Covenant, an everlasting scar on the God of the Trinity, that whatever is God’s, is also ours.

Yes, the Lord of Creation gave it all to us. He is the God of the Universe. He signed over the ownership of this cosmos to the people of the Covenant, those who confess Jesus to be their Lord.

An amazing treaty!

Yes, God and we have become one in Jesus Christ. Look at the Lord Supper. There Jesus says the familiar words: “This is my body, given for you, and this cup is the New Covenant in my blood poured for you.”

Now not God, but Jesus is the party of the Covenant. God has disappeared from the scene and Jesus is now at the center. Paul tells us to clothe ourselves with the cloak of righteousness, with the Lord Jesus Christ, and so become a new creation, for God has reconciled the cosmos to himself in Christ’s full-bodied Covenant language.

The Covenant idea is woven throughout the entire bible. In essence the Bible is the Covenant story. God made a covenant with us and with all creation. The covenant between God- Jesus- humanity-creation is the intimate foundation, the meaning and purpose of creation.

Creation is the visible basis of the Covenant, its ultimate realization. Creation is there because God in Jesus desires to enter into a Covenant with humanity. We, as human beings, exist because God continuously calls us to the Covenant. God makes us discover our existence more and more as the daily experience of living in the Covenant, in his creation. All this is derived from the loaded expression of “created in God’s image and likeness.”

Our day-to-day life refers to God. Our life resembles God because we, as men and women, as conscious persons, experience our living as participants in the Covenant. We realize the meaning of God’s self-revelation in creation through the Covenant. In the created world, we are the visible representatives of the invisible God. Psalm 82: 6 says, “You are all children of the most High,” so we must not sell ourselves short.
Jesus is the original human pattern, the prototype of all human existence. God, in his plan of salvation, revealed himself fully in Jesus, who represents humanity for us and in this way completed creation and attained the perfect life in God.

We are created after the pattern of Christ. Through the Covenant we experience that likeness to God in a personal response of love. As Children of God, as his heirs, through the Covenant with God we share our humanity with the Son, who is the Lord of all that exists, and through whom the universe was made. The entire creation is there because it is permanently willed in Christ by the Father, because the Father loves it as the Christ.

SO, WHY HAS GOD DISAPPEARED?

Two reasons. (1). God withdrew his presence when we refused to abide by THE COVENANT, the treaty between God, the Earth and Us, when we ventured on our own, and declared God irrelevant.
When one of the parties to the Covenant reneges, that’s it. That is the tragic situation we now experience every day, as is evident from an article in THE NEW YORK MAGAZINE, entitled
THE UNINHABITABLE EARTH,
an essay that has been widely circulated. The article predicts famine, economic collapse, a sun that cooks us: total chaos: soon.

Genesis 15 gives an illustration of what happens when we break the conditions of the Covenant. There it is related how God and Abraham covenanted. Abraham is asked to cut animals in two and both God, in the form of fire, and Abraham in person, pass through these severed animals. The cutting of these beasts illustrates that if the covenant is not kept the bodies of the parties concerned would be cut in half as punishment. But those who abide by its terms will, when Christ returns, share in his glory and complete the work of creation: an eternal assignment, because Creation is Infinite as God is Infinite.

I started this essay by stating that, “One of the most intriguing statements in the Bible is found in Deuteronomy 31: 17-18; 32: 20. There God for the last time talks to his ‘friend’ Moses, and says, “I shall hide my face from them. I shall see what their end will be.”

The warnings are out.
Just as all future forecasts have been far too optimistic, with the NEW YORK MAGAZINE article the most pessimistic so far, it will also turn out to be too optimistic, with far worse to come and far sooner. It paints the world without God.

Hebrew 10 relates what happens when we break THE COVENANT. Verse 31 says, “It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.” God’s revenge is built-in into Creation. By breaking our treaty with God and creation, a Covenant sealed by the blood of Christ, we have heaped on our heads the wrath of God, who so loved the world, the cosmos, that he offered his Son to buy it back from the Satan.

