Bert Hielema–Columns and Writings

April 8 2017

THE FUTURE OF MONEY; THE MONEY OF THE FUTURE. (2)

Sometimes – well quite often, actually – I refer to the Bible, that ancient book. The word BIBLE means BOOK, from the Greek BIBLOS, also known as the Book of Books (Ho toon(pronounced tone) Bibloon Biblos in Greek). To make it easier I usually indicate where to find the Bible story.

Take Luke 20:24: there the Pharisees ask Jesus a money question. “Dear Rabbi’, they say quite politely, “Should Jews pay the Rome-imposed head tax?”

Tricky question, this: these fellows were not stupid. If Jesus says “no”, then these church officials will accuse him of rebellion; if Jesus says “yes” then he goes against the crowd which surrounds him, all vehemently opposed to this hated tax.
Jesus – who never carries money – calls for a denarius, a common Roman money piece. Lots of people try to hand him one, eager to hear his answer. He takes it from someone near to him and gives him or her a wink. (A lot of women followed Jesus, and some actually supported him financially). He smiles at the crowd and then in general, asks: “Whose image is featured here?” The crowd promptly answers, “Caesar’s.” Jesus replies: “Give to Caesar what belongs to him and to God the things that are God’s.”

This seemingly simple answer has generated a tremendous a lot of confusion. On it the church has based the separation of church and state by interpreting this to mean that there are two important divisions in society: God and the State, Grace and Nature. We see this ‘dualism’ constantly displayed in our time. Both Paul Ryan and Steve Bannon, two prominent persons in the TRUMP administration, are devoted Roman Catholics. They totally separate God from their politics, something most church people do, believing that education, politics, business, or even the environment are neutral and have nothing to do with God or religion, separating grace- the church- from nature – the rest of life.

So what does Jesus’ answer really mean?

Jesus said: Give that denarius back to Tiberius, the then emperor. But, of course, we can’t do that because he doesn’t own that coin any more than the heirs of George Washington or Queen Elizabeth do own the bank notes which carry their image.
Jesus’ one-line reply is indeed inspired. He touches upon two important segments of society: the political-economic reality represented by Caesar and money on the one hand, and the eternal as expressed in the Kingdom of God on the other.
By identifying the denarius with Caesar – let him have it – Jesus implies that he would not support an armed revolt or even passive resistance to Rome, implying that the tax and the coins themselves are simply a human device and that all of life, including money, is religion, is eternal, is part of God’s kingdom.

Jesus’ radical message.

By proclaiming an almost puritanical and revolutionary renunciation of money by even refusing to carry it, Jesus demonstrates to us that we too must see everything in terms of The Kingdom to Come, his glorious new creation. The Church on the other hand, almost without exception, explains this passage to mean that most of life has nothing to do with the Kingdom, evident in the fact that it is failing to proclaim “Seek first the Kingdom”, the welfare of God’s Created Holy Word.

It’s exactly there where today’s Christianity – maybe I should called it CHURCHDOM – is flunking the ultimate test, just as it did 2000 years ago when it condemned Jesus, the Word become Human, to death. Here – and I cannot emphasize this enough – we come face to face with the failure of the church today.

Let’s face it: in our Western world, everything is about money: the stock market, the strength of the dollar, the price of gold: three items mentioned in almost every newscast. Mammon is God, the Dollar is King in the world and its possession a holy grail.
We now put a price tag on everything. First on Jesus – 30 pieces of silver – and now also on the rest of creation: the woods are paved, the mountains mined, the seas eaten, species eliminated: all because of money. We sell God’s kingdom again and again, just as Judas did.

We all participate in that criminal act. Jesus was sold for the price of a slave: we are selling creation to serve us as a slave. We, Christian North America, 6 percent of the world’s population, cause 40 percent of the world’s pollution, in perfect accordance with the aims of Capitalism which defines itself as Creative Destruction.

I am more and more inclined to think that Capitalism and its exponent, the global money economy, serves the Anti-Christ. I think that’s why Jesus feared money because he foresaw how destructive it would be for him, for his creation and for us. He died so that we too could be included in his life, a resurrection life, a far better totally earthly life than we can ever live in a money society.
If we want to share in that life then we must regain a new sense of value; we must reset our priorities to have our treasures expressed not in money but in love, in genuine compassion for all God’s creatures, humans, animals, trees, flowers, air, water. God so loved the cosmos…. (John 3:16)

Finally: the Future of MONEY

Sweden is on track to become the world’s first completely cashless economy: everything is transacted via a digital device, so that we – and the State – can totally check what we do with our money, and tax avoidance is prevented.
Perhaps the number 666 is the universal PIN number encoded in every transaction. It portrays the rule of the Anti-Christ as more and more nations go cashless. Last year November India got rid of its highest denomination bills, eliminating 90 percent of its paper money. Other nations are following suit.

The future of money is digital, with all the dangers involved therein, such as hacking, power outages, and especially FRAUD.
Cashless life is a win for big Government: they are in full control: no more tax evasion. The paradox is that money, in its present form, is the symbol of both CAPITALISM and CAPITULATION, the unconditional surrender of ourselves to the forces of evil: that’s why, just like Jesus, we must free ourselves from the clutches of money, because the future of a society dominated by money means death.

Consider Germany 1939-45. Hitler created money out of nothing to finance World War II. In the process 60 million people were killed and most of Europe destroyed. Today we do the same again, this time to CREATION, through Quantitative Easing in the USA and the Draghi measures in Europe. The result now will be the destruction of the entire planet and the death of billions.

CAPITALISM

Capitalism and the fossil economy go hand in hand. TRUMP, the ultimate capitalist, last week confirmed this by declaring Obama’s rules on the environment null and void, and that in a country, where 6 percent of the world population already produces 40 percent of the CO2 emission. Compare this to the 45 percent of humanity which is only responsible for 7 percent of Green House Gases. We, the rich, whether Christian or atheist, whether Muslim or Jew, we are primarily responsible for the climate disasters that await us, thanks to Capitalism, of which MONEY is its most prominent feature.

As I have stated, money is created through debt. When I approach the bank for a mortgage the bank uses my property as collateral and gives me a draft for whatever amount I need, creating the money out of nothing and burdening me with DEBT. The bank trusts that property values will not decrease because if the loan exceeds the amount I owe, we both are in trouble: I lose the house and the bank is stuck for some loss.

In many languages debt and sin are expressed with the same word. In the Lord’s Prayer we often interchange “Forgive us our debts” with “Forgive us our sins.” In German and in Dutch the word “Schuld” means both debt and sin.

As I have noted before, Debt, Schuld, now burdens the entire world, all too well illustrated in the USDEBTCLOCK.ORG, where on April 28 the US accumulated deficit will exceed Twenty Trillion Dollars, or more than $60,000 for each American. By law this amount may not be exceeded. This amount does not include state debt, corporate debt, mortgage debt, credit card debt, auto debt, easily doubling it. Indeed DEBT will do us in: debt will become death, affirming that what the Bible unambiguously has asserted: (The Lust for) money is the root of all evil.

Yes, the Bible does indeed speak to today’s secular world.

The world, now burdened by debt, has debt so great that it never can be repaid because it has exceeded all possible remedies. This would never have been the case had it followed the Bible, and the instructions as outlined in Leviticus 25.

