Podcasts about Dutch Reformed Church

We spend most of our time on the WHEN DATIGN HURTS podcast discussing ways to detect when a person might actually be an abusive predator. That's why survivors join us and why we discuss the warning signs. But we are not solving the problem, we are suggesting ways to not become destroyed by the problem: predatory abusers A transformation of the way people interact could make life better and safer. It could make life fair and equal. We are honored to include two members of the organization called, Gender Equity and Reconciliation International. In the discussion, they refer to their organization as GERI. Reverend Laurie Gaum and Tristan Johannes are facilitators of discussions with GERI. Reverend Gaum is also a minister with the Dutch Reformed Church. Both men are from Cape Town, South Africa. Listen closely, because their accents are rather heavy, but what they will tell us is quite easily understood. The GERI project brings people together from around the world to discuss and heal from trauma and other experiences related to gender and sexuality. GERI convene groups of men and women (and people of all gender identities and expressions) to work closely together. Their goal: heal from the past and begin rewriting the future of gender relation in the human family. Learn more about GERI at genderreconciliationinternational.org. There you can find more about them and see how to get their new book. NOTE: If you are a survivor and want to share your story of abuse on the WHEN DATING HURTS Podcast, please email me: BillMitchell@WhenDatingHurts.com The WHEN DATING HURTS book (in paperback, eBook, and audiobook) can be found on Amazon. HELPFUL RESOURCES: • National Domestic Violence Hotline – The Hotline.org – Call 800-799-SAFE • LoveIsRespect – Call 866-331-9474 • RAINN (Rape Abuse Incest National Network) – RAINN.org – Call 800-656-4673 • SUICIDE HELPLINE: Call 988 Thank you for listening to our WHEN DATING HURTS podcast, Bill Mitchell WhenDatingHurts.com DISCLAIMER: The WHEN DATING HURTS Podcast is providing this platform for information to be shared. We do not state with any certainty that anything is true or untrue. Understand that what you hear is the viewpoint of the people sharing. The information, opinions, and recommendations presented in this Podcast are for general information only. Any reliance on the information provided in this Podcast is done at your own risk. This Podcast should not be considered professional advice. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Synod of Dort (also known as the Synod of Dordt or the Synod of Dordrecht) was a European transnational Synod held in Dordrecht in 1618–1619, by the Dutch Reformed Church, to settle a divisive controversy caused by the rise of Arminianism.

