Sorting by

×
Skip to main content

Filter

Featured

Of Giants and Waves

He always told me that the most important thing in working in a hot fight is to recognize that everybody wants to simplify the issues so you have clear reasons for killing each other (spiritually, of course, in most church conflicts). He said that the most important thing one can do is to “complexify things.”
March 18, 2024
Featured Articles
Featured

Standing on the Word

Today, my ESV Bible is all marked up and highlighted, with copious marginalia. It is full of stars, exclamation points, hearts, WOWs and “thank yous.” Someone looking through it might think that my faith is superficial, that it lacks nuance and complexity. But I know the world of struggle that lay beneath each heart, each star, each exclamation point.
Featured
March 4, 2024

Footnotes to Fiction: Confessions of a Post-Pandemic Wannabe Novelist.

That I’d written a novel surprised people because I have a Ph.D. in American Culture Studies and for many years taught college courses and wrote nonfiction books about film and media. My day job kept me busy enough. (Maybe that’s why I lost sleep over whether to kill off my erudite professor character.) But I have this story I’ve always wanted to tell, and started carving out time to do some research, make notes, and organize material until I could…
Featured
February 26, 2024

Pentecost Sunday:  The Kingdom, Scripture, and Same Sex Marriage

The Bible is a historical book, thus requiring historical tools of analysis, the most basic of which is establishing the context for what is going on in the text. The Bible is also a literary book, thus requiring literary tools of analysis, like asking the genre of a text: a chronicle is not a poem, nor a first-person account, nor a letter of a specific church, nor an apocalypse. There is, in fact, no such thing as “quoting Scripture” with…
ChurchFeatured
February 19, 2024

How the RCA and CRC Differ

It is remarkable to me that the differences between the RCA and the CRC are epitomized by the names of their respective LGBTQA advocacy organizations. All One Body sounds idealistic, biblical, Pauline, seeking union, cohesion, and alignment, and suggesting “all for one and one for all.” By contrast, Room for All sounds looser, more practical, more eschatological, Lukan rather than Pauline, assuming multiplicity, variety, and space, and requiring the practice of embracing otherness. “All one body” trades on shared identity,…
Featured
February 12, 2024

Thoughts While Burning My Flag

What it means to be an American and a Christ follower is the defining question for the American church today. There, in the wet grass and the fog, with the ashes already cooling, I struggled to discern a way to be both.
Featured
February 5, 2024

Could I do What They Do?

Recognizing this tendency to limit myself, I prayed, asking God to show me places I’d been holding back. I prayed for the courage I knew I’d need to respond in faith. Teresa says, “Fear distorts knowledge of self…And so I say, my friends, let us set our eyes on Christ…then self-knowledge will not make us timid or cowardly."
Featured
January 29, 2024

Can We Keep from Singing?

Resurrection is not only a belief; it is also a practice. We can resurrect spaces of mentoring, spaces of encouragement, spaces of self-care, spaces of leaning on one another as a church. We can learn important phrases like, “Pastor, how may I pray for you?” Elders can learn to say, “Pastor, you need to take a week off.” Jesus won’t abandon us when the pastor is gone and will still be Lord when the pastor returns. We can see to…

Latest from the Blog

Daily blog by our regular bloggers & guest contributors.

  • Thinking About the Departed
    Our beliefs about our dead family and friends are both tender and explosive. We don’t want them trifled with.
    March 19, 2024 Steve Mathonnet-VanderWell
  • The Run of History
    That network has eroded for three reasons The CRC is far more multiethnic than it used to be. Second, thorough Americanization. Third, a much more complex system of communication and information. Here’s where the Evangelical connection comes into play.
    March 18, 2024 James Bratt
  • The Beginning or The End
    This is but the beginning of the birth pangs.
    March 17, 2024 Julie VanDerVeen Van Til
  • The Traveler and the Gate
    Though shadows did their best to hide it, a small section looked to be open, as if someone left off their work—or another broke it down.
    March 16, 2024 Rebecca Tellinghuisen
  • Undertaking
    When my mother died, she was born into glory. And something else happened.
    March 15, 2024 Heidi S. De Jonge
  • Father, Forgive Them
    Leave it to Jesus to pack a punch in a sermon of just seven words. (Alright, technically it’s 41 words...
    March 14, 2024 Laura de Jong
  • Stuck between Good Friday and Easter Sunday
    The truth is that the churches of Paul and Peter are gone, but the Church of Jesus Christ remains.
    March 13, 2024 Gene Ryan
  • Information without Transformation?
    As I have noted here on the RJ Blog before, my Center for Excellence in Preaching at Calvin Theological Seminary...
    March 12, 2024 Scott Hoezee

