Skip to main content
All Posts By

Perspectives Journal

As We See It

WWWow! It’s Perspectives’ New Website

“‘Wow! This is Perspectives?’ That’s how we hope you react as you pick up this issue." We began a From the Editors with that line in the January/February 2011 issue of Perspectives. At that time, the editors and board believed the journal needed a fresh look to signal a renewed commitment to be our best. And, if you don’t mind our saying so, the new-and-improved print edition has been well received. We said something else in that From the Editors…
Perspectives Journal
January 10, 2015
Uncategorized

Two Letters on John Suk’s Essay

Dear Folks: Thank you for the thought-provoking essay on A Personal Relationship with Jesus? . Every time I confess I have a personal relationship with Jesus, I have been ignoring my conscience, which says otherwise. And I have drawn disapproving stares when I confess I do not get "goose pimples" whenever the Holy Spirit leads me. So now I am empowered to speak the truth! I am also empowered to widen my focus away from myself and toward God and…
Perspectives Journal
November 3, 2014
Uncategorized

No Merit and Due Credit

FEBRUARY 2006: LETTERS TO THE EDITOR To the Editors: Peter Bush's article in the November issue ("Stipend: A Theological Challenge to the Marketplace") puts forward an important truth: that the pay given to a pastor is a matter of grace, not works. Unfortunately, he suggests that this is only true of people who work for the church. But this truth applies to everyone. Calvinist theology traditionally argues that everything good we receive in this life comes to us by grace…
Perspectives Journal
November 3, 2014
Uncategorized

Tribute to Jan

JUNE/JULY 2007: AS WE SEE IT by the Editors Jan Ericson has served as the ever efficient and ever kind business manager of Perspectives since the fall of 2000. Unless you regularly peruse our credits page, you may be unfamiliar with her name. Simply put, Jan worked to ensure that this journal's mission continued on a sound footing and toward a bright future. As she now steps down after six-plus years in her post, it's fitting that we recognize her…
Perspectives Journal
November 3, 2014
As We See It

Revisiting a Landmark Statement on Homosexuality

The May 1999 issue of Perspectives contained an essay by Lewis Smedes, “Like the Wideness of the Sea?” that was among the most significant articles ever to appear in Perspectives. Like most of Smedes’s work, it is richly pastoral, drawing heavily on his experience in the church. He recalled the impassioned debates about divorce and remarriage in the Christian Reformed Church of the 1950s and then wondered about possible parallels to discussions about covenanted, monogamous same-sex relationships. Smedes met with…
Perspectives Journal
October 1, 2014
Uncategorized

Some Changes

DECEMBER 2012: EDITORS' NOTE The end of the year always brings some changes to Perspectives. The most significant change is that beginning in 2013 we'll be going to an every-other month publishing schedule—six issues per year. Be on the lookout for January/February 2013 soon. This change is prompted by recognition of our limited human and financial resources. Running a journal with an all-volunteer editorial team is an adventure, to say the least. It often feels as if we are so…
Perspectives Journal
December 1, 2012
Uncategorized

Reformed & Missional

OCTOBER 2008: NOTE FROM THE EDITORS Reformed and missional--what does it mean to pair these two words together? One is such an old, familiar term, our understanding is probably more intuitive and inexact than we realize. The other term, "missional" is so new it may mean almost nothing to some people and is still so malleable it can convey a variety of things to others. The General Synod of the Reformed Church in America has initiated a conversation on what…
Perspectives Journal
October 1, 2008
Uncategorized

Books on My Bedside Table

AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2008: BOOKS FEATURE For this late-summer issue of Perspectives, editor Steve Mathonnet-VanderWell asked a number ofPerspectives readers and contributors to share with us the books, blogs, and other reading resources that have been feeding their imaginations and stimulating their thinking of late. We now pass these titles and resources along to you in the hope that your mind and heart might also be enriched and quickened by tapping into this good reading material. Trygve Johnson, dean of the chapel…
Perspectives Journal
August 1, 2008
Uncategorized

Confession of Belhar

MAY 2008: CONFESSION Confession of Belhar September 1986 1. We believe in the triune God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, who gathers, protects and cares for the church through Word and Spirit. This, God has done since the beginning of the world and will do to the end. 2. We believe in one holy, universal Christian church, the communion of saints called from the entire human family. We believe that Christ's work of reconciliation is made manifest in the church…
Perspectives Journal
May 1, 2008