(2). Another reason why God has disappeared is that he wanted us to become what we are: mature enough to stand on our own feet, without God’s help.
God made a virtue out of us breaking the Covenant by giving us the opportunity to live ‘etsi deus non daretur’ to quote Bonhoeffer, ‘to live as if God no longer exists’.
Bonhoeffer calls this our “coming of age.”
God wants us to grow up to be ready to inhabit the New Creation. Adam and Eve needed God’s help. Over the many millennia God has directed us to maturity. Yes, this time we will be and can be on our own.

Thanks be to God.

JULY 22 2017

EVERYTHING BECOMES WHAT IT IS.

Everything becomes what it is. That is the basic message of the last Bible book: REVELATION.

The name of the book itself points to that. The word “Revelation” indicates the un-shrouding of secrets, the opening up of the hidden, the unmasking of the carefully tucked away mysteries, the stripping away of all camouflage.

I believe that we must take what’s outlined in the last Bible book quite seriously because it does reveal the future, not in detail, not so that we can say ‘on such and such a date this or that is going to happen,’ but, in broad strokes it tells us what is to come. Today to the discerning believer the portents are clearly visible.

It’s main message is that evil will be unmasked as evil, and good will be acknowledged as good, because the book of Revelation has one dominating theme: EVERYTHING BECOMES WHAT IT IS and also everybody will show his or her true nature.
I conclude this from Revelation 22: 11, its very last chapter. There it says, “Let the one who does wrong continue to do wrong; let the vile person continue to be vile; let the one who does right continue to do right; and let the holy person continue to be holy.”

This text conveys to me that there’s no more changing of minds: people stick to their opinion, no form of persuasion is possible anymore, any appeal to reason or clear logical proof will fall on deaf ears, which is exactly what we see today.
Does this mean that missions and conversions are no longer possible? Good question.

The Rapture believers will still look forward to be fetched up to heaven, even though Matthew 24 clearly says that the sinners will be taken away while the believers will remain and delight in living on a pure earth.
The Climate Change deniers, while more and more seeing and experiencing wild and wilder weather, will nevertheless insist that nothing bad is happening.
The Heaven crowd will still look forward to see God, even though the Bible says that “God lives in inapproachable light and nobody can see him or has seen him”.
The Trumpians will stick to the Donald deceptions, and anything else will be labeled FAKE NEWS”.
That’s all perfectly in tune with the Book of Revelation.

Why?

Chapter 12 explains a lot. It tells us that the Satan was hurled out of heaven together with the angels devoted to him. Just imagine: in heaven, the place where God lives, there was a terrible fight which resulted in the evil spirits being kicked out. Before that the Satan had functioned as ‘the accuser’ witness what he did to Job, as related in the book by that name.
In chapter 12 the Satan is driven out of heaven, landing feet first right here on our earth where he was warmly welcomed. He now is busy day and night leading the whole world astray, evident in the ‘evil’ we have experienced in the last 100 years: two World Wars, a Hitler, a Stalin, now a Trump, a devastating 1918 Pandemic, many small wars, such as Vietnam, Algiers, Indonesia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria today.
Also this past century we saw the start of the immense danger of Climate Change, it too the result of the Satanic forces.

It now becomes clear that the Satan seduced humanity to start using carbon-based fuels, knowing full-well that this would end up in destruction. Ever since the Satan, also known as The Evil One, was banished from heaven his all-consuming passion has been to destroy God’s creation, THE COSMOS God loved so much (John 3: 16). This is now becoming crystal clear and points to the ultimate TRUTH of the book: everything becomes what it is.

You can be assured that in the NEW CREATION there never will be carbon-based fuels, as we have learned this lesson.

When I was in the fourth grade in elementary school in 1938, we had a good laugh when we learned how in 1838 the first train started to operate in the Netherlands between Amsterdam and Haarlem. We snickered because then some people claimed this was the Devil at work. Now, 180 years later, I realize that I was wrong in ridiculing this attitude.

Let’s be honest: when the Satan was expelled from heaven we welcomed him with open arms, everybody quick to buy a car, the ultimate freedom machine. Also we eagerly embraced industrial farming, ignoring the way we treat chickens and pigs and cows, while abandoning the church, spending countless hours watching TV and sports instead.

It now is becoming clear that all the time we have lived in an unreal world, a world speeding to disaster. Matters are not what they are: our carbon-rich way-of-life is totally unsustainable. That is the secret our world wants to conceal: we’ve been living a lie.

