New life for 120-year-old words
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New life for 120-year-old words

How did Princeton Theological Seminary’s community and wider Reformed enclaves receive Abraham Kuyper as a person and theologian during his extended sojourn in the United States in 1898? What became of Kuyper’s hope to establish Calvinism as a spiritual guide for not only Dutch, but also other nations’ public life, without establishing an official state…

Dialogue within the ‘bond of peace’
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Dialogue within the ‘bond of peace’

Since Synod 2016 the Christian Reformed Church has been studying, discussing and agonizing over same-sex relationships. That year, Synod created a committee which produced what is now called the Human Sexuality Report (HSR). Among other issues, the HSR recommended that homosexual activity breaks the seventh Commandment and is thus prohibited. Synod 2022 took the report…

All in the Family
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All in the Family

Some years after becoming an oblate at the New Camadoli Hermitage in California’s remote Big Sur, Paula Huston embraced God’s call to research and write this compact yet far-reaching and exhaustively researched history of the hermitage. First, she discerned she could not do justice to New Camadoli unless she dug deeply into the history of…

When God closes a church
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When God closes a church

For 70 years, Fruitland Christian Reformed Church (CRC) and its congregation in and around Fruitland, Ontario have given faithful witness to the Gospel of Jesus Christ over four generations of mostly Dutch-born or -descended members. Before the church was built in 1952, the growing congregation worshiped in a local Legion Hall. Early on, the fledgling…

Life, death and what comes after?
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Life, death and what comes after?

J. Todd Billings’ End of the Christian Life is the most profound, challenging and comforting book I’ve ever read about death and life. As well it pulled me back to my grandfather’s death decades ago. Soon after immigrating to Chicago in the early 20th century, Jacobus Cornelis Dekker changed his Dutch name to James Cornelius;…

Hope through pandemic and resurrection
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Hope through pandemic and resurrection

Hamilton, Ontario poet John Terpstra is also a cabinet maker. Correspondingly, his writing hovers over themes of spirit and place. In Wild Hope Terpstra offers a sequel to In the Company of All: Prayers from Sunday Mornings at St. Cuthbert’s. There Terpstra concisely expressed that small congregation’s embodied spiritual desires, praises and hopes. With personal…

Review of Midsomer Murders (Amazon Prime)

Review of Midsomer Murders (Amazon Prime)

Rose and I never watched much television except for The National and Hockey Night in Canada. During Covid, Adrienne and Andrew dropped to second place; we can almost lip sync their nightly reports of Covid’s horror. Hockey Night vanished entirely. Who can watch hockey without roaring crowds? Amazon Prime Video’s Midsomer Murders supplanted all else,…

Finding life in a cold-water companion
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Finding life in a cold-water companion

When South African documentary filmmaker Craig Foster fell into a personal Slough of Despond, he came close to drowning emotionally and mentally. Netflix’s 85-minute My Octopus Teacher records his year-long recovery with daily baptisms in the eight-degree Centigrade sea off Cape Town. There he discovered he was not alone. As baptism declares, he died to…

Introducing our new mission statement

Introducing our new mission statement

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“Christian Courier’s independent Canadian journalism inspires action, builds community and influences culture for Christ.” Last summer, as we were busy behind the scenes building our new website, we took a hard look at our mission statement. Printed on page 4 of every issue, you may have seen it before: “Established 75 years ago,” it said,…

Grief & Springs of Hope
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Grief & Springs of Hope

A Christian Courier lead article on Lifewater Canada, “Blindness to Vision”, told the story of Jim Gehrels’ life and work to provide safe, clean water for towns in Liberia, Kenya, Nigeria and Haiti by drilling community wells. Community is the key word. Beginning in the mid-1990s, Jim organized teams of a few volunteers from Canada…

A unique Canadian church happening
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A unique Canadian church happening

I have read a few dissertations and am happy that most were never released into the general population. Such scholarly scribblings might discourage many readers from ever thinking about graduate school. Then along came Peter Schuurman’s revamped dissertation, The Subversive Evangelical. Many in Canadian churches have awaited this book for some time. Its subjects –…

A Lament, Plea and Hope
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A Lament, Plea and Hope

Recently, Shiao Chong, Editor of The Banner, the Christian Reformed Church’s (CRC) official magazine, published two impassioned articles. In his editorial “Speak Out Against Racism” (June 29), he described a time when he was called a racist epithet on an elevator in Hamilton, Ontario. As well, he referred hopefully to the CRC’s recent statement on racism signed by many agency leaders and later endorsed by the Council of Delegates, though he noted there was “dissent.”