“‘Best’ is not a theological category,” Stanley Hauerwas famously quipped, after being named America’s “Best” Theologian by Time magazine in 2001.

Maybe so. Still, today we’re going to take a look at The Best of 2025 in the Reformed Journal. There’s really no good way, of course, to evaluate “best” so we’re relying on “most viewed.”

A couple observations:

First, we do well when we break into the wider culture, when there’s overlap between our usual readers and another interest group. This year’s most viewed post, Chad Pierce’s The Religion of Crossfit Revisited, is a perfect example. Plenty of Crossfitters found it, read it, and shared it. You can see similar dynamics at work in Scott Hoezee’s The Joyful Jesus of The Chosen reaching fans of the popular TV series and Sophie Mathonnet-VanderWell’s What Knitting Teaches Me About Life connecting with knitters worldwide.

Second, Trump and the disintegration of the Christian Reformed Church are the source of much grief and vexation, but they are always good for our numbers. They draw readers. We know there are folks out there who mumble and grumble, “RJ is always denouncing MAGA and Christian nationalism, always supporting LGBTQ+ people, immigrants, the poor, Palestinians, and more…” If maximizing clicks were our only goal, that’s all we’d ever do. Instead, we do reviews, poetry, history, science, literature, pop culture, and more. Roger Nelson’s Reservations, Mark Hiskes’ Meeting Big Brother at the ICE Office, Debra Rienstra’s Discourse Trauma, and Jeff Munroe’s, Trump, Musk, and the Gulf of America: Lessons in Irony were among your favorites in 2025.

Here’s 2025’s Top Ten

1. The Religion of Crossfit Revisited by Chad Pierce
2. Reservations by Roger Nelson
3. The Joyful Jesus of The Chosen by Scott Hoezee
4. Meeting Big Brother at the ICE Office by Mark Hiskes
5. Discourse Trauma by Debra Rienstra
6. What Knitting Teaches Me About Life by Sophie Mathonnet-VanderWell
7. Trump, Musk, and The Gulf of America: Lessons in Irony by Jeff Munroe
8. A Lesson Never Learned by Don Tamminga
9. People of the Lie by Heidi De Jonge
10. The End of White Western Male Supremacy – Lessons Learned from Henk Hart by Joseph Kuilema

Our single most-viewed post this year actually appeared last year. Martin de Boer’s For this Reformed Christian, Trump is an Antichrist found the algorithm’s happy place and went viral. It is probably a good sign that lots and lots of people are googling “Trump” and “Antichrist.” And amid all the dreck and clickbait that dominate those search results, it’s heartening that readers landed on something thoughtful and substantial. 

Overall, the readership of the Reformed Journal continues to increase. A couple years ago, we were pleased when we cleared one million views. This year we will finish with about 1.4 million views!

In other RJ news, the Board (Kate Bolt, Kris DePree, Jeff Munroe, Sara Tolsma, and me, along with ex-officio members, Laurie Orlow, treasurer, and Phil Tanis, managing editor) held our semiannual meeting earlier this month. Our primary order of business was approval of a 2026 budget of $46,000. We’re also excited to share that in the coming year, Reformed Journal Books will publish Roosevelt Street Resurrection by Reggie Smith. It’s one of the three books included in our “But Wait…There’s More!” offer for generous supporters. 

As we close the year, we extend a big and heartfelt thank you — for your reading, your encouragement, your comments, and your financial support. If you haven’t yet made a contribution to the Reformed Journal in 2025, we invite you to do that today. All the information is below. Simply click on the purple button for the details and how-to. 

Happy New Year!

May 2026 bring justice and joy to our world, and may the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you always. 

*****

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