That same Satan is the fraudulent force behind today’s ill-fated illusion that Jesus no longer counts, that Jesus did not die to buy back creation from the Satan. He planted the lie that we are heaven-bound, an assumption the church has gladly adopted. He has also sold society on the notion that religion is something stale, old-fashioned, situated in the past and that the local church is no longer relevant. And, oh yes, he convinced the Western world to strive for ECONOMIC GROWTH at all cost, which is still the mantra of any and all governments, fully well knowing that this in impossible in a FINITE WORLD.

Yes, that same Satan is the prompter of the GRAND ILLUSION that humans can create heaven on earth. He is the magical trickster and the mass murderer of the species God would have wanted to conserve, witness Noah and the ARK.

However, the TRUTH is that he was defeated a long time ago. Jesus did that on that little hill just outside the Jerusalem perimeter 2000 years ago when he died on the cross and said: “It is accomplished.

That phrase“, it is accomplished” reminds me of my earlier career as a Real Estate Broker. When I listed a house for sale the selling transaction went through a number of stages: the showing with clients, the signing of the offer to purchase and sell, almost always subject to some conditions, such as arranging financing. Once the conditions were removed the sale was ‘final’, with the occupancy date still some time in the future. This meant that the sellers, the vendors, still lived in the place until the deal was closed, the moneys transferred and my commission cheque issued.

That’s how the situation stands with the Satan. He is still occupying our globe, even though all conditions have been removed and the sale of our planet, from the Satan to Jesus Christ, is final.

In that ‘in between time ‘, with the Satan still in possession of the earth, he is creating bedlam, havoc, causing all possible damage to the globe, desperate because he knows he has been defeated.

Yes, for the time being the Satan continues to sound like a victor. He continues to daily gain immense victories witness the TRUMP ascendancy, the man who scrapped all regulations to stem environmental degradation, resulting in increasing dangers of Global Heating and the rising godlessness of the world’s population. He is Satan’s instrument, fully in tune with the aims of the Evil one.

EVERYTHING BECOMES WHAT IT IS.

What we now see is the vengeance of godlessness, caused by religious heresies, and stupidity generating television, not for nothing called The Boob Tube. Ignorance is celebrated and serious thought is called fake news, inspired by the US president whose speech resembles an 8 year old and whose negotiation powers are bluster and bamboozling. Elected officials, in power to do good invariably end up doing well, selling themselves to the highest bidder.

We now see that democracy, officially ‘the rule by the people’ has degenerated into plutocracy, the rule by the rich.

We know today that we are ruled by deception and cynicism, by corporate interest and regulatory rollover. Even Christian Education has become like the public kind with a sprinkling of Jesus, generating what Bonhoeffer called PIOUS SECULARISM.

Democracy, especially in the USA is a perpetual reelection game, based on promises that are only kept when it favors Capitalism.

Remember the Paris Climate Agreement?
It is nothing more than a paper piece of deceit, a pact that has no teeth, no enforcement mechanism, thus sheer window dressing. Trump could easily have signed it with much fanfare and flourish, but he and his followers probably were totally ignorant of its emptiness.

EVERYTHING BECOMES WHAT IT IS.

A path to a better understanding what’s happening today in the real world I found in an essay by Neal Devers, THE OVERTON BUBBLE.

Wikipedia summarizes it:
“The Overton Window, also known as the window of discourse, is the range of ideas the public will accept…. The term is derived from its originator, Joseph P. Overton (1960–2003), a former vice president of the Mackinac Center for Public Policy….
Devers refines the definition:
The Overton Window is a concept in political sociology referring to the range of acceptable opinions that can be held by respectable people. “Respectable” of course means that the subject can be integrated with polite society. Respectability is a strong precondition on the ability to have open influence in the mainstream.

This raises the question: who exactly is in this corps of “respectable people” who set the parameters of acceptable thought?

In Canada this would be the people who read THE GLOBE AND MAIL and watch CBC NEWS; in the USA they are the New York Times readers and the PBS viewers. They also include the bureaucratic functionaries of the permanent government bureaucracy who make and execute policy, along with the universities which educate the “respectable people” (the thinking class) into the prevailing dogmas and shibboleths of the day, and finally the think tanks and foundations that pay professional “experts” to retail their ideas.

