Bert Hielema–Columns and Writings

AND THEN SHALL THE END COME.

And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world, for a testimony to all nations; and then shall the end come. (Matthew 24: 14)

I am pretty sure that theologians are puzzled by this text. All around the world the Christian Religion is in decline. The concept of ‘kingdom’, meaning God’s rule on earth, has become a no-no, hardly ever mentioned in sermons or in Christian gatherings. Piety prevails, of course, but it is principally applied to personal prayer and song, and remains far removed from day-to-day activities. Jesus’ statement that he came to bring LIFE and that to the full – John 10:10 – is limited to spirituality, even as Christ’s statement indicates that there is no split in life. 

It becomes increasingly clear that, being a Christ follower, simply means adopting a ‘way of life’, a total immersion into Christ-like living, 24/7, inundated in LIFE that reflects the NEW life to come. 

Christian living is not a ‘looking back to the past’, but looking ahead to the New Creation to come, seeking new ways of holiness, living not only within the means and ways of creation, but in total symbiosis with all created matter, air, soil, water, fauna, flora, humanity, fully recognizing and implementing that Creation is God’s expression to us, first and foremost.

God’s way of punishing

When, in the Hebrew Bible God’s Chosen People, the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, neglected the WAY, God punished them through natural disasters, often drought for years on end. That’s how God manifested his power, and showed his people his authority over all created matter. The ten plagues that beset Egypt before it let the Israel people go, were mostly climate related, except the last one, when ‘the angel of the Lord’ killed all the firstborn of man and beast, sparing no family. 

Today is no different.

And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world, for a testimony to all nations; and then shall the end come. 

The Greek word for ‘gospel’ is eu-angelos, or the good news. Just as the Ten Plagues were good news for God’s people, so the current unnatural disasters are Good News for God’s people as well. They shout loud and clear that God’s creation cannot be tampered with without serious consequences. Climate Change, melting icecaps, horrendous hurricanes, wars, are causing more CO2, more diseases and epidemics, while uncontrollable forests fires rage with double whammies, more CO2, less absorbing powers. All these events are just pinpricks compared to what is still to come

God’s Kingdom is today’s tool to punish us, the trespassers into God’s Kingdom. The laws of Ecology come to mind, reflecting divine intentions, captured into 4 simple statements: Everything is connected to everything else; Creation knows best; There is no free lunch; Nothing disappears. The bills of our riotous living are now due. 

A lot of questions. 

How can we, under these circumstances expect the Gospel of the Kingdom to be preached to all the world? A sudden church revival? A miraculous opening for the Kingdom prospective? A population receptive to God’s message? No, none of these above. What then?

Here is how I see this. 

One clue lies on the Calvary Hill, just outside Jerusalem when Jesus died. There occurred a sudden conversion, but was it really sudden? I think that Jesus showed both murderers, both his cruel cross companions, vivid descriptions, in blazing colors, vital impressions of the New Earth to come, and their possible place in it. One accepted his place in paradise; one rejected it. Take note: their destination is not heaven, but the restored Garden of Eden Paradise.

I know, this is pure conjecture, but it sounds true to me: Jesus mentioned Paradise for a purpose. Nothing happens in isolation. 

To continue this possible scenario, here is my take.

When all those who have ever lived, have been assembled, Jesus will address them, and give them too, an eyeopener of the Kingdom, a snapshot, a total overview of the new creation, with the invitation to accept or reject it, just as the two murderers, crucified with Jesus, were offered a final choice. That is, I think, what is meant when “And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world, for a testimony to all nations; and then shall the end come.”

Here it is Jesus himself who, just as when he was on earth, in word and deed, shows us the Gospel of the Kingdom, in its eternal entirety, in its total splendor, in its uttermost beauty. Accept or reject, because then shall the END come. Last chance.

KNOW THYSELF

That was the heading above the entrance to the Greek temple in Delphi: Gnoothi Seathon, Know Thyself, a quest we all are engaged in, whether we actually pursue it, or ignore it. I learned from translating a book on Revelation, the last Bible book, written by J. H. Bavinck, and available under the title, And On And On the Ages Roll, that, in the end, ‘Everything becomes what it is’. That applies to economic conditions, to what we call ‘creation’, and, yes, to us humans as well: in the end, everybody becomes what they are.