Today, we're talking all about the recently-released Confession of Evangelical Conviction:-        What the confession is and what it says-        Why we signed it and got involved promoting it-        How the American church got to the point where a confession of very basic political theology like this is necessary-        And after that conversation, we talk the many layers of Christian nationalism involved in the debacle at Trump's recent trip to Arlington National CemeteryMentioned on the episode:-        The Confession of Evangelical Conviction, and the associated resources-        The video we produced to promote the confessionCredits-            Follow KTF Press on Facebook, Instagram, and Threads. Subscribe to get our bonus episodes and other benefits at KTFPress.com.-        Follow host Jonathan Walton on Facebook Instagram, and Threads.-        Follow host Sy Hoekstra on Mastodon.-        Our theme song is “Citizens” by Jon Guerra – listen to the whole song on Spotify.-        Our podcast art is by Robyn Burgess – follow her and see her other work on Instagram.-        Editing by Multitude Productions-        Transcripts by Joyce Ambale and Sy Hoekstra.-        Production by Sy Hoekstra and our incredible subscribersTranscriptIntroduction[An acoustic guitar softly plays six notes in a major scale, the first three ascending and the last three descending, with a keyboard pad playing the tonic in the background. Both fade out as Jonathan Walton says “This is a KTF Press podcast.”]Sy Hoekstra: When we first started doing this work and we published our anthology, we went on a couple of podcasts about it. A common thing that people asked of us at the time was, where do you think the White American church, where do you think the like 81 percent of the church, the White evangelical church that voted for Trump is going? And the first time I said it, I sort of surprised myself and I was like, look, it's being cut off the vine for not bearing good fruit and thrown in the fire. There's been a long time coming of a divorce, like a complete split between White evangelicals in America and followers of Jesus.[The song “Citizens” by Jon Guerra fades in. Lyrics: “I need to know there is justice/ That it will roll in abundance/ And that you're building a city/ Where we arrive as immigrants/ And you call us citizens/ And you welcome us as children home.” The song fades out.]Sy Hoekstra: Welcome to Shake the Dust, seeking Jesus, confronting injustice. I'm Sy Hoekstra.Jonathan Walton: And I'm Jonathan Walton.Sy Hoekstra: We have a great show for you today. We're doing something a little bit different. We are talking about a bit of a movement, a little, a confession that we have signed onto that we're a part of that we're producing some media around that you may have seen by the time this episode comes out. And it's a confession of sort of evangelical faithfulness to Jesus in a political context. And it is probably a little bit off the beaten path of kind of some of the political commentary that we normally engage in. And we wanted to talk to you about why we think it is a good and strategic thing for us to do during this season, give you some of our thinking behind how we kind of strategize politically and think about ourselves as part of a larger theological and political movement.So I think this will be a really good conversation. We're also gonna get into our Which Tab Is Still Open and talk to you about Christian nationalism and whiteness through the lens of Donald Trump doing absurd things at Arlington National Cemetery [laughs].Jonathan Walton: Yes.Sy Hoekstra: But we will get into all of that in a moment. Before we do, Jonathan Walton.Jonathan Walton: Hey, remember, if you like what you hear and read from us at KTF Press and would like for it to continue beyond the election season, I need you to do two things. Go to KTFPress.com and become a paid subscriber. Now, you could also tell other people to do that as well if you've already done that. We've got a ways to go if we're going to have enough people to sustain the work, but we think it's valuable, and I hope you do too. So go to KTFPress.com, sign up, and that gets you all of the bonus episodes of this show, access to our monthly Zoom calls with the two of us and more. So again, KTFPress.com. Become a paid subscriber.What is the Evangelical Confession of Conviction, and Why Is KTF Involved?Sy Hoekstra: All right, Jonathan, let's get started in our conversation. We've signed onto this document called The Confession of Evangelical Conviction. We've produced some media around it. First of all, what is it and what does it say?Some Basic Political Theology That We Need to Restate at This Cultural Moment with UnityJonathan Walton: [laughs] Well, I think the question of what it is, it's words [Sy laughs]. Like there's these things that we put together, it's words. And I think the reason that it's powerful is because of when and how it's said. And so these are basic confessions that every Christian should believe, but it seems like the reason that we're doing it right now and that I've signed onto is because there are seasons when the discipleship and formation of the church needs to be plain and centered. And so being able to say, “I give allegiance to Christ alone,” and then have that be reverberated across denominations, across movements of quote- unquote, Christians around the country that are usually so disparate, they usually don't communicate, they usually disagree with each other in very public ways, to say, “Hey, hey, hey.”We need people to understand who don't follow Jesus, that when Gandhi said, “I like Christ, I don't like Christians,” that's part of the problem. We are part of that problem. Where we don't articulate what we know, what we believe, what we know to be true. I think this is an articulation of that, speaking particularly to a cultural and political and social moment that needs the clarity that Jesus can bring.Sy Hoekstra: Yeah. So this is just to get into the weeds of it. It's a confession signed by I would say, the sort of extreme ends, at least to the people that we know about right now, I don't know who's gonna sign it in future, but center-right to more progressive left. And the basic confessions, like the seven statements of the confession are, “We give our allegiance to Jesus Christ alone. We will lead with love, not fear. We submit to the truth of Scripture. We believe the Gospel heals every worldly division. We are committed to the prophetic mission of the Church. We value every person as created in God's image.” And “We recognize godly leaders by their character.” So this is very basic theology [laughs] like you said. And you got a little bit at why it matters to put this out there, why we are involved. I agree with you. I think it's more about the context and it's also about who is saying it more than it is about the content.Because, and by the way, we should say we are giving you our reasons for signing this and why we think it's important. This is not… like there's a group of people that were involved in writing it, so there's lots of people involved who we don't know precisely why they signed [laughs] or precisely why the people who wrote it decided it was necessary. We're talking to you about our opinions. So to me, if you have something that says we pledge our allegiance to Christ alone, that's a rebuke of Christian nationalism to me.We judge godly leaders by their character, that's a rebuke of people who argue that Trump is a godly leader or a leader who has been appointed by God in some way or another. So those are important things to say. And it's with people across a pretty big spectrum of, as I said, the political range. Would Jonathan and I go a lot further than this if we said what we thought is important for political discipleship? Yes, we would, and you know that, because you've heard our other episodes. Or if you haven't, go listen to our other episodes [laughs]. We would go a lot further than that, yes. But we think, I think it's good to work with a broad range of people during a political campaign.Reaching a Broad Audience and Pushing the American Church to ChangeSy Hoekstra: Like I think when you're talking about discipleship at a moment when tensions are extremely high around theology and politics, it is good to do these kinds of things where you are trying to scale your efforts.Where you're trying to reach as many people as possible in the hopes that you will change some minds, both so that they will more faithfully follow Jesus, and in this specific context, so they won't vote for Donald Trump. That's one of my personal reasons for being involved in this [laughs]. And that's how you do campaigns in general. That's how campaigns operate. You try and call as many people as you can. You try and put commercials out there as widely as you can toward your targeted audience, whatever. Not in the hopes that the vast majority of the people who see it are going to suddenly be like, “Oh my goodness, I agree with everything you say,” but in the hopes that you'll reach enough of the people whose minds you can change to make a difference in their decision when it comes to November.You will reach them and you will start to be one of the people who affects their choices, is what I'm trying to say. So I don't know, that's kind of the strategy of it from my point of view. It is a similar way of thinking to me from the anthology. When we published the anthology four years ago, it was different because we were letting people say their own beliefs. And it was people from all over the spectrum kind of saying why they weren't voting for Trump in whatever way they saw fit [laughs], on whatever topic they saw fit. That was our approach. But this is the way some other people are going to do it, and we're gonna be happy to work with them in that way.Jonathan Walton: I think for me, I see the political strategy of it. I see the strategery that's happening, to use a word from SNL. My hope is that…Sy Hoekstra: From SNL 25 years ago [laughs].Jonathan Walton: Yeah. My hope… [laughs]. It was such a great sketch. “Strategery,” it was so good. “I'm the decider” [Sy laughs]. So I think one of the things that stands out to me, particularly in reviewing it more and assign it and then come on board, is, I hope that this is a Belhar Confession type moment for the United States and followers of Jesus. Particularly, because when we look at the Dutch Reformed Church, the Dutch Reformed Church was the theological backbone and framework for apartheid in South Africa. They gave the covering for those things to happen. It gave theological and moral legitimacy to a movement that was oppressive, violent, exploitative, and un-Christian at every level. Because there are Christian leaders who are willing to say, “You know what? This is really good. This is actually right. This is good and just, and God intended this.” And we have the exact same type of nonsense happening in the United States.There are quote- unquote, prophets and apostles and preachers and teachers and publishing houses and Amazon independent book publishers rolling out materials that say, “America first.” America is the kingdom of God. America is the kingdom of heaven. America is this baptized land on the earth, as opposed to being a land that is rooted in land theft, genocide, violence, patriarchy, greed and exploitation. Which it is that. It's actually not the kingdom of God at all. And so I hope that this creates a groundswell that goes beyond November 5th and beyond January 20th. And could this be a pivot point of orientation for people who followed Jesus to say, “You know what? Actually Jesus didn't say any of that.” If all of these people, right, left, middle, above, otherwise are saying this, maybe I should consider. “Oh, Randall Balmer said that, and Mercy Aiken” [Sy laughs]? “Shane was there too? Alright. Shane is on the same page as Curtis Chang and Sandra Van Opstal? Alright, let me jump in and get on this.” That's what I hope happens, is that it becomes impossible to avoid the question of allegiance to Jesus, or allegiance to the United States. Just like in South Africa the question was, are you pledging allegiance to apartheid or are you gonna follow Jesus?Sy Hoekstra: I totally agree with that. And I would say that it is 100 percent in line with the sort of premise of this podcast, which is helping people shake the dust and walk away [laughs] from the places where the word of God is not accepted as Jesus put it. And you let your peace return to you and you move along on your way.Jonathan Walton: Yes.How Did We Get to the Point Where This Confession Is Necessary?Sy Hoekstra: So let's actually talk about that thing that you were just saying. The thing where all these people from these different walks of life are coming together to make this specific statement at this time. How did we get here, aside from the obvious thing that Donald Trump is very good at uniting people who oppose him [laughter]. How did we get to this point in the church in America?Jonathan Walton: I think we need to narrow the scope a little bit.Sy Hoekstra: Okay.Jonathan Walton: Of how we got to this point, I think I would start at Acts 2 [laughter]. But, and then the church and then the alliance with the empire to escape persecution. Constantinople like Nicea, I mean…Sy Hoekstra: Let's focus on America.Jonathan Walton: Yeah, let's focus on the United States.Sy Hoekstra: [laughs] Zoom in a little bit.The Moral Majority Took Us Very Far down a Path Away from JesusJonathan Walton: I think that one of the pivot points in the United States is 2008 in the ascendance of Barack Obama. With Barack Obama, you have what was roiling and starting with Al Gore, but like can Christians vote for Democrats and still be Christians? Because with the ascendance of the moral majority, with what Randall Balmer talks about this coalescing around abortion as a position, and then the policies laid out by Jerry Falwell. And there was a conference in 1979 in Houston. Lots of organizations came out of that gathering. And so when those types of things occur, I think we are living in the wake of that wave, but that wave wasn't really challenged until 2008 when many, many, many, many people said, “Oh, I wanna vote for Barack Obama.”And so with the ascendance of Obama, then the question particularly among the Black community from evangelical Christians is like, can you be a Christian and vote for Obama? And that was talked about extensively in Tamice's book, Faith Unleavened, which is amazing. And that scene that she describes of the dissonance between the White evangelical church that she was sitting in, and the conversation she was having with her grandma on the phone, who she called Momma.Sy Hoekstra: Where her family was having a party because Obama had been elected and her White church was having a mournful prayer service.Jonathan Walton: Yeah. I think a lament session basically, for the United States being now overtaken by a demonic force. And so I think if we start there and move forward, like if this was a ray coming from a point, then the line actually starts to diverge from there, from the center point. And now we are actually so far apart that it's very, very difficult to justify what's happening. So if we're at our end points right now, we have followers of Jesus legitimizing sexual violence by saying Trump is fine. You have followers of Jesus legitimizing fraud, saying that that's fine. You have followers of Jesus legitimizing insurrection, saying that's fine. We are way, way down the road and very far apart from these basic confessions.And so I think people that are co-opted and indoctrinated by Fox News and the conservative White evangelical and conservative Catholic and conservative… because there's a smattering of Christian movements that have so aligned themselves with political power that it is very apparent even to non-Christians, that this is not Christ-like. And so I think for us, similar to the church in South Africa, to say, “Hey, we need to just make very plain every person is made in the image of God, and you shouldn't enslave, violate and steal from people.”If we could articulate that and do that, and have a movement around that, then I think that is how we got here, is that basic tenets of following Jesus have stayed the same, but forces, institutional, the powers, the principalities, and also people who chose to align themselves with that have taken the ball and run so far down the road that even people who don't follow Jesus and folks who just have basic biblical engagement are seeing that this is just not the way. And so I think followers of Jesus across the spectrum are starting to say, “You know what? This is a moment that we can actually speak into.”The White Evangelical ChurchA Divorce between White Evangelicals and Followers of JesusSy Hoekstra: Yeah, I agree with all that. I think, I mean, look, when we first started doing this work and we published our anthology, we went on a couple of podcasts about it. A common thing that people asked of us at the time was, where do you think the American church, where do you think the like 81 percent of the church, the White evangelical church that voted for Trump is going?” And the first time I said it, I sort of surprised myself, but I was like, “Look, it's being cut off the vine for not bearing good fruit and thrown in the fire.” That's it. There's been a long time coming of a divorce, like a complete split, I think, between White evangelicals in America and followers of Jesus.Jonathan Walton: Right.Sy Hoekstra: White evangelicals have had a whole long history of being involved in, as you said, in the exact same way that the Dutch Reformed Church was involved in apartheid, just being involved in everything. Every [laughs] terrible thing America's ever done, we've been there cheering it on and supporting it in all kinds of ways. And I think a lot of what Trump in particular, and it's sometimes a little bit hard to put my finger on why it was him, but Trump in particular, I think highlighted to a lot of Christians who viewed themselves as kind of like just nice, gentle, center right Christians who were a part of a larger movement where maybe there were some people who were a little bit off the deep end, but overall, these institutions and these people are trying to accomplish good things in the world and follow Jesus faithfully, realized that that wasn't the case.I think there are a lot of people who realized that they actually had opinions about what it meant to follow Jesus that were dramatically different than the average person in their institutions, or the average evangelical Republican.Policy Debates for White Evangelicals Have Been a Cover for Power HungerSy Hoekstra: Peter Wehner, I think would be one of these people, who writes for the New York Times. He was a George W. Bush speech writer. He recently wrote an article saying, “Look, Donald Trump has explicitly said that if you took one of these super restrictive state abortion bans and you passed it in Congress and you put it on my desk, I would veto it. I would not pass a national abortion ban.”Jonathan Walton: Right.Sy Hoekstra: Which for the pro-life movement, that's the end goal. That would be [laughs], that would be the thing they've been fighting for for decades [Jonathan laughs]. And he has said, “I will not sign this.” And do you hear anything about that from Franklin Graham [laughs]?Jonathan Walton: So Al Mohler was on the Run-Up of the New York Times this week, when you listen to this probably like two weeks ago, talking about how, “Hey, Donald Trump just said he's not gonna sign a national abortion ban. What's your position on that?” And his position hasn't changed, because again, it is framed as you all are the radical people, not us. We are the victims, not you. There's a constant revision of reality that they are gonna continue to turn out and communicate that is rooted in fear and a lust for power and control and dominance. And that is toxic as all get-out, and obviously un-Christian.Sy Hoekstra: Yeah, that was the end of my point, was that a thing that people have been arguing for a long time, which is that, this focus on abortion, this focus on prayer in school, or this focus on whatever the evangelical issue of the day is, has in fact been about power from the perspective of the leaders.Jonathan Walton: Right.Sy Hoekstra: Maybe not the rank -in-file people like marching and the March for Life or whatever.Jonathan Walton: Exactly.Sy Hoekstra: But the leaders are after power, and they always have been. That's what, if you go back a couple years to our episode with Mako Nagasawa, the first episode of season two where we talked about abortion. That's what his whole book is about, is the history of abortion policy and how it's almost never been about abortion. It's almost always been about something else like anti-immigrant sentiment or professionalizing the medical profession or whatever. It's always been about some other issue of people trying to establish themselves and gain power over somebody else. That's what I think a lot of people are realizing, and so a lot of people who are, I think more to the right in the group of people who have signed this document that we have are on that journey, like are in the middle of it.Or not in the middle of it, but they've been going on it for a few years and they've been rejected by who they thought were their people for saying things like, “Hey, should we maybe adhere a little more closely to the teachings of Jesus?” [laughs] And now they're saying, okay, they've gotten to a point where they're like, “I need to draw a line in the sand. I need to make something clear here.” And that I think is different. That is genuinely different than eight years ago when everybody was, a lot of people in the middle were just kind of waffling.Jonathan Walton: Yeah. Yeah, right.Sy Hoekstra: Were not really sure what to do yet. And they still viewed the people on the far right who were all in for Trump as possibly a minority on their side, or possibly just something like a phase people were going through. Something that would flare up and then die, and it just didn't turn out that way. I think that's kind of how I view a lot of how we got to the place that we are now.Jonathan Walton: Yeah.Sy Hoekstra: Again, zoomed in on America and not looking at the entirety of church history, which is where you wanted to go [laughter].Jonathan Walton: Yeah. And I mean, and I'll name some of the people that are key to that. So, Kristin Kobes Du Mez, like her book Jesus and John Wayne, Jemar Tisby's book, The Color of Compromise. And we could also throw in some Christianity adjacent, but loved by them books as well. So like all of the quote- unquote, anti-racist books, where people who are trying to leave the race-based, class-based, gender-based environmental hierarchy that White evangelicalism enforces, like I wrote about that in Twelve Lies as an explicit book. But you could say that Ibram X. Kendi's book is trying to get away from that. That White Fragility is trying to get away from that. That all of these books pushing back against [laughs], what now is called like Trad Wife and all these different things, it's trying to push back against these things. They're trying to call people to another reality because the one that some people have found themselves in is deeply unhelpful and not Christian.Sy Hoekstra: Yeah. I feel like that's been like you're refrain of this podcast. “And also, not Christian” [laughs].Jonathan Walton: Not Christian. Right.Sy Hoekstra: And not Jesus.Jonathan Walton: Right.Sy Hoekstra: Do we have any other thoughts on this subject, or do we want to jump into our segment?Jonathan Walton: I just think people should go sign it.Sy Hoekstra: Oh, yeah.Jonathan Walton: And there's a fun bible study there that [laughs] we talked about two weeks ago on the podcast and spread the word about it. I think it's gonna be a good thing.Sy Hoekstra: Yeah, the link to the website, the people who organized it, Jonathan said, “Hey, you can put the Bible study that we talked about in our last episode up, if you want a place for people to go to scripture on these subjects.” And they did.Jonathan Walton: Yeah.Sy Hoekstra: So that's cool. We will have the link to the confession in the show notes, as well as the link to the video that we created, which has a bunch of the signers of the confession reading parts of it, which we would love it if you would all share as widely as possible on your social media, and share the confession as well. We hope that this, as I said, changes somebody's hearts and minds, has some good effect on some people both in their discipleship and in their politics, which is what we're all about.Jonathan Walton: Yeah. Amen. There's actually a worship album that came out too. So along with Phil Vischer's cartoons for kids that can be shown in churches, there's a Return to Love album by a bunch of folks that you all may know like Will Matthews, Crystal Lewis, Ryan Edgar. These are folks that have led worship in great places that the evangelical world has followed for a long time. And so having worship leaders willing to call us out as well is pretty great. Along with Phil Vischer, because these videos will definitely be great for kids.Sy Hoekstra: Is that worship album already out?Jonathan Walton: Yeah, it's out right now [laughs]. You could click on it.Sy Hoekstra: I don't know how they did that that fast. That's incredible [laughs].Jonathan Walton: Hey man, listen. There's a thing called the Holy Spirit.Sy Hoekstra: [laughs].Jonathan Walton: And I think we all know that when Jesus moves, Jesus can do some things.Which Tab Is Still Open?: Trump at ArlingtonJonathan Walton: And so let's get into our segment, Which Tab Is Still Open?, where we dive a little deeper into one of our recommendations from the newsletter. And remember, you can get our newsletter for free by signing up for the mailing list at KTFPress.com. You'll get recommendations on articles, podcasts, and other media from both of us on things that will help you in your political education and discipleship. Plus, you'll get reflections to keep you grounded and hopeful as we engage in this challenging work together. News about KTF and what's going on, and a lot more. So go get that free subscription and a paid one too. Alright. So this is your recommendation, so let's jump into it.Sy Hoekstra: This actually has a lot to do with what we were just talking about.Jonathan Walton: Yes, it does.Sy Hoekstra: This is all about Christian Nationalism [laughter]. And Trump kind of stepping in it when it comes to dealing with his Christian Nationalist followers. So here's the story, and the article that I recommended in the newsletter was actually, it both gave the details of the story, but it was actually for me, an example of kind of the thing that I was critiquing [laughs]. It was an Atlantic article, and basically the facts of what happened are as follows. Trump went to Arlington National Cemetery, which if you don't know, is I just learned the second, not actually the largest, the second largest national cemetery in the country.Jonathan Walton: Oh. Huh.Sy Hoekstra: The largest one's on Long Island, Jonathan, I had no idea.Jonathan Walton: What!Sy Hoekstra: [laughs] Yeah.Jonathan Walton: [laughs] I did not know that.Sy Hoekstra: So the people who are buried in Arlington are soldiers who served in active duty. Some of them died, some of them were retired and passed away later. And then like very high ranking government officials, like Supreme Court justices or presidents or whatever. So Trump went and visited a specific spot that had I think 13 soldiers who died during the evacuation of Afghanistan when there was a suicide bomb attack from the Taliban.Jonathan Walton: Right.Sy Hoekstra: And he did this basically to highlight Biden administration screw ups. You didn't handle this evacuation well. And so because Harris is part of the administration, he's criticizing his opponent. And he went and took some pictures, which is fine, but he then was like specifically taking pictures in this area and like narrating a video talking about Biden screw ups and everything. And an employee of the cemetery pointed out correctly that campaign activities are illegal under federal law [laughs] at Arlington National Cemetery. And they kept going anyways. And they got in a little bit of an argument with her, and then later to the press said that she is mentally ill and was having a mental health crisis in that moment, and that she needed to be fired.And, fortunately the cemeteries said, “No, that's all a lie, and she was correctly telling you that you shouldn't have been doing what you were doing and et cetera.”Jonathan Walton: Right.Sy Hoekstra: But there were a number of people, and I don't know if this is a majority or anything like that, but there were actually some Trump supporters who viewed this as a violation, like something that Trump really shouldn't have done. He was being disrespectful to the dead, the troops who were there, by doing partisan stuff at the National cemetery. It was not necessarily about the things that he was saying, but just by conducting yourself in a way that you're not supposed to conduct yourself at a national cemetery.Sy's Experience with Arlington and it's Strong Christian NationalismSo here's my in for this. I have a very long history of military [laughs] service in my family. Somebody in my family went on Ancestry.com one time, and I have a direct ancestor who was a drummer boy in the Continental Army with George Washington [laughs].Jonathan Walton: Oh, wow.Sy Hoekstra: And somebody who enlisted in the Union Army during the Civil War. And my great-grandfather was in World War II in Korea, grandfather was in Vietnam. And my grandfather who was in Vietnam, he died when I was about 10. My grandmother remarried a very highly decorated army colonel also from Vietnam, who he passed away and we had a funeral for him at Arlington. And Arlington does like 20, 30 funerals a day. So if you're a rank-in-file soldier, it's like a very, it's an in and out thing [laughs]. But because of either his rank or his awards or both [laughs], it was an event, Jonathan. It was like, we had the bigger, more beautiful chapel, and then we had a procession, because I can't see, I can't tell you how many it was, but at the very least, dozens of soldiers with a commanding officer taking his casket from the church to the burial site, there was a 21-gun salute. There was the presentation of the flag with the shell cases from the 21-gun salute to my grandmother. It was a big thing.Jonathan Walton: Yeah.Sy Hoekstra: And if you've been to Arlington, you know that one of the key messages there is that the people who served America and the army served the kingdom of God, served Jesus. That is what they did. They served, and they may have died serving heaven [laughs] effectively. And so what that means is this is one of the holiest sites for Christian nationalism. This is one of the places where you go to be reassured with some of the highest level, like some of the world's greatest pomp and circumstance. The world's most convincing showing of pageantry and religious activity that the United States Army and the people who died serving it are also serving God, which is, you can't get more Christian nationalist than that.Jonathan Walton: Yeah.Sy Hoekstra: Which is also why we have talked about Christian nationalism, actually far more common than people think it is [laughs]. It is absolutely normal in how we talk about the military. So what I think happened here with Trump is that because what I believe about Trump is that he's a conman to the core. He is pure... he's like self-interest incarnate [laughs]. He is out to promote Donald Trump and nothing more, and nobody more than that.Jonathan Walton: Right.Sy Hoekstra: I think he forgot that his self-interest can actually diverge from Christian nationalism [laughs]. I think that he forgot that he can step on his people's toes in a way that he doesn't want to. And he's basically going to look out for where those things diverge in future in order to not have this happen again. Because he's just there doing what he does, which is promoting himself anytime, anywhere at all costs. And he forgot that one of the things that he harnesses, which is Christian nationalism, is not actually something that he believes in, and so he can misfire [laughs]. The irony to me is that I want to gain enough power to do anything and not be held accountable for it to better myself in my own position, is a pretty good summary of how kind of the operating principle of the US military in our foreign policy has been for so long.So it's actually, it's like [laughs], it's two entities, a former president and the US military kind of clashing in their basically excuse making for their own unaccountability and their own sin. Which is how I view the Christian nationalism of a place like Arlington. What I just said Jonathan, is [laughs] blasphemy to a [laughs] lot of the people that I probably, to some people that I know personally. So I will just acknowledge that. But that is what I believe, and I think is true to the Bible. So hopefully you can at least give me that credit [Jonathan laughs]. Jonathan, boy, did I just talk for a long time. I'm sorry. I actually had in the outline that I wanted to ask you first what your thoughts were before I went on my rant, and I just couldn't help myself. So, [laughs].Jonathan Walton: Well, Sy, I mean…Sy Hoekstra: Jonathan, what are your thoughts?Jonathan Walton: I think one, I just appreciated the explanation of the closeness, why it's still open for you. Because I think when I was writing Twelve Lies, I wrote about the military, and I wanted to say, “Oh, they're only going to these types of communities to get people.” That would've been my hypothesis or was my hypothesis, but the research proved different.Sy Hoekstra: And when you say that, you specifically mean exploiting like poor Black and Brown neighborhoods?Jonathan Walton: Yes.Sy Hoekstra: You're saying like, “We'll get you into college, we'll give you benefits, et cetera, if you come fight and die for us.”Jonathan Walton: Exactly. And so…Sy Hoekstra: Potentially die for us.Jonathan Walton: Right, there's this exchange that's gonna happen for your body. Whether alive or dead, there will be benefits and resources for you or your loved ones. And so I went in with that lens, but what my research showed me was that the majority of people who serve in the military are family. Their parents were in it, their grandparents were in it, their cousin was in it. It's actually like only about two percent of the United States population is affiliated with the military. We're recruiting from the same groups of people. And this would also be true for law enforcement. People who were in it essentially raise their children and bless and send them into it as well as most often. It's not actually about income.The income, if I remember correctly, was between 50 to 70 thousand dollars a year in a household, which in a rural area is at the time, 10 years ago, felt like a living wage. And so that reality was also something that's interesting for me. So when Trump came out against Mark Milley, when Mark Milley challenged him to say, “Hey, you will not use me, quote- unquote, the military, as a prop in your racism, standing in front of St. John's church holding that Bible up,” which was literally the distorted cover of our book, our anthology, because these things were happening. When he insulted John McCain, that was a moment where the military and I think those who are beholden to Christian nationalism tried to speak up. Tried to say, “Hey, we won't do this.” But then the ball continued down the road.I don't know what the fallout of the Arlington stuff will be, but I do know based on Up First the NPR podcast this morning in the morning that we're recording September the seventh, they said the military and the employees actually let this go. But the reason they brought it back up was because Trump got on Truth Social , used platform and stature to say, “This did not happen. There was no altercation. This person had a mental health episode.” And when you go into that, that's where I think the, “We will not be disrespected” thing kind of came up. Like what do you mean? No, we're gonna talk about this and we're gonna name that. You will not desecrate this holy site. Holy in holy site of Christian nationalism, as you were saying.So I hope that there are more people that are offended, because I think that if we allow ourselves to be offended, to be bothered, to be uncomfortable, then maybe there will be some movement. Because I think you're absolutely right. He is, you said self-interest incarnate. I think that is a great quote [laughs].Trump Cheapened the Spiritual Cost People Pay to Be in the MilitaryJonathan Walton: What's painful to me, so I too have, my father was in Vietnam. My brother was in the Navy, my uncle was in the Army. My other uncles were in Vietnam. And Brodnax, the town where I'm from, has many gravestones from Vietnam and Korea. And so what is fascinating to me is the level of belief that you have to have to commit acts of atrocity or commit acts of violence. Like Shane Claiborne would say, we were not made to kill people, you have to be taught to do that.And I am in no way condemning a soldier or a person who's in military service, who's listening. That's not what I'm saying. I'm observing, it costs us something to do these things. And I think the thing that Trump did was cheapen the cost that many, many, many thousands of people have paid for something that they thought was a collective interest blessed by God when Trump said, “No, you are a pawn in my game. And I will use you for my benefit.” Now you again, you will have people that say that's what's happening anyway. Trump is just doing in like what everybody else does behind closed doors. But I think that tension that he articulates or brings up for us, I hope it's allowed to rise to the surface, and then we can have a conversation about the cost.Like the silent war in the military right now is that even soldiers who have not seen active duty are committing suicide. I hope it brings to the surface the, like my dad, Agent Orange ruined some of his life. They're still figuring out what the effects of that were. You have people who are saying they support troops in one hand, but then voting against resources and benefits for them in the other hand, when the legislation comes up. Lauren Boebert did that yesterday. I hope that the perceived belovedness of our veterans and military versus the reality of how they're exploited and taken advantage of and dismissed and cast aside, we would actually acknowledge that and then do real work to ensure that they don't end up on the street.They don't end up stuck on painkillers. They do get the medical resources they need. They do get the mental health support that they need. Their families do get the resources that they need on and off-base and not just a discount at the PX. If that could be the conversation because of this, then I'd be very glad.Sy Hoekstra: Yeah. Just one more thing you said there. You said lots of people use the military as pawns and it's true. Or like props for their campaigns. It is just another one of those things about Trump where he will just do what everybody else did, but he'll turn it up to 11 [laughs].Jonathan Walton: Yeah, no, yeah. It's true.Sy Hoekstra: Everybody else, every politician, if they have a military background, if their family does, if they can visit a military site or whatever, they do it all the time. And even if their love for the military or for America is real, it is also true that they use them for their campaigns [laughs]. Use them to prop up. That has been… since we elected George Washington, the general of the Continental Army, has been true [laughter]. Right?Jonathan Walton: Right.Sy Hoekstra: So Trump is just the one who says, “Whatever your rules of decorum are, I'm going to break them.” And in most cases, that is actually his appeal. “Yes. I break rules of decorum and there's no consequences. And that's because these elitist can't tell me what to do and we need to take back power.Jonathan Walton: Oh Lord have mercy, Jesus [laughs].Sy Hoekstra: You need someone like me who can just break through all this nonsense.” You know what I mean?Jonathan Walton: Right. Yeah.Sy Hoekstra: That's usually his appeal. And in this case, it just happened to be that he crossed the wrong line for some people. I'm sure there's a lot of people who probably don't care [laughs].Jonathan Walton: Right. It may not wrangle a lot of people, but I hope it wrangles the right people.Sy Hoekstra: Yeah.Jonathan Walton: And him stretching out this poop that he stepped on and not wiping it off his foot and continue his campaign, I hope that roils people. He is a disrespectful person.Sy Hoekstra: Yeah.Jonathan Walton: And for Christians, literally James chapter four, it's that God opposes the proud. We are called to be humble people, and so I pray for Trump. I pray for his family. Not that he would win an election and all those things, but literally that they would come to know Jesus. Literally that they would know the freedom in him. Literally, that they would be able to experience the freedom that money cannot purchase and privilege cannot provide for you. And so I say all these things in hopes that everyone who is watching what happens is disquieted because we should not be comfortable with what's happening. Especially as followers of Jesus [laughs].Sy Hoekstra: Yeah. Amen to that Jonathan. Amen.Jonathan Walton: Yeah.Sy Hoekstra: I think we'll wrap it up there. Just as a reminder, as we finish, please again, go to KTFPress.com, get that newsletter and sign up as a paid subscriber to support everything that we do. We're centering and elevating marginalized voices. We're helping people seek Jesus in their discipleship and in their politics. We really do need some more support than we have right now if we're gonna make this sustainable kind of past this election season. So please do come and sign up as a paid subscriber at KTFPress.com. Our theme song is “Citizens” by Jon Guerra. Our podcast Art is by Robyn Burgess, transcripts by Joyce Ambale, editing by Multitude Productions. I am the producer along with our lovely paid subscribers. Thank you so much for joining us, and we will see you in two weeks.[The song “Citizens” by Jon Guerra fades in. Lyrics: “I need to know there is justice/ That it will roll in abundance/ And that you're building a city/ Where we arrive as immigrants/ And you call us citizens/ And you welcome us as children home.” The song fades out.]Jonathan Walton: Give me one second. One moment. I'm gonna get the name right so that you don't have to go edit this later [Sy laughs]. … So yes, we… Robert Mohler. The—Richard Mohler. Al Mohler. That's his name [Sy laughs]. Al Mohler [laughs]. It says R dot Albert Mohler. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.ktfpress.com/subscribe