The Overton Window can be viewed as a mechanism of political control, demonizing anyone who departs from the consensus of respectable thought, and especially if they express their heresies in public speech.
Devers explains:
The trouble with the Overton Window as a mechanism of political control, and with politicization of speech and thought in general, is that it causes significant collateral damage on the ability of your society to think clearly. If some thoughts are unthinkable and unspeakable, and the truth happens in some case to fall outside of polite consensus, then your ruling elite and their society will run into situations they simply can’t handle. In other words: We’re now living under that condition of “intellectual (and religious, I might add) martial law.” The consequent degradation of thinking means that the polity can’t construct a coherent consensus about what is happening to it (or devise a plan for what to do about it).

This is exactly the point where the Overton Window turns into an Overton Bubble, as described by Devers. The bubble comprises ideas that are assumed to be self-evident (though they actually aren’t) and notions that are potentially destructive of society, even to the point of societal suicide.

Here are two examples of the current falsehoods inside today’s Overton Bubble:
First the church. It has to perpetuate the HEAVEN HERESY because to preach THE NEW EARTH would turn off too many people and stop their contributions. That is a clear example of THE OVERTON WINDOW.
On the political platform: the Paris Agreement is hailed as the solution to CLIMATE CHANGE. To openly say that Global Heating is out of control and will lead to Global Disaster would hurt our economy, the real object of worship. The quest for Economic Growth is another shibboleth, stubbornly maintained, in spite of its impossibility.

What it amounts to is that current news sources – our respectable papers, our official government announcements, our Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, cannot reveal this TRUTH, and are indeed part of the FAKE NEWS being published.
The cruel truth is that we are on the way to disaster.

That’s why the INTERNET is a blessing: it by-passes the FAKE NEWS outlets. It is an instrument if realizing that EVERYTHING BECOMES WHAT IT IS.

JULY 15 2017

IS GOD DEAD?

Here’s what I believe.

Climate Change is a result of us declaring God superfluous and his creation as disposable. Today we see this culminating in Global Warming which is humanity’s defining issue, affecting everybody and everything everywhere forever.

Here’s where I become controversial.

I believe that Organized Religion carries the blame for this global disaster by refusing to see creation as holy. That’s also the reason why the instituted church has never considered Creation as God’s Primary, Direct Word and has always insisted that the Bible is God’s sole revelation.

This sort of theology has resulted in the killing of creation and has led to the death of God. The Old Testament church killed Jesus. Is history repeating itself?

Suppose….

Suppose that by order of the authorities all Bach’s music were to be destroyed. Within a few years J. S. Bach would be forgotten, dead for all practical purposes. Suppose that all paintings by van Gogh would disappear: within a few years nobody would recognize his name anymore.

That’s exactly what we are doing to God. We are wiping out his creation and fashioning it in our likeness, and in the process we have eliminated God from creation, in essence declaring him DEAD.

The consequence is that we no longer live in the world God created. While initially creation was our ally, it now has become our enemy.

Danger ahead.

Curiously our greatest peril lies there where almost nobody lives: the tundra in Siberia and Canada, those regions where the heat is melting the ‘permafrost’ which no longer is ‘perma-nent’ as the methane-laden earth emits a much more dangerous Greenhouse Gas. Arctic News reported last week that temperatures at two locations on the Mackenzie River, which flows north into the Arctic, were 32.6°C or 90.8°F at the mouth of the Mackenzie River and another one of 34.7°C or 94.5°F further inland. Warm water from rivers substantially warms up the sea surface and thus melts the sea ice while warm rain melts the “perma” frost. There also are multiple 10 meters wide gaping holes where the tundra has exploded, spontaneously bursting into flames signifying the emerging of methane gases 37 times more lethal than the stuff we spew into the air with our car exhausts.

The world tries—- in vain

The entire world – except the USA Government – is taking measures to combat Climate Change. At one time America prided itself to be THE CITY ON THE HILL, the example for all nations to follow. It now is fast becoming THE CITY ON THE way to HELL, as it openly encourages to flout all Climate Change reduction rules, even though as a nation it is the largest emitter of Green House Gases in the world.