Are we really what we eat?

I once went to a lecture on food, entitled, We Are What We Eat. I learned that this is only half the truth. We also are our genes and our upbringing. Yes, physically, we are what we eat. More and more our ‘bought’ food is processed, or ultra-processed, not made to benefit us, but guarantee shelf-life and corporate profit, causing health problems in the process. 

But mentally and, I should add, spiritually, we are, at least partially conditioned by our genes and upbringing: my growing up in an orthodox Christian family placed an undeniable stamp on me. For that reason, I did some internet searching and some soul searching as well to discover hidden traces.

My ancestors.

I spotted him because of his second name and my first one: Egbert: Harold Egbert Camping.  Wasn’t he the man who had published, by billboards everywhere, the date of Christ’s return? 

I decided to investigate, and, yes, I was related to him: His grandmother was a sister of my maternal grandfather, whose father, thus my great grandfather, was Drewes Bousma de Haan. 

My mother told me that my great-grandparents lost much of their holdings, and with it their elevated status. Note the double last name, indicating some distinction, some sort of rural nobility. Apparently, he was a well-off gentleman-farmer, born in 1830, whose grandfather had been an appointed member of the political class, in the Province of Groningen. I remember seeing a plaque affixed above the entrance of a small church in Doezum, honoring his allegiance to the House of Orange, the titular head of the Netherlands since 1568.

My particular interest was in Harold Egbert Camping, the grandchild of Edo Albertus Kampen and Gepke Bousma de Haan who married on March 5 1896 in the Netherlands and shortly thereafter emigrated to Lynden, Washington, USA. Harold Egbert Camping – his father changed the name – was born on 19 July 1921 in Boulder, Colorado to Ralph Jacobus Camping and Trijntje “Trina” (Hettema) Camping.

When my grandfather was baptized his, parents deleted the ‘Bousma’ name, for the boys, but when the daughter, Gepke, married, she reclaimed that double surname, indicating an independent streak, later evident in her son who changed the family name from Kampen to Camping. Harold Egbert Camping moved at an early age to California; there he studied at University California, Berkely Campus, became an engineer, formed his own construction company, and was a millionaire at 35.

He and two other men founded Family Stations Inc. in 1958 and, a year later, began broadcasting fundamentalist Christian programming on a San Francisco station. Beginning in the 1970s, Harold predicted the world’s demise multiple times over 3 decades. His prediction for May 21, 2011 was widely reported, in part because of a large-scale publicity campaign by Family Radio, and it prompted ridicule and rebuttals from secular and Christian organizations. After May 21 passed without the predicted events, Camping said he believed that a “spiritual” judgment had occurred on that date, and that the physical Rapture would occur on October 21, 2011, simultaneously with the final destruction of the universe by God. Except for one press appearance on May 23, 2011, Camping largely avoided press interviews after May 21, particularly after he suffered a stroke in June 2011. After October 21, 2011, passed without the predicted apocalypse, the mainstream media labeled Camping a false prophet and commented that his ministry would collapse after the “failed ‘Doomsday’ prediction. 

He passed away on 15 December 2013 after a fall in his home.

What about me, my family and our genes?

Has this trait, this religious zeal, this obstinacy contrary to Scriptural givens – see Matthew 24: 36, where Jesus explicitly states that ‘the Day and the Hour’ cannot be known – revealed itself in subsequent relatives? In me? 

Know Thyself.

Yes, we are what we eat and we are our genes. I see traits of him in my wider family and in myself. I too, have this urge to warn people of the Coming of the Lord. I confess that my daily prayer is Maranatha, Lord. Come. And my relatives? I see traits in my younger brothers; I see traits in a nephew.

Know Thyself. A constant struggle.

BACH, VAN GOGH, SHAKESPEARE, AND GOD.

