the Trial that put Dayton on the map

Posted on June 9, 2014 by PaulVK

http://www.oxfordamerican.org/articles/2014/may/29/hail-dayton/

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Split Photos of D-Day Then and Now

Posted on June 8, 2014 by PaulVK

Huffpo UK

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From Sinai to Pentecost: Do you require to be compelled or would you like to be wooed?

Posted on June 6, 2014 by PaulVK

Daycamp

Insufficient Evidence

It is not uncommon to hear skeptics claim that believing is God is not justified. God isn’t an old man in the sky that we can point to. You cannot find on some mountain in the Middle East today a firestorm with a voice the sounds like thunder speaking intelligible human speech that could be recorded and transmitted to the world through TV and YouTube. The claim is that God is a no-show, so why shouldn’t we just live our lives as we wish? Many people today find this line of argumentation compelling.

The Visible World A Product of Invisible Diety

There is of course another side to the story, its most famous articulation written by the Apostle Paul.

Romans 1:20 (NET)

20 For since the creation of the world his invisible attributes—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, because they are understood through what has been made. So people are without excuse.

Again, a skeptic might call this hogwash and claim there is no evidence, but I would assert that every skeptic I know accepts considerable evidence from human testimony. No skeptic has the time or ability to personally research all of that they believe nor be able to demonstrate empirically everything they believe, most of what they believe they accept on the basis of human testimony.

If you rely on human testimony then suddenly Paul’s statement has a lot going for it. The vast majority of human beings throughout human history HAVE in fact believed that the visible world is the product of an invisible god or group of gods and that this is a natural and justifiable way of thinking about the world.

The Problem of Diversity in Deity Continue reading →

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Brueggeman on Transformation

Posted on June 6, 2014 by PaulVK
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Tolstoy on Living

Posted on June 6, 2014 by PaulVK
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Lives of America’s Homeless

Posted on June 6, 2014 by PaulVK
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How will the Christian Reformed Denomination Shape Its Identity and Community?

Posted on June 6, 2014 by PaulVK

CRC

What is a Denomination For?

Most of the time we approach this question from above. We pursue meta-congregational unity because Jesus desired it in John 17 and our divisions betray the body of Christ. “Denomination” itself is a sort of confession of our sinful weakness. We are divided.

From below we need identity and community.

As finite human beings we are short-lived and have a limited relational capacity. Identity and confession must be specific because we are limited. We are this and not that. We have relational ties to these people and groups and not those. Our narrative threads that compose our identity is made up of these cumulative selections.

You Will Always Have Groupings Continue reading →

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Pete Vander Beek continues the Conversation on CRC Culture

Posted on June 5, 2014 by PaulVK

Pastor Pete’s blog

  • Preservationist
  • Oppositionalist
  • Relationally challenged: poor boundaries
  • Comfort seeking
  • rationalistic
  • Low emotional IQ
  • no longer principled in making choices
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Andy Crouch a Testimony in Reverse

Posted on June 5, 2014 by PaulVK

I’ve used this illustration a lot over the years. 

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Europe, Christianity, Islam and Liberal Secularism

Posted on June 5, 2014 by PaulVK

NYT

Notably, these measures are being advocated in the name of protecting not Christianity but liberal secularism. The hijab is said to offend women’s rights; circumcision, children’s rights; ritual slaughter, animal rights. Oriana Fallaci and Ayaan Hirsi Ali, two radical spokespersons for the feminist resistance to Islam, became darlings of the conservative right in Italy (Fallaci) and the Netherlands and America (Hirsi Ali).

This anti-Islam rhetoric is spreading to the mainstream. The coalition government of the Netherlands requires would-be immigrants to accept progressive values before they are given a residency visa. Applicants are asked whether they tolerate the mixing of boys and girls in school, gender equality, nudity in public and gay rights. Although all applicants must take these tests, given the concerns revealed in these questions and the demographics of migration into Europe, there can be little doubt that the exams are designed to challenge adherents to Islam. Such measures are unfair to Muslims, and they violate European states’ professed commitment to multiculturalism and the separation of church and state.

What’s more, prohibitions like those on circumcision and the ritual slaughter of cattle also amount to attacks on Judaism. In France Marine Le Pen of the National Front has called for banning both the hijab and the kippah (but not the priest’s cassock) in public places. In this respect, the defense of Europe’s Christian identity is taking on an especially ugly quality: It echoes the anti-Semitic regulations of Nazi Germany and other European countries in the 1930s. So much for the Judeo-Christian roots of European culture; once again, the Jews of Europe are made to feel like foreigners.

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