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Big Red, Job, and the Power of Remembering

Job hopes that God will long for him and come calling. In short, he hopes that God will remember him. In the life and ministry of Jesus, this is exactly what God does. Christians believe that in the person of Jesus, God remembers our fragile existence in a fragile world. In Jesus, God and the world were reconciled. Call it atonement; call it ransom; call it victory over the forces of evil. By whatever name, God remembers us.
November 18, 2024
Featured Articles
Featured

The Means of Grace: An Invitation to All

He opened our eyes to what we all knew but had forgotten: that prior to the Reformation, the Catholic Church had devalued the sermon in public worship; the Protestants, in their zeal for the recovery of the scripture, now in their own languages, made the sermon the new focus of public worship, and thereby relegated holy Communion to a secondary place, offering it only once a month, or even, in some cases, just four times a year.
Featured
November 4, 2024

Loaded Language

Words are absorbent. Used often enough in partisan slogans or ad campaigns, or by certain religious groups or by "influencers" (itself a word with a troubling history), or spun into new usages by disaffected teens, they can be diverted from their broader purposes. They become contaminated by association or overdetermined by repetition, and so less usable for more neutral efforts to identify or describe. As words are turned into trademarks or code language, they become harder for speakers outside the…
Featured
October 28, 2024

Palestine and Israel: Come and See

My journey to Palestine and Israel began 20 years ago. A Palestinian Christian, Claudette Habesch, then the Secretary General of Caritas Jerusalem, spoke at a luncheon at our church. She described what life was like for her and other Palestinians who were living under the Israeli occupation—checkpoints, roadblocks, excessive use of military force, imprisonment, land confiscations, home demolitions—and especially its effect on Palestinian children. At the conclusion of her talk, I asked, “What can we do?” “Come and see,” she…
Featured
October 21, 2024

What I Learned from the Better Together Convening of Concerned Congregations

When I think about church ministry, I think about disaffiliation. At council meetings, we attend to the details of disaffiliation. When I gather with other pastors, we give updates on our disaffiliation process. If you’re a regular reader of the Reformed Journal, you’ve read quite a bit about Synodical decisions and disaffiliation over the last few months. None of this is what I originally wanted for myself or for the church, so I also get angry about disaffiliation and about…
Featured
October 14, 2024

Make Truth Great Again

We face significant barriers if we can’t agree on the fundamentals of knowledge. Perhaps when (and if) the lair of liars is removed from media’s mainstream and extracted from public consciousness, we could begin to talk to each other again. But it is also possible that the damage has already been done. We have built the permission structures to allow truth to lose its meaning. But as Christians we must be truth-tellers above all else. In so doing we can…
Featured
October 7, 2024

What Doesn’t Kill You

Liminal spaces stink. They just do. No matter how much you squint you can’t see through the fog. But the more you take care of yourself, the more gratitude you have for being alive for another day. The truth is life isn’t always about thriving, it’s often about surviving.
Featured
September 30, 2024

Living in Disconnection: Sin, Shame, Trauma, and Healing What’s Within

Exploring our wounds is not merely a therapeutic exercise. It’s a theological exercise. If disconnection is the essence of trauma, then we’re invited to explore what our own lives look like - and the shared life of our churches and communities – when lived within the traumatic conditions of our exile from Eden.

Latest from the Blog

Daily blog by our regular bloggers & guest contributors.

  • On Wonder
    I can’t help but ask, is thinking about wonder a luxury in a world that is burning?
    November 20, 2024 Bethany Cok
  • Can History Save Us?
    As I’m training to be a historian of American religion, I’ve been thinking a lot about what history can and can’t do for us.
    November 19, 2024 Josh Parks
  • Death and Rebirth and the Communion of Saints
    I have to admit I don’t remember a lot about the 1984 movie "Places in the Heart."
    November 18, 2024 Thomas Goodhart
  • Time to Shout the Good News
    To feel at home, one needs to feel emotionally, physically, and spiritually safe.
    November 17, 2024 Kathryn Schoon-Tanis
  • The Enemy Within
    The wan plea Why can’t we all just get along? seems trivial and stupid, but it’s actually a good question, one humans have been asking since forever. Maybe the rock-bottom answer is always the same: the primordial sin plaguing us since Cain and Abel. Kin-conflict, kin-hatred, kin-violence.
    November 16, 2024 Debra Rienstra
  • Valet Parking
    I have done a lot of different things in my nearly twenty-one years as pastor of this church, but valet parking cars on the morning of my daughter’s baptism was a first. 
    November 15, 2024 Christopher Poest
  • Echo Chamber or Community?
    A community gives you the energy to come out of your echo chamber or silo or isolation, or whatever image you prefer.
    November 14, 2024 Steve Mathonnet-VanderWell
  • Poetry’s Invitation
    In the world I have known, poetry is appreciated, disparaged, or ignored—not necessarily in that particular order. I’d like to weigh in on the side of appreciation.
    November 13, 2024 Norman Kolenbrander

