September 23 2017
POPE FRANCIS AND CLIMATE CHANGE.
Last week Pope Francis said the recent spate of hurricanes should prompt people to understand that humanity will “go down” if it does not address Climate Change. He also said that history will judge those who deny the science behind its causes.
I should add that Popes, in general, are among the best informed people in the world. So when he says that, “If we don’t turn back, we will go down,” we have to take this seriously.
Pope Francis did not elaborate on the term “we will go down”. The term reminds me of the ‘underworld’, the Hades, going into the pit, Sheol, the place where all anti-Christian forces are assembled, waiting for judgment.
The Bible often mentions that HADES place. You can find even it at the very end of the Bible, in Revelation 20: 13 where it says that “The sea gave up the dead that were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead that were in them, and all persons were judged according to what they had done.”
I imagine that denying Climate Change or abetting it, would be among the offences against the earth.
The Bible is quite explicit in calling the earth ‘God’s world’. God gave us the Scriptures – see Psalm 119:105 – to be “A lamp for our feet and a light for our path in creation, God’s Primary Word.” Bonhoeffer in his CREATION AND FALL, writes, “God, humanity and the earth belong together”. J.H. Bavinck in his BETWEEN THE BEGINNING AND THE END writes “We are taken from the earth, we belong to the earth, and we live through the earth.” Nietzsche writes, “Remain true to the earth and do not believe those who speak to you about super terrestrial hopes! They are poisoners, whether they know it or not!”
After all this is the only earth we have and will be our habitat into eternity. God made no junk and will not junk what he has made.
I like Pope Francis. He is forthright, does not beat around the bush, is not very diplomatic, which is earning him the ire of the traditionalists, some of whom would love to see the Latin Mass returned to prominence and so elevate the status of priest as the only person who knows what the words mean, making them the true intermediaries between the common folk and a God whose preferred language apparently is Latin. For many centuries the Lord`s Prayer was recited in Latin: Pater Noster qui es in caelis, santificetur nomen tuum, etc. Our Father who is in the heavens (plural), may your name be regarded as holy..
Pope Francis has no illusions about the status of the human mind: “if we don’t turn back, we will go down”.
But….we can’t go back.
The trouble is that we no longer can turn back: we have burned our bridges and we have lost the art of survival. We no longer can function without causing ever more pollution and destruction. That`s why the Bible contains the book REVELATION.
Revelation, that last Bible book, makes fascinating reading. Take Chapter 12. There it says that THERE WAS WAR IN HEAVEN.
War in heaven?
Yes, apparently the Devil had a place there at one time. Remember Job? That most modern Bible-book relates how the Satan stopped in to see God and asserted out that Job believed in God only because everything had gone well for him. Then the Satan in heaven functioned as the accuser. It seems that at one point he became such a nuisance that he was kicked out of heaven, and landed feet first right here, on our earth.
The Bible pulls no punches: “But woe to the earth and the sea, because the devil has gone down to you! Filled with fury, because he knows that the time is short.” (Revelation 12: 12).
There’s where we are now: demonic armies have thrown themselves onto the world with unbridled ferocity and awesome fury.
We are at that decisive point in history where no longer God, but Satan rules the world, and the signs are everywhere. It is as if nature that, for so long, for so many centuries, has faithfully furnished humanity with all its needs, has now become our enemy and full of revenge has thrown itself upon humanity.
We, so superior, with our electrical energy network, our mighty medical system, our military prowess, our fast cars and faster planes, our entertainment establishment, our ever more clever computers, all of which makes us feel so immense powerful and strong, now, in this hour, in a total humiliating fashion we are confronted that in the final analysis we helpless when hurricanes hurl toward us or earthquakes turn life upside down.
The ire, the wrath of creation, is directed especially against the City which, in Revelation 18, is called BABYLON.
In the old times, 2,000 to 3,000 years ago an empire was always portrayed around a big city, such as Babylon, Nineveh or Rome. We therefore must see this ‘great city’ as the heart of the new empires, the center from where this world-wide regime is being governed. So, it is this great city that is hit the most, its infra structure, the oil wells, the banks, vacation resorts reduced to rubble.
The Fall of Babylon
In veiled, secretive language John continues to tell us how all this is unfolding. The entire eighteen’s chapter of Revelation is devoted to the Fall of Babylon, our modern system.
Babylon! How deeply has been the impression Babylon has made on the ancient people of Israel, that after many centuries the name of this city appears in this prophecy. Some 500 years after the exile, after being forced to live in that ancient Babylon, the city of Nebuchadnezzar, the city where Belshazzar spoke his haughty words, where he received a rude awakening when the Persian armies secretly invaded it during the night, that city was still seen as the pinnacle of evil.