THE YEAR OF JUBILEE

There it says (verse 8) “?‘Count off seven sabbath years—seven times seven years—so that the seven sabbath years amount to a period of forty-nine years.
9. Then have the trumpet sounded everywhere on the tenth day of the seventh month; on the Day of Atonement sound the trumpet throughout your land.
10. Consecrate the fiftieth year and proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you; each of you is to return to your family property and to your own clan.
11. The fiftieth year shall be a jubilee for you; do not sow and do not reap what grows of itself or harvest the untended vines.
12. For it is a jubilee and is to be holy for you; eat only what is taken directly from the fields.
13. In this Year of Jubilee everyone is to return to their own property.
18. ‘Follow my decrees and be careful to obey my laws, and you will live safely in the land.
19. Then the land will yield its fruit, and you will eat your fill and live there in safety.
23. The land must not be sold permanently, because the land is mine and you reside in my land as foreigners and strangers.
24. Throughout the land that you hold as a possession, you must provide for the redemption of the land.

Leviticus 25 is about the year of the JUBILEE: “Each of you will return to his possession.” In Deuteronomy 15: “Let every creditor release that which he’s lent to his neighbor.” In Isaiah 61: “Release the captives, release the bond servants.”

The Bible realizes that people are not always wise and prudent: they get in over their heads and money problems can make people sick. Also the Lord hates inequality. There always have been people who are more clever, see opportunities where others pass them by. So they get rich, and, as Solomon advised us (Proverbs 30: 8) “Keep falsehood and lies far from me; give me neither poverty nor riches, but give me only my daily bread.”

The Lord, in his infinite wisdom, knowing human nature, decreed that every so often all debts be cancelled, all lands restored to its former owners, and all bond servants be freed.
That would prevent people from both being too rich or too poor.

People have not changed. Two Thousand Years ago Jesus went back to his roots: Nazareth. (See Luke 4). He knew the situation there. He knew that people in his hometown were in debt to some shysters, who controlled the town, but were prominent in the synagogue. Jesus, never one to shun the truth, said that the town should practice JUBILEE. (Luke 4: 18-19) That was the last thing they wanted to hear, so they set out to kill him.

Shakespeare comes to mind: This is a famous phrase said by Polonius in Act-I, Scene-III of William Shakespeare’s play, Hamlet. Polonius counsels his son Laertes before he embarks on his visit to Paris. He says, “Neither a borrower nor a lender be; / For loan oft loses both itself and friend.”

To be continued next week: THE MONEY OF THE FUTURE,

April 1 2017

THE FUTURE OF MONEY; THE MONEY OF THE FUTURE. (1)

I am not a fan of contemporary music. Most days I listen to the local (Belleville) radio station at noon for the regional news, which briefly exposes me to its repetitive and a-musical tunes, offensive to listen to.

In my younger days there really were songs to remember, such as Bridge over Troubled Waters and American Pie and, of course, the Beatles. Thinking about MONEY caused me to recall another oldie: MONEY IS THE ROOT OF ALL EVIL, TAKE IT AWAY. It parodies the Bible where in the letter to his protégé Timothy, Paul writes that THE LOVE OF MONEY IS THE ROOT OF ALL EVIL. Nevertheless there’s a lot of truth in the song suggesting that money itself has an evil root.

We live in a CAPITAL dominated society. The word CAPITAL refers to several things: it could be the governing city of nation; it could refer to capital punishment, but it usually refers to money: having capital, being rich. Living under a CAPITALISTIC system means that its main goal is the acquisition of money.

Today capital gain and retention is the main industry in such Western cities as London, New York, and Toronto. They exist for the purpose of managing, preserving, enhancing CAPITAL. Some 40 percent of its total workforce is engaged in that ‘industry’, doing nothing but sit behind a computer and try to gain or retain a monetary advantage.

The money industry, the banking, the stock market, the leasing and lending, the real estate buying and selling, the granting of mortgages and other securities is a very profitable business as long as times are good, as long as government is stable, trustworthy and forward-looking, and people are confident that good times are ahead. Granting CREDIT is based on trust. The word itself is derived from the Latin word CREDO, which means “I believe”. As long as we believe that the system is sound and trust-worthy, as long as we believe that TRUMP is good for the economy, as long as we believe, the stock market goes up. Once that FAITH is gone, once prospects for the future are no longer rosy, credit dries up, banks are loath to lend, and the CAPITALISTIC system sputters. Then all of a sudden DEBT becomes an issue.

DEBT

All money is debt. Debt is the only growth industry today, and it is created out of nothing. You need a mortgage? The bank will magically produce the money and so finance your house.
Take a look at USDEBTCLOCK. ORG. The figures are mind boggling, showing that US total debt is close to One Million Dollar per US taxpayer. The debt per person, thus all US people from baby to pensioners is $60,000. Median per-capita income is $15,480, which means that, in order to pay all debt, people have to devote all income from fulltime work for almost 4 years to pay this off.
As long as the future is an extension of the past, thus stable work, stable climate, stable economy, all is well. When this is not the case, trouble is in store.

Yes, all money is debt. Money is created through debt. Our immense debt is the reason why money is so cheap: car loans at zero percent; mortgages at 2-3 percent, driving up the price of housing.

My first and last mortgage in 1963 carried an interest rate at 6.25 percent, and that was normal. At that rate people earned sufficient interest to make retirement possible. Today retirement funds are in the red because people live longer and interest rates are low. All pensions are in peril, but when the interest rate goes up (it has to because inflation is increasing) debt becomes too expensive and cannot be repaid. So brace yourself. Anything is possible.

The power of money

In the church we say: Blessed are they who come in the name of the Lord. But both in and outside the church we confess: blessed are they who come in the name of silver and gold. By and large people are not measured by what they do or say, but by the amounts of possessions they have. Money is the most important rule in today’s society and the acquisition of it is seen as its highest goal.

Money, in short, is seen as the meaning of life: our actions are geared towards that goal, and if we can’t make it by working, perhaps playing the lotteries will do it, or a bit of cheating here and there might help as well. It seems that no institution or person has become immune to the power of a bribe. Nothing seems sacred anymore.

In spite of all its drawbacks, money, as a tool to facilitate the commerce between human beings, was and is, nevertheless, an inspired invention, with tremendous potential for both good and evil. That is why, when first invented, it was administered by the priestly class. Today, more than ever, money makes the world go round and goes around the world with a velocity equal to the speed of light and in torrents unequaled in history: the daily flood amounts to more than One Trillion Dollars. Because of Money the global economy is like a jet plane, fast, comfortable and when it crashes, its fall is also spectacular.

Jesus and Money.

Christians are supposed to fashion their lives on Jesus, taking him as an example.
When Jesus came to earth, forever to retain the status of both God and Human, he could have been a person of any description, stature, degree and condition; and yet he chose to be poor. The English poet Christopher Harvey said of him in the seventeenth century:
It was Thy Choice, whilst Thou on Earth didst stay, And hadst not whereupon Thy Head to lay.