Poetry

Poetry
November 19, 2024

November Cold

Ice crusted sheets over November puddles bespeak more of the future than this cold day ...
Poetry
November 5, 2024

5th Commandment

Among the earliest of sins ...
Poetry
October 15, 2024

The Writer

Half-court. Dad said our perch from steep bleachers allowed us a good view of the players.
Poetry
October 8, 2024

Let the Party Begin

It's not always easy to carry good wishes and admiration in a see-through bag ...
Poetry
October 1, 2024

After the Thirteen Shock Treatment

I asked for two fried egg sandwiches and a blueberry milkshake. I got soup.
Poetry
September 17, 2024

What Depths I Pass Through Unknowing

Along our route to the sea laps low ...

Latest Podcasts

Podcast
November 19, 2024

“November Cold” by Dave Warners

In this episode of the poetry edition of the Reformed Journal, Rose Postma interviews Dave Warners about his poem “November Cold.” Beginning in 1997, Warners has been teaching Botany and Ecology at Calvin University. Since 2009 he has directed Plaster Creek Stewards (PCS), a faith-based watershed initiative based at Calvin. Dave also teaches at Au Sable Institute in Northern Michigan and with the Creation Care Studies Program in New Zealand and Belize. In 2019 Dave and colleague Matthew Heun published…
Podcast
November 5, 2024

“5th Commandment” by James Ryan Lee

In this episode of the poetry edition of the Reformed Journal Podcast, Rose Postma interviews James Ryan Lee about his poem “5th commandment.” Lee received an M.F.A. from the University of California, Irvine, where he studied under poets James McMichael, and Michael Ryan. His poems have appeared in Aethlon, The Minnesota Review, Juked, Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment, Ordained Servant and Christianity and Literature. Duke University Press republished a section of his poem, “Bee Suit: Spring Chores with Grandfather,” for National…
Podcast
October 15, 2024

“The Writer” by Olga Dugan

In this episode of the poetry edition, Rose Postma interviews Olga Dugan about her poem “The Writer.” Olga Dugan is a Cave Canem poet. Nominated for Best of the Net and Pushcart prizes, her award-winning poems appear in many literary journals and anthologies including Ekstasis, Spirit Fire Review, Relief: A Journal of Art and Faith, The Windhover, Agape Review, ONE ART, Litmosphere (forthcoming), The Write Launch, Ariel Chart, The Sunlight Press, Emerge, Kweli, Sky Island Journal, evolution: The Red Moon…
Podcast
October 1, 2024

“After the Thirteenth Shock Treatment” by Jack Ridl

In this episode of the Reformed Journal Podcast, the poetry edition, Rose Postma interviews Jack Ridl about his poem “After the Thirteenth Shock Treatment.” Ridl is an American poet and former professor of English at Hope College. He is the author of several collections of poetry, has published more than 300 poems in journals, and has work included in numerous anthologies. You can read the poem on at Reformed Journal.
Podcast
September 17, 2024

“What Depths I Pass Through Unknowing” by Katherine Indermaur

In this episode of the poetry edition of the Reformed Journal Podcast, Rose Postma interviews Katherine Indermaur about her poem “What Depths I Pass Through Unknowing.” Katherine is the author of I|I (Seneca Review Books), winner of the 2022 Deborah Tall Lyric Essay Book Prize and 2023 Colorado Prize for Poetry, and two chapbooks. She is an editor for Sugar House Review. Her writing has appeared in Black Warrior Review, Ecotone, Frontier Poetry, New Delta Review, Ninth Letter, the Normal School, and elsewhere. She lives in Fort Collins,…
Podcast
September 10, 2024

“Setting Flagstones” by Paul J. Willis

In this episode of the poetry edition of the Reformed Journal Podcast, Rose Postma interviews Paul J. Willis about his poem “Setting Flagstones.” Paul is Professor Emeritus of English at Westmont College and a former poet laureate of Santa Barbara, California. Paul has published eight collections of poetry and the most recent is entitled Losing Streak, which was published this year. You can read the poem at Reformed Journal.