Dutch Reformer, Institution Founder & Michigan Entrepreneur Albertus Christiaan Van Raalte was born in 1811 in the Netherlands, was a pillar in the Afscheiding, sat under Groen van Prinsterer, was always running from the law, wrote letters to Abraham Kuyper to not over-work (which council Kuyper failed to apply), led the emigrations to Michigan, helped start Hope College and Western Seminary, and loved him so church polity. To talk about Van Raalte we are joined by the living-legend Robert Swierenga, author of “A. C. Van Raalte: Pastor by Vocation, Entrepreneur by Necessity.” A stagnant economy, premodern agriculture, and high population growth had led to a sense of hopelessness. Then Enlightenment rationalism and political discontent cast the Dutch Reformed Church adrift in a sea of doubt and uncertainty. This set the stage for the welcome by Dutch liberals of invading French “liberators” in 1795 and the formation of the Batavian Republic, which disestablished the public church. French dominance increased under Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte who established the Kingdom of Holland under his brother Louis in 1804 and made the nation a French vassal state in 1810. The new regime introduced the French Civil Code and modernized an antiquated bureaucracy, bringing with it new taxes and intrusive regulations, such as the first national census, universal military conscription, a civil registry, and other constraints. Young Albertus received the best education the Netherlands could offer in the nineteenth century—parochial day school, Athenaeum, and university. He became an itinerant pastor who planted congregations in the largely rural province of Overijssel. When desperate poverty drove thousands of these Separatists to emigrate to America in the 1840s, Van Raalte himself decided to emigrate and lead his followers to safer pastures. Had he remained in the homeland, as did all but a few of his colleagues, his life would have been comfortable and in familiar surroundings, within his subculture and its routines. Emigrating overseas never entered his mind until midlife, but doing so lifted him to a dynamic role in a period of change in both countries, with different speeds, directions, opportunities, and threats. The two major Dutch Reformed colonies in the 1840s were those of A. C. Van Raalte in Holland, Michigan, and Rev. Hendrik (Henry) P. Scholte in Pella, Iowa. Van Raalte and Scholte, erstwhile friends in the Netherlands, faced a role reversal in America, and they became rivals, competing for settlers and influence. Pella had the early advantage because Scholte had brought almost nine hundred followers, compared to Van Raalte's fewer than one hundred. But Scholte's religious independence and refusal to join the American branch of the Reformed Church, as Van Raalte did, hurt his recruitment efforts. The poverty-stricken Holland colony was isolated and twenty miles from the nearest market towns. But thanks to its harbor, wood products shipped to insatiable Chicago markets paid for provisions and supplies that were brought back on return sailings. Holland's harbor offered easy sailing to Chicago and other Great Lake ports as far away as Buffalo and even New York City via the Erie Canal. Kalamazoo, fifty-five miles southeast, provided a direct rail connection to New York. Pella in south-central Iowa lay fifty miles from Des Moines, the capitol and nearest large city, and it had no railroad service for twenty years. As a result, it remained for generations a small, market town that serviced farms within twenty miles. Holland lay astride the two most productive agricultural counties in Michigan—Ottawa and Allegan. The Holland area today has five or six times the population of the Pella area. And Holland's diverse industrial economy far surpasses that of Iowa's agricultural economy. In the rivalry with Scholte, Van Raalte's accomplishments became the embodiment of what Scholte had hoped to achieve.

