JUNE 23 2018
BE NOT AFRAID
Lately I have been rereading a book a friend gave me: BEYOND THE MODERN AGE, written by Bob Goudzwaard and Craig Bartholomew. My first reading was more or less cursory, gaining an idea, trying to discover whether my vision is also shared by these illustrious authors.
The first time I did not notice it, but in a more careful going-over I detected a statement I identify with, a quote from David Bosch, a South African theologian who wrote that “The Kingdom of God is the central theme of Jesus’ ministry”. This means that seeking the Kingdom should be our goal in life as well.
True, calling for a ‘care economy’ – as the book does – is a worth-while aim, but I strongly believe that pursuing this within the framework of the Kingdom Ideal must be the aim for both church and all believers.
I know this book is not a theological work and, as such, these two Christian authors, one an economist and the other, Bartholomew a philosopher were perhaps loath to express a particular theological opinion, although the book is a deeply religious one, but, in my non-professional status, the Kingdom concept goes beyond any scientific consideration and any ecclesiastical enterprise because it entails all of life, after all the Kingdom of God is simply the world, the perfect planet that now is prepared for us for eternity. It encompasses the totality of creation and it is the most single event for which we all must prepare: after all it is our future!
That’s why I believe David Bosch should have been featured more prominently, because it constitutes the real answer for the young people for whom this book is written,
Still there is much to recommend in the book. It certainly points to multiple resources and quotes many eminent scholars, some of them saying that there’s no longer light at the end of the tunnel: that life has become “a closed loop”. The raw current reality today is that all nations, all economies pursue growth, all advocate expansion of the economy at all cost. The recent purchase of the Kinder-Morgan pipeline by the Canadian Federal government illustrates this point: dirty Albertan tar-sand oil needs an outlet. By all indications Climate Change advocates are losing.
BE NOT AFRAID
I also believe that the authors did not sufficiently emphasize the disasters to come, as outlined in Matthew 24 and in much of the book of Revelation. One of the students of the university where Bartholomew taught, Liz Harmer-Windhorst, did that in her book entitled THE AMATEURS, where she implicitly said that unchecked technology, with which the public has falling in love, can be so dangerous that it will depopulate the earth.
And that is just one possible danger, one example of the many dystopian views around nowadays, this time written by a Christian student. These young people know the score, read the signs, experience a post-modern world much more intensively than the older generation.
BEYOND THE MODERN AGE was written for students, and was to serve as a guide for the future, an uncertain future, a time when abnormality is the norm. We see that all-too-well today, that’s why my heading is BE NOT AFRAID.
A new age dawns.
Since the book was written, a lot has happened. Even though it was published last year, the authors relied on information a few years old. Matters change so fast that anything in print today is old news tomorrow.
Yes, there are many reasons to be afraid because the world is changing fast for the worse. Look at Africa.
There the Giant African baobab trees suddenly die after thousands of years. I have seen them when we were in Malawi.
Baobabs are a peculiar part of the sub-Saharan landscape in Africa. Wielding gnarled branches that can spiral up to nearly 100 feet into the air and with bloated trunks that send out branches spanning an average of 65 feet all together, the baobab is a vital part of the region’s ecology and a celebrated staple Africa’s culture. And like many parts of the natural world, the baobab suddenly finds itself threatened in these post-modern times.
The numbers are grim: 8 of the 13 oldest and 5 of the 6 largest trees on record have died or experienced deterioration over the past 12 years. The impact of their loss would have profound consequences on many levels. Baobab age has always been a difficult thing to tabulate, since the trunks produce only faint growth rings. Recent breakthroughs in radio-carbonating suggest they can live about 3,000 years. Nothing lives forever, but the latest spate of deterioration and death among the species’ oldest members is downright scary.
From the immense to the miniscule.
Not only are the titans of nature in danger, also an insect Armageddon is under way, the result of a multiple whammy of environmental impacts: pollution, habitat changes, overuse of pesticides, and global warming. And it is a decline that could have crucial consequences. Our creepy crawlies may have unsettling looks but they lie at the foot of a wildlife food chain that makes them vitally important to the makeup and nature of the countryside. They are “the little things that run the world” according to the distinguished Harvard biologist Edward O Wilson, who once observed: “If all humankind were to disappear, the world would regenerate back to the rich state of equilibrium that existed 10,000 years ago. If insects were to vanish, the environment would collapse into chaos.”
The best illustration of the ecological importance of insects is provided by our birdlife. Without insects, hundreds of species face starvation and some ornithologists believe this lack of food is already causing serious declines in bird numbers.
Another reason to be on edge.
And it’s not only the trees, the insects and the birds that are suffering: nature herself seems to act unduly different. The Yellowstone Park’s Steamboat Geyser has erupted eight times since March 2018— that’s more eruptions than in the past 15 years combined. Scientists are unsure what is causing the eruptions. The geyser, which is the tallest in the world, erupted four times alone in the month of May, so University of Utah scientists installed a portable seismic array around the spring in hopes of gathering data to help reveal how intermittent geysers work, according to the USGS, U.S. Geological Survey.