No wonder that throughout the Middle Ages Jesus is appearing not just as God, but as a pauper. Curiously the fastest growing Protestant movement in Brazil, the Crentes, as the believers are known, preaches the theology of prosperity, which promises material success as well as eternal salvation, a puritan ideology imported from the United States. There the Prosperity Gospel has become a leading component of Christianity: being rich means that God is with you. Yet Jesus, in The Sermon of the Mount tells us that “Blessed are the meek, those who claim little or nothing for themselves.” So perhaps due to the contrast between what Jesus portrayed and advocated in his life, and what we see as the goal might be sufficient ground to investigate a bit closer the relationship between Jesus and money.

I think Jesus deeply disliked money.

I am convinced that Jesus had some basic misgivings about money – just like we do at times- because we all know that wealth and its acquisition makes people do crazy and often dishonest things. No wonder “The love of money is the root of all evils,” is Paul’s warning to Timothy. Jesus gave money a name: Mammon. He identified it with an idol, certainly a sign that Jesus did not like money.
If I understand Jesus correctly I think that with Jesus there also was a deeper reason, something very personal. I get the impression that Jesus went out of his way to avoid contact with money and was even loath to touch the stuff.
Why do I make that assumption? Well, Jesus has a perfect recall of everything, past, present and future and so had complete insight, hindsight and foresight. We may recall that his betrayal, his suffering and death was directly associated with money. How would we feel – how would I feel – if I knew that money would eventually kill me? Well, I think that this view governed Jesus’ attitude towards money and perhaps even towards economic theory.
I better back this up with concrete examples. Take the feeding of those thousands: Jesus knows that if these people had gone off to buy bread and fish in the neighboring stores, the merchants, being good businessmen, would have suddenly increased the prices of these basic food items because of greater demand. The law of supply and demand is certainly not a latter-day invention: it has existed as long as people have traded. That’s what economics is all about: charge high when everybody needs it.
So what did Jesus do to forestall this price-gouging? He simply by-passed the economic law of supply and demand and created bread and fish ex nihilo- out of nothing- well, almost out of nothing.

Then there is that so uncharacteristic incident where Jesus almost went berserk when he chased the money changers out of the temple, upsetting much more than the tables. After all having these business people do their work in the temple was an age-old tradition and necessary to keep the Jewish house of worship functioning properly because only certain kinds of money were accepted in the temple. And how else to get the proper animals for sacrifice? I think it was money and its abuses that made Jesus so angry. Another, more indirect, indication: I find it curious that Judas, the unredeemed among the saints, carried the purse and handled the finances: Judas, who loved money more than Jesus.

In the end Judas ended up with thirty pieces of silver and then discovered that money as an idol wants our very lives. In that sense we are much closer to Judas than to Jesus. With ‘we’ I include all people in the super-rich West. Also to me a tip-off was Jesus’ great disdain for the nominal value of currency, evident when Mary spent perhaps a year’s income on that precious oil. “So what,” Jesus remarked, “so what if such a large sum was spent. It is only money.” Or consider the occasion when Peter was asked if Jesus would pay the temple tax. “Of course,” is Peter’s immediate reaction, “of course Jesus pays.” (Matthew 17:24)
But for Jesus this was not such a straightforward matter. Why this reluctance to pay the temple tax? Well, I have my theory about this too. I think Jesus knew that perhaps this very money given to the temple was going to buy his life and ensure his death.
And then, in an ironic twist, with almost a touch of black humor, Jesus shrugs his shoulders and says: “OK, not important. Let me not major in minors. Go to the lake, catch a fish and there you’ll find a silver coin enough for the both of us.”
I like that. Jesus is never skimpy. And, of course, with this gesture, he shows that all the fish in the sea and- by implication- the cattle upon a thousand hills, are his. Here we see Jesus’ royalty coming through. Queen Elizabeth never carries a wallet. Wherever she goes on an official visit, she goes free. Jesus is the same and much more so. Here he shows that he is the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords, but people do not recognize him that way.

Yes, Jesus had a deep distrust of money.

Today we see what money is doing. In 1492 Columbus landed in the Americas. In two or three years he sucked a thousand years of gold from the Caribbean and then extinguished all its human life. That destructive force now rages all over the globe, including the Polar region where money is melting their eternal ice cover, sealing doom for all of us.
Money has paved the woods, has mined the mountains, has eaten the seas, has annihilated many species, all the large land and sea animals of the earth, and many of its birds.
The future of money is directly tied in with the future of the earth. Money has become the great destroyer.
That’s why Jesus hated it.

More about that in the next two weeks.

March 25 2017
ECCLESIOLA IN ECCLESIA

Patience, a bit later I’ll explain this Latin phrase. Actually it is not hard to guess what it means.

Late last year I was in Minnesota and Wisconsin for a grandson’s wedding and talked to American Christians: staunch Lutherans, staunch Republicans and also staunch Trumpians.

At one time I was not a Lutheran but a Dutch Reformed stauncher: born into the staunchiest of Calvinistic cradles. I grew up in a Reformed Christian extended family: twice to church on Sunday, weekly youth meetings; went to Christian schools. Christian thinking infiltrated all sections of our life. My father was active in a Christian Political Party, banked at the BOAZ bank; before the war my oldest brother played in a Christian Soccer Club: the whole ball of wax.

Soon after I arrived in Canada in 1951 I too became active in pursuing that same course: helping to start Christian schools from elementary through College and University. All our five kids attended these institutions.

Today it’s different. It is not that the institutions are changing: I am having second thoughts. Oh yes, I still go to church. Oh yes, I still financially support these various Christian organizations, even though I am afraid they are stuck in a rut. Once you build a church or a cathedral or basilisk or a St Peter’s or a mosque or synagogue you are stuck with them. Once you have installed a Pope, cardinal, bishop, priest, rabbi, imam you are stuck with them. Once you have seminaries to prepare preachers, have college professors to teach them the ropes, you are stuck with them. Once you have denominations, Anglican, Roman Catholic, whatever, you are stuck with them. In other words, I see institutions defined by their unchangeable physical features, their statements of faith and their historic offices. I also believe that their economic existence depends on prosperous financial conditions: capitalism in other words.

In my opinion in today’s less affluent times new approaches must be tried based on different, more all-inclusive, more radical thinking.

Already there is a within the churches growing sterility, aging populations, mounting ossification, hardening of doctrinal stances, lack of flexibility, increasing concern whether “Religion” will survive the forces of decay.
I am also wondering whether church buildings are still the proper meeting places as they are often less than half full, are hard to heat, thus anti- environment, and expensive to insure. Are current confessions, the clerical offices, the well-worked out ‘statements of faith’ still needed?

When the curtain between the Holy Place and the Holy of Holies in the Jerusalem temple was torn from top to bottom when Jesus died, signifying the end of the Old Testament Hebrew Religion, and when that same Jerusalem temple was razed in the year 70 AD, reaffirming this again, so too all institutional religion will totally disappear upon Christ’s return, never to be resurrected again.

That’s the situation we have to prepare ourselves for.

So how do we go about that?