On this special episode of BOW TIE DIALOGUE, Keith welcomes Stephen Boyce, an Anglican Apologist, to answer questions about the history and theology of the Church of England. Bow Tie Dialogues is a show dedicated to learning about denominations from those who actually practice them. Keith Foskey is the host and he has interviewed pastors from the PCA, LCMS, ACNA, CREC, IFB, the Church of God, the Dutch Reformed Church, and Calvary Chapel. Stephen is the Founder of the The FACTS Podcast that primarily focuses on the Church Fathers, the Apocryphal works, the Canon of Scripture, the Texts of Scripture, and Scriptural exegesis. He and his wife Claire live in Greenville South Carolina and have two children, Jeremiah and Keziah. Stephen holds a PhD in the area of Canon and Text from Louisiana Baptist Theological Seminary. His main study was on the Gnostic texts and the Canonical Gospel. His Dissertation covered textual analysis on Codex H, which included the early Patristic writings that contained readings from the LXX and the New Testament. He is currently a contributing scholar for RTB and an Anglican Apologist. He has pastored in two churches and helped three church plants nationally and internationally. Here are the links we mentioned in the show: https://www.youtube.com/live/ugFEVo-hfcc https://www.youtube.com/live/BSo14B349qY https://www.youtube.com/live/e2v7G1B1Wto https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ivf9I8TE6Fw DON'T FORGET! Partner with ‪@ConversationswithaCalvinist‬ You can get the smallest Bible available on the market, which can be used for all kinds of purposes, by visiting TinyBibles.com and when you buy, use the coupon code KEITH for a discount. Buy our shirts and hats: https://yourcalvinist.creator-spring.com Visit us at KeithFoskey.com If you need a great website, check out fellowshipstudios.com SPECIAL THANKS TO ALL OUR SHOW SUPPORTERS!!! Support the Show: buymeacoffee.com/Yourcalvinist

Heb. 1:2 in these last days has spoken to us in His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the world. Jesus is the Son of God, and therefore the heir. Everything that belongs to God, belongs to Him. The entire creation and history of the world belongs to Him for the purpose of glorifying His Father. That means every circumstance and relationship in your life is His. Abraham Kuyper, Prime Minister of the Netherlands and founder of the Dutch Reformed Church in the Netherlands said, “There is not one square inch in the whole domain of human existence as to which Christ who is sovereign over all does not cry out, ‘Mine!' And if Jesus, looking at all of life, cries out, ‘Mine!', the church's task is to cry out, ‘His!'” Our lives are His. His purpose should be our purpose, and His purpose was to live to love with His Father for His glory. He came to reveal the Father, and we live to reveal Jesus. The apostle John's conclusion about the nature of God from his 3 years with Jesus was that God is love (1 John 4:8). Our mission is to reveal to those whom God puts in our paths that God is love as we love with Jesus. Have you thought this through? Does it make sense to you? I hope so, because this is God's plan—that the world would know that Jesus is God's Son by the way His disciples love one another (John 13:35). As we live to love with Jesus, we are declaring Jesus to be the Son of God, and the heir of all things.

Bow Tie Dialogues is a show dedicated to learning about denominations from those who actually practice them. Keith Foskey is the host and he has interviewed pastors from the PCA, LCMS, ACNA, CREC, IFB, the Church of God and the Dutch Reformed Church. Today, he welcomes David Guzik to discuss the history and theology of Calvary Chapel, the non-denominational denomination! David Guzik is the author of the Enduring Word commentary, available online for free here: https://enduringword.com Twitter/X: @davidguzik    / @davidguzikenduringword   Partner with ‪@ConversationswithaCalvinist‬ You can get the smallest Bible available on the market, which can be used for all kinds of purposes, by visiting TinyBibles.com and when you buy, use the coupon code KEITH for a discount. Buy our shirts and hats: https://yourcalvinist.creator-spring.com Visit us at KeithFoskey.com If you need a great website, check out fellowshipstudios.com SPECIAL THANKS TO ALL OUR SHOW SUPPORTERS!!! Support the Show: buymeacoffee.com/Yourcalvinist Contributors: Duane Mary Williams Luca Eickoff @zedek73 David S Rockey Jay Ben J Sonja Parker Tim K Several “Someones” Monthly Supporters: Amber Sumner Frank e herb Phil Deb Horton Hankinator Jeremy LaBeau

In this episode, we sit down with Edwin Arrison and Cornelis Janse van Rensburg to discuss the inspiring story of The Pilgrimage of Grace. A work of reconciliation between the Dutch Reformed Church and The Moravian Church in Genadendal, South Africa.  We also discuss important concepts about unity and reconciliation that both of these men have learned through many years of working for reconciliation in the South African context.  As always, if you found this conversation helpful please, subscribe, review, and share it with your world or consider giving a once-off or ongoing donation to help us create more podcasts like this. 

Welcome to the Instant Trivia podcast episode 1176, where we ask the best trivia on the Internet. Round 1. Category: Alphanumerics 1: The first swine flu, identified in 1930, was caused by this alphanumeric virus; in 2009 it was back. H1N1. 2: This company makes scotchlite reflective material. 3M. 3: This astromech droid served 2 Skywalkers. R2-D2. 4: Talk about primo and to the point! It was the alpanumeric license plate--London's first--issued December 1903. A1. 5: A young Anakin Skywalker created this droid to help his mother with household chores. C-3PO. Round 2. Category: Indian Chiefs 1: This Chiricahua leader joined the Dutch Reformed Church in 1903 but was expelled for gambling. Geronimo. 2: It's said that Hiawatha started this league of the Mohawk, Onondaga, Oneida, Seneca and Cayuga tribes. Iroquois League. 3: Called "Curly" as a boy, this great Oglala Sioux chief died a year after the Battle of Little Bighorn. Crazy Horse. 4: In 1903 he pleaded with Pres. Roosevelt for the return of his Nez Perce to their home. Chief Joseph. 5: A monument to this Mohegan chief was erected on the site of the home of J.F. Cooper. Uncas. Round 3. Category: Fictional Witches 1: In "The Thirteenth Sacrifice", witches have returned to this city and Boston cop Samantha Ryan is hunting them. Salem. 2: Cho Chang and Fleur Delacour are 2 of the many witches in this book series. Harry Potter. 3: In "Macbeth" the three witches who prophesy his success and doom are appropriately also known as these "sisters". the weird sisters. 4: Jadis of Charn is the evil White Witch laying chilly havoc to this C.S. Lewis land. Narnia. 5: Jane, Alexandra and Sukie are the 3 title uninhibited magical mavens in this Updike novel. The Witches of Eastwick. Round 4. Category: Geographic Crossword Clues B. With B in quotes 1: Look out "B" low country(7). Belgium. 2: Strait through Istanbul(9). Bosphorus. 3: French Frenchvolcanic volcanicisland island(4-4). Bora-Bora. 4: "Common" place city(6). Boston. 5: Cream center of Germany(7). Bavaria. Round 5. Category: What A Beast! 1: Bigger than Jerseys, this U.K. cow breed from its own isle produces lots of slightly yellowish milk. a Guernsey. 2: Here's a close-up of one of the 30,000 quills on this animal; they slide in easy, but back-facing barbs make removal difficult. a porcupine. 3: Unlike the hippo, which has fully developed 4 of these, the rhino only has 3 with which to test water daintily. toes. 4: A flap of skin and fur called a bell hangs from the throat of this largest member of the deer family. moose (elk accepted). 5: This "hairless" breed of cat developed from a kitty born in Canada, not Egypt. Sphynx. Thanks for listening! Come back tomorrow for more exciting trivia!Special thanks to https://blog.feedspot.com/trivia_podcasts/ AI Voices used

Before we focus strictly on the Reformation by Luther and his co-workers in Germany, we are going to look at the Reformation around the world. Much of these were sparked by Luther, but they took on a life of their own. This month, we look at one of the early enemies of Luther, Ulrich Zwingli, and his attempt to create a theocracy in Zurich. Zwingli's mantle was quickly picked up in Geneva by John Calvin, who has about as much influence over the Reformation as Luther. Part of that influence included the creation of the Dutch Reformed Church after Calvin's death but ensconced in Calvin's teaching.

Welcome to an exclusive interview with Berti Brits, the founder of Dynamic Love Ministries and Audrey the podcast host. They both have gone through theology shifts and the fears and victories involved. If you are feeling challenged in your theology and what you believe then this interview will be very encouraging.Audrey shares why she wanted to interview Berti and how his teachings have majorly shifted her theology many times when Holy Spirit needed to confirm what she was already learning.Because of his focus on teaching, Berti, has not had the opportunity to share his testimony publicly before now. Berti reflects on his upbringing in a Dutch Reformed Church and during the segregated years of apartheid in South Africa. He then shares the pivotal moments that led him into a transformational encounter with Jesus and multiple theology shifts as his relationship with Christ as progressed. If you would like to see the bonus unedited videos where Berti shares his unique views on Jesus conquering the grave, near death experiences, death and Christ's resurrection then you can become a Patreon for the podcast.And go to these links to hear more from Berti or to download his free books and donate.https://www.bertiebrits.com/index.phphttps://www.youtube.com/@dynamicloveministries334Connect with Audrey and The Eat Me Drink Me community Website: www.eatmedrinkmepodcast.net Tiktok: @eatmedrinkmepodDiscord: https://discord.gg/JkRCXDS3Cg Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/646324359742601/ Email: eatmedrinkmepod@gmail.com Donate to help support Audrey's work on the Podcast Paypal: www.paypal.com/paypalme/emdmpodcast Become a Patreon: www.patreon.com/emdmpodcast Venmo: @JohnAudreyDutton Buy Me a Coffee: www.buymeacoffee.com/eatmedrinkmeI have permission to use the music in this episodeIntro song: I will follow by Eikon, Outro Song: No Greater Love by Allie PaigeSupport the show

