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David A. Hoekema

David A. Hoekema is Professor Emeritus of Philosophy and retired Academic Dean at Calvin University, and, in the winter, a Visiting Scholar at the University of Arizona.  His most recent book, We Are the Voice of the Grass (Oxford University Press), recounts the tireless work of Christians and Muslims who came together to strive for an end to a brutal civil war in Uganda. In light of recent developments in the CRCNA, he is now a member of Southside Presbyterian Church in Tucson, and he also participates in the worship life of St. John’s Episcopal Church of Grand Haven. Hiking, bicycling, choral music, old-timey string bands, and conversation with Christians whose minds and hearts are open to all are among the things that gladden his heart.

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BIBLICAL MARRIAGE:  DO WE KNOW IT WHEN WE SEE IT?

We are not individuals placed in the world to seek our own pleasure but members of a community bound together in love, which finds one of its highest and fullest expressions in marriage and the family. In our intimate relationships, as in larger settings such as the church, we should show love and respect and live in mutual submission to each other.
David A. Hoekema
December 4, 2023
EssayFeatured

ETHICS LESSONS IN A BLOCKBUSTER FILM

Thinking and acting morally is not a matter of discerning unchanging principles and applying them in all circumstances. It is an evolving process of testing and reconsidering our principles as we apply them, a recursive deliberation in response to the outcome of our actions and the challenges offered by others who disagree.
David A. Hoekema
August 14, 2023
EssayFeatured

WHAT COULD HAVE BEEN . . .

I invite readers to imagine a world where things turned out differently. Such a world is not very distant from the world we live in.  If a few individuals in each body had assessed the relevant reasons and conditions and come to a different conclusion, we might now be on the path toward a dramatically different future. 
David A. Hoekema
July 18, 2022
Essays

Olivier Messiaen: Music as Prayer

VISIONS OF AMEN: THE EARLY LIFE AND MUSIC OF OLIVIER MESSIAEN STEPHEN SCHLOESSER EERDMANS, 2014 $50 570 PAGES CONCURRENTLY RELEASED AUDIO RECORDING: MESSIAEN, VISIONS OF AMEN HYESOOK KIM AND STEPHANE LEMELIN, PIANO WWW.EERDMANS.COM/SCHLOESSER_AUDIO Few composers of the 20th century were as deeply shaped by a theological tradition as was Olivier Messiaen by French Catholicism in the period following the First World War. Born to a literary family – his mother a poet, his father an English teacher and translator of Shakespeare…
David A. Hoekema
February 28, 2018
Uncategorized

Truth, Reconciliation, and Human Rights: A Reflection on South Africa’s Transition to Multiracial Democracy

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) in the Republic of South Africa, created in 1995 just a year after the first multiracial elections, attracted attention around the world as an example of visionary and courageous political action in a time of great political and social upheaval. The world had seen nothing like it, and it suggested radical new possibilities for large-scale political change following the replacement of authoritarian rule by democratic rule (or, more accurately in this instance, replacement of…
David A. Hoekema
March 1, 2009
Uncategorized

“Just War on Terror” Revisited

In the closing months of 2006, news dispatches from Iraq have grown more discouraging by the week. Casualties continue to mount, both among the military forces of the United States and its allies and in the civilian population. Suicide bombings in crowded markets and near police recruiting stations have become routine. To these are now added the horrors of daily executions of Shiite partisans by Sunni militias and vice versa. The goal announced at the war's outset nearly four years…
David A. Hoekema
December 16, 2006
Uncategorized

Keeping the Faith in the Christian College, Past and Present

These two recent studies by veteran faculty members take dramatically different approaches to the question of how colleges that are serious about maintaining their Christian identity can resist the temptations of secularization. One seeks an answer far back in the history of Christianity, distilling common elements in the early church fathers that remain relevant for today's first-year students. The other looks instead to the recent past and the present complexion of six representative institutions and suggests models to guide them…
David A. Hoekema
January 16, 2003