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Featured image for “Against Common Sense”
May 2, 2018
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Essays

Against Common Sense

by Channon Visscher
…ainst Common Sense The world is full of similar examples of phenomena that defy common sense or casual observation. It defies common sense that the Earth is moving at 67,000 mph in its orbit around the Sun, yet spacecraft observations capture the Earth in its orbit as a pale blue dot caught in a Sun beam; that the North American continent beneath our feet is gradually sliding away from the African continent, yet GPS measurements indicate this is h…
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Featured image for “Lunar Stories: The Violence of Creation”
August 26, 2016
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Essays

Lunar Stories: The Violence of Creation

by Channon Visscher
…back to the Earth and some separating into small “moonlets” that merged to complete the formation of what would become our moon. In science, the stories that endure are those that are most consistent with observations of the physical world around us. The best stories are those thought to most closely resemble the actual sequence of events of how things came to be. Recognizing that even small differences early in the story can lead to dramatically…
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Featured image for “After the Storm”
August 14, 2017
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Devotions

After the Storm

by Sarah Bixler
…d brings traumatic events into our lives in order to teach us a lesson, to test our faith. I do not share that perspective. I do not find it consistent with God’s character that God would harm anyone or anything in creation. But, I do affirm that God is present with us in the storm, and our spirit senses this presence; and so, we call out to our Creator and Sustainer. It is after the storm that we can, from the depths of our hearts, affirm God’s p…
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Featured image for “Christ’s Clothing”
April 16, 2017
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Devotions

Christ’s Clothing

by Stephanie Doeschot
…d neighbor. Just when we think we are pretty loving people, new challenges come our way which test the limits we have put on love. So let’s be clothed with love, and be ready to grow into larger sizes of “clothing” that exhibit more love, in more situations, to more people, in more ways than we have done before. Because that is what sanctification or transformation into Christ-likeness is all about. Love that is continually fed by God’s power know…
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Featured image for “Psalm 139: on the Embodiment of Good and Evil”
September 7, 2021
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Essays

Psalm 139: on the Embodiment of Good and Evil

by Chandra Crane
…ses. The reality of God working to “knit together” (verse 13) is in direct defiance of the evil in the world. The beauty of being “woven together in the depths of the earth” (verse 15) comes in the face of an uncertain world and those who would bring harm to other human beings. Rather than being a merely “spiritual,” whitewashed, disembodied sentiment, the fact that we are all “fearfully and wonderfully made” (verse 14), is both a timely reminder…
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Featured image for “A Reformed Approach to the Interactions of Science and Religion (cont’d)”
June 26, 2015
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Essays

A Reformed Approach to the Interactions of Science and Religion (cont’d)

by Tony Jelsma
…ost problems actually seem to come from a demand for facticity. We are not compelled as Christians to believe the concepts of sin and fallenness require a grounding in fact and still less in doctrine. (The church existed for four centuries without “original sin,” and the eastern churches never accepted it. Judaism has no such concept.) We are simply compelled to believe these ideas reveal the truth however they came to be expressed and handed down…
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Featured image for “Filled with Thanksgiving”
November 25, 2019
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Essays

Filled with Thanksgiving

by James Calvin Schaap
…young men. It’s harvest, after all. They’re needed. One of the POW men who comes to work at his farm is named Becker. Steinke quickly discovers that his new employee is hardly a Hitler fan. Becker had been conscripted, drafted against his will. He hated the way his country was treated after the Great War. Once Otto and Becker start working together, Otto comes to the realization that this man—and the others, for that matter—don’t feel so much like…
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Featured image for “Discipleship and Imagination”
August 8, 2017
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Essays

Discipleship and Imagination

by Donald Roth
…’t? In my next piece, we’ll explore some of the metaphors that make up our definitions of discipleship, but until then, test the model I’ve presented here by unpacking this and other metaphors to see how they shape both what we think and do as disciples. I invite you to share your attempts and experiences below. Donald MacIntosh, The Foundations of Human Society (University of Chicago, 1969) at 122.  â†© Kahneman at 21.  â†© Kahneman at 21-26.  â†© This…
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Featured image for “Making Room for Advent—Love”
December 15, 2022
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Culture