What is the United Reformed Churches of North America (URCNA or URC for short)? In this episode, Pastor Brandon interviews Pastor Zac on the history, practices, and distinct characteristics of the URC.  For more information on the URC or the general history of the Dutch Reformed Church, see:  https://www.urcna.org Cornelis P. Venema, "Integration, Disintegration, and Reintegration: A Preliminary History of the United Reformed Churches in North America," in Always Reforming: Essays in Honor of W. Robert Godfrey (ch. 13) ed. by R. Scott Clark and Joel E. Kim Old Mud Meeting House (Harrodsburg, KY) by Stephen Beal A Goodly Heritage: The Secession of 1834 and Its Impact on Reformed Churches in the Netherlands and North America by Cornelius Pronk Secession, Doleantie, and Union: 1834-1892 by Hendrik Bouma Dutch Calvinism in Modern America: A History of a Conservative Subculture by James D. Bratt The Reformed Church in the Netherlands by Maurice G. Hansen The Reformation of 1834 by Faculty of Mid-America  Sources of Secession by Gerrit J. tenZythoff The Netherlands Reformed Church, 1571-2005 by Karel Blei The Christian Reformed Church by Henry Beets Dutch Reformed Education: Immigrant Legacies in North America ed. by Donald A. Luidens A Perfect Babel of Confusion: Dutch Religion and English Culture in the Middle Coloniesby Randall Balmer 

What is the United Reformed Churches of North America (URCNA or URC for short)? In this episode, Pastor Brandon interviews Pastor Zac on the history, practices, and distinct characteristics of the URC.  For more information on the URC or the general history of the Dutch Reformed Church, see:  https://www.urcna.org Cornelis P. Venema, "Integration, Disintegration, and Reintegration: A Preliminary History of the United Reformed Churches in North America," in Always Reforming: Essays in Honor of W. Robert Godfrey (ch. 13) ed. by R. Scott Clark and Joel E. Kim Old Mud Meeting House (Harrodsburg, KY) by Stephen Beal A Goodly Heritage: The Secession of 1834 and Its Impact on Reformed Churches in the Netherlands and North America by Cornelius Pronk Secession, Doleantie, and Union: 1834-1892 by Hendrik Bouma Dutch Calvinism in Modern America: A History of a Conservative Subculture by James D. Bratt The Reformed Church in the Netherlands by Maurice G. Hansen The Reformation of 1834 by Faculty of Mid-America  Sources of Secession by Gerrit J. tenZythoff The Netherlands Reformed Church, 1571-2005 by Karel Blei The Christian Reformed Church by Henry Beets Dutch Reformed Education: Immigrant Legacies in North America ed. by Donald A. Luidens A Perfect Babel of Confusion: Dutch Religion and English Culture in the Middle Colonies by Randall Balmer 

Abraham Kuyper (1837-1920) was the Prime Minister of the Netherlands and an influential neo-Calvinist theologian. He established the Reformed Churches in the Netherlands, which upon its foundation became the second largest Calvinist denomination in the country behind the state-supported Dutch Reformed Church. Today, Kuyper is remembered and studied as a proud inheritor of the Reformed tradition and proponent of biblical morality. To learn more about his life and renewal legacy, hear from Dr. Michael Wagenman, Senior Research Fellow and Director of the Scripture Collective at the Kirby Laing Centre for Public Theology in Cambridge (UK). You can also reference Dr. Wagenman's book on Abraham Kuyper, Engaging the World with Abraham Kuyper (Lexham Press, 2019).

Happy Monday, friends. Ty is back with a new episode for you. Mark den Hollander one of the professors from Covenant Canadian Reformed Teacher's College joined us to chat about the history of the Dutch Reformed Church and the particularly the Secession that took place. We chat about why this history is important, how we can learn from it and how we can be encouraged looking to the future.  0:00 - Introduction 7:00 - Why teach and learn history? 10:20 - Reformation to the Secession 17:00 - Ethnic Ties and Reformed Denominations 21:27 - Synod of Dort 31:00 - The Secession 42:00 - 1886 - 1939 1:04:00 - How did the CanRef come to be? 1:13:00 - Going forward A BIG THANKS TO THIS EPISODE'S SPONSOR, JORDAN FROM A THOUSAND ELSEWHERE! WE APPRECIATE YOU HELPING US MAKE THIS CONVERSATION POSSIBLE. BE SURE TO CHECK THEM OUT AT WWW.ATHOUSANDELSEWHERE.CA To keep up with the podcast, check out our website: https://www.realtalkpodcast.ca/ Follow us on Facebook and Instagram for updates, clips, and more!  Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ReformedRealTalk Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/reformedrealtalk/ We'd love to hear from you. Please send us your questions, comments, or other feedback at reformedrealtalk@gmail.com. Thanks for listening! If you liked what you heard, please share this podcast with your family and friends!

The Voortrekkers had survived the trauma of the Battle of Vegkop, they had narrowly survived and as they huddled together in Thaga ‘Nchu a form of unity was required. These different Voortrekker parties under various leaders, Trichardt, Van Rensburg, Cilliers, Potgieter, Maritz, focused their minds on the main threat to their further expansion in southern Africa. Mzilikazi of the Khumalo. The man born in Zululand, the raider of many across southern Africa, he who had defeated numerous clans on the highveld, the Hurutshe, Barolong, Batlokwa. The BaSotho feared him, the BaTswana hated him. The external threat to the Voortrekkers suppressed internal divisions, but that wouldn't be for very long. Gerrit Maritz had arrived in transOrangia with a huge trek party, 700 men women, children and servants. One hundred of these were Boer men - a relatively large company of soldiers if you take the firepower of the day into account. Gerrit Maritz was not your average trekboer, he was a wagon maker from Graaff-Reinet, prosperous, more middle class if you like than working farmer type. He was well educated compared to other Voortrekkers, and young - in this 30s. A large man, dwarfing most around him, his upper lip clean shaven as was the manner back in these days, but he sported a beard — noticeably darker than his tawny coloured hair. He also painted his wagon light blue, not the usual green adopted by most Voortrekkers which allowed them to blend a little better into the Veld — not for Maritz. He also dressed up, long coat, top hat, latest fashionable trousers. Maritz could crack a joke, but was also a pillar of the Dutch Reformed Church. He regarded the Doppers, the extremist arm of the trekboers, the most thin lipped and orthodox of the church members, with contempt. The amaXhosa had just done that against the English, and the amaNdebele were the new challenge to the Boers. The trekkers also were motivated by a more primordial need - revenge. The amaNdebele had killed their men, women and children. This could not go unpunished. They also wanted to recover their looted livestock and wagons thus sending a message throughout southern Africa like the ripples of a pebble in a pool — do not fight us, there will be a payment. So enter stage left, Erasmus Smit and his memorable wife Susanna. She was also living in Graaff-Reinet when her brother Gerrit suggested they trek out of the colony to escape the clutches of the evil English in 1836. She and Erasmus Smit joined the Maritz trek with her husband in a wagon on loan from her brother. As they travelled, Smit conducted church services three times on a Sunday, and on Wednesday and Saturday evenings. Erasmus was a lay preacher, he'd been trained by the Netherlands missionary Society between 1809 and 1829, but he was never formally inducted. Susanna his wife was the official who greeted churchgoers — the helpmeet as they were known. Susanna Smit wrote in her diary as the family departed for Thaba ‘Nchu “de Heere leide het Kroos der martelaren uit van onder Ingelsche verdrukking” — or The Lord led his progeny of martyrs away from English oppression. And its back to the Kommando we now return. A second section or detachment led by Gerrit Maritz left the following day, with the men wearing distinctive red ribbons around their hats. So who was in overall command? The Kommandant or the President? They were leading two different sections, companies if you like. Historians generally agree that it was Maritz, not Potgieter, who were the leaders although he didn't have the military experience. As with everything African, leaders get to divvy up the spoils and treasure, so this question was going to emerge later in a pointed fashion. These 107 Voortrekkers, plus 100 auxiliaries, including 40 mounted Griquas under Pieter Dawids, were joined by 60 members of the Barolong tribe on foot led by chief Matlaba.

The Voortrekkers had survived the trauma of the Battle of Vegkop, they had narrowly survived and as they huddled together in Thaga ‘Nchu a form of unity was required. These different Voortrekker parties under various leaders, Trichardt, Van Rensburg, Cilliers, Potgieter, Maritz, focused their minds on the main threat to their further expansion in southern Africa. Mzilikazi of the Khumalo. The man born in Zululand, the raider of many across southern Africa, he who had defeated numerous clans on the highveld, the Hurutshe, Barolong, Batlokwa. The BaSotho feared him, the BaTswana hated him. The external threat to the Voortrekkers suppressed internal divisions, but that wouldn't be for very long. Gerrit Maritz had arrived in transOrangia with a huge trek party, 700 men women, children and servants. One hundred of these were Boer men - a relatively large company of soldiers if you take the firepower of the day into account. Gerrit Maritz was not your average trekboer, he was a wagon maker from Graaff-Reinet, prosperous, more middle class if you like than working farmer type. He was well educated compared to other Voortrekkers, and young - in this 30s. A large man, dwarfing most around him, his upper lip clean shaven as was the manner back in these days, but he sported a beard — noticeably darker than his tawny coloured hair. He also painted his wagon light blue, not the usual green adopted by most Voortrekkers which allowed them to blend a little better into the Veld — not for Maritz. He also dressed up, long coat, top hat, latest fashionable trousers. Maritz could crack a joke, but was also a pillar of the Dutch Reformed Church. He regarded the Doppers, the extremist arm of the trekboers, the most thin lipped and orthodox of the church members, with contempt. The amaXhosa had just done that against the English, and the amaNdebele were the new challenge to the Boers. The trekkers also were motivated by a more primordial need - revenge. The amaNdebele had killed their men, women and children. This could not go unpunished. They also wanted to recover their looted livestock and wagons thus sending a message throughout southern Africa like the ripples of a pebble in a pool — do not fight us, there will be a payment. So enter stage left, Erasmus Smit and his memorable wife Susanna. She was also living in Graaff-Reinet when her brother Gerrit suggested they trek out of the colony to escape the clutches of the evil English in 1836. She and Erasmus Smit joined the Maritz trek with her husband in a wagon on loan from her brother. As they travelled, Smit conducted church services three times on a Sunday, and on Wednesday and Saturday evenings. Erasmus was a lay preacher, he'd been trained by the Netherlands missionary Society between 1809 and 1829, but he was never formally inducted. Susanna his wife was the official who greeted churchgoers — the helpmeet as they were known. Susanna Smit wrote in her diary as the family departed for Thaba ‘Nchu “de Heere leide het Kroos der martelaren uit van onder Ingelsche verdrukking” — or The Lord led his progeny of martyrs away from English oppression. And its back to the Kommando we now return. A second section or detachment led by Gerrit Maritz left the following day, with the men wearing distinctive red ribbons around their hats. So who was in overall command? The Kommandant or the President? They were leading two different sections, companies if you like. Historians generally agree that it was Maritz, not Potgieter, who were the leaders although he didn't have the military experience. As with everything African, leaders get to divvy up the spoils and treasure, so this question was going to emerge later in a pointed fashion. These 107 Voortrekkers, plus 100 auxiliaries, including 40 mounted Griquas under Pieter Dawids, were joined by 60 members of the Barolong tribe on foot led by chief Matlaba.

When another church threatened the powerful Dutch Reformed Church, Murray responded with remarkable grace and wisdom. We could learn from his mature outlook. Full devos: https://spoti.fi/3y2arsG or https://bit.ly/3SRhPREThese devotions are free! Please consider supporting this ministry financially here: https://bit.ly/31Bh8p7 Become a patron to get an extra Saturday devotion each week: https://www.patreon.com/lukepowell

In this episode. Voters in Roscoe Central School District reject a budget increase. Dutch Reformed Church renovation progresses in Mamakating. Narrowsburg welcomes new veterinary hospital. Charles Marinaro promotes inspiring memoir on creative journey. Tragedy strikes in Callicoon Center as two pedestrians are killed. Sullivan County International Airport begins terminal renovation. Town of Fallsburg holds public hearing to update zoning laws. Sullivan Catskills Visitor's Association unveils new dove sign.

