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Steve Mathonnet-VanderWell

EssaysPolitics

The Hollander Files

Clannish, insular immigrants who refuse to assimilate ... large families and achieving kids who quickly overshadow other residents ... loyalty given to foreign, even adversarial, governments ... houses of worship where foreign languages are spoken ... dominating clergy who browbeat their people ... houses of worship set afire by arsonists. It is time for us to awaken to the reality that our American institutions are in danger from these foreigners who persist in bringing their un-American ideas with them, and…
October 31, 2018
Podcast

EP1-3: Scott Hoezee

Welcome to the Perspectives Journal Podcast where we have conversation with thoughtful and interesting people from a generously Reformed Perspective. We’ll be covering topics from theology and church to the arts and sciences and many more. Today, we're getting to know Scott Hoezee, one of our original bloggers on the Twelve. Scott is a professor at Calvin Seminary where he is the Director of the Center for Excellence in Preaching. Listen as we discuss topics from "What does it mean…
July 13, 2018
Podcast

EP1-2 Chuck DeGroat

Welcome to the Perspectives Journal Podcast where we have conversation with thoughtful and interesting people from a generously Reformed Perspective. We’ll be covering topics from theology and church to the arts and sciences. Today, one of our guest bloggers for the Twelve is with us, Chuck De Groat. He is discussing his article "What in the World Does it Mean to be Reformed?" from May 29, 2018. Among other things, in this episode we learn more about Chuck DeGroat and…
July 13, 2018
Podcast

EP1-1: Rebecca Koerselman

Welcome to the Perspectives Journal Podcast where we have conversation with thoughtful and interesting people from a generously Reformed Perspective. We’ll be covering topics from theology and church to the arts and sciences. Today, we’ll be getting to know one of our Twelve Bloggers a little bit better. Introducing Rebecca Koerselman, a history professor at Northwestern College. In this episode, we discussed how Rebecca’s Reformed perspective and her faith shapes the way she studies history. She also tells of her…
June 12, 2018
As We See It

More than a Feeling

My mother-in-law has a fondness for American peanut butter. It used to be hard to find in France. When she came to the United States for a visit, we made sure we had a supply ready for her. She attributed her liking of peanut butter to her school days. After World War II, she attended a boarding school run by Roman Catholic nuns. Good food was scarce, especially protein. Every day she and her classmates would line up to receive…
November 2, 2016
Uncategorized

Plumb

Plumb—true, precise, upright. According to my skewed memory, "plumb" was one of my grandfather's favorite words. As a boy, when we would work on little projects together, he seemed forever to be asking, "Is everything plumb?" To my young eyes, everything about my grandfather was plumb. He walked briskly and upright. His hair was combed, his shoes polished. His whole life seemed to have a precision about it. Because he was a carpenter and a hardware man, this same grandfather…
December 1, 2011
Uncategorized

Pushing Ourselves Forward

Compared to the beloved Heidelberg Catechism, feted in these pages and still recited on death beds, the Belgic Confession is a rather unremarkable Reformed document. The Belgic Confession is like that ordinary, stolid child who has the misfortune of spending life next to the bright, charming, and popular sibling. Although the various Dutch Reformed groups in North America all recognize the Belgic Confession as one of their doctrinal standards, it is pretty much a garden variety sixteenth century Reformed confession.…
August 1, 2011
Uncategorized

Salve for the Evangelical Soul

In recent years there have been numerous books, almost a nascent genre, in which disaffected or "enlightened" evangelicals share how they were wounded by their childhood faith and have now outgrown it. I am always amazed when the new insights and startling breakthroughs shared in these books are things that the wider church has practiced for centuries. More amazing is how evangelical readers, who have largely ignored the historic church, seem so eager to receive the condemnation and kicks from…
January 30, 2011
Uncategorized

Blood on Our Hands

In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God's grace. Ephesians 1:7 On the day after Thanksgiving last year, representatives from the Collegiate Church--the oldest Reformed church in North America--held a ceremony of healing and reconciliation with the Lenape Native American people. Established in 1628 in what was then New Amsterdam, the Collegiate Church was the "company church" for the Dutch West Indies Company as it settled Manhattan. The Lenape…
April 1, 2010