MAY 10 2015
TIPPING POINTS
May 10 1940 is a date I will never forget. Seventy five years ago on that day I woke up with the news that Germany had invaded my country, the Netherlands. The weather was fabulous and, as an almost 12 year old, I remember sitting on a little brick wall in front of a large open space, watching the contours of the inner city, while a single German plane hummed overhead. The next day my younger brother and I walked to the Great Market of Groningen – 45 km from Germany – watching the victorious Hitler army entering, fully mechanized, trucks full of fierce-looking soldiers and lots of motorcycles with attached side-seats: already a military brass band was playing up-beat marches in the center of the square.
The Netherlands- and Europe- was never the same after that: a true tipping point. So, what is a Tipping Point? It is “the critical point in a situation, process, or system beyond which a significant and often unstoppable effect or change takes place.”
Why do I broach this topic at this time? Frankly I feel in my bones that we are on the verge of momentous changes in society. I know that Malcolm Gladwell has written a book with the title of Tipping Points. I have not read it, but looked up a summary, and that was enough. My approach will be completely different.
There are some famous sayings referring to Tipping Points such as “the straw that broke the camel’s back” and “the last drop that makes the cup run over”. That indicates that Tipping Points are unpredictable and usually caused by very small and unexpected events. This makes me wonder whether my prediction that a huge global tipping point is at hand, is wrong. On the other hand, I trust my gut feelings.
I chose the topic because of what I wrote in my daily journal based on a bible text. On April 28 the text was Jeremiah 31: 33, where it says that “I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts.”
Here is what came out of my pen: “To have the law in our minds and written on our hearts is not something that comes out of the blue, but has a long time in the making: it is the end result of something that has accumulated over the years. One of the blessings of growing older is that we can gain more knowledge which may lead to wisdom, but only when there is a willingness to listen to God’s voice and an openness to see his creation as holy. To me this suggests that somewhere in my life there was a tipping point – call it conversion- which came unannounced but now keeps on arriving as I learn more and more.” So far my Journal entry.
Part of my ‘conversion’ involved a new lifestyle, not only a proper diet and a work-out regime, but also peace of mind and loving myself, my fellow humans as well as all of creation. The Greek word for ‘conversion’ is ‘metanoia’ which literally means “a turn-around of one’s mind,” thus a drastic change. And, indeed, over the years my new life has involved swearing off smoking, starting a running regime, becoming a vegetarian, moving from the city to a rural place and building an energy efficient home, heated with wood and equipped with solar panels. I know ‘conversion’ is different for each person. We all have to work out our salvation with fear and trembling because having the law of the Lord written on our hearts and minds is a matter of many facets.
A Biblical Approach
The Bible, the Old and New Testament, contains many tipping points. One of them starts smack in the beginning. In Genesis 4: 14 Cain, after killing his brother Abel, complains to God that “whoever finds me will kill me.” That is a clear indication that Adam and Eve were not the first human beings. I think that they were taken by God out of the existing human race, at a certain tipping point: that point being the time where humanity was at a crucial juncture, where they were about to do irreparable damage to creation. So God singled out Adam and Eve to make a significant change, placed his law in their hearts and put them in a pristine park where they could learn how to live eternally, in a steady state – gatherer- economy without damaging creation. We know it did not work out.
The next tipping point came when Noah was chosen to make a new beginning. Again the old, old story: people forgetting about the God-Creator and out to enrich themselves at the expense of others and creation. So Noah was chosen to start a new beginning.
The Tower of Babel was another example how an altogether new society came into being, one that led to world-wide emigration, fomenting new ideas and new forms of art. We should not underestimate the changes wrought by the emerging of new languages and new culture. We now experience the opposite as dying languages spell the death of old cultures. The inroads of the English language as the Lingua Franca, as the expression goes, means cultural stagnation, a tipping point toward death. Somewhere in the Bible Jesus mentions that in the House of the Lord are many mansions. That to me suggests great cultural variety. The Lord loves immense choice and fecundity in everything. Every snowflake has its own pattern: every human being is unique. Our secular world wants uniformity, something we have to fight: Long live diversity, “Vive la difference”, as the French say. The Tower of Babel Tipping Point back with us in the form of racial strife everywhere.
The Exodus was another tipping point. When Moses led the expanded clan of Jacob – also named Israel – out of Egypt a new nation was born which, to this day influences the course of history in very significant ways. For this people which God called his own and out of which his Son would come forth – yes, Jesus was 100 percent Jew – the temple was their life, because God ruled them directly – something we call a ‘theocracy’. However, the notion that they were God’s people gave the Israelites a feeling of superiority, making them believe that nothing could possible end this state of affairs. After all, the Ark was God’s very symbol, placed in a temple room accessible only once a year by the High Priest. How could the temple possibly be taken! Yet it happened. In the year 587 Before Christ the destruction of the temple and the city of Jerusalem was a dramatic tipping point. Today we can compare it to 9/11, the destruction of the World Trade Center in 2001 where too the USA encountered a crisis from which it will never recover.
