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Among all of us who are currently members of the Perspectives editorial team and board, no one can recall an edition of the magazine or a board meeting that did not involve Jim Bratt. Since 1998 Jim has worked at most every level of the operation, including as one of the main editors across the last half-dozen years. In short Jim has been involved with Perspectives for most of the years since this journal joined forces with the former Reformed…

Here's a statement I hear rather frequently where I live and work: "Well, of course, I'm no 'tree hugger,' but..." and then follows a mild expression of concern about some part of the creation. For many people in my part of the country, being known as a "tree hugger" is a shameful thing. I'm not sure why they feel this way, but I suspect it grows out of a fear of being identified with people--"radicals"--who have chained themselves to old…

I'm walking down my Main Street in the Februar y dark, that greedy New England nighttime that will hog the last part of ever y winter afternoon. It's five-thirty on a Wednesday and the air is cold and damp, and I am on my way to a shop they call Essentials to buy two dozen candles for a wrought iron chandelier I bought today. I pass our resident steel drummer whose thin tin rhythm makes me think about long under…

The volume had fallen behind a row of books in one of my office bookcases--I must have set it on top of a row of books and, at some point, it had gotten knocked to the back of the bookcase. That's where I found it laying on its spine, a distinct layer of dust covering the edges of its yellowed pages. The volume is my copy of The 1979 Hammond Almanac, which during my freshman year of high school I…

It was my great privilege to attend the Uniting General Council of the World Communion of Reformed Churches (WCRC) in Grand Rapids, Michigan, this past June. I was able to attend only the first half, and I was not a delegate, just an accredited "observer" for the Reformed Church in America (RCA). But, while the full news and reports of the Uniting General Council are available from many sources, it seems fitting that I as an observer make a few…

Ed Dobson describes himself as a follower of Jesus, literally, beard and all. Dobson grew up in Ireland but moved to the United States in 1964 and eventually attended Bob Jones University. Not long after graduating, he became the vice president for student life at Liberty University, working closely with his friend Jerry Falwell. In 1987 Dobson left Liberty for Calvary Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where he Dobson for eighteen years as the senior pastor. After being diagnosed with…

I moved to Nashville, Tennessee, in 1969 into a working-class white-flight neighborhood with large lawns and small houses. Today the neighborhood includes African Americans, Koreans, Vietnamese, Iraqis, and Latinos. The signs along Nolensville Road are in many different languages. You can still get barbeque, for which I am grateful, but you can also get falafel, kim chi, and tacos, for which I also am grateful. The Bible's Message in an Age of Diversity is the subtitle of Curtiss Paul DeYoung's…

"Take the story we retell every epiphany," said my pastor, Jack Roeda. So, here it is, the story we retell every epiphany: the magi saw a star rise, and it pulled them to Bethlehem, where they saw God incarnate, and then they went home the long way, evading Herod (Matthew 2). "But these sage astronomers also took the long way to Christ," Jack said; "they took the route of general revelation." Indeed. The magi, as yet unacquainted with Christ, did…