Bert Hielema–Columns and Writings

July 13 2022

If you look for truth, you may find comfort in the end; if you look for comfort you will not get either comfort or truth only soft soap and wishful thinking to begin, and in the end, despair.” — C.S Lewis

TRUTH VERSUS COMFORT

Looking for ‘truth’, you will be rewarded. Looking for ‘comfort”? 

Well: read on. 

“Everything becomes what it is”: the basic message of Revelation, the last book in the Bible. The Greek word for Revelation is Apocalypse, now a term that has become synonymous with disaster and the collapse of ‘civilization’. 

Babylon.

The Bible book, ‘Revelation’ devotes a few chapters. to “The Fall of Babylon”. Babylon was the city of ancient times, to which the elite of Israel was exiled some 2,600 years ago. In an effort to assimilate these leaders of God’s people to its culture, the victors started to change their diet and progressed from there to civic rule and religion, recognizing that life is a unity.

In Revelation, the author of the Bible’s final chapter, 2,000 years ago, used Babylon as a template of what is at stake in the final episode of humanity. He used that ancient metropolis as an example of luxurious living. Also, the immorality of that once prominent empire had made a tremendous impression on Israel, while its opulent lifestyle had been carved into its historical consciousness. After all, Babylon, in the year 570 or so before Christ, was the World’s cultural Capital, enjoying the summum of luxury and ease, the dominant global economic center, with enormous riches, fabulous structures, grandiose gardens and the world’s finest cuisine. Comfort was the goal: the end? 

Sudden fall.

Babylon’s end came totally unexpected. Belshazzar, the emperor, was presiding over a sumptuous banquet, when suddenly a mysterious finger wrote an even more mysterious message on the wall, eternalized today as: ”the writing is on the wall”, indicating imminent demise. It spelled doom, sudden doom. (You find the interesting details in the Book of Daniel).

A similar episode is found in Revelation 18, also describing the Fall of Babylon, also totally unexpected, also abruptly ending in chaos and mass ruination: pure economic collapse.  Revelation 18, in verses 16-19 relates, how “Babylon is ruined within a single hour.” 

A warning for today.

Both the Old Testament and the New Testament relate these events as a warning that we too will experience an unexpected tipping point, indicating total collapse of the world economy, suddenly, in a single hour. 

Pure fiction?

Oh, you may dismiss this as pure fiction; after all the Bible basically is a book that tells us how creation came to be, perfect in all aspects, how we shattered its harmony and how Christ healed the breach. 

Curiously, both Daniel in chapter 9: 27, and Matthew in 24: 16 mention “the abomination that causes desolation”, with the unusual annotation of ‘let the reader understand’ – which indicates that this can only be correctly interpreted when it actually happens, which is now: pointing to world-wide pollution and Climate Change – so, yes, the Bible does mention future happenings.

C.S. Lewis writes: If you look for truth, you may find comfort in the end; if you look for comfort you will not get either comfort or truth only soft soap and wishful thinking to begin, and in the end, despair.” 

He also wrote:

The safest road to hell is the gradual one – the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts.

We are on that road to hell, to utter human misery. The road of temporary comfort, the road of wishful thinking, is now signaling famine and despair for billions, because we have made the wrong bet.

We have gambled on one energy source: OIL. We now fail to understand that the world economy is powered by energy, highly polluting and finite. The easy stuff is gone, the ‘hard to find’ oil causes inflation. If the energy is suddenly much less available, there will be a huge problem. For over 200 years we gradually created a service industry, giving each of us 100 personal servants: light, heat, cool, at the flip of a finger, and speed at a pressure of the foot. No longer feasible. 

Back to the more creative and sustainable 16-17^th Centuries? When there were less than ONE billion people? 

Fossil fuel powers the economic engine of civilization. With a minor disruption in the supply of fossil fuel, crops wither and supply chains crash. With a major disruption, a humanitarian apocalypse engulfs the world. Events of the past few months have made this clear. Without energy, civilization dies.

In choice of truth versus comfort, we opted for comfort and ease: we now face despair and death.