The Central Tipping Point
The central tipping point in the history of the world is the coming of Jesus, his death on the cross, and his resurrection. Without His sacrifice there would never be hope for a renewed world and the return of the redeemed of the Lord. When he died the curtain in the Temple ripped from top to bottom, spelling the end of Judaism and the beginning of the Gospel for all people.
We are now in the Last of Days. All other tipping points after Jesus must be seen in that light. The year 313 was one of them, when Christianity became the official religion in the Western World with Emperor Constantine adopting the New Way. Another came when, in 1517, Luther on October 31 pinned his 95 theses on the church in Wittenberg and so openly challenged the degenerated ecclesiastical regime of that day.
Is the election of Pope Frances a tipping point? Good question. His priority to go to bat for the poor and to agitate against Climate Change has upset the billionaires who now refuse to donate big bucks to such projects as the $175 million renovation of the New York City cathedral, annoying the local cardinal who prefers a monument in his honor. Remember the definition of Tipping Point: “the critical point in a situation, process, or system beyond which a significant and often unstoppable effect or change takes place.” The Pope is influential but when it comes to changing the minds of people, he is powerless. So there is no tipping point there.
We now await with a degree of trepidation the future Tipping Points, heralding the Second Coming. There are several minor ones waiting to happen. Water is one of them.
By now, just about everyone in California and elsewhere knows that it requires a gallon of water to grow a single almond, or that much of the green stuff we eat and the fruit we consume comes from the Sunshine state where no water means no food. Water certainly has the potential for an enormous Tipping Point, but so has the dying off of bees. Remember Peak Oil? It’s still very much with us today and will soon also become a real threat to the world’s well-being. Should I mention Climate Change? Loss of top soil? A pandemic? Global Debt?
The Tipping Point of All Tipping Points is soon to come: the Second Coming of Jesus. Handel in his oratorio “The Messiah” has an aria which has been taken directly from Malachi 3: 2, “But who can endure the Day of his coming? Who can stand when he appears? For he will be like a refiner’s fire or a launderer’s soap…..Surely the day is coming; it will burn like a furnace.”
Revelation 18 specifically points to today’s capitalists: (verse 11) “The merchants of the earth will weep and mourn over her (the source of their ill-gotten gains) because no one buys their cars and ATVs and Apple watches, and Gucci bags and Rolexes……….. they will weep (verse 19) in one hour the economic system has been brought to ruin.”
In 1972 I had a personal Tipping Point reading “Limits to Growth” by Dennis Meadows. Recently that same author was interviewed by the German weekly Der Spiegel.
Der SPIEGEL ONLINE: Professor Meadows, 40 years ago you published “The Limits to Growth” together with your wife and colleagues, a book that made you the intellectual father of the environmental movement. The core message of the book remains valid today: Humanity is ruthlessly exploiting global resources and is on the way to destroying itself. Do you believe that the ultimate collapse of our economic system can still be avoided?
Meadows: The problem that faces our societies is that we have developed industries and policies that were appropriate at a certain moment, but now start to reduce human welfare, like for example the oil and car industry. Their political and financial power is so great that they can prevent change. It is my expectation that they will succeed. This means that we are going to evolve through crisis, not through proactive change.
My comments: He says that Capitalism has a momentum of its own that is unstoppable, with the inevitable result of collapse.
Meadows continued:
You see, there are two kinds of big problems. One I call universal problems, the other I call global problems. They both affect everybody. The difference is: Universal problems can be solved by small groups of people because they don’t have to wait for others. You can clean up the air in Hanover without having to wait for Beijing or Mexico City to do the same.
Global problems, however, cannot be solved in a single place. There’s no way Hanover can solve climate change or stop the spread of nuclear weapons. For that to happen, people in China, the US and Russia must also do something. But on the global problems, we will make no progress.
With a growing population and a growing average per capita consumption, both energy demand and pollution keep rising, until a crisis occurs. We may have good intentions, but we utterly fail when it comes to solutions. And if we fail with regards to energy, we fail when it comes to the climate and our broader living environment, also known as the earth.
All this means that the return of the Lord will be preceded by immense disasters, the likes of which the world never experienced before. Even though the Day and the Hour are not known, Jesus told us to be on the alert because the signs are all too evident.