Already a lot of questioning is going on.
This past week I read a book review on THE CRISIS OF EVANGELICAL CHRISTIANITY: ROOTS, CONSEQUENCES AND RESOLUTIONS, written by Keith Sewell, Professor of History Emeritus at Dordt College, a Christian (Reformed) College in Sioux Center, Iowa.
He hits all the appropriate buttons, such as the Reformed emphasis on creational theology which the reviewer calls central to Dutch Reformed thought, while condemning the lack of this perspective in Evangelicalism where the individual ‘soul’ is all too prominent.
Long ago I bought a book entitled THE AMERICAN RELIGION. In it Harold Bloom exposes the vacuity of much what is called ‘religion’ in the USA, correctly calling it Gnostic and no longer Christian. Its most severe heresy finds its culmination in the ‘heaven belief’ that has penetrated all denominations. In my (Presbyterian) hymnbook many songs have a ‘heaven’ reference: the book needs a radical overhaul, which will not happen – it would offend too many due-paying people. Although Sewell, as far as I can conclude from the review, uses the same language I employ: “All of Life is Religion” the reviewer laments that the resolutions Sewell proposes would benefit from a few more specific examples of how all this can be applied to concrete situations.

This suggests to me – not having read the book – that Sewell fails to come up with something new. Anything radical? I doubt it.

Yes, we humans themselves are at a critical point.

That humanity is at a crucial juncture is plain from the writings of a secular Jewish historian. Yuval Noah Harari is the author of SAPIENS and HOMO DEUS, two books dealing with the future of HOMO SAPIENS – our human race as now constituted.
He claims that we will disappear in our present form within the next century replaced by a being dominated by biotechnology and artificial intelligence, making us totally different entities. Gone will be our ‘image of God’ status: the new being emerging as Homo Technicus or whatever.

In the light of current developments others too strive for solutions to the ‘worship’ problem, evident from two articles in the New York Times lately: one by Ross Douthat: CHRISTIANS IN THE HANDS OF DONALD TRUMP, another by David Brooks.
Douthat writes that “Many church leaders found ways to cast Trump as a heaven-sent figure, whose flaws and failings were no worse than those of a King David or a Constantine.”

It is all too plain that Christianity in the USA divorces God from his creation, a clear sign that GNOSTICISM is at work, which regards the earth as evil and heaven good. US Christianity also has strong apocalyptic characteristics.
Both Douthat and David Brooks extensively quote Rod Dreher whose new book THE BENEDICT OPTION is quite popular. The Benedict option refers to the 7th Century monastic movement where Christians, during those dark ages after the collapse of Rome, founded monasteries where the true believers – all men – devoted themselves to a life of true Christian living, which, in their opinion, excluded sex.

Dreher is a pessimist. He thinks that Western Christianity is predestined to all but disappear, collapsing from within even as its institutions are regulated and taxed to death by secular inquisitors. That’s why he wants to go the Medieval way of religious communities — churches, schools, families, social networks — that are more resilient, more rigorous and more capable of passing on the faith than much of Christianity today is capable of doing: hence THE BENEDICT OPTION, a community sheltered from the evils in society.
I am (re)-reading THE NAME OF THE ROSE, a book dealing with the goings on in a 14th Century abbey, a typical BENEDICT institution where, sorry to say, violence and sex are not absent.

Nevertheless Dreher states that “There can be no peace between Christianity and the sexual revolution, because they are radically opposed.”
He refers to homosexuality and the wider L.G.B.T. activism. He asserts that the struggle over gay rights is what is threatening religious liberty, putting Christian merchants out of business, threatening the tax-exempt status and accreditation of Christian schools and colleges.
The BENEDICT OPTION reminds me of the PARABLE OF THE WEEDS, related in Matthew 13. There Jesus warns against human efforts for purity, because, he says, while pulling the weed, expelling the bad guys, you may also uproot the good guys. Jesus says that in the end he will sort this out.
Jesus always was moderate in his verdicts witness his conversation with the Samaritan woman, the equivalent of Muslims today.

From personal experience I can testify that THE BENEDICT OPTION is no panacea. From 1975 to 1980 our family was part of something like THE BENEDICT OPTION, involving 5 families and lots of children. It stranded on religious differences.

I learned a lot from this. In the end we joined the local Presbyterian Church and have been a member there since.

There we were fortunate to find people who share our concerns for the earth. In these ensuing 37 years I have been involved in all facets of its church life, as well as locally in the village, initiating what is now a 128 bed Long Term Care Facility.

Since then I have become a devotee of both J.H. Bavinck and Bonhoeffer, especially the latter, because he literally lived in the last days, knowing that he would not survive under the Hitler regime. He saw the Lutheran church capitulating to a secular regime – the Nazis -for the sole purpose of maintaining its present structure.
Today is no different: the current US vice-president, Mike Pence, thinks that homosexuality is an acquired condition which is curable. The current Washington regime, with the enthusiastic approval of most churches, has scrapped all climate regulations.

Back to my two favorite theologians.

What all religious writers, including Sewell, miss is the NEW CREATION prospect for which we have to prepare ourselves NOW. That’s why Bavinck and Bonhoeffer are so needed today.

Bavinck convinced me that we cannot understand creation without the Bible and we cannot understand the Bible without creation. He made me see that the redemption of ourselves and the redemption of creation go hand in hand: you can’t have the one without the other: A RADICAL THOUGHT, that’s why the most important text in the Bible today is John 3:16: “God so loved the world that he offered the life of his son to buy creation back from the Evil One, who until Christ returns, in full charge of the earth.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a courageous thinker, toying with Religion-less Religion and living ‘etsi non daretur Deus’ living as God did not exist.
He really lived his words as is evident in the opening paragraph of his CREATION AND FALL: “The church of Christ witnesses to the end of all things. It lives from the end, it thinks from the end, it acts from the end, it proclaims its message from the end.”
He called himself an ANTHROPOS TELEIOS, (Matthew 5: 48) a human being that always has the end in mind.

Back to my earlier statement that ‘in the end’ all church-affiliated matters will disappear when Christ returns. Now already we must prepare ourselves for that condition. Now already we must live the life as if the end has come, because if we do not do this, our adjustment to life eternal becomes impossible.

For that reason our entire existence must be focused, not on denominational structures, not on unity-destroying sexual orientations, not on maintaining and expanding “Christian’ organizations, but our total focus should be on the all-important text: GOD SO LOVED THE WORLD, the COSMOS the place that contains all elements God created: really the apple of his eye.

Finally ECCLESIOLA IN ECCLESIA explained.

From personal experience I, for now, reject the BENEDICT OPTION. I sense that the best way to prepare for the New Creation is the formation of what somebody once described as Ecclesiolae in Ecclesia, small churches within the larger church.
The concept dates from the year 1727 when the Hussite Unitas Fratrum or Unity of Brothers, was formed within the framework of the established Lutheran church of Saxony.

I actually see that happening in our own church where, in addition to the regular Sunday sermon-centered service, during the week a dozen people, while discussing a bible book, currently N.T. Wright comments on REVELATION, gather to discuss alternatives, something that somehow doesn’t seem to fit in a regular worship setting.

As an experiment, we’ve had a service in a riverfront park, another in a commercial greenhouse raising bedding plants, both promoting creation-orientated activities. On EARTH DAY we will again have a special service – prepared by the environmental committee – devoted to an aspect of creation: water this time.
I do believe that it is beneficial to discuss THE BENEDICT OPTION. In 2003 Father and son McNeill, both professional historians, recommended this in their book THE HUMAN WEB. Their concluding paragraph warns us:

“The most obvious alternative is collapse of the existing (human) web, which would bring radical impoverishment, catastrophic die-off, and perhaps, if humankind survived, a new start on the basis of local, broken fragments of the web. I conclude that we live on the crest of a breaking wave.”
When this happens, THE BENEDICT OPTION will be forced upon us.
An ‘ECCLESIOLA IN ECCLESIA’ offers the best opportunity to prepare for such an eventuality.

