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Scott Hoezee

Scott Hoezee is an ordained pastor in the Christian Reformed Church and the author of several books including The Riddle of Grace (1996), Flourishing in the Land (1996), Remember Creation (1998), Speaking as One: A Look at the Ecumenical Creeds (1997), Speaking of Comfort: A Look at the Heidelberg Catechism (1998), and Proclaim the Wonder: Preaching Science on Sunday (2003). He is the Director of the Center for Excellence in Preaching at Calvin Theological Seminary in Grand Rapids, MI.

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After a Dry Summer

By almost any reckoning, it was a tough summer. Here in the Midwest it was also a very hot, dry summer with seven times more 90-degree days in Michigan than in all of 2004. Since my family and I moved to a different house in the middle of this sizzling summer, I can attest to the toll that heat and humidity can take on a person. But the summer of 2005 was uncomfortable for more dire reasons than the heat.…
October 16, 2005
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A World of Beautiful Souls: An Interview with Marilynne Robinson

Marilynne Robinson is an instructor at the Iowa Writers' Workshop and is the author of the 1981 novel, Housekeeping, which won the PEN/Hemingway Award for that year. Since then she has written two works of non-fiction: Mother Country in 1989 and The Death of Adam in 1998. Her most recent novel is Gilead, a kind of memoir composed by an Iowa preacher who is facing the end of his life. Gilead was reviewed here in Perspectives in December 2004. Last…
May 16, 2005
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Stop It

It may or may not come as a surprise to learn that sometimes when we preachers begin to write a sermon, we do so having no idea just where that particular sermon will wind up. Lest you think this explains why some sermons seem to wind up precisely nowhere, let me say quickly that like most pastors, I know that some of the best sermons I've ever written were the ones that did not have a clear roadmap when I…
May 16, 2005
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Easter on the Move

You just never know when Easter will come. Suppose that on January 1 of any given year, someone handed you a brand new calendar. Then suppose this person said, "Without looking, can you tell me when Christmas will be this year?" You might not know the precise day of the week, but you surely would know that this year, as always, Christmas will be December 25. But what if you were asked when Easter was going to be? To answer…
March 16, 2005
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Heartfelt Thanks

Last fall newly appointed editor James Bratt bid a fond farewell to Roy Anker as Roy completed his term of distinguished service to this journal. Now it is my turn to say another goodbye, this time to Leanne Van Dyk, whom I succeed as one of the three editors of Perspectives. Like Roy, so also Leanne has been with this journal for just over a decade now, which means Leanne has had something to do with about 100 issues, single-handedly…
February 15, 2005
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The Christian Essence

Novels give readers glimpses into lives and experiences different from their own; that is why reading fiction should be an integral part of pastoral ministry. Marilynne Robinson's new novel Gilead, however, accomplishes something of even greater value: it captures the life and heart of a minister so adroitly that in the end, any pastor who reads this book will discover (or better said, will recover) the essence of the pastoral life itself. Robinson has pulled off that wondrous literary feat…
December 16, 2004
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A Lord’s Day, Unraveled

"Shame on you." And then he walked away. I am stunned, and something inside me breaks. The people continue to stream out the sanctuary door. But I'm having difficulty focusing on them. Quite a few say lovely things about the service, the sermon, the music. But I'm having difficulty hearing them. What I hear instead is shame. On me. A sermon illustration had been misunderstood, turned in a different direction than I had intended, and so had been judged wrong,…
November 16, 2004
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Eats, Shoots and Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation

According to a well-known Puritan adage from Joseph Hall, "God loveth adverbs; and cares not how good, but how well." It may well be true that the Almighty loves adverbs, but if Lynne Truss is to be believed, then God would have to be passionate also about proper punctuation. In her surprise bestseller Eats, Shoots and Leaves, British author Truss launches a frontal assault on the English world's increasing sloppiness when it comes to precision of linguistic expression. The book's…
August 1, 2004
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Ordinary Time

The period of "Ordinary Time" makes up the bulk of the church year, and we're in the midst of it now.  But this past spring, even when the season was Easter, I noted that biblically, even extraordinary time can be treated rather ordinarily.  I noticed that there isn't much in the Bible that tells what happened in the forty-day stretch from Easter to the ascension.  Mark says not one word about what happened over that almost six-week period.  Once Easter…
June 1, 2004