Peripatetic Pastor

Category: Theses on Denominational Life

  • THINKING THE FAITH: “WITHOUT RESERVATION”

    “Without reservation” The church order of the Christian Reformed Church (CRC) in a supplement to Article 5 includes some instructions about what one should consider when signing the Covenant for Officebearers. The Covenant, for those of you who are not familiar with the CRC, is a document that office holders in the denomination are required…

  • BARBIE AND THE GARDEN OF EDEN: WHAT IT MEANS TO BE HUMAN

    The best biblical movie of the year is Barbie. An additional nod in the way of biblical movies should go to Oppenheimer. Together these summer blockbusters—they are jointly saving Hollywood—mine biblical themes to explore the human condition. They are secular sermons preaching to a secular audience truths the church too often neglects or buries under…

  • NOTES HERE AND THERE

    As a change of pace, for this post I’ve collected a few thoughts and topics I have been thinking about. Random notes. If they coalesce at all, it’s around the thought that we live in a time of opportunity for the faith—opportunity to speak to the culture and to the church in new and compelling…

  • GETTING UNSTUCK: A WAY FORWARD

    For the past month, we—you, my readers and I—have gotten distracted by another synod, this 2023 version of the Synod of the Christian Reformed Church (CRC), which doubled down on its opposition to most if not all expressions of LGBTQ+ sexuality. It’s important to keep in mind that the synod is not the church. And…

  • A MEDITATION ON TRUST: TRUSTING EACH OTHER IN A TIME OF DISTRUST

    What you have done here by ceasing debate is incredibly harmful to what sense of trust the minority has in this body. (Cara DeHaan, from the floor of the synod of the Christian Reformed Church, June 2023) . . . [Vitalik] Buterin [founder of Ethereum and cryptocurrency theorist] argues that one of the most valuable properties…

  • DENOMINATIONAL SOUL: A SECOND TAKE ON SYNOD 2023

    Let’s step back from the dumpster fire that ended Synod 2023 of the Christian Reformed Church (CRC) and take another look at the synod and what it might tell us about the shape of the denomination—its strengths and perils. And, perhaps, what it may tell us more generally about the shape of the church—the conservative,…

  • ENDING UGLY

    ENDING UGLY For the second year in a row, synod—the 2023 synod of the Christian Reformed Church (CRC)—ended ugly. This may be an omen for the life of the denomination. The synod clock ticked towards 3:00 in the afternoon, 3:00 PM being the deadline for adjourning synod. There were flights to catch, schedules to keep.…

  • A LITTLE LESS LOST: RECENTERING OUR FAITH

    My wife and I recently returned from Europe. While there, we walked the cities, Amsterdam and Milan, in particular. We frequently were forced to bring up Google or Apple Maps (and sometimes both at the same time) to get walking directions. Truth be told, the programs don’t work well for walkers, especially not in old…

  • TRADITION

    “Tradition!” Tevye, the milkman sings at the beginning of Fiddler on the Roof. It’s a great beginning, as Tevye walks us through his village and points out how things are done and why. Well, not why. Tevye mostly doesn’t know why they do things the way they do. It’s just what they have always done.  Despite the song,…

  • CHRISTIAN NATIONALISM AND THE FAILURE OF PROTESTANTISM

    “What keeps gnawing at me,” he writes, “is the question, what is Christianity, or who is Christ actually for us today?” (Letters and Papers from Prison, Kindle edition, page 353). Compared to what Bonhoeffer was going through in April of 1944, for those of living in the US or Canada these are easy times. True,…