Disarming Leviathan Podcast: part 2

Caleb Campbell has now posted the second part of his interview with me: The Political Visions & Illusions of Christian Nationalism (part 2). Campbell's book, Disarming Leviathan, is due out in July. I look forward to reading it.

Disarming Leviathan Podcast: part 1

Last month Caleb Campbell, author of the forthcoming book Disarming Leviathan: Loving Your Christian Nationalist Neighbor, interviewed me for his Disarming Leviathan Podcast: The Political Visions & Illusions of Christian Nationalism (Part 1). From his website:

Pastor Campbell graduated Summa Cum Laude with a Masters of Arts in Ministry from Phoenix Seminary in 2015 and is currently a doctoral student at Fuller Theological Seminary.

He has served at Desert Springs Bible Church, in Phoenix, AZ since 2006, serving as Lead Pastor since 2015.

He also serves on the board of United Pastors of Arizona and as the state-wide regional director of the Surge Network. He has spoken at events hosted by Acts 29, African American Christian Clergy Coalition, the Surge Network, Grand Canyon University, Converge Arizona, Young Life and Phoenix Seminary.

I will link to part 2 once he has posted it.

January newsletter online

I have now posted my Global Scholars newsletter for January on this blog. Included are news about my forthcoming book, a visit to an Indonesian church in Toronto, and three posts on matters liturgical. Thanks for your support for my work.

Seeking our roots

Lucy Jane with three of her children

My January column for Christian Courier has just been posted online: Seeking our roots, with the following subtitle: "Each life found on a genealogy is a miracle that shows God's goodness." An excerpt:

Since childhood I have wanted to know who my ancestors were and where I came from. This flowed out of a general interest in history. I knew the major milestones such as the Roman Empire, the Middle Ages and the exploration and settlement of the Americas. But where did my own family enter the picture?

Fortunately, my maternal great-grandmother, Lucy Jane Bentley Hyder (1875-1948), had the foresight to record two reminiscences of her own forebears extending back to the late 18th century. These included her grandfather David Wells (born c 1815), of Big Stone Gap, Virginia, who, on the day the American Civil War ended, was murdered by “the Raiders or Ku Klux Klan as they were sometimes called.”

Incidentally, I discovered through my genealogical research that I am distantly related to Guillaume Groen van Prinsterer, Abraham Kuyper's 19th-century mentor in the anti-revolutionary movement in the Netherlands.

Liturgical standards and living faith: the case of the Evangelical and Reformed Church

My latest post in Kuyperian Commentary can be found here: Liturgical standards and living faith: the case of the Evangelical and Reformed Church. An excerpt:

So what was this Evangelical and Reformed Church? It was created by the merger of two predecessor bodies, the (German) Reformed Church in the United States (RCUS) and the (German) Evangelical Synod of North America. The German Reformed were the descendants of Reformed Christians who had immigrated from German-speaking Europe, especially Switzerland and the Palatinate, the latter of which was once ruled by Elector Frederick III “the Pious” (1515-1576), who commissioned the Heidelberg Catechism in 1563. The German Reformed began in 1725 and were initially under the care of Classis Amsterdam of the Dutch Reformed Church until 1793. During the late 19th century, efforts to unite with the (Dutch) Reformed Church in America were unsuccessful.

Read the entire article here.

Anna's unexpected blessing

Christian Courier has published my latest column, titled, Anna's unexpected blessing, and subtitled, "The forgotten character of Jesus' story." Here is an excerpt:

How Anna becomes a prophet we do not know. What we do know is that, in addition to experiencing the subjugation of her own people, she has seen sorrow in her personal life as well. She married, likely in her youth and perhaps to a much older man, who died seven years later, after which she remained a widow, a status that makes her particularly vulnerable to abuse.

From then on, she has devoted her life to prayer and fasting and appears to have taken up residence in the temple. Perhaps it is here that she was endowed by God with her prophetic gifts. One can imagine her reputation growing with the years, with visitors to the temple seeking out the wisdom of this remarkable woman of God.

Read the entire article here.