There is a saying “Come Hell or High Water”, meaning that no efforts will be spared to accomplish a goal. Well Hell AND High Water is exactly what is in store for much of the USA, as Hell means unbearable heat and forest fires, while high water signifies flooding, through an overabundance of rain, hurricanes and thunderstorms.

“Is God dead?” an idolatrous question?

Dietrich Bonhoeffer wondered whether we should live ‘etsi deus non daretur’, as if there were no God.
I believe that Bonhoeffer always saw life in terms of eternity. In the New Creation God no longer plays a role because that pristine state fully represents God’s will for creation: everything is perfect, including the people, and since our life is a proving ground for eternity, this implies that “living as if God no longer matters”, is part of that trial process.

Bonhoeffer felt a great kinship with Nietzsche, who once wrote, “Once the sin against God was the greatest sin; but God is dead, and these sinners died with him. Today the sin against the earth is the most dreadful sin.”

Who is without sin in that regard? Admit it: we constantly sin against the earth to the extent that there is not a molecule left on the planet untouched by our sinful action: the oceans, the air, the soil all are contaminated: all divine influence has been compromised.

What does “the death of God” mean for us?

Romans 8: 17 tells us that God had to die. There it says that “Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory.”

Only when the testator- God in this case – dies can the heritage be claimed. The heritage is the NEW CREATION.

The death of God assures that we will inherit the earth!! Sharing in Christ’s suffering means that we must love the earth and express that love in our actions. Those actions must be totally pro-Climate. Christians must be the most active Climate Change fighters and pro Climate workers, even to the point of SUFFERING. Are YOU going to forget about air travel, long automobile trips, cruises, all items that cause of lot of pollution, and start living as if God will come back tomorrow? Are you willing to suffer for that cause?

A new era

We already have entered a new era, where TRUTH is in retreat and the LIE lurks as the most believable.

We, as a society, Christian in name, are no longer able to gauge matters in the light of Jesus who is the Way, the Truth and the Life, of which Colossians 1 says that “ALL things were created by him (Ta Panta in Greek), which make “all things” holy.

In John 8 there is an example of the POST-TRUTH SOCIETY. Jesus points to the Devil and says: “When he lies he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies.” 1 John 5:19 tells us that today he rules the world with lies and deceit.

That’s the situation we are in today. To deny Climate Change is speaking the language of the devil and by doing so we obstruct Jesus who said in the same chapter: “The Truth shall set you free” John 8:32.

REMAIN TRUE TO THE EARTH!

Nietzsche in THUS SPOKE ZARATHUSTRA writes, “I entreat you, brothers, remain true to the earth, and do not believe those who speak to you of super terrestrial hopes! They are poisoners, whether they know it or not…..To blaspheme the earth is now the most dreadful offence…”

Nietzsche`s rebellion against the church originated from the preaching of the Heaven Heresy, still ruling the church today. The much maligned Nietzsche was a genius. His father and both his grand fathers were Lutheran preachers, one even a bishop. He was also slated to join the ranks of clergy but, seeing that the church was dead and so concluding that God was dead as well, he changed course and at a very young age became a professor of classical languages.

“Remain true to the earth!” is certainly a timely reminder. Our downright cruelty to the earth is overly clear. Most people see the earth as something to be exploited for personal gain, resulting in shrinking soil fertility, disappearing potable water, and climate change, signalling immense future problems.

This past week I again was reminded of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who knew that his time was short: at the age of 39 he was killed by the Gestapo (Geheime Stats Polizei or Secret Police) weeks before the end of WWII. One statement really stayed with me: “God cannot be understood without the world, nor the world without the God who has entered it in Jesus Christ.”

That makes sense. We cannot understand Bach without his music or van Gogh without his paintings. That’s why we cannot understand God without his creation. The Scriptures have been given us to make that possible. By killing creation we are killing God. Here I hear an echo of Nietzsche’s words: Remain true to the earth!

Why did Bonhoeffer write that it takes creation to understand God? In his CREATION AND FALL, dealing with the first three chapters of the Bible, Genesis 1-3, he writes, “The human being is the human being who is taken from earth…. The earth is its mother…. It is God’s earth out of which humankind is taken….. Its bond with the earth belongs to its essential being. Human beings have their existence as existence on earth.