“Finally, brothers and sisters, farewell. Put things in order, listen to my appeal, agree with one another, live in peace; and the God of love and peace will be with you.” (2 Cor 13:11)The apostle Paul followed the development of the Christian community in the city of Corinth with love and attention. He visited and supported the people during difficult times. In his letter to the Corinthians, he defended himself against accusations made by other preachers who questioned his style of preaching. Paul was not paid for his missionary work, he was not an eloquent speaker, and he did not have proof of his authority. Yet he proclaimed that he understood and lived out his own weakness reflecting the example of Jesus. However, his farewell letter concluded with an appeal to the Corinthians that is full of confidence and hope: “Finally, brothers and sisters, farewell. Put things in order, listen to my appeal, agree with one another, live in peace; and the God of love and peace will be with you.” This letter is addressed to the community as a whole; and a place where God's presence can be experienced. All the obstacles that make it difficult to understand one another such as communicating fairly and sincerely or disagreeing with differences of opinion in a respectful manner can be healed by the presence of the God of peace. Paul suggests some practical forms of behavior that are consistent with the demands of the Gospel. For example, striving for the fulfilment of God's plan for each person, as brothers and sisters; or enabling the consoling love of God that we have received to circulate among everyone; mutually sharing our dreams; welcoming one another, offering and receiving mercy and forgiveness, and finally, nurturing trust while listening fully to one another. We are free to make these choices but, there are those times when a little courage is needed if we are to be a “sign of contradiction” in ways that stand at odds with the current mentality. The apostle also recommends that we encourage one another in this commitment. He values the efforts we make to joyfully safeguard and witness to the inestimable worth of unity and peace, in charity and truth, always founded on the rock of God's unconditional love for his people.“Finally, brothers and sisters, farewell. Put things in order, listen to my appeal, agree with one another, live in peace; and the God of love and peace will be with you.”To live this Word of Life let's look at the example of Jesus, who came to bring us his special peace (Jn 14:27). For it “is not only the absence of war, quarrels, divisions and traumas... it is fullness of life and joy, it is complete salvation, it is freedom, it is fraternity among all peoples... “And how did Jesus give us his peace? He paid for it himself... He stood in the midst of his adversaries, he took upon himself hatred and separation, and he broke down the walls that divided people” (Eph 2:14–18). Being a peace maker demands a strong love. The kind of love that can reach even those who do not love us back. It's a love that can forgive. The kind of love that does not see people as enemies. It also has the capacity to love the other's country as our own. This love even asks us to have new hearts and eyes to love and see everyone as candidates for universal fraternity. “Evil arises in the human heart,” wrote Italian politician and author Igino Giordani, and “to remove the danger of war, it is necessary to eliminate the spirit of aggression, exploitation and selfishness from which war comes: it is necessary to rebuild a conscience.” Bonita Park is a neighborhood in Hartswater, an agricultural town in South Africa. As in the rest of the country, the effects inherited from the apartheid regime persist, especially in education. Schools for the young people of the black and mestizo groups are inferior to those of other ethnic groups. The result is the risk of social marginalization. “The Bridge Project” aims at creating a form of mediation between the different ethnic groups in the neighborhood by bridging distances and cultural differences among them. This consists of an afterschool program and a small communal meeting space where people of different cultures and generations come together. The community shows a great desire to work together. Charles offered his old truck to get the wood to build desks. The principal of the nearest elementary school donated shelves, notepads and textbooks; while the Dutch Reformed Church provided fifty chairs. Everyone has done their part to make this bridge between cultures and ethnicities grow stronger each day. By Letizia Magri and the Word of Life team

Thanks for clicking play on Pagecast, a book-centred podcast series brought to you by Jonathan Ball Publishers. In this episode, Sewela Langeni of Book Circle Capital is in conversation with Lesley Mofokeng, author of The Man Who Shook Mountains Journalist Lesley Mofokeng investigates the life of his remarkable grandfather, Mongangane Wilfred Mofokeng, a prominent Dutch Reformed Church evangelist who built a thriving community out of the dust of the far North West. The journey takes him from Joburg's Marabi-soaked townships of the 1930s to his childhood home of Gelukspan near Lichtenburg and then to the rural Free State and the remote mountain kingdom of Lesotho. In what becomes a spiritual quest, he traces the inspirational footsteps of his ancestors and the legendary King Moshoeshoe. In the process, Mofokeng proudly claims his heritage and also uncovers a long-lost chapter of South African history and the church of the apartheid regime. Enjoy the episode!

