Trip to the States

I have just returned from 9 days south of the border in Illinois and Michigan, along with my family. Our trip had two purposes. First, we were in the Chicago area for the baptism of my wife's infant niece a week ago sunday. Second, this past weekend we went to Grand Rapids, Michigan, where I attended the second annual Symposium on Religion and Politics, sponsored by The Henry Institute at Calvin College.

We stayed the first night in Battle Creek, Michigan, making our way to Elmhurst, Illinois, the second night, where we stayed with my sister-in-law and her family. The baptism was administered according to the Maronite rite in a largely Lebanese congregation. The liturgy has some similarities to both Roman and Byzantine rites, with generous use of Aramaic, the language of the very first Christians two millennia ago. The weather was delightful. It was the first time in years we had been back in "home" territory without it being oppressively hot. We were pleasantly surprised at the number of flowering trees in the central DuPage County region where I grew up. The topography is generally not very interesting, but spring is little short of spectacular this year, making it a wonderful time to be visiting. We found a number of things to do with the extended family, including visits to the DuPage County Historical Museum and the Cosley Zoo, both in Wheaton. The former boasts an elaborate model railway in the basement, showing the Chicago & North Western and Chicago Aurora & Elgin railroads as they once made their way through the middle of the county. Another highlight of our stay was a brief visit to First Presbyterian Church in Glen Ellyn, Illinois, where Nancy and I were married and Theresa baptized. I suppose it could be considered our home church in a sense. They have just opened a new and impressive addition to the church building. This is obviously a thriving and growing congregation in an otherwise shrinking denomination.

After our stay in the Chicago area, we made the drive up to Grand Rapids, where I attended and presented a paper at the Henry Institute Symposium, which took place at the new Prince Conference Center at Calvin. The schedule offered a number of interesting papers and presenters. I was pleased that my own paper was scheduled for the very first session, when people are still fresh and enthusiastic and able to come up with good questions. The paper's title was "Redeeming Authority: towards a recovery and proper understanding of authority and its place in human society," which was a slight reworking of my inaugural address. The discussant was Stanley Carlson-Thies, who is with the Center for Public Justice and worked in the White House in 2001-2002.

Among the other sessions I attended was one devoted to Catholic political thought, a perennial interest of mine. Brian Peterson of the University of Dayton gave a paper on Fr. Richard John Neuhaus in which he argued that Neuhaus' embrace of Catholicism has everything to do with his perception of this historic faith's political utility in upholding the American democratic experiment. I think Peterson is right to a large extent, but I suppose I would wish to give Neuhaus more credit than that. Then Fr. Peter Bisson, SJ, delivered a paper describing the Jesuits' commitment to liberation theology since 1975. Although the paper was interesting and made some good points, one would hardly know from his account that liberation theology had long passed its sell-by date.

The most discouraging session was titled "Beyond Kuyperianism" and was chaired by my former colleague, John Bolt, now teaching at Calvin Seminary. David Van Drunen and Darryl Hart argued for the most dualistic and lutheranizing reading of Calvin imaginable. Those arguing for the cosmic scope of redemption in Christ, including my current colleague and great friend Al Wolters (who was mentioned by name), came in for a drubbing. It's almost as if someone were to defend, and even glory in, the residual platonic and manichaean elements in Augustine's thought at the expense of the obviously more biblical elements. Why on earth would anyone, particularly a Reformed Christian, do this? Why would one wish to affirm that Christ's redemptive grace touches only a part of our lives, leaving aside the full range of cultural activities for which we were created?

Two of the saturday sessions are worth mentioning as well. One was on religion and American foreign policy. Robert O. Smith of Baylor University discussed the phenomenon of christian zionism among American evangelicals. Joe Kickasola of Regent University discussed Bush's middle eastern policy, especially with respect to Iraq. In response to a question I posed to him, he professed to favour a redrawing of state boundaries along ethnic lines. He even said -- perhaps hyperbolically -- that he prays for the creation of an independent Kurdistan, of all things. A Wilsonian commitment to self-determination still lingers in some places, it seems. One can only hope it stays out of the corridors of decision-making power.

The second session was devoted to evangelicalism and political and social life. It featured one Debra Daniels, who gave an interesting paper titled, "Evangelical Egalitarianism and Mutual Submission," as well as Robin Weinstein, whose presentation dealt with welfare reform in the US, particularly under Bush. Weinstein is a recent graduate of Eastern University, where he took courses with Paul Brink, one of my own protégés who is now teaching there.

On friday evening we heard a keynote address delivered by Dr. Kwame Bediako, "A New Christian World: Reading the Signs of the Kingdom Amid Global Geopolitics," which he had earlier presented as the first of the Stone Lectures at Princeton Theological Seminary some weeks earlier. Bediako sounded many of the same themes as Philip Jenkins in The Next Christendom, particularly with respect to the shifting of the global centre of Christianity towards the African continent.

In summary, the conference was worthwhile, and our travels a success. Now back to work.