Johan Herman Bavinck says essentially the same. In his Between the Beginning and the End: a radical Kingdom Vision he writes,
“A long time ago, the Bible tells us, God fashioned the first human pair from the earth. The Hebrew word for soil is Adamah, from which Adam comes. The word adam reminded the Israelite immediately of the first Adam who was taken from the soil of the earth, hence the well-known saying: soil we are and to soil we shall return. Just as we have red clay and black soil, we too have people of different colors. The word ‘adam’ typifies the human race in its unbreakable unity. We all come from the earth and we all go back to the earth. Earth-bound we are, forever. We, the human beings, are adam, and belong to adamah, the life-bearing earth. With every sinew of our exis¬tence we are tied to the earth, which bears us and feeds us.”

Back to us humans who, by and large, regard soil as disposable. We trample on it, pave it wherever we can, and, stupidly build our cities on its most fertile sections, because that sort of earth is good for digging and drainage, so we abuse it: it’s only dirt after all. Yes, soil is treated as dirt that’s why we regard it with contempt. Yet all human life depends on it. Ancient Sanskrit texts have warned us: “Upon this handful of soil our survival depends. Husband it and it will grow our food, our fuel, and our shelter and surround us with beauty. Abuse it and the soil will collapse and die, taking humanity with it”. Yes, destroy the earth and we destroy ourselves, and that’s exactly what we are doing.”

In these Last Days.

In these LAST DAYS we have to implement the words of Psalm 119: 105: “Your word is a lamp for our feet and a light for our path (in creation)”. With the two divine words at the ready – Creation and the Scriptures – guided by the Living Word that came to us in Jesus Christ, we have to outline a life that reflects God’s will now and for eternity, meaning that the current format of the church service has to change from the exclusive elaboration of the written word to a meaningful integration of both the created and the written word, fully recognizing that the created word, God’s direct revelation, has priority over God’s revelation in Scripture, his indirect word.

For most people God means little or nothing at all. For the bulk of those who go to church their quest is centered on heaven, but since we are of the earth, and eternally bound to the earth, this simply means a life lived in denial.

This is all too evident in the USA, the most ‘Christian’ of the Western world. There Christianity has become so distorted that people like me are almost ashamed to call myself Christian. Nowhere in the world is the ‘world’ more abused and more reviled than in the USA where the average person generates 15 tons of CO2 per year, while the world average is less than 5 tons.

Bonhoeffer’s words, stating that we cannot find the God who has entered into the world in the form of Jesus Christ, unless we see and treat the world as originating from God and thus holy, are today more true than ever. Even though there may be churches that proclaim that truth, hardly any hymns reflect that belief.

The church, by preferring heaven over the earth, in essence says that God erred, that he made a fallible earth, which no longer matters. A fallible God is a dead idol.

But Jesus lives! He has overcome death and we live with him and through him.

JULY 8 2017

CANADA VERSUS THE USA.

… Where there is no vision, the people perish: but
they that keep the law, happy are they. … Proverbs 29:18

In this past week when both Canada and the USA celebrated their birthdays – 150 for Canada and 241 for the USA – I was looking at the differences between these two nations who, like no other countries in the world, share a border many thousands of miles long, and where US television broadcasts, magazines and newspapers have a lot of adherents in Canada. Many of us also have relatives there. My immediate family is almost evenly split between these two countries.

The French have a saying: Vive la différence. That certainly applies to these two countries. It is a miracle that Canada, so physically close to the USA has become so different in outlook, in politics, in religion, even though their economies are intimately intertwined. The difference in leaders is one example.
Here’s what a New York Times commentator said about Trump:
“What we have as president is the closest thing to a nihilist in our history — a man who believes in little or nothing, who has the impulse to burn down rather than to build up. When the president eventually faces a genuine crisis, his ignorance and inflammatory instincts will make everything worse.
Republican voters and politicians rallied around Mr. Trump in 2016, believing he was anti-establishment when in fact he was anti-order. He turns out to be an institutional arsonist. It is an irony of American history that the Republican Party, which has historically valued order and institutions, has become the conduit of chaos.”
Contrast this with Justin Trudeau who is constantly promoting minority rights, especially for women and indigenous people, and is trying to unite rather than divide. Trudeau definitely has a vision: you may not always agree with him, but he is a visionary person.