But ask the animals, and they will teach you,
    or the birds in the sky, and they will tell you;
⁸ or speak to the earth, and it will teach you,
    or let the fish in the sea inform you.
Job 12.

Oh, the Bible! Yes, I mean this forgotten book. Most families have a copy or two, gathering dust somewhere. Which makes me wonder whether the Bible – and the church – is really necessary for salvation. 

What is salvation anyway? Good question. I think salvation comes when we pursue knowledge about God. The Belgic Confession points in that direction.

Article 2: The Means by Which We Know God 

We know him by two means: 

First, by the creation, preservation, and government of the universe,
since that universe is before our eyes
like a beautiful book 

in which all creatures, great and small,
are as letters
to make us ponder
the invisible things of God: 

his eternal power
and his divinity,
as the apostle Paul says in Romans 1:20. 

All these things are enough to convict men and to leave them without excuse. 

Second, he makes himself known to us more openly by his holy and divine Word,
as much as we need in this life,

for his glory
and for the salvation of his own. 

What does that indicate?

A number of things. It emphasizes that Creation is God’s Primary and Direct Word, while the Bible is God’s Secondary and Indirect Word. 

It also tells us that Salvation is all about knowing God, especially his LOVE for creation and for his Son. Karen Armstrong, in her book, Sacred Nature, has shown how throughout our 10,000 years of history, people have seen Creation as a gift of God, and thus holy. Jesus calls his father ‘a Spirit’, by definition invisible. Paul in his letter to his protégé Timothy, wrote “God lives in inapproachable light, who nobody can see or has seen.”  (1 Timothy 6: 16). So, how can we worship a God who is both unseen and beyond knowledge? 

For this I go to three historical figures, all three genii in their own right. 

Shakespeare first.

Very little is known for certain about William Shakespeare. What we do know about his life comes from registrar records, court records, wills, marriage certificates and his tombstone in Holy Trinity Church, Stratford-upon-Avon. William Shakespeare was baptised on 26 April 1564 at Holy Trinity in Stratford-Upon-Avon.  This most famous playwright of all time – he wrote or co-authored some 50 plays – we only know him through his works.

I know a bit more about Johann Sebastian Bach. 

I have 2 Bach biographies: one more than 500 pages, written by Christoff Wolff, born in Germany, taught at Harvard. He confesses that he knows little about Bach as a person. Two of his wives died, one survived him, leaving her with 4 small children, of which he had 20, many dying young. He lived from 1685-1750, all in East Germany. But Bach’s musical talent is unequaled, I quote, “Johann Sebastian Bach was a genius of the highest order; his spirit is so unique and personal, so immense that it will require centuries to properly typify him. His original genius is immediately obvious”. His output was legendary: working 15 hours 7 days a week. 

Again, we know him mainly through his immense treasure of music.

Then there is Vincent van Gogh.

I have his biography, written by a duo: Gregory White Smith and Steven Naifeh, both graduates of Harvard Law School. They managed to unearth every letter he ever wrote: and there were a lot. The life story of Vincent – his father was a minister in the Dutch Reformed Church – is so depressing that I could not finish this almost 1,000 pages volume. Notable facts: he was financially supported by his brother, an art dealer; he cut off his ear and committed suicide. 1853-1890.

But his paintings! His legacy! Unequaled among painters, except for, perhaps, Rembrandt and Da Vinci. 

So, why mention these great artists at all? 

They are world-famous because of their works. Without their artistic achievements, history would have forgotten them.

The same is true bout God. John 3 comes to mind. In it, Jesus talks to a preacher of his church. Three notable items: (1), in verse 13 he reminds him (and us) that ‘nobody goes to heaven, except Jesus, God’s son, who came from there’; (2) verse 16: God’s love for his creation is so great that, in order to buy it back from Satan, God’s Son is used as a ransom; (3) verse 17: Jesus came, not to condemn the world but to save it. 

Conclusion.

Three examples of famous men, still known today for their unequalled legacies.

The Old Testament believers saw God concretely in the holy temple. Today’s Christians can see God in his holy creation.

