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Daniel Meeter

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Two Synods

I am not optimistic, but we are compelled, like Van Raalte, to hope. Not in ourselves, but in our Lord. And that requires humility and penitence all around. What I deeply wish is that the RCA and CRC would stop looking at each other sideways and start meeting face to face.
Daniel Meeter
June 27, 2022
ChurchFeatured

Judicial Business

It has been my lot to chair the judicial business committees of three different classes and now this regional synod. Why should I do this, when I might better spend my time on Christ-and-Culture or spiritual iconography in the films of Tarkovsky? Or how to convert my front lawn into a haven for native pollinators? Why do I end up having to act like a canon lawyer when I want to live like Wendell Berry?
Daniel Meeter
March 14, 2022
ChurchFeaturedWorship

The Baptism of the Spirit

The church has been entrenched for centuries in disputes about baptism, and our confidence in our own baptisms can weaken in the trenches. In this essay I want to suggest one way out of the baptismal trenches. I will point to the trail of the Holy Spirit in the Gospel of Luke and the Book of Acts.
Daniel Meeter
September 6, 2021
Essays

Baptism in the Spirit and the Trinity

The practice of baptizing infants has been sufficiently defended by many writers. (Bromiley’s Children of Promise: The Case for Baptizing Infants and Brownson’s The Promise of Baptism are both good examples.) So too, the supposed necessity of immersion has been well contested. What’s often overlooked is that our disagreements on infant baptism harbors a deeper division on the foundational meaning of baptism to begin with. I want to address this contentious issue in a new way, by rethinking the baptism…
Daniel Meeter
January 1, 2019
Essays

In the Beginning Was the Talk

Can a Reformed denomination interpret Scripture collectively to discern God’s will? A Reformed denomination such as the Reformed Church in America is fundamentally a network of churches holding each other accountable according to a shared interpretation of Scripture. We allow divergence in interpretations, but we recognize our divergences as legitimate. Yet this is not what happened at the RCA General Synod of 2016, where I was a delegate. We did not interpret God’s Word together. We did not share a…
Daniel Meeter
September 1, 2018
Essays

Canada Geese and Gerasene Swine

I saw them across the water in the early morning, on our lake in Ontario, just beyond Paquin’s Point: a band of geese, maybe half a dozen. What I actually saw, just barely in the low-angled light, was a passing vision of long thin necks and heads upon the water, gliding behind the point and out of sight. I ran up to the cottage to get the binoculars, but I had to wait an hour to get a better view…
Daniel Meeter
February 28, 2018
As We See It

The Psalm Sparrow

“Yea, the sparrow hath found her an house, and the swallow a nest where she may lay her young, even thine altars, O Lord of Hosts.” –Psalm 84, Book of Common Prayer I don’t know how you can be a parish pastor and not say daily prayer. I don’t mean that critically. I mean like I don’t know how to throw a curve ball, or keep my mouth shut at a meeting. I did without daily prayer for the first…
Daniel Meeter
June 30, 2017
Essays

The Human-Flourishing Argument

In the middle of March 2015, the Elders Board of City Church San Francisco announced in a letter to its congregation (and published on its website) that the elders would no longer require their lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender members to commit to a life of celibacy. This was big news and the occasion of much public castigation, because, while City Church is a congregation of the Reformed Church in America, it is more widely known as San Francisco’s largest…
Daniel Meeter
June 30, 2016
Uncategorized

Good Church through Good Order

IN ORDER TO SERVE: AN ECUMENICAL INTRODUCTION TO CHURCH POLITY LEO J. KOFFEMAN LIT VERLAG, 2014 264 PP. $41.46 Consider the dustup last March when World Vision decided to permit same-sex marriages among its employees. Immediately the charity was denounced by Franklin Graham and other evangelical leaders, who instructed supporters to punish World Vision by withdrawing their financial support. The dollars stopped. Two days later, the charity reversed its decision. Was this a case of Christian discipline? Well, yes, in…
Daniel Meeter
February 28, 2015