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Preachers and the Humble Thing: Part II

Editor's Note: The first part of this article appeared in the May 2009 edition of Perspectives. In this second part Roy Anker picks up where he left off in reflecting on the character of the revivalist preacher Sonny Dewey from Robert Duvall's film The Apostle. A revivalist since age twelve, Sonny's besetting error is, simply put, old rank ego, the idea of being God's fair-haired boy, which status he pursues with conviction and fervor. The conviction breeds a good deal…
Roy M. Anker
June 1, 2009
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Calvin at 500–The Literary Beginning of a Quincentennial Celebration

July 10, 2009, marks the 500th anniversary of John Calvin's birth in Noyon, France. Special conferences and celebrations to commemorate the event are taking place throughout the world, ranging from Sao Paulo, Brazil, to Seoul, Korea. The Dutch couldn't wait and already had a Calvin conference at a modern castle near Putten, the Netherlands, in late October 2008. The lecturers included some of the leading Calvin scholars from Western Europe and the United States. Participants came from places as distant…
I. John Hesselink
June 1, 2009
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The Mystery of Godliness

Beyond all question the mystery of godliness is great: He appeared in a body, was vindicated by the Spirit, was seen by angels, was preached among the nations, was believed on in the world, was taken up in glory." --I Timothy 3:16 What a hidden thing is this, and how wonderful a matter: that God was manifest in the flesh and became man! Does it not so far surpass our understanding that when we are told of it, we are…
John Calvin
June 1, 2009
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Calvin’s Enduring Sense

The world has changed so dramatically in the half-millennium since John Calvin's birth that one suspects the old Reformer would be merely baffled and dumbfounded were he able somehow to see and observe life as we now know it. Calvin was never at a loss for words, but our fast-paced, technological society--and the ways that ethos has influenced also the churches that continue to teach Calvin's views on Scripture--could just be enough to render even John Calvin at least temporarily…
June 1, 2009
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Preachers and the Humble Thing: Part I

Hollywood movies seldom show us preachers--an odd fact, given that the United States has, seemingly forever, been beset by the breed before and behind and on every side. On every other street corner, every third cable channel, and in uncounted best-sellers you can see them, hawking Jesus and positive-thinking and who knows what else besides. If one listens to fancy British neo-atheists like Hitchens and Dawkins, the United States has been infested by preachers, and the infestation has led to…
Roy M. Anker
May 16, 2009
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Financial Crisis and the Culture of Risk

In the Josiah Stamp Memorial Lecture which he delivered on January 13, 2009, at the London School of Economics, Ben Bernanke, Chairman of the Federal Reser ve System, listed the causes of the credit boom that led to the current financial breakdown: "widespread declines in under writing standards, breakdowns in lending oversight by investors and rating agencies, increased reliance on complex and opaque credit instruments that proved fragile under stress, and unusually low compensation for risk-taking." This is not moral…
John P. Tiemstra
May 1, 2009
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How A-Rod Can Be Saved

In the summer of 1979 I was watching television on a Sunday afternoon with Dave Henion at his house in Fair Lawn, New Jersey. Dave was an elder at the Riverside Reformed Church in Paterson, where I supplied the pulpit as a senior seminarian. We were watching the Yankee game, and the pitcher was Luis Tiant, and he was pitching a two-hitter. His fastball was hot and his curve was sharp and he was catching the corners. He was cagey…
Daniel Meeter
May 1, 2009