RELIGION-LESS CHRISTIANITY

Is it curtains for the church?                                                

I don’t know where the expression “It’s curtains” originates, but it’s meaning is clear: it signals the end of something, such as, “if the plane crashes, it’s curtains for all”. 

Perhaps it originated in the theatre world; perhaps it has a biblical origin. There’s a curious item mentioned in all three synoptic gospels: The instant Jesus died on the cross, the curtain in the temple separating the Holies (the common aera where the priests gathered) from the Holy of Holies, (the place where only the High Priest was allowed to enter once a year, on the Day of Atonement), ripped from top to bottom. 

It must be remembered that the temple then was at the very centre of the Jewish Religion, with its annual calendar culminating in the feast of Atonement when the High Priest, once a year, entered the Holy of Holies to make the atoning sacrifice for the sins of the people. It’s now named Yom Kippur, the highest Holy Day of the Jewish calendar. By this act reconciliation between God and the people, is restored. Suddenly the heart of the Jewish religion was ripped out. A few decades later the temple was destroyed.

Why did this curtain rip?

 Curiously, this was Jesus’ very last act. I am a great believer in context, in making a decision based on previous sayings, such as found in Matthew 23. In that chapter Jesus shows his fury with the theologians of his day, the religious leaders. Seven times he condemns them for prescribing rules and regulations required for salvation. In that chapter, Jesus uses such strong language that it makes me think that the ripping of that curtain really means THE END of religion, all religion, because what applied to temple worship, is also relevant to Christianity. 

Christianity is not a religion.

I believe that the torn curtain signals ‘the end of religion, of all religions, including Christianity’. Why? Because Christianity is not a religion: It is a Way of LIFE.  On that Pentecost event, when the Holy Spirit descended on the crowd in Jerusalem, that divine act did not indicate the onset of the Christian Religion: it indicated a radical change in life:  these early Christ-followers had everything in common, following Christ’s edict: “I have come to bring life, and that to the full” (John 10: 10).

My Life Struggle. 

My religious battles have been with the church. I was an elder in a large church when the minister from the pulpit condemned a Christian organization of which I was a prominent supporter. I resigned and transferred my membership to a more open church, but when a new minister came, ultra conservative, I, rather than fight, moved away and became a member of a house church. 

After 5 years that too fell apart, and joined the local Presbyterian Church, where, after 45 years, I still am a member. There I again became an elder, representing the church in the regional meeting of churches, even chaired this so-called Presbytery for 2 years, and later became to convener of the National Board of Trustees for 5 years, for the simple reason that none of the accountants and lawyers, the financial pillars of the church, had never been accustomed to pray publicly.

A bit of history.

For some 300 years after Christ died, there were only house churches, where people had possessions in common, risking life and limb, job and security. It was only after Emperor Constantin favored the Christian movement, that Christianity became a status symbol, when buildings and structures appeared, evolving into The Christian Religion. That etiquette has now worn off. 

The end. Everything becomes what it is.

We now, as Climate Change, wars, epidemics intensify, must be prepared for THE END. Also, the end of religion: time to prepare ourselves for eternity to come: the New Creation. “The church is a product of the past, yet it is only out of the future that the present can be lived”, writes Bonhoeffer somewhere.

Don’t be shy to read the Bible. It still is the Book of Life. Yet, just as it is ‘curtains for the church’, so too the BIBLE will disappear. After all, it is a human book. In almost the very last Bible chapter (Revelation 21: 22), it says, I did not see a temple in the city, because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple.

No temple means no religion. No temple means no Bible. No temple means no church. 

These new conditions we must now, in these final days, strive to assume. Religion killed Jesus. That’s why we already see churches disappear, and replaced by ‘a way of life’, in tune with God’s creation, our eternal future. 

Prepare for ‘religion-less Christianity”, where God/Creation is all and in all. 

It’s simple:  ‘Love the Lord your God/Creation with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind; and love your neighbor as yourself. Luke 10: 27.

THAT GOD IS GONE.