The Book of Revelation predicts that an enormous earthquake will destroy a third of the world. Super-volcano Yellowstone is capable of doing that. Revelation 16: 18 tells us that “No earthquake like it has ever occurred since mankind has been on earth, so tremendous was the quake.”
And the animals also feel that worse is to come, and feel threatened.
A bison has gored a woman for the third animal attack in Yellowstone National Park this week.
Lately twice in a week a female elk with a calf injured two women near a Yellowstone hotel. Park officials aren’t sure if it was the same elk.
A bison rammed and slightly injured a woman in Yellowstone in early May.
There’s lots of political trouble on our ever more vulnerable planet
During 1940-45 I witnessed Nazis targeting Jews. Across the street from us lived a Jewish family. The Gestapo first picked up the husband. A few days later the children were taken away. The pregnant mother, in deep agony, of course, was left alone for a week, then she also was arrested in the middle of the night.
I was reminded of this when the Trump administration separated children from their parents, with the tacit approval of a large portion of Christian America.
History repeating itself.
The Trump and his dutiful followers are for me a scary reminder of the Nazi regime, where the German church too was a silent partner.
Then there was the G-7 summit in Quebec City. Its failure wasn’t fundamentally about trade, or even the Western alliance. It was about the steady collapse of the postwar order and the way power structures are being reorganized and renegotiated across societies and across the world.
Trump takes delight in sowing mischief. That proves that he is an important man: he really can upend the world order. He thinks that the world is a nasty place, and by his actions he accomplishes that: a pure power trip.
He thinks that everybody is out to get him, so he trusts nobody and suspects everyone: he judges people by his own standards, which are purely self-centered with no regard for others, no sense of history, no feelings of compassion whatsoever.
In this low-trust Trumpian worldview, values don’t matter; there are only interests. In this low-trust Trumpian worldview, friendship is just a con that other people try to pull on you before they screw you over. This low-trust style of politics is realism on steroids.
Never trust a man who cannot laugh, who cannot joke, who cannot cry: such a person resembles the Devil.
Trump loves dictators like Putin and Kim Jong-un; hates democrats like Justin Trudeau.
Here comes my sermon for the week, complete with a hymn.
BE NOT AFRAID.
… And I say unto you my friends, Be not afraid of them that kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do.
Luke 12:4.
… In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”
John 16: 33.
Those are two quotes from Jesus the Christ.
The Bible paints far more scary scenarios than those i quoted above. All point to a future that holds no promise: only more trouble and uncertainty. The realistic thing to do today is to prepare for collapse. The entire financial framework is becoming totally unhinged. I don’t want to repeat all the possible bad things that can happen, because it would far exceed my 2000 word limit I have imposed on my weekly blog.
Suffice it to say that, if we did not have the promise of Jesus the Christ that he will return and make all things new (“I am making everything new! Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.” Revelation 21: 5), we would indeed succumb in despair.
Today my favorite hymn is ABIDE WITH ME:
Abide with me! fast falls the eventide;
The darkness deepens; Lord, with me abide!
When other helpers fail and comforts flee,
Help of the helpless, oh, abide with me.
Swift to its close ebbs out life’s little day;
Earth’s joys grow dim, its glories pass away;
Change and decay in all around I see;
O Thou who changest not, abide with me.
BE NOT AFRAID.
Trump is not what scares me: his followers, mostly church-going Southern Baptists and heaven-touting Pentecostals: they are the people that frighten me. They use the Bible as a talisman, but they are totally ignorant of their biblical ignorance, and proud of it.
I once heard a man who was a firm believer in RAPTURE explain to me how this happens: he told how of the two pilots on a plane, one would suddenly disappear and with him also a number of passengers: they were raptured and united with Christ in the air.
I tried to explain to him how Matthew 24: 39 clearly indicates that not the sinners but the believers are LEFT BEHIND. Jesus – who should know the score – relates how: “they (the sinners as in Noah’s days) knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all – the sinners – away.
That is how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man.” When Jesus comes again, the sinners will disappear (I have no clue what happens to them), but Jesus will gather his disciples around him because (see John 3-16) they are – like Jesus – earth-lovers. My explanation made him angry.
When the Son of Man returns he will give the renewed earth to his faithful, those who have ignored the RAPTURE rage and have remained faithful to the earth, the very globe out of which God the Creator, formed us, giving us the name ADAM, which means EARTH. Yes, Jesus has overcome the world, now ruled by THE EVIL ONE – see 1 John 5: 19.
Upon Jesus’ return the earth will be given to us totally renewed, cleansed of all pollution, indeed a new earth.
Thank you Jesus: that’s why we need not be afraid.