For our study this morning, we are diving back into the book of Hebrews and our sermon text is Hebrews 11:23-40, if you have Bibles, I would invite you to turn with me there. Let me just say at the outset, too, that what we're going to see our author in Hebrews doing is like we've seen in previous studies and Hebrews. He's surveying the faith of so many people who came before him, of a number of people who lived in the Old Testament and whose stories are recorded for us in the Scriptures. Some of these stories we're going to take a deeper dive on than others as we study our text this morning. If you encounter any of the names or any of the stories and you're unsure just who these people were, I think this is a reason to promote a Bible reading plan. If you don't have a Bible reading plan, we'd encourage you to pick up one of the Bible reading plan brochures in the parlor at some point. Make the Bible a regular part of your own life so that the stories that our author is only briefly reflecting upon here would be stories that you become more and more familiar with in your own your own lives as well. With that said, let me read our text. Our text is Hebrews 11:23-40. Hear now the word of the Lord. 23 By faith Moses, when he was born, was hidden for three months by his parents, because they saw that the child was beautiful, and they were not afraid of the king's edict. 24 By faith Moses, when he was grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, 25 choosing rather to be mistreated with the people of God than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin. 26 He considered the reproach of Christ greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt, for he was looking to the reward. 27 By faith he left Egypt, not being afraid of the anger of the king, for he endured as seeing him who is invisible. 28 By faith he kept the Passover and sprinkled the blood, so that the Destroyer of the firstborn might not touch them. 29 By faith the people crossed the Red Sea as on dry land, but the Egyptians, when they attempted to do the same, were drowned. 30 By faith the walls of Jericho fell down after they had been encircled for seven days. 31 By faith Rahab the prostitute did not perish with those who were disobedient, because she had given a friendly welcome to the spies. 32 And what more shall I say? For time would fail me to tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, of David and Samuel and the prophets— 33 who through faith conquered kingdoms, enforced justice, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, 34 quenched the power of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, were made strong out of weakness, became mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight. 35 Women received back their dead by resurrection. Some were tortured, refusing to accept release, so that they might rise again to a better life. 36 Others suffered mocking and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment. 37 They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were killed with the sword. They went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, afflicted, mistreated— 38 of whom the world was not worthy—wandering about in deserts and mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth. 39 And all these, though commended through their faith, did not receive what was promised, 40 since God had provided something better for us, that apart from us they should not be made perfect. Hebrews 11:23-40, ESV This is the Word of the Lord. About 100 years ago, the church in America went through a great deal of turbulence in what we call today the fundamentalist modernist controversy. Now, the essence of the tension between these two groups, the fundamentalists on the one side and the modernists on the other, lay in the question of what beliefs should be considered out of bounds for Christian ministers to hold or for something to be considered orthodox Christianity at all. Where do we draw the lines, in other words, for what's in bounds, theologically speaking, and what's out of bounds? So on one side of the debate, the fundamentalist insisted that there are certain fundamentals that we have to insist upon, both as ministers of the Gospel and as Christians. We have to insist upon things like Christ's substitution in our atonement, like Christ's bodily resurrection, and the promise of Christ's bodily return at the end of the age. While the fundamentalists insisted upon the centrality of these core doctrines, these core beliefs, the other group, the so called modernists, labeled these teachings along with many other core beliefs of orthodox and historic Christianity simply theories. They insisted that for the sake of Christian unity and liberty, we need not insist upon these things. They unfortunately asserted that good Christians had good Christian ministers, we can agree to disagree on these things. Now, at the end of the day, this conflict eventually led to a rupture in the Presbyterian Church, and there were a ripple effects that were felt throughout the broader church in America. One of the important lessons that emerged from this entire debate, a lesson that was insisted upon at the time by somebody named J. Gresham Meacham, is that unity has its limits. Now, of course, that's not to say that well-meaning Christians can't disagree over certain things and still maintain unity. Of course we can, but there reaches a point where we have to say that certain beliefs are Christian and other beliefs are not. A biblical and orthodox faith in Christ just can't harmonize with the beliefs and values of this world. In the passage before us, a similar kind of lesson is reinforced for us. When our author surveys the enduring and long suffering faith of some of the most well-known figures of the Old Testament. Now to review, since it's been several weeks since we last looked at Hebrews 11, the author of Hebrews has been surveying a lot of different believers from the Old Testament throughout Hebrews 11. All with the goal of showing his readers and us today what it looks like to live out an enduring and a persevering faith, like them in the world. Last time we were in Hebrews 11, we looked at Abraham was one of the big figures we studied. We heard how Abraham and his sons consider themselves to be strangers and exiles on Earth, but looking forward to great hope that they have stored up in heaven. They knew that the values of faith, the hope of faith, and the eyes of faith, they have no real home in this world. So they fix their eyes from start to finish on things of heaven. Now, as we turn to the final figures of faith from Hebrews 11, we hear this same lesson reinforced with perhaps even greater potency. Our author we're going to hear surveys of the faith of Moses, the faith of Rahab, and the faith of so many other Old Testament believers. Along the way, he teaches us that there is an essential dissonance, a conflict between faith in Christ and the character of this world. We're always called to love our neighbors in this world, and we'll always live among our unbelieving neighbors in this world. Yet our author reminds us that the tune that moves us, the music as it were, that the people of faith dance by, and the tune that moves the world and the tune that our unbelieving neighbors dance by, always are and always will be in jarring and inharmonious conflict. Our big idea this morning is this The way of faith stands in conflict with the whims of the world.. Essentially three points that we're going to look at as we work through our passage, which teach us about the character of this kind of dissonant faith. 1. Faith and Its Cost 2. Faith and Its Weakness 3. Faith and Its Triumph. Faith and Its Cost Let's start out, with faith and it's cost. We see right off the bat when our passage opens that our author shifts to the next figure of faith. He had a lot to say about Abraham, one of the most towering figures of the Old Testament in the previous few verses. Now he shifts to an equally towering figure, and that is Moses. Yet, curiously, even though he has much to say about Moses, we're going to hear a lot about Moses and versus 23 through 28. The first thing we hear about isn't necessarily the faith of Moses. It's the faith of Moses' parents whose names were Amram and Yocheved. We don't read their names here, but those are the names that are given in the Book of Exodus. We read not about the faith of Moses, but about the faith of his parents. In verse 23, our author briefly reflects upon the story of Moses's birth to teach us about the faith of Moses' parents. Now the story of Moses' birth, and all the events surrounding that can be found in Exodus chapter one and two, if you're curious to read more about that. As the story goes, in that day, in the context of Moses' birth, Pharaoh, the King of Egypt, had issued an edict in order to stem the growth of Israelites, the Israelites who were living among them, that every Israelite male infant should be put to death. Something horrible. When Moses was born, Moses mother hid Moses for three months to save his life. Then when she could hide him no longer, we read in Exodus. That she placed him in a basket in a river where he was eventually found and adopted by Pharaoh's daughter. All of those events, many of which you might be familiar with, can be found in Exodus chapter one and two. According to our author in Hebrews, reflecting on this story, this initial act to save Moses is attributed to the face of Moses parents. Now, on the one hand, what Moses parents did is probably what I think most parents, believers or not, would do. I think most parents would give up much to save their children. Yet the driving reason cited by our author to explain what they did isn't some general parental love for Moses, although I'm sure they loved their son. Rather, it was faith that drove them to do what they did. Understand that Amram and Yocheved were willing to suffer potentially great costs at the hands of the Egyptians to spare their son. But they assumed that cost, according to our author, because they feared God far more than they would ever fear Pharaoh. Their example reminds me of that of Corrie Ten Boom. If you don't know the story of Corrie Ten Boom, she was a Christian in the Dutch Reformed Church. Who, during the German occupation of the Netherlands in World War Two, assumed great cost herself by hiding Jewish refugees in her home as they were sought out by the Gestapo. While she, Corrie Ten Boom, saved hundreds, I think 800 Jews were saved during the occupation because of her influence. An informant eventually revealed her secret to the authorities and she was arrested and sent to a concentration camp herself. She, too, like Moses' parents before her, was motivated by a costly faith in Christ. A costly faith that led to extraordinary action. In that extraordinary example, and more particularly in the extraordinary example of Moses's parents, lies I think a rather ordinary but important lesson for us to consider. That is costly faith is contagious. A number of commentators in my study this week rightly pointed out that everything that we're going to read in a moment of Moses's costly faith that follows, in verses 24 through 28, can some way be traced to the costly faith of his parents. You see, in a moment, we're going to hear all about how Moses lived, a costly faith himself. How Moses recognized the great dissonance that exists between faith in Christ and the whims of the world and how he lived according to the former, what regardless of whatever costs might arise from the latter. While we recognize that this kind of extraordinary, costly faith arises as a gift in the human heart by the Spirit of God, the Bible also teaches us that this kind of faith is ordinarily cultivated in the nursery of the home. So let me ask you this with that in mind. Parents, do your kids see costly faith in you in action? Do your children see you carve out time for things that the world doesn't esteem, but things that are instrumental to their discipleship, things that ultimately honor God? Do your kids see in you a long suffering commitment to the things of God? Or are you, if you're honest with yourself, are your habits and your priorities more or less indistinguishable from your unbelieving neighbors? Even if you don't have kids ask yourself the question, do your priorities and commitments speak something powerfully to your neighbors and coworkers? I'm sure you've heard the old aphorism that more is caught than taught. I can recall early in college watching some young guys I looked up to spiritually say yes to certain things and no to other things, and realizing in that how different the tune they lived by sounded in comparison with the dissonant tune of the world. Now we're going to hear in a moment about costly faith, but pause for a second and ask yourself whether your life of faith communicates the costly faith that honors God to those you have influence over or not. So Moses learns a costly faith from the example of his parents. When we look at these next examples of faith that are given, well we also discover that Moses lives this costly faith, too. It was a faith, presumably, that was contagious. In the next example, we hear that when Moses had grown old, he refused the comforts of Egypt's royal household comforts that were his by virtue of his adoption in Pharaoh's household. Some even speculate that Moses might have been next in line to the throne of Egypt. Instead he chose to be mistreated along with the weak, despised, and enslaved people of God. Now, this reference in this verse is a reference to what happened in Exodus chapter two. When Moses saw a Hebrew, one of his own people, who was being beaten by an Egyptian taskmaster. In that moment, Moses made a decision. He chose to align himself with God's people by killing the Egyptian taskmaster and burying his body in the sand. A decision that we learn later in Exodus carried great cost in view of the comforts and the security that he enjoyed in Egypt and a decision that almost had him killed by Pharaoh. The next example reinforces much of the same. In verse 27, we hear how by faith Moses departed from Egypt with God's people and the plunder of the Egyptians in tow. Not fearing Pharaoh's wrath or what life outside of Egypt, the only life that God's people had known for hundreds of years, might mean. He knew that decision would be costly. But he also knew that to fall dead in the desert, in the presence of God, was better than living with all of the treasures of Egypt, but outside of fellowship with the Lord. You see, at every waypoint on the road of faith we hear that Moses willingly assumed cost, great cost, in fact, unbelievable cost. Yet we're also reminded in our passage that the costs he risked pale in comparison to the cost assumed by Jesus Christ our Lord. Look with me at verse 26, where we read that Moses considered the reproach of Christ greater than the treasures of Egypt, for he was looking to the reward. Earlier in Hebrews, our author told us this is back in Hebrews 3:5-6, that Moses and Christ both identified with the people of God. Both Moses and Christ decided to identify, to ally themselves with the despised and rejected people of God. But whereas Moses was faithful in all God's household as a servant, Christ is faithful over God's house as a son. Understand that while both identified with the lowly and despised people of God and in doing so absorbed great cost, that both of them suffered rejection in this world. The greater sufferings by the greater son, Jesus Christ, are what makes Moses's sufferings as a servant and our sufferings as children of God bearable. You see, unlike Moses, Christ doesn't simply switch national allegiances to identify with the people of God. No, Christ's humility is far greater. Because Jesus takes on human flesh and he assumes the nature of those he came to save in every way except sin. Unlike Moses, Christ didn't have to just bear the wrath of Pharaoh, the very human and very unholy king of Egypt. No, Christ bore the wrath of the Almighty God. The wrath that we rightly deserve for our sin. Unlike Moses, Christ doesn't simply point us to the Passover Lamb like Moses did. No, Christ becomes the Passover Lamb who takes away the sin of the world. Moses lived a costly faith, to be sure, and we can think about all the costs he endured in his own life and be marveled by that. The costs he risked pale in comparison to the costs assumed by Jesus Christ for you and for me. So what does this mean as we reflect on living a costly life of faith in our own world today? Well, first and most importantly, it has to mean that we look all the days of our lives to the one who identified with his people in order to save his people. It means that we have to look all the days of our lives to Jesus Christ. Throughout this passage, we find a multitude of references to what Moses and his parents saw. Just look at a few of these. In verse 23, Moses parents saw that Moses was beautiful. Moses was looking, in verse 26, to the reward. Moses endured the wrath of Pharaoh and the reproach of Christ by seeing Him, who is invisible. That is setting the eyes of faith on the Lord and his Word. In other words, their costly faith was rooted fundamentally in what they look to and in who they saw. Likewise, the first feature of a costly faith is that we look to Jesus Christ with eyes of faith. That we look beyond the rewards of this world and say no to the things that everyone in our world screams yes. That we fix all that we are, heart, mind, body, soul, head and hands on Jesus Christ and his kingdom. Now, this is, of course, costly, as our confession of Christ and its many implications just doesn't harmonize with the music of the spirit of our age. It's not a cost that Jesus Christ hasn't himself already bore. It's also not a cost that isn't worth it. Second, it also means that we identify not just with Jesus Christ, although that's fundamentally what's in view, but also with the people. Of God as well. Unfortunately, far too much of Christianity in America presses home this point that the church is ancillary or secondary. It's a secondary benefit to the Christian life. Something we can either take or leave without it affecting our primary confession all that much. Yet the scriptures are clear, that to identify with the reproach of Christ, to live out the costly faith envisioned in our passage necessarily requires that we are identify ourselves with the people of Christ too. We'll see this later in our passage with Rahab. Like Moses, we'll hear how Rahab the prostitute identified with the people of God. She identified with the church. Brothers and sisters, this is what the Lord summons us too as well. Namely, that we identify with the people who likewise identify with Jesus Christ. Now, this kind of commitment can, of course, be hard, because, let's face it, God's people aren't always lovely. Moses knew something of that, and Christ most certainly knew that we're not the loveliest people on this earth when he spilled his blood for the church. Yet the church is really important because the church is Christ's bride. As Charles Spurgeon reminds us, it's the only context fitted for living out the kind of endurance the scriptures would give us pursue. Commentator Richard Phillips cites the great 19th century preacher Charles Spurgeon to this effect when he writes, "Affliction, nobody would choose affliction but affliction with the people of God, oh, that is another business altogether. Affliction with the people of God is affliction in glorious company. With the people of God that is the sweet which kills the bitter of affliction." So in a world where the tune of faith sounds jarring. Faith like Moses is costly, but faith like Moses is worth it. Faith and Its Weakness As we continue in our passage, we also learn of another characteristic or feature of a dissonant faith. That is that faith also embraces weakness. Faith embraces weakness. If you're looking at your Bibles, the next three examples of faith we encounter kind of touch on this. We first have the faith of those who departed Egypt in the Exodus and cross the Red Sea. Then the faith of Joshua and the people of God and the conquest some 40 years later. Then the faith of a non-Jewish Gentile prostitute named Rahab. Also, as we might expect in tracing the biblical narrative as our author does, he skips over the 40 years of the wilderness generation because he already labored back in Hebrews three and four to tell us that that was a generation mark, not by faith, but by unbelief. Nevertheless, the one thing that these three examples he does cite have in common is that each one of them embrace a position of a weakness in the world and choose instead to trust in God's unseen power. Think about the example of those who crossed the Red Sea. After departing from Egypt, the book of Exodus tells us that they made their way down to the banks of the Red Sea, with Pharaoh's imposing army of 600 chariots in relentless pursuit. Israel, they were in a vulnerable position at that point. They were blind with fear. As we read in the narrative, they were actually ready to repent to the Egyptians and to return back to slavery in order to save their lives. Yet, in that moment, in their hysteria, Moses responds, calm down. He says, In Exodus 14:14, "The Lord will fight for you. You need only be silent." You see, Moses alleviates their understandable fear with a reminder of the greater power in their midst. They need not take matters into their own hand, he tells them, that they need not question God's faithfulness towards them. Rather all they need to do is embrace a position of weakness and watch God get the glory. As we come to find out, that's exactly what happens. The same thing can be said about the example of the walls of Jericho. Now God's people, when they enter into the land of promise and begin the conquest, they're not commanded curiously to build great siege works and storm Jericho by force. Rather, as the story goes, they're called to embrace a rather odd position of weakness and march around the city seven times and watch God work. Then so too, with the example of the most unlikely inclusion in this list, Rahab the prostitute. Now, Rahab was an Amorite woman. She belonged to the people of the Amorites who were an idolatrous people. Beyond that, she was also a prostitute among the people. Yet we find in our texts that she's actually celebrated for her faith. So how in the world does that work? Well, as the story goes, when Israel was spying out the land that they were set to invade and conquer, Joshua's spies, who were sent out before the army, got into a bit of a pickle, but they were saved and they were hidden by Rahab. Now, it would have been understandable at that moment for someone like Rahab when Israelite spies snuck into her city and were vulnerable to capture that, she would call out the enemies of her people and side with those who were in that moment in a position of strength and authority and maybe even get something of benefit for her loyalty. What does Rahab do instead? Well, again, she embraces a position of weakness. She assumed a great cost herself by protecting those who were in a vulnerable position, namely the Israelite spies. The reason she did what she did was because she knew were true power is to be found. In fact, in the book of Joshua, we read that after Rahab had hidden the spies and then she lied to those who were seeking their lives. She essentially tells the spies what her motivation for doing what she did. We read in Joshua 2:9-11, she says, “and said to the men, “I know that the LORD has given you the land, and that the fear of you has fallen upon us, and that all the inhabitants of the land melt away before you. For we have heard how the LORD dried up the water of the Red Sea before you when you came out of Egypt, and what you did to the two kings of the Amorites who were beyond the Jordan, to Sihon and Og, whom you devoted to destruction. And as soon as we heard it, our hearts melted, and there was no spirit left in any man because of you, for the LORD your God, he is God in the heavens above and on the earth beneath.” You see in the moment when the spy sneak into the city of Jericho, Rahab embraces a position of temporary weakness because she, like Joshua before her, knew where real power lay. If you recall in the definition of faith back in Hebrews 1:3 we read that by faith we understand that the world was created by the word of God. In other words, the universe was created by God's powerful word. This is a power, a power that could likewise raise the dead, that Rahab trusted in and that you and me, friends, brothers and sisters, are called to trust in from a position of weakness too. You know, last weekend I had a brief conversation with a friend about English Premier League soccer, or what some would consider real football. Someone that I know discovered that I am a big fan of Liverpool. Liverpool is a big soccer team in England who just so happens to be one of the best teams in the world right now. They asked me suspiciously, they said, "Are you a bandwagon fan? Did you only start liking Liverpool because they're well known and they're one of the best teams in the world right now?" But I quickly responded, "Oh no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I've been a Liverpool fan for the last 14 or 15 years. I followed and cheer them on when they were mediocre at best. I woke up early on Saturday mornings in college to watch Liverpool matches before many Americans were even into soccer." You see, the question I was asked assumed that the reason I might like a team like Liverpool is because they're now a team with great financial power. They're a global brand, they have incredible success on the field. Because it's not often in our nature to associate or think that other people would associate with weakness. That's why you don't find Bandwagon Orioles fans or bandwagon Nebraska fans. You have to be a true believer to embrace that sort of mediocrity. All joking aside, it just doesn't feel good to be in a position of weakness. We don't readily embrace weakness ourselves. In fact, sometimes we'll go to crazy lengths, we'll even shoot our integrity in the foot, if it means that we can somehow get on top of the world, even if just for a moment. We do this, of course, in any number of ways. Sometimes we're so fixed on the goal of personal comfort or personal wealth that will lie or hedge our bets or break our word. Sometimes we treat people as steppingstones to some other goal or end and as soon as someone ceases to be valuable in our pursuit of power, for example, or comfort, as soon as we can't use them anymore, we abandon those relationships. Recognize that the life of faith to which the Bible calls us is a life that's costly. It's a life that endures. It's a life that's long suffering. It's a life that cares about God and his word above everything else. It's a life that regularly and readily embraces a position of weakness because we know where true power lies. It's in that weakness, as Joshua found and as Rahab found after him, that God's power is made especially manifest. As we turn to our final point, we learn that the power of God made manifest in the people of God in their weakness will always lead to triumph. So this leads to our third point, faith and it's triumph. Faith and It's Triumph When we turn to this final section of our passage, it's almost as if the author of Hebrews realizes that he's running out of space. So in haste almost, he begins to pile up, example after example, each of which we could drill down into and reflect at length on what they teach us about faith. But lest we lose the forest for the trees, the main point in this final section focuses us in on the triumph that each of these men and women enjoyed by faith. In other words, when we trust in God's unseen power, like the previous examples taught us, when we embrace a position of weakness and confess that when I am weak, then I am strong, as the Apostle Paul confessed. It's then and only then that we as the people of God are promised triumph. But as we discover in the examples before us, sometimes that triumph happens in life, but perhaps more regularly, it's a triumph that happens through death. If you look at the first few examples of faith that are found in this final part of our passage, many of the names that we encounter first involve those who triumphed in life. Just highlight a few of them. First, we see Gideon. Now, Gideon is known for his triumph over the army of the Midian nights with just 300 men. As the story goes from the book of Judges, the Lord whittled down the number of Gideon and his army to just 300 so that Israel would know that it was God who was the source of their triumph and not their strength in numbers. Now, Gideon was a judge whose story is found in the book of Judges, so too is Jephthah. Now, Jephthah, that had something of a scandalous and tragic childhood. He was born of a prostitute and then he was driven out of his father's home by his father's wife. When Israel was later under assault by the Ammonites, God raised up Jephthah to fight and to triumph for the people of God. Then we hear in verses 33 through 34 about others who triumphed in life. There were those who stopped the mouths of lions and quenched the power of fire. These are references first to Daniel and then to Daniel's friends. Daniel, who spent an evening in the lion's den for worshipping the Lord at a time when that was forbidden. Then Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, Daniel's friends who were thrown into a fiery furnace for failing to worship the King of Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar. Yet both Daniel in Daniel chapter six, and his friends in Daniel chapter three emerged unharmed by faith. We learn in those various texts how they triumphed through the fiery furnace of affliction, quite literally, for Daniel's friends by faith. Now, it's also true that everyone in this list who triumphed by faith in life, were also sinners. Some of them might scratch our heads and wonder why they're even included here, because some were notorious for their sins. Think about Sampson, for example. But as Calvin correctly notes, though, "Even those notorious sinners are included here, though their faith was halting and imperfect, it was still approved by God." Faith, then, we learn, carries with it certain triumphs in this life. Now, of course, for us that doesn't imply that should we have enough faith in this life that we'll experience the bounty of material prosperity and enjoy a veritable heaven on earth. Unfortunately, many Christians throughout history have walked with this sort of over realized eschatological assumptions. That is the assumption that we can have heaven on earth right now. That's what we mean when we talk about over realized eschatology. Many who have walked with those health and wealth assumptions have either made shipwreck of their faith or of the faith of those who have expected triumphs to happen that that haven't actually materialized. That doesn't mean that there aren't triumphs for us in this life of faith. Faith in Christ can blossom a supernatural kind of contentment that the world does not know when we're discontented with life. Faith can bring victory over sins that seem hardwired to our nature. Faith helps kill our infatuation with the world that we were once powerless to overcome. Just like the figures our author highlights in our passage our imperfect faith really can triumph over things that we would otherwise be powerless to confront. Perhaps more important than the triumphs that faith issues in life are the triumphs that faith brings through death. If you notice in our text, beginning in verse 35 or author mentions resurrection. He gives us this reference to women receiving back their dead, which is probably a reference to two events in the Old Testament, when two separate mothers had their sons revived from death back to mortality. There was the impoverished widow of Zarephath in 1 King chapter 17, and then there was the wealthy Israelite Shunammite woman and 2 Kings chapter four. From this point on in our text, Hebrews 11, through the end of verse 38, our author highlights those who were faithful in life, who embraced the meekness of faith, who trusted in God's unseen power, but who didn't triumph in life. Now in these verses, our author never mentions any names, but we know of some of the people he alludes to. He mentions those who suffered in chains and imprisonment in verse 36, which is probably a reference to the prophet Jeremiah. Who was put in chains and later imprisoned, all for faithfully following God's commission and calling Israel to repentance in his own day. Tradition has it that Jeremiah was also killed, he was executed by stoning, something our author may allude to in verse 37. Then we read about those who were sawn in two, a gruesome death. This is likely a reference to the prophet Isaiah, who was said to be sawn in two during the reign of King Manasseh, of Judah. Then we hear about those who wandered in dens and caves of the earth, which probably refers to many of the prophets in the Old Testament who were forced to the fringes of society. They were forced to live in abject poverty, all for faithfully following the prophetic call placed upon their lives by the Lord. These Old Testament believers may have suffered much in their lives. They did suffer much in their lives, and many of them actually became martyrs. But they were willing to suffer great loss in this world. They were willing to give up their lives for their confession. In doing so, they carried with them to their graves the hope of resurrection. Not simply a kind of resurrection that verse 35 alluded to, where women receive back their dead. Those two events, as miraculous as they were, only revived the dead children back to mortal life and they would presumably die again. The resurrection that these believers looked forward to and the resurrection that we look forward to in our own day, is the resurrection of what Jesus Christ is already the first fruit. You see, they were so fixed on the hope of resurrection life in the coming age and life with God in the interim that they were willing to suffer the greatest loss our world could ever imagine gaining that which our world does not know. It's that approach to life and death that leaves us with the all important question to ask ourselves. Are you willing to give up everything for that hope too? Ask yourself the question, what do I dread losing most in this life? What in this life are you so clutching to that to be forced to surrender it would feel like a veritable death. Whatever it is, even if it's your very life, the gospel of Jesus Christ would have us take the same approach that Isaiah, and Jeremiah, and so many others have as well. In the closing verses of our passage, we're reminded that we have even greater reason to chart this course than the saints of the Old Testament did. When our author brings the entire Hall of Faith to a close and verses 39 through 40, He reminds us that though all of these Old Testament saints were commended for their faith, that they didn't receive what was promised. Now, let's clarify what that means and what that doesn't mean. That doesn't mean that these Old Testament believers were not saved. They may have looked forward to the prophesied Christ by faith, whereas we look back to the crucified and resurrected Christ by faith. Both believers in the Old Testament and the New Testament looked by faith to the same Christ. Rather, the point is that they didn't see the things that we see. They, in the Old Testament didn't have the same advantages that we have as those who live on this Side of the cross. God has provided for us something better, something more final in the finished work of Jesus Christ. Together as the one people of God, both they and we triumph only through the triumphs of Christ. But we see Christ in a way that they did not. Yet such advantages that we enjoy also carry a greater responsibility too. Listen to what John Calvin says on this, "For if they on whom the light of grace had not as yet so brightly shone displayed so great a constancy in enduring evils, what ought the full brightness of the Gospel to produce in us? A small spark of light led them to heaven. When the sun of righteousness shines over us, with what pretense can we excuse ourselves if we still cleave to the earth?" Now, Calvin's point there is that while we sometimes look back on these Old Testament saints. And maybe, we think that they somehow had it better or easier than we do because they had all of these visual reminders, they must have had it better than we. Calvin reminds us that that the reverse is true. That we have far greater advantages than they ever did, and therefore we have no excuse for cleaving to this earth. Like them, we're called to join the triumph of Christ by looking to the triumphant Christ by faith. As we conclude our time this morning, let me leave us with just that. Friends, do not cleave, do not cling to earth when we have a bountiful home in heaven. Recognize that there will always be a great chasm between the values of earth and the values of heaven. A great dissonance between a life of faith and a life of sight. Although there can be loss and costs in disentangling ourselves from the world, there is also great belonging when we live by the same kind of faith held out in our passage. There's belonging with the one people of God, the Hall of Faith, that we likewise join by faith in Christ. More importantly, there is residence in a kingdom, in the City of God and in a heavenly homeland. So the exhortation of this passage, from all the examples we studied, is very simply embrace the dissonance, embrace the weakness, because in that we have something better. Pray with me. Gracious Heavenly Father. Lord, we thank you for all of these examples, this great cloud of witnesses that has gone before and has demonstrated an incredible, costly faith in Christ and what it looks like. Father, I pray that as we face great costs in our own lives, that we would consider the reproach of Christ worth facing any cost that might arise in this world under the sun. Lord, I pray that you would help each of us fix our eyes on Jesus Christ, come what may. That we would love Jesus Christ. That we would fix our eyes upon Him. That we would associate ourselves with the despised, lowly, and often rejected people of God. In doing so, we would be reminded all the days of our lives that there is a great triumph, both in life and through death, by fixing ourselves to your son and our Lord Jesus Christ and whose name we pray. Amen.