That city is now long gone, completely destroyed. Desert sand has covered it all, has crawled into its deserted defenses, and has blanketed the old ruins with a carpet of oblivion.
No, the prophecy has nothing to do with that ancient world city. It is clear that John had the Rome of his days in mind here, that city vested on the seven hills, the queen of the earth. It is from there, out from the heart of Rome that the military roads branched out to the far corners of the mighty realm. Roman legions penetrated to the very edges of the then known world. From Britain to India’s borders, the scepter of the Roman emperors held sway. When John wrote this all, the image of Rome was constantly in his mind. Rome is the city around which the entire empire is arranged as an immensely wide steppe surrounds a high mountain top. And, yes, in the days of John, the emperors in all aspects resembled the signs of the ‘beast’.
It is undeniable that John thought of Rome. Of course that does not mean that all this ultimately has to do with that city because the word Rome here is only a vague indication of the city of the last days that then – that is now! –will function as the core of the world that is to disappear.
It serves no purpose to speculate which city is indicated here: Houston, the center of the Oil Industry? Never mind. Now with the entire world ‘urbanized’ it simply indicates our contemporary world.
In the scenario of Revelation 18, John tells us how important entities appear. In the first place there is the beast, the emperor or tyrant or by whatever name he or she or it – OIL, GOOGLE, WWW, the USA? – goes. This personality or substance or entity is the undisputed ruler of the entire world. This tyrant apparently has a place of residence, that mysterious Babylon, where everything converges, the places where money and power rule.
Next to the tyrant we see the beast that rises out of the earth, the false prophet or the minister of information or propaganda, the advertising world, the Advertising News Empire, perhaps. And in the third place there is the state, the realm, that all-powerful entity spanning the world. Foreign wars are no longer an issue, because outside the boundaries of the realm there are no more forces that can match the power Babylon has. The only threat to fear must come either from God, from above, or from inside.
The way I see it is that we are experiencing what Pope Francis said about the recent spate of hurricanes which should prompt us to understand that humanity will “go down” if we do not address Climate Change, and that history will judge those who deny its causes.
So will we change?
Have you seen any signs from us, educated and well-informed, Westerners, to cut back and try to live ‘the simpler life’? By simpler life I mean staying at home, cultivate a veggie garden, foreswear the use of high-polluting transportation, such as airplanes, automobiles and cruise ships and make a conscious effort to reduce the carbon footprint.
Don’t for a minute think that we will change: as a human race we are addicted to carbon fuels. Pope Francis knows that and thus, in essence, he has predicted the end of the world as we know it. He has discovered – actually he knew it already – that he can’t change the church, which, supposedly is ruled by the Holy Spirit. If the church is beyond reformation, the world, ruled by the Satan, is a totally lost cause.
And if you think that collapse will be a slow process, you are wrong there as well.
There’s such a thing as THE SENECA PROCESS which, in essence says that once COLLAPSE comes, it comes rapidly. The Fall of Rome is a good example. Rome became a world power over a period of some 1000 years. The collapse took only decades.
When societal collapse is mentioned, there are two possible reactions. The most common one is that such a thing will never happen. Then, if you manage to convince people that it is possible, they try to do everything they can to keep the system going whatever it takes, not realizing that when this is successful we exceed the carrying capacity of the system which hastens the collapse. That’s what we are seeing now: an overshoot.
The Bible is quite clear here. It mentioned such a matter as The Seneca Effect, named after a Roman Senator, immensely rich, who lost favor with Nero, and was forced into suicide. Job, that famous figure in the Bible, is a perfect example of suddenly losing it all. Jesus, repeatedly warns us that THE END will come abruptly: like a thief in the night. Revelation tells us that (Rev. 18: 11) “The merchants of the earth will weep and mourn over ‘the great city’ because no one will buy their cargoes anymore…….(17) in one hour such great wealth has been brought to ruin.” Remember also ‘the last straw that breaks the camel’s back’.
Today everything is speeding up. We are racing toward the end. Global Warming is rapidly increasing. The ice melt in the Arctic is in overdrive. ARCTIC NEWS reports that, “Extreme weather is upon us. Global warming is increasing the intensity, occurrence, size, duration and impact of many catastrophic events, including wildfires, droughts, heat waves, cold snaps, storms, lightning, flooding and seismic events such as earthquakes and associated tsunamis. Ever larger numbers of people are getting hit directly by such events, as well as indirectly due to lack of fresh water, food, shelter, medicine, health care and emergency services.”
Matthew 24: 22 gives us a timely reminder, “Therefore keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come…So you must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him.”
Dietrich Bonhoeffer starts his CREATION AND FALL with these timely words, “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.”
Hmmm.
When Pope Francis says that, “If we don’t turn back, we will go down,” he speaks Revelation talk.