MARCH 18 2017

PROPHETS: AN IGNORED BREED

In many ways we still have a lot of 2500 year old Greek thinking in our system. Take Christianity: it is deeply influenced by Greek Pagan philosophy, the nature/grace syndrome, the Good Heaven versus Bad Earth heresy now more powerful than ever, witness US politics.

I have been called a “Cassandra”, another Greek concept, which my dictionary defines as “a person who prophesies doom or disaster.” Cassandra, daughter of King Priam of Troy, was given the gift of prophesy by Apollo, but when she spurned his advances, he ordained that her prophecies would not be believed. That’s me. Today we live in Cassandra times, when the many warnings are simply shrugged off, making prophets an ignored breed.

WE IGNORE EXPLICIT SIGNS OF LOOMING DISASTERS.

Already in 1896, more than 120 years ago, a Swedish Nobel Prize winner in chemistry, Svante Arrhenius, predicted that burning coal, oil and firewood, injects millions of tons of CO2 in the atmosphere, causing Climate Change. An early prophet, now totally ignored by the Trump appointed head of the EPA (ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY!!), who denies that CO2 causes Climate Change.

On June 23 1988 an illustrious panel of scientists, Dr. James Hansen of NASA among them, assembled on Capitol Hill in Washington. They warned a gathering of US senators that “We have only one planet. If we screw it up, we have no place to go”. Of course Al Gore’s documentary and book THE INCONVENIENT TRUTH were well received by the public, but since implementing its recommendations involved measures inconveniencing peoples’ life styles, they were and still are not taken seriously.

Another ignored prophet is Joseph Tainter. In his book “THE COLLAPSE OF COMPLEX SOCIETIES” he wrote that “The complex bureaucratic mechanisms that are created by all civilizations will ultimately doom them…… No longer can any individual nation collapse. Collapse when it comes again, will this time be global. World civilization will disintegrate as a whole.” Here’s a line applicable to Trump. He continued, ”Civilizations in decline, despite the palpable signs of decay around them, remain fixated on restoring their “greatness”. (This was, by the way, written 30 years ago, well before the illusion of Making America Great Again.) Tainter also wrote that “The forces that gave rise to modern civilization, namely technology, industrial violence and fossil fuels, are the same forces that are extinguishing it. Their leaders are trained only to serve the system, slavishly worshiping the old gods long after these gods begin to demand millions of sacrificial victims.”

Then there is Dr. James Lovelock, 93 years old. He wrote in his book THE REVENGE OF GAIA: “We have driven the Earth to a crisis state from which it may never, on a human scale, return to the lush and comfortable world we love and in which we grew up.”
Curiously Lovelock, who is not a Christian, starts his book with a quote from Jesus: “Ye blind guides, which strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel.” (Matthew 23:24). A gnat is the tiniest of unclean animals. He refers here to political and environmental measures that are for appearances only but have no substance, while the real issue is ignored or the so-called cure has negative results. Ethanol from corn comes to mind. The Germans have a beautiful word for that symptom: Schlimmbesserung, which literally means “an improvement that makes matters worse.”

Just like smokers ignore the many warnings, we are ignoring all the dangers inherent in the use of fossil fuels.

NO WONDER PROPHETS ARE UNPOPULAR

People hate to be reminded of their addiction, reason why Prophets are unpopular. They are unpopular because they question the status quo; they are unpopular because people hate change; they are unpopular because people want to feel comfortable; they are unpopular because politicians want to avoid controversy at all cost, hate to be bringers of bad news even though they know better; they are unpopular even in the church as is evident from a cursory reading of the Old Testament prophets: all of them plainly show that leaders in organized religion in the days before Christ do not significantly differ from most of today’s principal church actors who also want to please everybody.

WHO IS A 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.

As an older person I am a product of a society that since long has disappeared. In my teenage years I was part of Sunday gatherings of some 20 young men. There, after having attended two church services of at least 90 minutes in duration, we debated topics of general Christian interest, introduced by one of the members. There I learned that we as Christians have a three-fold office: that of Prophet, Priest and King. These weekly 2 hour Sunday evening gatherings in the early and the mid 1940’s shaped my outlook on life. Of course no TV in those days, not even radio in occupied Holland.

To be a Prophet, Priest and King is a core Calvinistic declaration, but one that I don’t hear much about anymore. Perhaps the words of God to Ezekiel (chapter 2: 2-5) apply to today as well: “I am sending you to a rebellious nation that is obstinate and stubborn. And whether they listen or not they will know that a prophet has been among them”.

After this introduction, I better clarify what I perceive to be a prophet’s profile.

HOW TO SPOT A PROPHET.

A prophet in the Bible they are 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. In other words prophets do not major in minors, but grasp the true consequences of the day’s happenings. The people cited above, Svante Arrhenius, Tainter, Hansen, Lovelock, Gore, are such prophets.

A true prophet also points out societal failures. He or she is not afraid to emphasize the pain and injustices of today’s society: they connect the dots and live what they say.

Prophets are first and foremost believers, convinced that today’s new present requires new thinking and different approaches. They openly and unabashedly dare to look at what is happening ‘out there’ and warn of the consequences. They also have the courage to critically look at past decisions, including those involving doctrines, to test them on their relevance for today and tomorrow. They are persons who from their perspective on contemporary life dare to look to the future to keep creation viable for our children and grandchildren. They are believers who now already can visualize what this future will be like and thus can critically evaluate the present in the light of the glorious future that is coming.

I see prophets as believers who by regarding Scripture as a lamp for their feet and a light for their path in God’s wonderful creation, know 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 all prophets, in spite of all the sin and evil in this world, look to the future with full confidence.

MISSED OPPORTUNITIES

America became the globe’s largest economy and the envy of the world in the 20th Century because of 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.
It is easily forgotten that the United States in the 20th Century produced more petroleum than all the other countries on Earth put together. The USA floated to victory on these oceans of oil in the two World Wars. But OIL also shaped its societal make-up, created its subdivided cities, and its divided society, and so sowed the seeds for its current destruction, now evident in its unsustainable energy use – twice that of Europe – and its deep societal divide.

Today’s out-datedness of the USA is evident in its lack of universal healthcare, its unequal education system, its clinging to the cumbersome imperial system of miles and Fahrenheit, and its trends toward human ‘whiteness’ and individualism.
It is especially evident in its form of worship which has ceased to be CHRISTIAN. The churches there have not seen a Reformation, still clinging to RAPTURE and the HAL LINDSEY’s views of THE LATE GREAT PLANET EARTH, portraying creation as evil.
The oil- fracking industry today is a desperate attempt to regain oil supremacy, at the expense of such essentials as water, soil, and air, all in efforts to extend the enslaving of creation where each person has at its beck and call 24/7/365 a hundred carbon slaves. Trump’s ill-conceived plan to renege on all environmental regulations will simply speed up America’s demise.

The Western age of abundance has caused nothing else but a tremendous acceleration of human history. During my life time I have seen the more than tripling of the number of humans, just one example of the speeding up of everything, including the Coming of the Christ.

A PROPHETIC VIEW.