July 6 2022.

THE AMERICAN RELIGION.

The USA has its own religion. No other country can claim such a feat. There is simply no such a thing as a German, or French or Asian Religion! Only America has its very own God-centered enterprise. 

What happened?

When Dietrich Bonhoeffer left the USA in 1939, returning to Hitler Germany and certain death, in his parting words he said that America has had some great preachers, but, unlike Europe, it had not experienced a Reformation: that’s why its basic religious beliefs go back thousands of years. 

So, what are they?

In my study bible, in the introduction to John’s three short letters, the editors thought it wise to remind their readers that John wrote his epistles to warn them of Gnosticism. Here are their words:

Gnosticism’ central teaching is that spirit is entirely good and matter is entire evil. … The Human body, which is matter, is therefore evil…. Salvation is the escape from the body, achieved not by faith in Christ, but by special knowledge (gnosis) hence GNOSTICISM.

Dr. Harold Bloom, world-famous Shakespeare expert and Hebrew Bible translator, is the author of THE AMERICAN RELIGION. He writes, 

“We are, alas, the most religious of countries….. and the American Religion seems to me irretrievable gnostic…..The emblems of it are the flag and the fetus…..The fetus must not be aborted, but whether the infant starves or not seems a very secondary matter. 

Bloom argues in his book that the American Religion, masks itself as Christianity, yet has ceased to be Christian. Why? The American Religion is a direct descendent from pagan Greek thinking, which separates spirit from matter: heaven is in; earth is out.

The Supreme Court.

The Supreme court of the USA has become an excellent example of The American Religion. The majority of its judges are fanatic adherents of the American Religion, and their unfiltered devotion is not to justice, but to their ‘religion’, which was in full display this past week.

In a move that will seriously hinder America’s ability to stave off disastrous 

Climate Change, the US Supreme Court has sided with Republican-led states that demands the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) be limited in how it regulates planet-heating gases from the energy sector. 

A closer look at the composition of the Supreme Court, reveals that the six judges who voted to destroy God’s Creation even more, are devoted “Christians”. I cite that word Christians in quotation marks, because their stance to further allow the cosmos to be mortally damaged, reveals their gnostic faith that has ceased to be Christian and has fully converted to that antique Greek dualism, promoted by Plato and Socrates.

There you have it: the earth, being matter, is evil, destroying it is purely permissible, even advisable, under The American Religion.  

Today’s greatest danger.

By now we know that, in an era of crises, global heating increasingly stands out as the single greatest emergency humanity faces. Global heating is going extreme, causing drought and flooding in the US and around the world. It’s driving wildfires and ecosystem collapse, and is already contributing to famine and warfare. Crucially, this is all worsening day by day, and it will continue to deteriorate until we end the fossil fuel industry, which will never happen, of course, because we can’t do without it.

Just imagine: The court’s conservative majority voted 6-3 in favor of leading coal producer West Virginia, in a lawsuit with challenges originally brought by 20 other Republican attorneys general, who sued for the EPA to have less regulatory power over existing power plants without express authorization from Congress under the Clean Air Act. Coal: The most polluting black substance there is!

The essence of Christianity.

The essence of Christianity is found in John 3: 16: For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
The word ‘world’ in that text is ‘cosmos’, encompassing not only our globe and all it contains, but all extra-terrestrial matter as well. 

Jesus came to us for a single purpose:  I have come that they may have life, and 

have it to the full.” John 10:10. That ‘life’ is symbiotic, is totally involved with creation in loving relationship.

And Religion?

Jesus, very openly, acted against the stipulations enacted by the Pharisees and Scribes who regulated the Jewish religion. Since he had a great following, the religious authorities were afraid that his teaching would threaten their status: so, they killed him.

His last miracle coincided with his death: the parting of the heavy temple curtain separating the Holy from the Holy of Holies, effectively erasing formal religion.

If we call ‘The America Religion’ “Christian”, then the term “Christianity” has to be redefined. “Earth-centered? Creation Regained?

June 29 2022

 Compounding Confusion.

