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Peter Vander Meulen Belonging to a confessional church that uses written confessions to remember and define itself is a little like belonging to a group that replays, move by move, the epic struggles of championship chess games. The activity is very instructive, even intriguing, but there is nothing really at stake, nothing like the sweat and struggle of the real thing. A confessional church testifies to things it has found, in time and history, to be true as it submitted…

Ronald Feenstra Reformed Christians in particular, and all Christians more generally, owe a debt of gratitude to those courageous Christians in South Africa who, during one of the worst periods of apartheid rule in that country, gave birth to one of the finest, sturdiest witnesses to the Christian faith in recent decades. The Belhar Confession was brought forth by Reformed Christians who were suffering deep injustices, including violently enforced racial segregation that was condoned or even supported by some Reformed…

Eugene Heideman During the 1880's, Dr. Nicholas Steffens, the first professor of theology at Western Theological Seminary in Holland, Michigan, was a strong and vociferous defender of the three Reformed Standards of Unity--the Belgic Confession, the Heidelberg Catechism, and the Canons of Dort. Steffens argued that loyalty to the Standards must be upheld as a defense against the inroads of the "Mediating theologians" of Germany and the "New Theology" being taught at Andover Theological Seminary in Massachusetts. Steffens' loyalty to…

H. Russel Botman I have a story to tell. The theological engagement with the central issues underlying the Confession of Belhar started on a beautiful day in Cape Town in the second semester of 1978, two years after the tragic events of 1976 when Hector Petersen and other children were shot on the streets of Soweto by the apartheid regime. We were then still struggling to make theological sense of the resistance to apartheid. Our professor of systematic theology, Jaap…

MAY 2008: POETRY Written in and by the Wind Pages do not turn themselves, and lovers must have lips in order to kiss. Really, time did not tick-tock until someone made a clock. But let's ignore the obvious. Come, listen to the wind. Listen to the arguments of what clings to the earth and what soars across the sky. To be alive is a paradox, a sleight-of-hand between the smoke and mirrors of birth and death. Every breath is a…

MAY 2008: CONFESSION Confession of Belhar September 1986 1. We believe in the triune God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, who gathers, protects and cares for the church through Word and Spirit. This, God has done since the beginning of the world and will do to the end. 2. We believe in one holy, universal Christian church, the communion of saints called from the entire human family. We believe that Christ's work of reconciliation is made manifest in the church…

Mitchell Kinsinger During my college years, I listened to Canadian singer-songwriter Bruce Cockburn virtually nonstop. His Christianity seemed unconventional to me and his lyrics and music ministered to my soul. I had not thought about Cockburn for a while until I began preparation for teaching a Sunday School class on the Belhar Confession. In particular, I was reminded of his song, "Justice," which includes the refrain, Everybody loves to see justice done on somebody else That line always troubled me…