Peripatetic Pastor

Tag: Christian Reformed

  • THINKING ABOUT BIBLICAL AUTHORITY

    Reading the Bible with Joy Authority in Crisis We face a crisis of authority. Or, rather, crises of authority. Some of these are in matters of faith. My most recent post on reading the Bible ended with a question about biblical authority: When does the Bible say to the church: “Thus says the Lord”? When…

  • THE INFANTILIZATION OF THE HUMAN RACE

    How Theology Reduces Us to Children A couple of posts back (available here), I reflected on biblical views of evil—evil as the coming apart of things. I mentioned in that essay that the T of Tulip (total depravity) in Reformed theology has a way of letting us off the hook. We need not, in fact in…

  • RETRIEVING CHURCH

    Congregations For years I stayed put. As I like to tell the story, River Terrace Church, the congregation I served for 31 years, gave me an office—a great corner office facing the campus of Michigan State University—and I didn’t want leave. All I needed was that office. A salary in addition was more than anyone…

  • Retrieving Worship

    Retrieving worship. Mostly when worship comes up in places like this blog, it’s the style of worship that’s on hand: worship wars, as they were once known. Where I lived, in the Christian Reformed Church, the wars were mostly about songs. Should one sing exclusively or, at least, mostly from hymnals? Or should the church…

  • THOUGHT CONTROL

    THE PERILS OF BEING TALKED ABOUT It was an introductory Bible and Theology class at a small Christian college—a required course at the time. The students, mostly freshmen, many with Christian school educations, were bored before they arrived in class. I remembered taking the same class when I was a freshman and finding it almost…

  • WALKING ALLEYS

    A Labor Day Meditation WALKING THE ALLEYS A Labor Day Meditation My wife walks alleys. We live in a neighborhood that has alleys. Newer subdivisions mostly don’t have alleys, but in this older part of town alleys are everywhere. If the streets are front doors for the neighborhood, the alleys are back doors. Like back…

  • THE WORK OF THEOLOGICAL RETRIEVAL

    Thinking Old Thoughts in New Ways In theology, as in much else in life, you can’t go back. Take human origins. Once the stories in Genesis were taken naively by many as the way things happened: Once upon a time there was a garden, a man, a woman, and a snake . . ., that…

  • THE HISTORICAL ADAM AND OTHER MYTHS: MEDITATIONS ON THE PAST, PART 3

    The importance of the past In his introduction to Athanasius’s On Incarnation, C. S. Lewis suggested that one should read at least one old book for every new one. By old, he had in mind books from the previous century and beyond. He mentions in a single breath St. Luke, St. Paul, St. Augustine, Thomas Aquinas,…

  • CONFESSIONAL UNITY

    Choosing Unity instead of Conformity Unity and Conformity In church disputes—and there are always church disputes—it is easy to confuse conformity with unity. They are not the same. Unity acknowledges and embraces difference; it brings differences together. Conformity wants sameness; it insists that everyone think and talk the same. Unity builds bridges; conformity tears them…

  • THE COLLAPSE OF AUTHORITY: NOTES ON THE CRC SYNOD The real story The synod of the Christian Reformed Church (CRC) has just completed its work. Synod 2025 was devoted mostly to cleaning up the margins on a series of decisions beginning with Synod 2022—decisions that have fundamentally remade the CRC and driven away many members. …