I grew up in simpler times, when there were only male and female, both recognizable as different, something the French celebrated by coining: Vive La Différence. Today we have expanded possibilities:

LESBIAN: Usually refers to a woman who has a romantic and/or sexual orientation toward women. 

GAY: Used in some cultural settings to represent men who are attracted to men in a romantic, erotic and/or emotional sense. Not all men who engage in same-gender sexual behavior identify as gay, and as such this label should be used with caution.

BISEXUAL or BI: A person who experiences sexual, romantic, physical, and/or spiritual attraction to more than one gender, not necessarily at the same time, in the same way, or to the same degree.

TRANSGENDER: A person whose sense of personal identity or gender does not correspond to the sex they were assigned at birth, or does not conform to gender stereotypes. Sexual orientation varies and is not dependent on gender identity.

All this is causing confusion. 

Not only confusion, but also feelings of concern, accompanied by anxiety, uncertainty, misunderstanding, unhappiness, until a modicum of stability is attained.

It’s difficult for me to understand all this, because, basically, I am not a very intelligent person. You could categories me as a B- guy. I am quite slow in analyzing matters and coming to a conclusion. However, a long life has been an advantage, giving me time to acquire some literary skills, but more important, I have learned to be more tolerant, more understanding, more focused on what really matters, and, since I love the Lord, I have gained a perspective that especially takes his creation into account and sees humanity in its follies and fumbles and foibles, its state of unbelief and aimless searching, as it has abandoned ‘biblical’ directives and failed to find the true focus. 

The church?

The church has been right in its “Rapture” stance, predicting the world to end, but wrong in its interpretations, forgetting or ignoring that Noah and his family – all believers then and now – were saved and remained on earth, while the ‘sinners’ then and now were taken away. 

That basic mix-up alone has made the church a failed institution. Dr. Lynn White was right when he blamed the church for our climate crisis, outlined in his 1965 essay: The Historical Roots of Our Ecological Crisis.

 Also, the church’s intolerance on sexual matters and gender inequality has alienated many, including me.

How then should we live?

The perennial question. Fifty years ago, a book, The Limits to Growth, greatly influenced my thinking. It predicted that by 2022, the world would go beyond repair, unless carbon consumption was curtailed. That has not happened, causing one of the original authors to write: “We are now in overshoot. Managed decline has not happened; collapse is in our future.”

For the young people this compounds their confusion. So, they search for answers, and, in their mixed-up state, which is shared by many, try to find focus, and not finding it. 

As for me?

I see this life as a proving ground for eternity: we all are in a learning stage. Life is discovery, and the gender issue and sexual orientation are part of that experiment, I believe. We have to find our true self, whether that is emotional, intellectual, sexual, or physical and spiritual. In a way, life is an experiment, a road to explore how to fit into eternity.

I was – again – struck by this when I read Galatians 3: 28 in my morning devotions. “There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Jesus Christ”.The footnote there says that unity in Christ transcends ethnic, social and sexual distinctions. Perhaps ‘sexual’ here is meant ‘gender’, a common error. In contemporary parlor we could read: There is neither black nor brown, pauper nor billionaire, lesbian nor straight, for we are all one in Jesus Christ.

Compounding confusion is coursing through the masses. We all know or sense that something is amiss, that economic and ecological and religious conditions are beyond remedy: it’s now so purely plugged into contemporary life, that it can no longer change: we simply must manly – not an acceptable word anymore – carry on to the fiery finish.

I live by Jesus’ words, “Seek first the Kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given as well”. (Matthew 6: 33). 

I see the ‘kingdom’ as central to my life, and interpret it to mean, seeking the welfare of creation, so, when the New Creation comes, we fit right in.

That’s why Jesus continued to say (verse 34): Therefore, do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself.”
 Those rules do away with confusion. 

June 22 2022.

BORN TO WOE: 

the 14^th Century compared to our 21^st Century.

”Born to woe”, that’s how Barbara Tuchman heads her chapter on the 14^th Century, in her book, A Distant Mirror, the Calamitous 14^th Century.

