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Searing Stemwinder

MAY 2012: AS WE SEE IT by James C. Schaap Our lindens are just about the tallest trees in town, I swear. And there he was, high up top, singing his heart out, that searing melody so perfectly "cardinal" that it couldn't be mistaken for anyone else's. Even with a horse of a lens, my camera couldn't have caught him way up there because cardinals seem almost always nervous and flighty, jumping from skinny branch to skinny branch as if…
May 1, 2012
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Charles Colson and the Cancer of Incarceration

MAY 2012: AS WE SEE IT by James Bratt Charles Colson's death last month prompted a chorus of praise from his evangelical supporters. Praise for his enduring conversion to Christianity. Praise for the change of character it wrought in him. Praise for the compassion that galvanized him to build his Prison Fellowship into the largest prison ministry in the world. Praise, sometimes followed by sad sighs that the mainstream media had too much remembered the Watergate felon and not the…
James Bratt
May 1, 2012
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The Lion Is the Lamb

APRIL 2012: INSIDE OUT by Chad Pierce "Do not weep. See, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has conquered." Revelation 5:5 When encountering God in the Bible, it is best to expect the unexpected. Time and time again, the creator and sustainer of the universe chose to surprise God's people. In a world where age mattered, the younger brother Jacob received God's promise. God chose Mary, a young girl from a nowhere town, to raise…
Chad Pierce
April 1, 2012
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Touring the Land Where Giants Roamed

APRIL 2012: REVIEW by Scott Hoezee The Best of the Reformed Journal James D. Bratt and ROnald A. Wells, Eds. Eerdmans, 2011 $20.00 325 pages. This new book, like the periodical it memorializes and celebrates, is as plain-Jane as they come. The cover is the equivalent of a plainbrown wrapper: black and white with slight shadings of gray. There's nothing particularly fancy about the font or layout—it has all the sexiness of a daily newspaper. But if, proverbially, you judge…
April 1, 2012
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Matins

APRIL 2012: POETRY by Otto Selles Before the alarm, before the reminders about lunches, band, the dentist, and soccer, I slip out of bed and watch the kettle boil to life. I greet the toast tenderly, and the jam, once again, surprises, so sweet, so sticky. Through the kitchen window I sense the sullen pine tree fenced between the garage and the power lines. I sip, chew, and cast a thought into the dark, or rather a question about the…
Otto Selles
April 1, 2012
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The Liturgical Question of Metallica: A Response to Jason Lief’s “Leave Metallica Alone!”

APRIL 2012: ESSAY by Joshua Banner Jason Lief's "Leave Metallica Alone! Why Metallica Coming to Church Is a Bad Idea," from the February 2012 issue of Perspectives, is a refreshing commentary on the evangelical compulsion to co-opt and baptize popular culture. Lief, a professor of religion and a fan of heavy metal music, writes a brief defense of why he is not interested in reading John Van Sloten's Bringing Metallica to Church: Searching for the Everywhere God in Everything. On…
Joshua Banner
April 1, 2012
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Voices in Dialogue: Women, Art, and Justice

APRIL 2012: ESSAY by Mandy Cano Villalobos The first time we all gathered, I felt so out of place. Seven months pregnant with my first child and utterly unsure what sort of mother I would be—or how I would fare through the birthing process—I was young and inexperienced relative to the veterans of motherhood sitting around the room with me. And yet the differences between us seemed not to matter to these women. During our two-hour "niñofree" sewing sessions, hands…
Mandy Cano Villalobos
April 1, 2012
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Presbyterians at the Crossroads: Part Two

APRIL 2012: ESSAY by David L. Stubbs Editors' note: In the March 2012 issue of Perspectives, David Stubbs explored recent developments within the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), particularly the emergence of the Fellowship of Presbyterians and the Evangelical Covenant Order, focusing primarily on their positive role as "Spirit-filled movements of reform." Stubbs continues this month in the second part of his analysis by raising some concerns and questions about these movements and their stated tenets. I do not doubt the good…
David L. Stubbs
April 1, 2012
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Knowing Stuff

APRIL 2012: AS WE SEE IT by Debra Rienstra I admit there's something romantic about woodstoves and typewriters and horse-drawn carriages and other technologies of the past—for about ten minutes. Then, get me back to my central heating, my laptop, and my minivan. And definitely, definitely: give me the internet. There's nothing romantic about not knowing stuff. Questions I have asked the internet this week: What's the weather going to be in Albany, New York? Should I be worried about…
April 1, 2012
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Presbyterian Conversations: An Interview with Laura Smit

MARCH 2012: INTERVIEW by Scot Sherman In January, more than two thousand people attended the Covenanting Conference of the Fellowship of Presbyterians (FOP) to hear about and consider participation in the Evangelical Covenant Order of Presbyterians (ECO). Perspectives board member Scot Sherman recently interviewed Laura Smit, who teaches religion at Calvin College, about the ECO and her role as one of the principal drafters of the FOP's theological document (www.fellowship-pres.org). SS: What has led and motivated you personally to take…
Scot Sherman
March 1, 2012