On July 7 it was announced on the Christian Reformed Church in North America (CRCNA) website that Rev. Dr. Darren Roorda had been dismissed from his position as Canadian Ministries Director by the Canada Corporation – the Canadian section of the governing body known as the Council of Delegates (COD). The news release recounts his…
For a Christian, imagination is not the sole domain of the artsy and literary types. The imagination is every Christian’s home country. Survival is insufficient, as Star Trek’s famous quote tells us. We must all explore beyond the visible and the known to somewhere better. So let the writers’ circles have their creativity training in…
“So long as you pick up and use Proverbs like a telephone book, you are most likely to get a wrong number.” – Calvin Seerveld If you dare, crack open this book and be ready for a jolt. It’s a book that strives to refresh the “literary verve and contentious bite” of scripture. It’s a…
Albert Wolters was my Greek professor, a columnist for Christian Courier, expert on the Copper Scrolls and a preacher, but he is best known internationally as the author of Creation Regained: Biblical Basics for a Reformational Worldview – what philosopher Nicholas Wolterstorff called “The best statement I have come across of the ‘reformational’ Christian worldview.”…
If we can’t get angels, there is nothing anyone on the planet wants more for Christmas this year than a vaccine for the coronavirus. We are told it’s on the way, but we must be patient. A global pandemic can’t be subdued in a day. This is our first COVID Christmas, and hopefully, by God’s…
“My world just opened up. In fact, it exploded.” Justin Cooper was a preacher’s son who arrived as an 18-year-old at Trinity Christian College in 1968. Through professor Calvin Seerveld in particular, he saw in a fresh way that “this is my Father’s world” – and thus perceived he ought to love that world. “They…
Do you dismiss as a hypocrite a public intellectual who divorced his wife of 27 years and married his much younger research assistant while writing a book called The Road to Character? Or do you buy his next book to see what he has learned through such public scandal, assuming a person is more than their…
Children, like puppies, are always zooming around. They zoom until they drop exhausted, and it’s great fantastic fun. But Zooming with a capital Z – or whatever your video conferencing platform of choice may be – is not good for teaching students except as a last resort.
Trustees at Calvin University voted unanimously on May 8 to approve some significant changes in faculty requirements with regards to Reformed identity. While the University webpage headlines “Calvin Deepens and Strengthens Faith Expectations,” the student newspaper declares “BREAKING: Board of trustees vote that faculty no longer required to be CRC, send kids to Christian K-12 schools.” What is going on? Calvin is an official ministry of the Christian Reformed Church of North America (CRCNA).
Does this sound familiar to ears tuned to Abraham Kuyper? “There is not one ‘square inch’ in the entire public square where Christ’s model of hospitality does not have relevance and normativity.” Kaemingk tweaks Kuyper’s slogan: he acknowledges the crown of Christ and the political justice Christ demands, but insists that the cross of Christ puts the hospitality of God for humankind as the primary frame for the Christian’s activity in the public square.
Although it isn’t by any means the most comforting or reassuring novel for the current moment, I’ve been thinking a lot lately about Emily St. John Mandel’s Station Eleven. It’s the story of a post-apocalyptic world in which most of the population has been decimated by a flu pandemic. The narrative focuses on a group of actors and musicians known as the Travelling Symphony, who journey around what’s left of the Great Lakes region keeping hope and culture alive by performing the classics.
Harry Van Belle has written an invitation to those shaped by our secular age, to life as coram deo, lived before the face of God. This means seeking the meaning, intimacy and vitality that comes from recognizing that the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jesus loves and cares for us, and calls us to a life of deep spirituality and love. Van Belle not only shows coram deo as a comprehensive approach to understanding human history and the Bible, but as a way of life that brings meaning to vocation, education, and the seasons of life.
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