Seven Hundred years ago, everything was different: then, ‘Life of the Spirit and of the after-world was superior to material life on earth”, she writes. Today this would be totally untrue. Yet, today, as a testimony to that faith, Europe still have its magnificent cathedrals, many of them built during the 12^th and 13^th Centuries, a distinct symbol of the religiosity of those bygone years, including the Martini Church in my hometown Groningen with its 100m tower. However, all are now stripped off their innards, their believing adherents.

The previous years.

The centuries prior to the year 1400, had been very productive, with great advances in art, technology, building, exploration, universities, cities, banking: they were the high Middle Ages, when the compass, the windmills, the spinning wheels, made life more interesting and prosperous. People felt good and secure, and its population expanded rapidly.

Then the weather turned. 

Sounds familiar! “A physical chill settled on the 14^th Century at its very start”. The Baltic Sea froze over twice, in 1303 and 1306-7; the cultivation of grain was curtailed: a shorter growing season heralded disaster for the population that had rapidly grown during prosperity, so quickly that already then it had reached a delicate balance.

Today?

Today we see similar signs: not cold, but heat is making agriculture and horticulture a hazardous enterprise. In 1315 the rains came so incessant that crops failed all over Europe, and famine, the dark horseman of the Apocalypse, became a familiar feature. Today….

Then, “Born to woe” accelerated 30 years later. Then, after the workers’ riots in 1346-47 which plunged Rome into anarchy, a fearsome earthquake shook the European mainland, accompanied by the PLAGUE, now labeled the Black Plague, that killed an estimated 50% of the European population. 

That same Pandemic was back in the news this past week when researchers, after decades of probing, found the plague-causing bacteria in graves in Kyrgyzstan, a country just north of Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Then too, the One Hundred Year War was waged, coinciding with religious strife that saw two Popes vying for dominance in the church.

Today?

In many ways our era resembles the 14^th Century. We too, are engaged in what constitutes a perpetual war against creation where thousands upon thousands of species are disappearing, where once fertile lands are washed away or resort to desert-like conditions, where not cold, is on the 14^th century, but human-induced heat is increasing, and melting glazier and disappearing North-and South Pole ice, make the weather increasingly volatile.

In contrast with the universal Catholic Church, dominant 700 years ago, we now see decreasing church attendance and increasing conservatism, centering especially on human sexual behavior, condemning the Lesbian-Homosexual-Bisexual-Transgender conditions, while Jesus’ life of magnanimity and tolerance is pushed away, replaced by stark rule upon rule. When the current Pope dies or resigns, the most likely scenario is a recurrence of the TWO POPES event, based on the unbridgeable divisions in the largest Christian block.

The Bible.

I know: the Bible is not a history book. But I do recommend you read Matthew 24 aloud. All 51 verses apply to today, painting a picture that eerily resembles both the 14^th and the 21^stcenturies: ‘the abomination that causes desolation’ occurring in the holy place, the earth in which we live, and which we have desecrated. It also mentions the lack of good preaching, the frequency of famines and earthquakes. And the list goes on: the similarity painted then, and what is happening today, is uncanny.

Also, both the Old and New Testament frequently mention an unbelievably large earthquake that will destroy one third of the earth. This past week a new report specifically pointed to the likelihood of such an event happening along the North American Pacific rim.

History tells me that disasters are contagious, that natural mishaps like company. Revelation 18 tells us why: “All nations have drunk the maddening wine of her adulteries”. In that same chapter it says that “The merchants of the earth will weep..” because stagflation will stop the sale of luxury goods and homes. 

Stagflation, a combination of inflation and economic stagnation, is now the forecast, plus withering weather-woes: both signs of a dying civilization.

The 14^th Century was ‘born to woe’’. That woe grew worse through indigenous destruction and genocide, through further church turmoil, the holocaust, through world-wars killing hundreds of millions, and now, in the 21^st Century, through the crime of all crimes: the death of nature, God’s precious earth. This final woe which will carry its own punishment: sudden global death.