Every morning we read a Psalm at breakfast time. Earlier this week, reading Psalm 12 made me think of the USA Republican leaders:
Help, LORD, for no one is faithful anymore;
those who are loyal have vanished from the human race.
2 Everyone lies to their neighbor;
they flatter with their lips
but harbor deception in their hearts.
3 May the LORD silence all flattering lips
and every boastful tongue—
4 those who say,
“By our tongues we will prevail;
our own lips will defend us—who is lord over us?”

In these days of global crises everywhere, we need ‘vision’ more than ever. That begs the question: “what does VISION’ really entail?

We in church sing that beautiful melody, “Be Thou my vision”, but unless we fashion ‘vision’ into something concrete, the words are meaningless, just as “Love God above all else.” How can we love God when we cannot possibly grasp what God is because he is beyond understanding? That’s why people make idols that are visible.
The way to love God is to love what he has created, the same way we honor great artists. That’s why the ‘vision’ the Bible refers to, always points to what God has created. Lacking ‘vision’ leads to creational exploitation which always ends in death. Trump excels in this regard.

The text continues, “They that keep the law, happy are they”, which leads to another question: ‘what constitutes the LAW,’ and what results in ‘happiness’?

Mark 12: 30-31 captures the meaning of LAW beautifully in Jesus’ own words: “The most important law is that you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. The second law is “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

Jesus is quite explicit here. He does not simply say: “Love God.” He says “Love God with your heart, with your soul, with your mind and with all your strength.” Loving God requires the use of the total human being, all our physical, moral, spiritual and intellectual facilities. It is not simply a matter of “our soul” loving God, no, it is a ‘hands on’ experience, involving getting our hands dirty improving creation, engaging our brains, explaining history in terms of eternity, inventing creation-friendly systems, loving all people, including Muslims, while always praying.

Why must we be so creation-minded? Because the Great Cosmic Love Commandment is John 3: 16: “God so loved the world, the cosmos, all that exists in the Universe (humans and animals, trees and blackflies) that he offered his only Son, Jesus Christ, as the price to buy back his beloved creation from The Evil One, who by hook and crook had acquired it.”

I still can remember the prayer of my paternal grandfather. It always started with the opening words of Psalm 115: “Not to us, O Lord, not to us, but to your name be the glory, because of your love and faithfulness.”
To glorify God’s name, to honor his signature, to see him in all of creation as a most elegant book, God’s primary word, THAT is our first duty.

I regard myself a privileged person knowing that I have had parents, grandparents and great grandparents who were believers and have somehow instilled in me a vision, a vision that is different for each generation and even now is rapidly changing, as we proceed from personal to societal salvation.

That same Psalm, 115, has a line that mentions eyes: “eyes have they but cannot see,” referring to idols.
Here it is:
Not to us, LORD, not to us
but to your name be the glory,
because of your love and faithfulness.
2 Why do the nations say,
“Where is their God?”
3 Our God is in heaven;
he does whatever pleases him.
4 But their idols are silver and gold,
made by human hands.
5 They have mouths, but cannot speak,
eyes, but cannot see.
6 They have ears, but cannot hear,
noses, but cannot smell.
7 They have hands, but cannot feel,
feet, but cannot walk,
nor can they utter a sound with their throats.
8 Those who make them will be like them,
and so will all who trust in them.

That Psalm says: “those who make (these idols) will become like them, meaning that the false god worshipers lose their vision, and the loss of vision leads to death, so it is important to gain or regain that vision.

Eternity and us.

Last week after church a very learned friend wondered whether eternal life was worth pursuing. Would it not be boring, he wondered?
I pointed out that, since creation is infinite in newness, eternity is needed to explore it all. It seems to me that only curious people will inherit the kingdom, persons eager to pursue knowledge, because, as Plato-Socrates have claimed, “Scio, Nescio” (I know I know nothing). Eternity will not be long enough to fathom all plants, all butterflies, world history, astronomy: the list is endless. Since in eternity time plays no role, everything can be approached in the most relaxed way possible. No Google needed as we can instantaneously consult experts all over the planet to provide us with clues, and point us in the right direction. And if even then we get stuck, there’s always Jesus to ask.