A realistic look at what’s happening around us – witness the political turmoil everywhere – makes plain that the period of unprecedented prosperity, extraordinary extravagance and gigantic growth, is ending. That means that society has to relearn the lessons of more normal and less unusual times, times where we are given the opportunity to truly and purposely honor creation.
That’s what Peter alludes 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.”

That is right in line with the teachings of Jesus, whose main message was and is “Seek first the Kingdom”, the welfare of God’s creation.
In that so abused “The Lord’s Prayer” he taught us to pursue “Your Kingdom Come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven,” (a direct appeal for the speedy coming of The New Creation), and he repeated this request in the next line: “Give us this day our daily bread,” which has nothing to do with us asking for food.

In a thousand Page book: A HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY, THE FIRST 3000 YEARS, on page 89 I read that “The Greek word epiousios, translated as ‘daily’ does not mean ‘daily.’ It points to the new time of the coming kingdom. Professor Dr. Herman Ridderbos, in his THE COMING OF THE KINGDOM also says that ‘daily’ is incorrect and means “belonging to the coming kingdom.”
Thus this fits in with the preceding line in THE LORD’S PRAYER, asking for YOUR KINGDOM (to) COME. The wrongly translated “Give us this day our daily bread”, should be read as “Give us the wherewithal to prepare ourselves for the Coming of the Kingdom,” something, I might add, the church rather not emphasize.

LOOKING AHEAD

The re-election of politicians depends on ‘perpetual growth.’ They look to yesterday for answers to cope with tomorrow’s problems. Attempt after attempt to cure economic stagnation by expanding credit have only generated a series of destructive speculative bubbles and crashes while destroying creation. Efforts to maintain an inflated standard of living in the face of a contracting real economy have only caused mountains of debts.

Today’s policy makers are driven by a two-pronged faith commitment: (1) that policies that failed last year will succeed next year, and (2) that the pursuit of ever newer and ever more expensive technological tools will assure an even grander future.

A new course should be taken, based on simple technologies, locally based, more resilient, sustainable and creation friendly, but that will not happen because that means concentrating on negative growth.

Galbraith in 1954, wrote at the end of his book, THE GREAT CRASH 1929,
“Inaction will be advocated in the present even though it means deep trouble in the future.”
We are in that ‘deep trouble future’ now.

The warnings in the Bible and by the modern-day Cassandras are being ignored. People will go there worried way till the End, when the Lord returns to straighten out the situation once and for all.

Be part of that restoration process.

MARCH 11 2017.

AN ALL-ENCOMPASSING CRASH COMING?

We live in interesting times, so interesting that they are truly in tune with the Chinese curse: may you live in ‘interesting times’.

Every day we hear or see or read another ominous news item. David Stockman, former budget director under Donald Reagan, predicts that March 15, just a few days away, will be the beginning of the end, because on that day the DEBT CEILING of TWENTY TRILLION (USA) DOLLARS will be reached. After that the USA Government is no longer allowed to borrow and thus will soon run out of cash.

Yes, AMERICA is living far beyond its means, going into hock, adding DEBT to the tune of more than $75 Billion each month. We in Canada worry that its Federal Government has a $30 Billion annual deficit and, as its economy is one-tenth the size of its southerly neighbor, its shortfall is proportionally a third of the enormous USA one: $300 Billion versus $900 Billion. The Republicans in the USA have been clamoring for a balanced budget – which means either much higher taxes – which they don’t want – or cut programs, which will harm voters. Deeply divided by this dilemma, politicians might just refuse to add to its $20 Trillion debt.
This means that in a few months everything may grind to a halt: interesting times, indeed.

Then there is Janet Yellen, the chair of the Federal Bank in Washington. She wants repeated interest rate hikes, now at a historic low. Any increase there, makes the debt more expensive. But inflation is on the rise, soon exceeding the low return on money.

The banks love debt because they are the ones who benefit. If I were to buy a house for, say $1 million (now quite common apparently), the bank is eager to give a $900,000 mortgage, which it creates out of nothing. At the current 3% it makes a gross profit of $27,000 per year.
But suppose that house prices drop. Suppose that interest go up and house prices go down – as they always do when the cost of money increases – what will happen to the economy?

So let me take a look at conditions in 1929. 1929?

I have this book in front of me: THE GREAT CRASH 1929 by the well-known Canadian born, Harvard professor, John Kenneth Galbraith.
We may remember that the Great Crash of 1929 was followed by the GREAT DEPRESSION of the 1930’s.
President Trump ran on the slogan: MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN and many believed him, especially those for whom the last 20 years have meant hardship. Thanks to automation millions of jobs have disappeared and Americans, facing reduced income, have borrowed money at extremely low cost to continue their highly polluting lifestyle. Sooner than later the bill comes due, and that bill will involve much more than money.

Yes, another CRASH is coming. The only question is “What form will it take?”

Let me start by saying that we should never trust a politician or an economist. As the summer of 1929 drew to a close – just before THE GREAT CRASH – the celebrated Yale university economist Irving Fisher wrote in the New York Times that “Stock markets have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau.”

Today is no different. Trump boasts that, thanks to him, the stock market is setting new highs. Well……… what goes up can also go down. Look what happened then, almost 90 years ago.

By June 1932, in three short years, the New York stock exchange saw repeated losses in amounts so great that the stock market had lost 90% of its value and the world had changed utterly.

The Great Crash was followed by the Great Depression, the biggest setback to the global economy since the dawn of the modern industrial age in the middle of the 18th century. In three short years a quarter of America’s working population was unemployed and desperate. Galbraith put it this way, “Some people were hungry in 1930 and 1931 and 1932. Others were tortured by the fear that they might go hungry.”

Germany.

Across the Atlantic, Germany was suffering its second economic calamity in less than a decade. In 1923, the vindictive Versailles peace terms had created hyperinflation, when one dollar could be exchanged for 4.2 trillion marks, and cigarettes were used as money. I remember being in Germany in 1947 when cigarettes again were the best currency: I bought a glass of tepid beer for one cigarette, tax-free, fresh from England where I had come from sailing to Sweden through the Kieler Canal.

In 1932 more than 40% of Germany’s industrial workers were idle and Nazi brown-shirts were fighting communists for control of the streets, preparing the way for Adolf Hitler who needs no introduction, I believe, a direct consequence of the 1930’s Depression.

Let me quote Galbraith and his THE GREAT CRASH 1929.

Writes Galbraith, “We do not know why a great speculative orgy occurred in 1928 and 1929. The long accepted explanation that credit was easy and so people were impelled to borrow money to buy common stocks on margin is obviously nonsense……..Far more important than rate of interest and the supply of money is the mood. Speculation on a large scale requires a pervasive sense of confidence and optimism and conviction that ordinary people were meant to be rich.”
In those days, as Professor Dice observed, “The common folks believed in their leaders….such feeling of trust is essential for a boom.”

Yes, there are similarities between today and the 1930’s. Then and now the mood is upbeat. Then and now empires were crumbling, then the British, today the USA. Today Trump’s priority is America First, becoming isolationist, sealing the borders, building the wall, expelling millions and putting up a Border Tax, measures its citizens see as positive for now.

Governments in 1929, rather than running deficits and so pump extra money into the economy and creating jobs, aimed for balanced budgets, aggravating the situation. Only when World War II called for tanks and guns and warships and airplanes, and mobilized millions of men, full employment was restored.