June 15 2022

“BE END-CONSCIOUS”, ADVISES JESUS.

 “Many are called, few are chosen”, (Matthew 22:14), or “Will I find faith on earth when I return,” (Luke 18:8), or “But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it”. (Matthew 14: 7).

Not very encouraging these texts: what’s the matter with us? How come that Jesus – and these are his words – is so pessimistic about his followers reaching the final goal? 

Perhaps it has something to do with our idea of what constitutes the Christian faith. Suppose you are an average, law abiding, tax-paying citizen. If you live in the city core, where the main-line churches are, on Sundays you see a few – mostly middleclass, older people – attend. The more successful churches are usually in the suburbs with large parking lots, but often the same middleclass, well – situated attendees. 

For all practical purposes, during the week, there is little or no difference there with non-church people. That’s why I think that ‘a bit of Jesus as icing on the cake’, is not what Jesus had in mind when he dwelled on earth. Actually, he was killed because he, in no uncertain terms, condemned ‘religion’, condemned the ritual, well-established outwardly successful churches, the ‘many who are called, but…..’. 

It’s all about THE END.

I guess you can accuse me of being preoccupied with the end of humanity, with painting a picture that is dripping with pessimism. I guess you can rightly accuse me of writing that “The End is Near”. And I am not alone. Jesus was of that opinion as well.

Jesus saw all of life from the perspective of the END, the TELOS. In his famous proclamation, now called, THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT, Jesus recommended that we ought to live as “Anthropos Teleios”, which is translated as ‘being perfect’, an impossibility, but really means: “Be a person living with the END – TELOS – in mind: “Be teleios as your heavenly Father is teleios”, (Matthew 6:48). Be end-conscious as God is end-conscious. A voyage is not defined by its beginning, but by its end. Life is a trajectory, has a beginning and an end -telos-, and it’s the growing process, the striving for perfection, that determines its success. 

I can see where the translators did not use this literal interpretation because it also would mean that God would have an ending. 

Well, he does. 

Once the New Creation has come, God will disappear as he merges with The New Creation, where Jesus, as the heir of the Kingdom will be All and in All. God, as Bonhoeffer has postulated, is one with Creation, his laws will be    in our hearts: no more Bible, either, or church.

And what constitutes THE END?

The End is the new creation. Simple and direct. Paul, the great apostle, blunt as always, writes that when ‘the times have reached their end-point – and I maintain that this is the case today – everything, people, animals, oceans, continent, animals, vegetation, will all be under one grand Master, Christ.  

Johan Herman Bavinck writes, “The central point of the gospel is not us poor humans and our pain and suffering; rather, its entire focus is aimed at the unique and powerful reality that God wants to reinstate his kingdom. There is no such thing as individual salvation.”

That kingdom is his creation, the place where we live.

Jesus repeatedly tells us to “seek the kingdom” Our salvation and the salvation of creation go hand in hand. That’s why many are called, few take up the challenge.

No matter what we do, no matter how we, in the Western world, live, today ALL our acts somehow damage the very world God has created. Life today poses nearly insurmountable obstacles for Christians, that’s why I agree with Martin Luther who, more than 500 years ago, wrote (in the Latin theological language of his day) “Pecca Fortiter”, sin bravely, and constantly ask for forgiveness.

So, how do we deal with Jesus’ words, “Many are called, but few are chosen” or the other downer, Will I find faith upon my return?”

By and large, – and I am sure there are exceptions – ecclesiastical utterance is heaven-oriented. On Sundays millions of people hear sermons exclusively based on the Scriptures, God’s indirect word, called The Holy Bible, while Creation, God’s direct Word, so celebrated in Psalm 19, Psalm 8, Psalm 104 and others, is never regarded as ”HOLY”, yet Genesis 1-2-3 outline in detail how it was created by God. Psalm 33: 9 says, “God spoke and it came to be.”

God wants to restore Creation: that’s why Jesus died. In the process he also makes the new occupants holy. 

This is the gospel, the Good News: many are called, few are chosen.  