In my early youth, he was there, God. That was more than 8 decades ago, in, what now in Canada is called, the Dirty Thirties. I saw God, symbolized in my grandparents who lived godly lives in godly surroundings, reflecting Genesis 3: 19: “By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.” My parents’-parents saw themselves as part of nature, part of the animals they so lovingly tended, each bovine’s name posted in the cow barn. I remember the horse of my mother’s father, a placid dappled animal, named Bles. Working the land was done with compassion enriching the soil in the process.

Both grandfathers were elders in a large church in a tiny village. There, in the rural west quarter of the Netherlands’ most Northerly Province, Groningen, I saw God shining through my grandparents. 

I also remember the horse-drawn vessel, carrying their 2-3 milk cans each day, transporting the fresh milk to be processed in the farmers’ co-op, bringing the cans back with whey for the pigs. 

I, amazingly, also experienced God in their view on economics, how, my grocer/grandfather, came calling in his 2 wheeled box, pony-powered, and bartered the eggs from my Oma’s free-ranging chickens for coffee, tea, sugar. I even remember the smell of the stoke-hut, the freestanding cooking and eating shed, their simple meal, mostly potatoes; their standard dessert being buttermilk porridge: only I was allowed to sweeting it with corn syrup.

Their world was a unity.

My grandparents had never heard of the French philosopher René Descartes who set the tone for the modern separation of humans and nature, by putting forward the view that the mind is divine and God-like, and our bodies, and the bodies of other creatures, are just kind of lifeless matter, a false belief still dominating American Religion, and now the ruling faith in Pentecostal Africa as well. Also, the main direction in the world-wide Roman Catholic Church, however much I admire some of the leaders there. 

They also had never heard of Plato and Aristoteles whose dualism the church swallowed hook, line and sinker, separating body from soul, a rational soul from a material body, resulting in the ‘heaven heresy’. Look at the ‘Christian Republican Party in the USA: Once in power they will scrap all environmental regulations.

Religion kills.

It is worth noting, how the Old Testament religion, propagated by the Pharisees, killed Jesus, while our New Testament version is killing Creation/God. 

Dr. Lynn White, a Christian ecologist, was right. In his essay, The Historical Roots of Our Ecological Crisis, he maintained that, of all religions, Christianity is the most anthropocentric, the most human-directed one. I cannot help but conclude that today’s Climate Change is the direct result of the Church separating God from nature. 

All about OIL.

The War – 1939-45 – was waged for one reason: Domination of Carbon Resources: OIL. Hitler wanted the Russian resources. After the war, OIL totally replaced God, the deity whom the church banned to heaven, giving free reign to the Carbon God to rule supreme. That war, waged between God/Nature and ROW, the Rest of the World, is now in its final stages, ending in spectacular fashion: fire, smoke, heat, hurricanes: the wrath of God/Nature versus the puny proletariat we are, basically. 

So, where is the church in all this, today?

In the 13^th and 14^th centuries the church was almighty, but during the Black Plague it lost much of its prestige and when coordinated voices started to criticize its outreach, the edifice crumbled. 

Today, the church’s preoccupation with heaven, at the expense of the earth, has further eroded popular support so that now there only is a shell left, visible in empty churches. 

Now a universal holocaust looms and the church is left speechless, as it had bet on the wrong horse, and lost credibility.

What to do in this late hour?

It is too late to expect the instituted church to switch to an earth-minded gospel, even though Romans 1: 20 asserts that:  For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities–his eternal power and divine nature–have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse. We cannot plead ignorance. I know, OIL has fueled our amazing progress. We now experience its fateful consequence: fire and destruction.

Dr. Sabine Dramm’s book on Bonhoeffer, concludes with the amazing statement: “WhatBonhoeffer presents as specific to the Christian Faith, is the perception of God and the world as one, and the perception of life that has its wellspring in this world in God, and in turn proceeds from this world back again to God. 

We used to believe that GOD IS ALL AND IN ALL: that God is gone in the Western world. Now, by our conduct, we confess that OIL IS ALL AND IN ALL.

WHAT’S NEXT?

