The Chicago Invitation

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I think it’s every day now that I read or listen to some report or comment on the high cost of gasoline: what drives it, how we got to this point, how individuals and corporations and governments are struggling with it. A question I’ve not heard addressed is how gasoline above $4.20 a gallon will impact congregations.

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Get this: 25% of the funding for “Our Call” is expected to come from closing down existing RCA congregations and using their assets.
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Joint Declaration

The Chicago Invitation and Wesley Granberg-Michaelson

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Following our Van Ruler conference last week, I found myself reading Herman Bavink. He comes from the other side of the Dutch lineage. He was the “brainy” Kuyper, if you will. There I found this short description of the movement from the Lutheran Reformation to the Reformed:

The question for the Lutherans was “how is one saved?” For the Reformed that was valid, but not sufficient. The Reformed asked: “How is God honored?” Read more…

Readers of this blog might be interested in a conference being held at New Brunswick Theological Seminary: Making All Things New: Explorations in the Trinitarian Theology of A. A. van Ruler. The date is October 5, 2007. Speakers include Cliff Anderson of Princeton, John Bolt of Calvin, Paul Fries of New Brunswick, Dirk van Keulen of the Protestant Theological University of the Netherlands, and myself.

To register, contact Joanne Noel at New Brunswick (732-247-52441 ext 122 or email at jnoel@nbts.edu).

I suggest this conference not only because of my own interest (although there is that), but because Chicago Invitation hones in on the question of the nature of the church. Van Ruler was part of an intense conversation on the nature of the church and indeed was a major contributor to that conversation. He articulates a Reformed understanding that has had deep echoes in the RCA, but has been lost in the current buzz around “Our Call.” For instance, Van Ruler’s emphasis on the kingdom has him claim that God’s intention is not to get everyone under the roof of the church, but sets the church in service of the kingdom. At the same time, the church is not simply functional to the kingdom, but is a gestalt of that kingdom.

Al Janssen

I wonder how long the doctrine of the Kingdom of God has been disappearing from the RCA. Of course no one would deny the doctrine, but it’s hardly robust among us, and it hardly informs or inspires or directs us. Yet it is the single doctrine most characteristically “Reformed.” Read more…

“Fear breeds panic, and it can lead people and nations to act in ways
inconsistent with their character.”

Charles C. Krulak and Joseph P. Hoar
Washington Post
Thursday, May 17, 2007; Page A17

Yesterday the General Synod ended. The final morning spent most of its energies on the Church Herald and the assessments (assessments are the only way the synod gets to the budget). The debate was spirited. The result was to cease denominational financial support of the every member reception of the Herald. Where then does that money go? The synod accepted the proposal from the GSC that would have some go to reduce assessments, and the rest to fund “Our Call.” Read more…

Now that I have some time and distance from Pella, let me share some observations about the atmospherics of GS 2007. Read more…