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ChurchFeatured

How the RCA and CRC Differ

It is remarkable to me that the differences between the RCA and the CRC are epitomized by the names of their respective LGBTQA advocacy organizations. All One Body sounds idealistic, biblical, Pauline, seeking union, cohesion, and alignment, and suggesting “all for one and one for all.” By contrast, Room for All sounds looser, more practical, more eschatological, Lukan rather than Pauline, assuming multiplicity, variety, and space, and requiring the practice of embracing otherness. “All one body” trades on shared identity,…
February 19, 2024
ChurchFeatured

Digging In and Bailing Out: Religion, Politics, and the Rise of the Nones: Part Two

To understand the rise of the Nones, it is necessary to consider the broader cultural impact of the rise of the Religious Right in producing a broad backlash, but it is equally important to explore how these processes operate at a congregational level in which people who have worshiped together for generations find themselves having to make the difficult choice of leaving a congregation that has been an important part of their and their family’s identity.
October 23, 2023
ChurchFeatured

Digging In and Bailing Out: Religion, Politics, and the Rise of the Nones: Part One

While conservative Christians are circling the wagons calling for a commitment to core values and practices that map well to key Republican priorities, politically moderate and liberal Christians are rushing to find the exits. The result is a growing divide between more ideologically pure conservative Christian communities on one side and a more secular, more liberal group on the other, many of whom do not identify with any religious tradition. Having explored these trends, sociologists and other scholars have concluded…
October 16, 2023
ChurchFeatured

The Day the Chorus Sang . . . And the Journey to Get There

There is light at the end of the tunnel. There is joy after the rain. In a totally unscientific analysis, we may have already gained as many people since our Welcome Statement as we lost. Of course, it’s still early—while these people are a joy and a gift, they’re new friends. Things are still tentative, a little unsure yet. Not like the deep, decades-long, old friends who are no longer with us. In five to ten years will these new…
ChurchEasterFeatured

Missing Easter

The theme I should have preached is that hardly anyone gets it right away. Like the disciples, most of us are a little slow. I was definitely on the slower side. Faith takes a while, sometimes a very long time, which doesn’t make for a rousing Easter sermon, the kind I thought I was expected to preach. It wasn’t until the sun was high overhead that a few of the earliest disciples began to catch on, and even then there…
April 11, 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
ChurchFeaturedTheology

Where Are We Going?

If our goal is not to punch our ticket to heaven and escape this world, but to live into the reality of the new creation, the role of Christian mission needs to be more than just teaching people to say a prayer or understand a truth. The goal is to have people see new creation in us, through us, and around us.
March 7, 2022
ChurchFeaturedYouth Ministry

Less Spiritual and More Human: The End (Telos) of Youth Ministry

For the young people I know, the world’s gone crazy, and the church isn’t far behind. They’re not concerned with the same things adults in the church seem to care about, at least not in the same way. Human sexuality? I’ve found young people across the theological and political spectrum are much more thoughtful and nuanced than adults. Politics? Social issues? Same thing. They’re not a monolith, but they’re much more willing to engage the conversation in a way that…
January 31, 2022