Agreed, we live in interesting times. Yes, I know, it is a Chinese curse, but nevertheless, by delaying dealing with matters unsolved, by ignoring problems pending, by shutting our eyes while going full-speed ahead, will hasten ‘the demise of the earth!’. Sounds melodramatic, sounds over-the-top, but nevertheless, I, from my perch in rural Eastern Ontario, Canada, know it to be true.

A few relevant questions.

Who will be the next US president? Where will the next Atlantic Hurricane land? Will the persistent heat affect my health? How about the monetary deficits? Are churches still viable? Is marriage disappearing? What about the billions in Africa and Asia who lack security, food, shelter?  Will the bird flu attack humans? Will Covid ever disappear? What will the tens of thousands of forest fires do to our health and Climate Change? After all, trees are supposed to be the ultimate solution. Why are earthworms disappearing? Is God favoring Trump? Will the next IT (Information Technology) shut-out paralyze the entire world?

Questions galore. 

We truly live in a world of profound economic anxiety, routine violence and an opioid epidemic. And, yes, there also is flagrant denial. We all know we live in an era of unrelenting news of war and nature carnage. No, it is not true that the United States is overrun by millions of dangerous immigrants, but we do have mass displacement, which Hannah Arendt described as “homelessness on an unprecedented scale, rootlessness to an unprecedented depth.” Questions galore. Answers? Not so much. 

What’s next?

I am an old man, rapidly approaching 96. I had a dream a few nights ago, a strange dream, which I recall only vaguely. It had something to do with Judgement, the Last Judgement. I believe there is lots that calls for judgement. God gave us a well-ordered world, where everything perfectly fitted into everything else: no discord, no friction, no chaos, no mysterious decline in some facet of creation: on the contrary. Just last week, a computer snatch threw much of the air industry into chaos: one human error, and the lives of millions are affected; one infected bird in China, and the entire Western world suffers from Covid. We live in a very vulnerable world!

It looks to me that we have lost our bearings: we don’t know where we come from, anymore, and we don’t want to know where we are going, because it simply frightens us: humanity in general cannot bear much reality.

I notice this when I listen to my weekly dose of sermons. In my church sermons avoid reality, so the preacher finds a human-interest Bible story, gives it a moralistic twist, and pronto, sermon done. Fortunately, the ad in my local weekly paper, Tweed News, emphasizes St. Andrew’s ‘coffee hour’. That’s what the church is all about: fellowship. The good things about our church also are the Wednesday Morning open access coffee hour, and, with the Salvation Army, a free lunch for whoever, on Mondays 12-1.

The church is for others.

Bonhoeffer sees the church to be ‘for others’. There used to be grassy – weed infested – ‘lawn’ around our church building. Most of it is now converted to flower beds, or covered with a dozen large vegetable grow boxes, whose harvests go to the local foodbank, all signalling that “The Earth is the Lord’s”. Every church should have at least 2 committees: A worship and an environmental one: I sincerely believe that personal salvation and environmental salvation go hand in hand.

Who Cares?

“The whole land will be laid waste because there is no one who cares”, laments Jeremiah somewhere. We are ‘the land’, because ‘earth we are’, and to earth we shall return. 

Will technology ever triumph over nature/God? The short answer is NEVER. We can’t cure with technology when technology caused our predicament in the first place. AI – Artificial Intelligence – requires so much ‘power’ that its goal is self-defeating, apart from the dangers it poses to human intelligence.

Life is a totality. The natural disasters we experience are unnatural because they are rooted in the separation of us and the land, of us and our fellow citizens, of us, and the divine. After all, ‘everything is connected to everything else’, is one of the 4 laws of ecology. Life is a totality, where ‘nothing ever disappears’, where ‘there is no free lunch’, and the indigenous people knew that ‘father, mother, sibling’ nature knows best. The original sin is ignoring these laws.

Expect matters to get worse: we are approaching ‘limits’ everywhere. By delaying dealing with matters unsolved, by ignoring problems pending, by shutting our eyes to the ‘cries of creation’ we hasten ‘the demise of the earth!’. Sounds melodramatic, sounds over-the-top, but nevertheless, I, from my perch in rural Eastern Ontario, Canada, know it to be true.

What’s next? Worse.