Not too long ago – 2008 – the financial world too had a real scare. Thanks to the lessons learned from the Great Depression, borrowing costs were slashed, interest rates were cut to barely above zero; money was created through the process known as QE, Quantitative Easing, and banks were bailed out.

Yes, the governments, in their wisdom, rescued the banks, gave them trillions of dollars to compensate for their bad loans, but did nothing to relieve the indebtedness of its long-suffering citizens. They were hung out to cope with increasing debts, growing unemployment, and stagnant incomes.

Thanks to this shortsightedness we now have popular revolts reflected in Brexit, the Trump ascent and the growing rise of unrest in Continental Europe.

It is now clear that ‘this rescue the banks’ policy was only a partial success. Low interest rates and quantitative easing have averted Great Depression 2.0 by flooding economies with cheap money. This has driven up the prices of assets – shares, bonds and houses – to the benefit of those who are rich or comfortably off.
The rich always get their brakes, while the poor perish. The current healthcare politics in the USA confirms this. As for debt: Governments don’t change their policies: they always push the problem ahead in an (vain) effort to engender GROWTH.
That’s what Galbraith wrote in 1954, at the end of his book,
“Inaction will be advocated in the present even though it means deep trouble in the future.”
That future is now!! Troubles have accumulated to the point where the bills are due.

DEEP TROUBLE ON THE WAY

Deep trouble is now upon us. Trump, during his campaign did manage to say something that was true: “America is in deep trouble”, but what followed was his biggest lie ever: “Only I can fix it.” Sorry Donald: “You are not God”.

So far his actions have not been encouraging. He will stand and fall with his promises, of which two are major ones: “Create 25 million new jobs, and give everybody excellent healthcare at a fraction of the current cost.”
Both promises are impossible to implement.

That will cause trouble. I sense the onset of a general physical depression for millions of Americans. The current optimism will soon turn sour and result in anger and rioting.

As noted before, the mood in 1928 was one of confidence and optimism and conviction that ordinary people were meant to be rich. Then too the common folks believed in their leaders, as many still do in Trump.

True, cheap money has fueled the stock market and in Ontario, at least, increased house prices, but what goes up, can and will go down, as happened in the early 1930’s when stock prices decreased by 90 percent, wages went down, unemployment rose, and people starved, literally.

Then many still had a rural connection, as urban population was a fraction of what it is now. Then those in need of food could go back to their roots, the simple ‘grow your own’ economy still in existence, but no longer now.

Today even the exurban crowd is totally dependent on the faraway grocery store, a place itself only having a one to three day supply.

The old rule still holds: what cannot continue will not: sooner than later reality will be revealed.

The naked facts are that we cannot have perpetual growth in a finite world.

This time when the CRASH comes, it will not be confined to mere money, or limited to stocks and bonds and falling real estate. Finance is only one segment of the economy: there also are numerous other factors that will put a stop to the craziness that is our current society, where once in a millennium events are becoming common place, especially in the weather.

We, in our hubris, in our overweening pride, have not learned the fundamental lesson that creation cannot be ignored.

When, in Paradise, in the Garden of Eden, in that perfectly ideal situation, God showed humanity around, he pointed to the fruit trees, describing them as “beautiful to look at and good for food” (Genesis 2: 9), emphasizing that the aesthetic has priority over the economic.

Sadly this reminder was soon ignored. In the next chapter, Genesis 3: 6, a greedy human eye saw the tree as “Good for food and pleasing to the eye”.

Greed, unchecked desire, the lust for more at the expense of creation, is now backfiring so badly, that all of creation, the totality of what we call nature, is in uproar, is agitating against the actions of the planet’s tormentors. Guess who or what will come out on top.

We are in a losing battle. Yes, one of the consequences will be in the monetary section because, as Paul, the apostle, told his protégé Timothy, “The lust for money is the root of all evil” (1 Timothy 6: 10). Thanks to our love for money we have sucked the fish from the seas, paved the planet, killed the elephants, eroded the soils, felled the forests, are wasting away the waters, so that all we have left are our toys, our oversized houses and cars, our unmanageable debts, our multiple electronic devices, all poor substitutes for reality.

Another crash? Multiple crashes.

Already the real rich are fleeing. A recent article in the NEW YORKER tells us that they are buying places in New Zealand and other far away countries with stable and homogeneous populations. Their jets are ready, including the families of the pilots.

When, not if, the crash comes, it will come sudden, just as in 1929. But its magnitude will be many times more horrendous because it will be multi-dimensional, include earthquakes, hurricanes, hell-like heat, polar cold, extremes all around.

It reminds me of Malachi 3: 2: “But who can endure the Day of his coming? And who can stand when he appears?”

God is no patsy. He will not forever let his precious creation be abused.

MARCH 4 2017

A VERY WEIRD WEDDING TALE

Occasionally my 8 years of post-primary schooling come back to haunt me. During that time – 1941-1949 – I had every school day – 6 days per week in those days – one 50 minute period of Latin, Yet, thanks to them certain Latin phrases readily pop up my mind, such as “CONCORDIA PARVAE RES CRESCUNT, DISCORDIA MAXIMAE DILABUNTUR, translated as: “Concordia – a meeting of minds – causes small matters to blossom while Discordia – mixed-up emotions – destroys great causes.

That’s what’s happening today: Discordia is ruining the Western world to the extent that we now have entered a new, utterly destructive phase.

We all have heard the word “Enlightenment”. It was coined by intellectuals in the 17th and 18th Centuries celebrating the powers of human reason, the promotion of religious tolerance and the desire to have governments free of tyranny: then there was unbridled optimism.

Now there is a new word perfectly fitting for today’s somber mood: ”the Endarkenment”.

Yes, the lights are dimming. This fading away of mental, spiritual and even physical illumination reminds me of a parable Jesus spoke, as recorded in Matthew 25.

A TIMELY PARABLE BUT A WEIRD TALE

In that parable Jesus continues his outline on the End of the World, as related in the previous chapter, a time when suddenly everything goes haywire, by referring to that event with three simple words: “at that time.”

“At that time”, just before the trumpet sounds to announce the Coming of the Lord, everything seems perfectly normal. The future looks so bright that people marry. There’s no inkling that time is up. The wedding takes place just before the terrible end of the world which is so vividly described in Matthew 24, where it says that “The sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light.”

Perhaps that alludes to today! Already in many places on earth the stars have become invisible. Also it is now quite common in many cities that, because of air pollution, neither sun nor moon can be seen.

The parable centers on ten bridesmaids, five wise and five foolish. What is their significance?

Here’s where the real weirdness comes in. Picture them.
If I were to film this scene I would see ten excited young women, each having done her best to look pretty. To me all these ten young ladies would look equally qualified. But somehow Jesus makes a definite distinction: five he calls foolish, five he calls wise.

That’s one thing I found questionable because the foolish were labeled that way because they had not taken extra oil along.

Think back 2000 years. Look at these containers! These oil jugs weren’t like the metal or plastic ones we have today, no, they were frail, cumbersome and heavy. Suppose that this heavy jug would break and spill its contents all over the new dress. Mother was right: just to carry a lamp with a full tank would be enough.

And then there are the presents: where one hand is needed to carry the light and another for the extra oil, how to manage all this? I agree with the so-called foolish maidens. Their action made perfect sense.