Making Room for Advent—Love

by April Fiet
…out to do much of anything at all? What does it mean to make room for the coming of the Christ child when you aren’t sure you have anything left to give? “What does it mean to make room for the coming of the Christ child when you aren’t sure you have anything left to give?” As I’ve reflected on these questions, I’ve been drawn to the beginning of Mary’s song in Luke, sometimes called the Magnificat. After learning she would give birth to a child,…
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Featured image for “Dear Parents of College Freshmen”
August 21, 2015
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Essays

Dear Parents of College Freshmen

by Kim Brinkerhoff
…am towards the future, but we are only afforded living in the present to accomplish both. Consider it an immense privilege to encourage your student as they walk through these unfamiliar changes. College should be a community set up to support and equip them for academic and lifestyle success: not just to survive, but to thrive. When I was a child, I spoke and thought and reasoned as a child. But when I grew up, I put away childish things.I Corint…
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Featured image for “When You Aren’t in Charge of Your Birth”
May 6, 2016
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Essays

When You Aren’t in Charge of Your Birth

by Stephanie Adams
…ey had arrived. While preparing to leave for the night and return for more tests in the morning, a doctor entered our room. The initial pregnancy test was a false positive, but the doctor didn’t know why. In the following days I learned I had experienced a ruptured ovarian cyst. The desire for a child grew within both of us from that brief hope of new life in the Urgent Care. Yet neither of us articulated this change in desires to the other. Two m…
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Featured image for “Not What My Hands Have Done”
October 9, 2017
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Devotions

Not What My Hands Have Done

by Ashley Bloemhof
…otten me this wealth.’ My fellow believers, let us beware that we do not become complacent and neglect our roles as Christ’s followers. Let us not become our own gods and distance ourselves from the tough sacrifices, the tough conversations, the tough daily choices which draw us closer to the Father and, in some instances, closer to the hurting in this world. Let us not forget where we came from: that we too were wanderers in the desert, nomads wi…
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Featured image for “God’s Got This, <em>Part 1</em>”
September 15, 2020
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Culture

God’s Got This, Part 1

by Nicole Baart
…lt repentance when needed. Where have we messed up as individuals and as a community of faith? What sins of commission and omission have caused generational heartbreak and twisted the legacy of our families and churches? Our children are watching, and they are far more perceptive than we often give them credit for. They know we’re not perfect. They know our stories are littered with regrets. And we have told them over and over that the path of tru…
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Featured image for “The Novels You Re-read”
February 26, 2020
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Books

The Novels You Re-read

by Dave Schelhaas
…k makes real the struggles we should be willing to take on in order to overcome what’s wrong and how all the members of a community are needed. One of the great pleasures of reading Dun Cow, she says, is the sudden realizationor (upon re-reading it)recollection that Mundi Cani was just like Jesus. Here again we see the basic pattern of the hero—in this case the lowly dog Mundo Cani—who sacrifices his life for the greater good. An under-fifty reade…
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Featured image for “Science 101: Speaking in Tongues and Sights Unseen”
September 19, 2016
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Essays

Science 101: Speaking in Tongues and Sights Unseen

by Jeff Ploegstra
…y research serves this purpose – to make the meaning in the physical world comprehensible for my students and to help them learn how to make it comprehensible themselves. My role is to help them be perceiving and not just looking; understanding, not just hearing. In the natural sciences, we often need to acquire new eyes and ears to see and hear the creation in new ways. In some cases, this is a new theoretical lens, and in other cases it is a new…
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Featured image for “Certainty and Doubt”
November 22, 2017
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Essays

Certainty and Doubt

by Ashley Huizinga
…fference to responsibility (as a senior, I’m told this aloofness is fairly common, but that doesn’t excuse the problem or the part I play in making senioritis “normal”). I too fail, and let people down, and come up short. “To err is human,” said Alexander Pope, in An Essay on Criticism, and I am very, very human. But when I imagine asking for something with no doubt, no insincerity or uncertainty as to the fulfillment of that request? How amazing…
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Featured image for “Wasting My Vote: Why I am an “Independent””
October 21, 2015
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Essays

Wasting My Vote: Why I am an “Independent”

by Jason Lief
…individuals and families are able to make a life together as members of a community working toward a common good. Along with the true conservatives, I believe access to meaningful work and a livable wage are crucial, and that self-serving bureaucracy both in corporations and in government often gets in the way. With the liberals I believe the government must help those who are unable to provide for themselves. Both conservatives and liberals, how…
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Featured image for “When Cultural Scripts and Christian Identity Clash”
May 18, 2021
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Culture