Poetry

Poetry
March 19, 2024

A Shout

From the falling form of an intricate vase, water was freed ...
Poetry
March 12, 2024

I Don’t Know the Biochemistry of a Hummingbird

I can only wonder at this blurred whir of evidence ...
Poetry
March 5, 2024

Above the Tree Line

When God wanted to speak, God's mountain goat jawbone locked shut ...
Poetry
February 27, 2024

Love Like An Ocean (Metaphysicals XIV)

Batter my boat Wide-spread Water make your breakers shake my hull ...
Poetry
February 20, 2024

Everything that Rises

Everything that rises must converge; or rocket in reverse. I ruminate, lifting fallen coleslaw.
Poetry
January 23, 2024

The World’s Last Night (Metaphysicals XIII)

If tonight were the word's last night might I spend it striking the anvil of rhetoric ...

Latest Podcasts

Podcast
March 5, 2024

“Above the Tree Line” by Lynn Domina

In this episode of the Poetry Edition of the Reformed Journal Podcast, Rose Postma interviews Lynn Domina about her poem “Above the Tree Line.” Lynn is the author of 3 collections of poetry and a professor at Northern Michigan University. Her articles have appeared in Studies in American Indian Literature, a/b: Auto/Biography Studies, and other academic journals and edited collections. She lives with her family in Marquette, on the beautiful shores of Lake Superior.
Podcast
February 27, 2024

Love Like an Ocean (Metaphysicals XIV) by DS Martin

In this episode of the poetry edition, Rose Postma interviews DS Martin about his poem Love Like an Ocean (Metaphysicals XIV) inspired by one of John Donne’s Holy Sonnets. Don is a widely published poet and the Poet-in-Residence at McMaster Divinity College. He's also a series editor for the Poiema Poetry Series. You can listen to other poems in this series in The Reformed Journal Podcast. You can also read the other poems by DS Martin on our website.
Podcast
February 20, 2024

“Everything That Rises” by Josiah A. R. Cox

In this episode of the Poetry Edition, Rose Postma interviews Josiah Cox about his poem “Everything That Rises.” Josiah is a writer, editor, and educator from Kansas City, Missouri. He holds an MAR from Yale Divinity School and an MFA from The Writing Seminars at Johns Hopkins University, where he currently serves as a junior lecturer. He has served editorial roles with various journals and presses, including Yale University Press, The Yale Review, and The Hopkins Review.
Podcast
December 20, 2023

“Oversight” by Paul J. Willis

In this episode of the Poetry Edition, Rose Postma interviews ⁠Paul J. Willis⁠ about his poem “Oversight.” Paul is a retired professor of English from Westmont College and the author of several collections of poetry. His most recent poetry collection is ⁠Somewhere to Follow⁠. His newest project is entitled ⁠A Radiant Birth: Advent Reading for a Bright Season⁠, which he co-edited and is published by InterVarsity Press.
Podcast
December 17, 2023

“Somewhere in the Judean Hills” by James C. Schaap

On the last episode of the holiday special by James C. Schaap, author and retired English professor, he reads "Somewhere in the Judean Hills." Today, the youngest shepherd in the hills is the one directed to stay behind with the sheep when the others go to Bethlehem.
Podcast
December 12, 2023

“Advent: A Crown of Sonnets” by Eric Potter

In this episode of the Poetry Edition, Rose Postma interviews Eric Potter about his poem “Advent: A Crown of Sonnets.” Eric is the author of several chapbooks and poetry collections, including “Things Not Seen.” He is also a professor of English at Grove City College, where he teaches courses in modern poetry, American literature, and creative writing.