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Adopted into God’s Family

OCTOBER 2012: ESSAY by J. Todd Billings In 2010, my wife Rachel and I traveled to Ethiopia to adopt a lovely little girl. We know the country of Ethiopia relatively well—as we both taught in Ethiopia for five months in 2009, and I had spent nine months in Ethiopia earlier in my teaching career. We know that Ethiopia is a wonderful place—a place with beautiful landscapes, welcoming people, and very strong coffee. But we also know that it is a…
J. Todd Billings
October 1, 2012
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A Reply to John Van Sloten

OCTOBER 2012: RESPONSE by Scott Hoezee In his attempt to bolster the contention that all of creation is a "text" on which pastors should preach in a way similar to traditional preaching from scripture ("Engaging the Whole Counsel of God,"August/September 2012), John Van Sloten marshals John Calvin to his cause. There is much more I could say in reply to Van Sloten's rejoinder to me, but I will limit my comments here to his suggestion that John Calvin's theology authorizes…
October 1, 2012
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To the Left of Where I Come From

OCTOBER 2012: AS WE SEE IT by Jack Du Mez I grew up in a socially and politically conservative small town in Wisconsin—very conservative. In my Christian grade school's mock presidential election of 1984, only two students in about two hundred voted for Mondale instead of Reagan. The statistics haven't changed much over time, apparently. On a recent trip back home, a family member proudly informed me that 98 percent of my hometown voted in support of Governor Scott Walker…
Jack Du Mez
October 1, 2012
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Romney Is the One

OCTOBER 2012: AS WE SEE IT by Jack R. Van Der Slik It is one of the most precious rituals of American democracy. On November 6 our citizens will go to the polls and freely vote for their preferred candidates for president and Congress. Thank God for that freedom. We pray for people of good judgment to lead us in our nation's positions of high authority. With regard to the presidential contest in particular, I would like to suggest what…
Jack R. Van Der Slik
October 1, 2012
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Gang Life

OCTOBER 2012: AS WE SEE IT by Danny Iverson I buried Daniel last Friday. He was nineteen years old. It's been two weeks since he was murdered and I was hoping all the emotions would have faded by now, but they haven't. Kimberly, my wife, has wept every day as she thinks about him. It is still hard to believe he is gone. He was one of the first kids I met in Newark when I moved there in 2003…
Danny Iverson
October 1, 2012
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The Faithful Work of Pastor Jack

AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2012: INSIDE OUT by Jason Lief "Though I am free and belong to no one, I have made myself a slave to everyone, to win as many as possible.... I have become all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save some. I do all this for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessings." 1 Corinthians 9:19, 22-23 "Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach. Those who can't…
August 1, 2012
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What Are You Going Through?

AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2012: REVIEW Praying for Strangers River Jordon Berkley, 2011 $24.95. 336 pages. In "Reflections on the Right Use of School Studies with a View to the Love of God," Simone Weil writes, "The love of our neighbor in all its fullness simply means being able to say to him: 'What are you going through?' It is a recognition that the sufferer exists, not only as a unit in a collection, or a specimen from the social category labeled 'unfortunate,'…
Alissa M. Goudswaard
August 1, 2012
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September’s End

AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2012: POETRY by Julia Spicher Kasdorf after Rilke Little one, let the monarchs flex and rest on the sand before their long migrations. Ease your head onto the float as the sun sinks red on the ridge, summer done, no one else at the lake but a Russian who strokes and strokes on the far side of the rope. Soon enough we’ll dress and hurry home in sudden darkness. If you remember anything from this time, let it be…
Julia Spicher Kasdorf
August 1, 2012
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Engaging the Whole Counsel of God

AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2012: ESSAY by John Van Sloten " himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else." --Acts 17:25 We say we believe this, but do we really? I grew up in a church whose worldview was founded on a hugely sovereign and providential understanding of God. We held a high view of creation and believed that our world was made by andbelonged to God. We understood that Jesus played a mysterious role in the creation process, that all things…
John Van Sloten
August 1, 2012
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Where Life Is Found: Engaging with John Van Sloten’s The Day Metallica Came to Church

AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2012: ESSAY by Scott Hoezee For the longest time I've been gathering some thoughts to write something about my colleague John Van Sloten's book The Day Metallica Came to Church (Square Inch, 2010). And then the February 2012 issue of Perspectives arrived, and it looked like another colleague, Jason Lief, had beaten me to the punch. But since my thoughts meander in a different theological direction than Lief's article ("Leave Metallica Alone! Why Metallica Coming to Church Is a…
August 1, 2012