When Cultural Scripts and Christian Identity Clash

by Aaron Baart
…often is not.  A further encouragement, though, is that we’re also in good company. In fact, we’re in very good company. Throughout history, the Church has often shone its brightest witness, cultivated its most winsome voice, and enacted the greatest cultural insurrections when it didn’t necessarily enjoy the dominant cultural position. From the earliest disciples to periods of revival to the flourishing of the persecuted church the world over, we…
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Featured image for “War Against the Saints: Understanding the Persecuted Church and the United States”
January 5, 2017
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Essays

War Against the Saints: Understanding the Persecuted Church and the United States

by Joel Veldkamp
…e region (displacing Russia, France and Britain) has coincided with the fastest decimation of Middle Eastern Christian populations since the Crusades, as well as the violent deaths of millions of Muslims, Yazidis, Sabeans and others. This story, not a story of holy suffering, nor a story about the evils of America’s enemies, is the story I hope to tell in the coming months. On March 4, 2016, in the city of Aden, Yemen, armed men stormed a Christia…
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Featured image for “Disabled Images: On Identity and Disability”
December 1, 2016
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Essays

Disabled Images: On Identity and Disability

by Dan Vander Plaats
…worth anything when people only saw me for my disability? Did I need to accomplish things and “overcome” my disability in order to be worthwhile? How did I compare to others? How could I reflect God’s image when I couldn’t even talk clearly? In her memoir A Good and Perfect Gift, Amy Julia Becker recounts comparing her daughter, Penny (born with Down syndrome), with other children. “As I lay in bed, I realized that the question I had been asking…
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Featured image for “Regulations and Flexibility”
September 8, 2015
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Essays

Regulations and Flexibility

by Donald Roth
…ce, employers in states like California have to strictly regulate employee access to company email in their off-work hours, and this can lead to restricting availability of things like cellphone benefits and the ability to use company laptops at home. The kicker with this aspect of the analysis is that the upcoming millennial workforce doesn’t mind blending their work and home lives. In fact, analysts recommend that employers seek to expand flexib…
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Featured image for “Worship: What Do You Bow Down To?”
June 19, 2015
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Devotions

Worship: What Do You Bow Down To?

by Eric Forseth
…ought but never shared with anyone out loud, “If you really heard yourself complain, you would embarrass yourself because you really don’t have much to complain about.” Why would I only think this versus sharing this out loud? Frankly, I think this in my mind periodically because we all have idols in our lives. It is a daily temptation to separate ‘this or that’ from its place under God’s dominion. In my mother’s situation, she could have kept ‘id…
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Featured image for “Obsessed with Life”
March 15, 2017
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Devotions

Obsessed with Life

by Jamin HĂĽbner
…ant will retain its vibrancy. It would be foolish to expect good things to come by constantly testing these rules. Similarly, going outside the boundaries of God’s law will only bring death and lead to lifelessness. Thus, we cling fast to the good, to the “life” in obedience. I end with a short, related meditation from Chinese Philosophy. It’s a famous passage from the Tao Te Ching (written around the same era as Ezekiel) that speaks to the same s…
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Featured image for “Should Christians Engage in Politics?”
October 19, 2015
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Essays

Should Christians Engage in Politics?

by Mick Sneider
…ts that all of creation is divinely ordered by God, including the societal communities in which we participate. Each of these communities, or spheres, has their own specific purpose, such as worship, family, education, civil government, and so on. He argues that each of these spheres is uniquely important in the overall created order, and that none of them should infringe upon the ability of another sphere to accomplish its divinely ordered purpos…
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Featured image for “Advent: Ring the Bells that Still Can Ring”
December 2, 2015
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Devotions

Advent: Ring the Bells that Still Can Ring

by Tanya De Roo
…trike up the march, There is no drum Every heart, every heart To love will come But like a refugee. Ring the bells that still can ring Forget your perfect offering There is a crack, a crack in everything That’s how the light gets in. I wonder if the only way for any of us to access the truth of the Advent story, to understand what we are waiting for, to receive the promise, is to allow our hearts to feel the stripped-down desperation of an illegit…
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