I’ve been blogging in this space since its inception, in 2011, with a few stretches off when my wife and I lived abroad. 

Think back fifteen years and try to measure everything that’s happened and everything that’s changed. The coming of COVID-19, AI, and MAGA. Black Lives Matter and an historic peak in American immigration. The rise of the Nones and the reign of two more or less progressive popes. The end of America’s latest imperial wars, the fall of neoliberal political economy, and their replacement with … what?

That’s on the macro scale. Closer to home for all of us: births and deaths; school years and graduations; new jobs, same jobs, lost jobs, retirement; illnesses, remissions, recurrences; ousters from one denomination and searches for another; worshipping online, drifting away, seeing new vitality on Sundays with great joy.

It’s a lot to take in, and at the Reformed Journal a bunch of us try to give some informed commentary on one bit or another every day, swimming though we are in the middle of the stream. We cover the gamut, from climate change to politics to piety to theology, and we do so because that’s what our founding editors did from the beginning of the Journal in 1951. They were more or less under the inspiration of Abraham Kuyper who tried to engage the world not despite but precisely because of his Calvinist faith. 

Now Kuyper claimed to have a clearer and much more definitive view of what “Calvinism” meant for this, that, and the other than we do. We operate more by a sensibility than by his “fixed principles.”  But he left an example and a mandate to survey every policy and proposition—not least the conservative shibboleths his followers were reared on—with a biblical measure, to meld tradition and innovation in creative ways amid the ever-changing context of world and local affairs. 

We have found, as Kuyper and the founders of the RJ each in their turn discovered, a wonderful solidarity with you, gentle readers. We are not many but we try to hold the fort amid the cacophony of social media that are designed to be sensational, antagonistic, full of sound and fury. I won’t say that they all signify nothing or that we always catch it right, but we operate in good faith for a faith that we share with you.

So, we ask you again at this time of year to throw a few bucks in the hat to keep our super low-cost, maintenance-only budget in the black. You’ll get a daily feed of informed, intelligent commentary about what being a Reformed Christian might have to do with what you encounter in the news, on the street, over dinner, or what you read.

I toss in the price of two coffees (medium drip, no frills, $6.00) a week. You can do something similar by clicking the handy purple button below. You’ll go to a page where you can give easily and safely online — gifts of any amount. And there’s also info for those who prefer to give simply by mailing a check.

May I especially encourage you to accept our But Wait…There’s More! special offer? In gratitude for your gifts of $300 or more before the end of the year (or monthly gifts of $25 throughout 2026), we’ll mail you three new books during the coming year. It’s a great deal.

The Reformed Journal — since 1951, a daily blog since 2011. Thanks for keeping it alive!