What would you have done? Use your common sense. Say the wedding is at three o’clock, the party is somewhat later, but certainly it’s all over before midnight, because tomorrow is another busy day. The lights are needed for that short trip to the wedding hall, so, until that time the lamps are trimmed low. With a full tank there’ll be plenty of oil, with fuel to spare. After all, the Bridegroom is known to be a punctual man, so why take along extra jars of that heavy and precious oil?

“But,” says Jesus, “five wise women took the trouble of lugging these clumsy jars with them.” Why would they do this? How could they properly attend to their task preparing the bride, and also carrying the extra wine and food? That greasy stuff could easily mix with these provisions! Nothing could be more impractical. Those who Jesus called ‘wise’ do things totally beyond the call of duty, needlessly complicating their lives. To me the foolish make much more sense.

What had Jesus in mind when he called the practical teens foolish and the overcautious wise?

Let me give an example. Take being a church member. We all know that going there for one hour on Sunday is just a small part of a larger commitment: that’s why so few want to do that. It’s the way of life, that counts. The super-cautious-oil bottle-bearing women are called wise because they look beyond the immediate, take the long view, see life in terms of eternity. That became clear when the Bridegroom took long in coming. That really weird, isn’t it: the groom late for his own wedding! No wonder the church is leaking members!

But that’s what we are experiencing now! The End times are upon us. The earth has to go full circle, from chaos to chaos. We have to be prepared for the unexpected. Yes, even look like a fool for still going to church.

That is plain from the context of this parable, which is set after Matthew 24, which has as its heading, “Sign of the End of Age” and “The Day and Hour of Jesus’ Return Unknown.”

Jesus, after a long sermon on the final days of humanity, spoke this parable. He began, “At this particular moment, at the End of Days”. That means ‘Now.’

Today too there are two kinds of people: foolish and wise, people who think that science will save us, or that RAPTURE will occur, and those who expect Jesus to come, as the groom, as ‘humanity personified’, to marry humanity with the earth, make us finally perfectly united with creation!

Ah, I see some divine humor here!

Jesus knew that at the End of Days oil would be a key element in the world. Jesus has a perfect overview of history from the embryo beginnings to our pollution- saturated end. In the parable and in our real world today, he has delayed his coming, with the result that the young girls, exhausted after extending their teenage chatter well beyond their usual bedtime, turned the wedding feast into a slumber party, just as we are asleep at the wheel.

Then, finally, at midnight, there was a cry, “There comes the Bridegroom. Wake up to meet him.”

The parable portrays the practical reality of life: the unexpected does happen. It happens all the time. Fish stocks collapse; Climate Change occurs; the Trump Presidency scares people like me; Arctic ice is receding at a record rate; the North Pole is 30 degrees above normal.

Suddenly the doomsters have substantial evidence for their message. The unexpected does happen. Before you realize the Lord is there, so sudden that he’s there while we slumber the time away.

“Then all the maidens rose and trimmed their lamps.” They straightened out their dresses, quickly combed their rumpled hair, turned to their lamps and five of them discovered that they have practically run out of oil. They are no longer ready to welcome the Bridegroom.

All the wick-trimming in the world, all the shaking and trying is useless: their lights are dead: the oil-age is over: darkness dawns, Endarkenment is here. The always reliable, punctual bridegroom was late for his own party.

What does this all mean?

Well, listen to the rest of the parable.
“And the foolish said to the wise, “Give as some of your oil, for our lights are going out.” But the wise replied, “Perhaps there will not be enough for us and you. Go to the fuel dealer and buy some.”

Another weird happening. How is that for a Christian answer? Aren’t we supposed to share things with others? Try to buy some fuel at midnight!

For a long time I really did not know what to think of that rather snotty reply. Now I think the time has come that we have to shrug our shoulders and go our own way. “There is a time for everything, a time to be born and a time to die,” says Ecclesiastes, “a time to share and a time to refrain from sharing” I might add.

The parable suggests that it is now too late to reform society: too late to turn the ecological balance in the world, too late to reform the ecclesiastical situation, too late to revamp the economic structures, too late to change the political system. Now matters everywhere have their own inevitable momentum, leading to total chaos and anarchy and to Jesus’ return. The present discord, including our war with creation, threatens to destroy everything.

Again something weird.

It’s on that note that the parable ends. “While they went to buy, the Bridegroom came, and those who had the extra oil went with him into the marriage feast and the door was shut. When the others came, knocked and said, ‘Lord, open up,’ he said, ‘Sorry, I don’t know you.”

Isn’t that a weird reply? The Lord doesn’t say, “I have never called you, or I have never loved you.” No, he says, “Listen, you have never bothered to get to know me. You never really took it seriously that my coming would be delayed, finding you unprepared when I did come. You really did not bother to accept my ultimate promise, thus failing to really know me. That’s why I now reject you.”

Isn’t that harsh, far too harsh?

It’s difficult to learn about God’s Kingdom/Creation. In this age of instant solutions, instant heating and cooling, we expect instant salvation and an instant Jesus.

Life doesn’t work that way: a marriage, a faith, a friendship, one’s life in Christ takes a long time maturing. Jesus has come late to give us more opportunity to see what is good and what is bad in this world, so that we can avoid errors later. After all, our marriage with creation is for eternity.

In this late hour of our present civilization, the remaining time is of the utmost essence. How do I utilize this last hour before entering the wedding hall?

There is a curious word in the last verse of Matthew 5. The Greek word there is teleios, which is translated as ‘perfect: “Be perfect as my Father is perfect.”
Of course, we can’t be perfect. But we can be ‘teleios’, of which a better translation is ‘all inclusive’, ‘holistic’, keeping the ‘telos’ (the Greek word for End) in mind. In everything we do we must contemplate its final destination: will it pollute and so help Satan who wants to destroy creation, or will it help the coming of the Kingdom, the New Creation.

Somehow we must be different now that the age of ENDARKENMENT has arrived. The parable shows that the End times are different for Christians, requiring a different view on life. We must – the church must- explore ways to understand the creation-killing life style we are engaged in – and which leads to death for all – and try alternatives, so that we can prepare ourselves for Life Eternal.

It is curious that this parable deals with oil. There’s unholy oil, the very substance that is destroying the world today and there is holy oil, life-enhancing oil. In Leviticus 8: 12 Moses pours oil on Aaron’s head to make him holy. Jesus’ feet were anointed with oil by his good woman friend.
Unholy oil has an expiry date, just as everything today: our political system, the Euro, the welfare state, the ice near the North Pole, our capitalistic system, stable and productive weather, wild life, topsoil, potable water: yes, the age of ENDARKENMENT is upon us.

Father and son McNeill, both historians, jointly wrote a book on world history: THE HUMAN WEB. The concluding paragraph warns us:
“The most obvious alternative is collapse of the existing (human) web, which would bring radical impoverishment, catastrophic die-off, and perhaps, if humankind survived, a new start on the basis of local, broken fragments of the web. I conclude that we live on the crest of a breaking wave.”

Christians believe that the real Wedding Feast comes when Christ returns to bring his new creation. Today all signs point to its imminent but totally unexpected coming, initiating a very weird wedding feast because it comes totally unannounced.
But then Christianity itself is a very weird concept. Saved by grace!