All this implies that not heaven – where God lives in inapproachable light whom nobody has seen or can see (1 Tim. 6: 16) –but God’s beloved world is our eternal habitat, the object of our perpetual pursuit of knowledge. Remember, “God made no junk and will not junk what he has made”, as one of my friends put it.

That points to a vision mostly absent today, and also explains why there is so little happiness.
Happiness is evident when we do what we are created to do, something different for everybody, as our talents differ. We are only truly happy when we have found our niche, have discovered what we were meant to do, which, for everybody has a creation connection.

So what has this to do with CANADA and the USA?

Americans, especially conservatives, love to mock their northern neighbors, us Canadians for their accent, their apologetic manners, and above all, for its supposedly soft-headed, pinko style of government. And no wonder: With its liberal, tattooed Prime Minister, its universal health care, its enthusiastic embrace of pot and gay marriage and its generous refugee policies, Canada can sometimes seem downright Scandinavian.
The paradox is that often the less religious a country is, the more Christian is its behavior. Canada is far less religious than the USA, but more Christian in its conduct.

Among 55 of the most important countries of the world Canada has the best reputation, got a first place finish, up from second place last year. Canada bumped last year’s winner, Sweden, to third place, behind Switzerland.
Compare that to the United States which saw the largest decline among the 55 countries surveyed, dropping 10 spots to 38th, from 28th last year, something the RepTrak report blames squarely on U.S. President Donald Trump.

HEALTH CARE in Canada; HEALTH SCARE in the USA

Canada can thank Tommy Douglas, a Baptist minister and the Socialist Premier of Saskatchewan for starting Health Care in that Province, where Medicare was born on July 1, 1962. It would be the first government-controlled, universal, comprehensive single-payer medical insurance plan in North America.

Of course the North American medical establishment and the entire insurance industry were determined to stop Medicare in its tracks, fearing it would become popular and spread, and they were right. Within 10 years all of Canada was covered by a medical insurance system based on the Saskatchewan plan, and no serious politician would openly oppose it.

Yes, since 1972 all of Canadian citizens have been covered by health care: an amazing 45 years ago!! Today to insure all Canadians from cradle to grave with health care costs 11% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

Will this happen in the USA? No, because the Insurance Industry and Big Business in general control the political system there. For them health care means profit. Our American neighbors spend almost 18 percent of its total expenditure on keeping its population from dying prematurely, yet leaving millions with no insurance, unable to pay the high premiums. Even those with insurance often face high deductibles which quickly can cause a family into bankruptcy.

What the USA lacks is a common vision. In Canada people and provincial governments have a social consciousness: their vision has a biblical basis, realizing that when one section of the population suffers, they all suffer. Canadians recognize that the state is a power to do good.

The American Republican Party’s right wing sees the state as a power for evil, and hates any state interference as unproductive. Also its Capitalistic system believes that the market is god, and a company can charge what ‘the market’ will bear.

Witness a paragraph I lifted from a New York Times article last week:
“It costs as little as $10 and as much as $10,169 to get the same blood test in California. A lower-back M.R.I. priced at $199 at one Florida clinic goes for $6,221 in San Francisco. A shoulder X-ray can run anywhere between $21 and more than $700 across the United States.
In Britain, the average price of an angioplasty is $7,264 versus $31,620 in the United States. Hip replacement in New Zealand is $15,465. The United States figure is $29,067.”

Healthcare in the USA has become a Health Scare. Obama, 7 years ago managed to get Obama Care accepted. It was utterly derided by the Republican Party, vouching last year that the first act of Congress would be its repeal. I still can hear the then running for President Donald J. Trump, boasting that he would replace it with a better plan AT A FRACTION OF THE COST. That lie is now being exposed.

… Where there is no vision, the people perish: but
they that keep the law, happy are they. … Proverbs 29:18

Near the end of her career, Helen Keller was asked by a student if there was anything worse than losing her sight. She replied “yes, I could have lost my vision.”

Today the USA is the most misguided modern nation in the world: it has lost its vision.
How can “God bless America” when its leadership has no vision, has no plan, except to destroy creation, and with it its people?