June 8 2022

THE LEAST IN THE KINGDOM……

Schrijven betekent: jezelf lezen. (To write means: reading your own life-story). Max Frisch.^.

How true.

Here’s my daily routine. I always get up at 7.30. Make tea, 3 cups of a mixture of Red Tea, Green Tea, Peppermint and Gingerroot. At 10 I have 2 cups of coffee. Why that much liquid? Twice I had kidney stones: not recommended.  

I then read aloud a portion of the Psalms, doggedly going through the 150 separate poems year after year, then ask the Lord for a blessing on the meal and on the day.

After my standard breakfast of oatmeal porridge – made the night before in a slow cooker – spiked with a bit of ground-up flaxseed, blueberries, fruit in season and baptized with homegrown applesauce, plus an egg (I also take vitamin C, D and minerals), I sit down and write 500 words on a text of the daily lectionary. I first read the prescribed Bible passages and then select a part that appeals to me. That takes me about one hour.

For me “Life is discipline”.

Proverbs always connects wisdom with discipline. My morning routine has not changed since my wife of 67 years died, now almost 2 years ago. Actually, my life has become more regimented, now that I am alone. 

I then read 3 daily newspapers on my computer, The Toronto Globe and Mail, The New York Times, and the British Guardian. This provides me with a somewhat balanced overview of what goes on in the world.

At 11 o’clock, I start preparing my hot meal, always vegetarian, and mostly homegrown. In the afternoon, after a nap, I walk for an hour, often on the nearby Canada Trail. A very light supper: yoghurt and a slice of bread, and in bed by 10 pm. 

One of my five children, three in Ontario – 250-350 km away – two in the US, visits every week, my oldest daughter every other week, who also phones daily. Yes, I am a fortunate father. Lesson: treat your children well: you will need them someday.

Life is change.

When I was a youngster, I wanted to become a missionary. My parents, devout Christians, encouraged that aim, and sent me, far too young, to the prep school for ministers, with emphasis on Greek, Hebrew and Latin, the languages in which the Scriptures were written.  By the grace of God, I did not turn out that way, but being keen on matters religious remained with me all my life.

Yet here I am: a missionary, of sorts, with readers world-wide: primarily the USA, Canada, China, but from all over. As an ardent promotor of the New Creation (I wrote a book about it), I see my long life, as preparatory for eternity. 

I’ve often had trouble with the church, but I always remained a member. The church, any church with officers, hierarchy, confessions, is like John the Baptizer, who was the Billy Graham of his day: fiery, flamboyant, and yet… Jesus said of him, “The least in the Kingdom is greater than he.” (Matthew 11:11).

I now see why. Both the church and the John who baptized people, were and are KINGDOM ignorant, saw heaven as the goal, creation as disposable, yet it is our future: the Kingdom to come!

That’s why the views my parents had on eternity are no longer mine. Their ‘heaven and hell’ belief has been replaced with totally different concepts. “By the Sea of Crystal saints in glory stand”, however beautiful the melody, white robes and choirs don’t reflect the LIFE Jesus taught us. To me today’s church is so Old Testament, so un-kingdom. I now completely endorse Bonhoeffer’s view that God and creation are one, that sin against creation is a sin against God. The renewed earth, populated by ‘the redeemed of the Lord’ – Isaiah 35 – is the kingdom we have to seek and promote. 

Life is looking ahead.

“Imagining good things ahead of us makes us feel better in the current moment,” said Simon A. Rego, the chief psychologist at Montefiore Medical Center and Albert Einstein College of Medicine, who has written extensively on the effect of anticipation on mood. “It can increase motivation, optimism and patience and decrease irritability.”

My hope, the dawning of the new creation, makes me optimistic about the future, makes me look forward to the immensity of newness, a world so perfect, a world so enticing, a world so beautiful, a world so engaging that we need eternity to explore it, eternity to beautify it, eternity to embrace it, eternity to know ourselves.

Even the least in the kingdom, God’s new creation, is greater than any Pope, is greater than any archbishop or cardinal, is greater even than John the Baptizer.