Dutch monarchs take a sacred oath when taking the throne. William of Orange aligns with the Protestant Calvinists. The Netherlands achieves independence and the Dutch Reformed Church is born. The Dutch National Anthem alludes to William's faith. Christianity spreads to the Dutch East Indies. The Dutch Christianity and help shape Colonial America. Dutch Reformed pastors give positive encouragement in a post-war USA. Indo Catholics in Southern California find a new home for their faith and culture. References: "The Low Countries" by E. H. Kossmann, "Move Ahead With Possibility Thinking" by R.H. Schuller, "The Power of Positive Thinking" by N. V. Peale; "Legerchef Middendorp draagt rijkszwaard" from Metro, Marble Collegiate Church (marblechurch.org), Hour of Power w Bobby Schuller (hourofpower.org, sgp.church), Reformed Church in America (rca.org)

Hank Hanegraaff, president of the Christian Research Institute and host of the Bible Answer Man broadcast, reacts to an article in The College Fix, “Rutgers University Faculty Groups Support Prof Who Said White People ‘Gotta Be Taken Out.'” The article is about statements made by Dr. Brittany Cooper, a tenured associate professor in the Department of Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies and the Africana Studies Department at Rutgers University—a university with formative ties to the Dutch Reformed Church. In a video interview with The Root, Professor Cooper implies that white people invented slavery and conquest, and that white people are “committed to being villains.” She also states, “The thing I want to say to you is that we gotta take these [expletive deleted] out, but like, we can't say that, right? I don't believe in a project of violence. I truly don't, because in the end, I think our souls suffer from that. And I do think some of this is spiritual condition.” Elsewhere, she calls herself “a practicing Christian” and writes, “The Jesus I know, love, talk about and choose to retain was a radical, freedom-loving, justice-seeking, potentially queer (because he was either asexual or a priest married to a prostitute), feminist healer, unimpressed by scripture-quoters and religious law-keepers, seduced neither by power nor evil.” This ought to remind us once again that we are not to come up with our own novel interpretations of the word of God or the faith once for all delivered to the saints (Jude 3). See “Rutgers University Faculty Groups Support Prof Who Said White People ‘Gotta Be Taken Out,'” The College Fix, November 7, 2021, https://www.thecollegefix.com/rutgers-u-faculty-groups-support-prof-who-said-white-people-gotta-be-taken-out/. Becket Adams, “No, White People Didn't Invent Slavery and Conquest,” Washington Examiner, October 28, 2021, https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/no-white-people-didnt-invent-slavery-and-conquest. Brittany Cooper statements in “Unpacking the Attacks on Critical Race Theory,” The Root, YouTube, September 21, 2021, https://youtu.be/efjZqmVKm9Q. Brittany Cooper @ProfessorCrunk, Twitter post, April 28, 2020,https://twitter.com/ProfessorCrunk/status/1255116155599171589. Brittany Cooper, “The Right's Made-up God: How Bigots Invented a White Supremacist Jesus,” Salon, April 1, 2015, https://www.salon.com/2015/04/01/the_rights_made_up_god_how_bigots_invented_a_white_supremacist_jesus/.

Marg grew up in a Dutch Reformed Church in Australia where only men were allowed to lead. But she discovered that there was a better way to read the scriptures that seem to deny women from leading and preaching in mixed congregations. She outlines to Andy Peck an interpretation that gives full weight to the Bible's authority while freeing women everywhere to serve in the ways God intends, which for some, will include leading in church.  

This week's episode is going to be a 2 part episode. My good friend, fellow art teacher and former mentor, Chuck Hoff joined me to talk about one of my favorite artists of all time, Vincent Van Gogh. In part 1, we discuss his early life and his first major masterpiece, The Potato Eaters from 1885. Born March 30, 1853 in Groot-Zundert a predominantly Catholic province in the Netherlands. His father was a minister in the Dutch Reformed Church. Vincent was said to be a pensive child. He was initially taught by his mother and a governess, then went to the village school in 1860 and he was sent to a boarding school in 1864. He was unhappy there and asked to come home. Instead, they sent him to a different boarding school in 1866. He felt abandoned and miserable. While at the boarding school in Tilburg, he learned from Constant Cornelius Huijsmans who had been a reasonably successful artist in Paris. He was known for his rejection of common technique and favoring impressions of common objects and nature. Vincent was mainly focused on how miserable he was and abruptly returned home in March of 1864 (about 11 years). He later described his childhood as “austere, cold and sterile.” n 1869, Vincent's uncle got him a job as an art dealer because this was a time when 16 year olds would be starting their careers. He was apparently pretty good at the job. He transferred to the London branch and at just 20 years old, he was earning more than his father. This was a happy time for Vincent. His sister in law later said it was the best year of his life. Unfortunately that happy period ended as he had some unrequited love, then became isolated and more religious. In 1875, he was transferred to Paris but became resentful of how art was being commodified which is a really ironic stance for an art dealer. Unsurprisingly he was dismissed from that job after about a year. He focused intensely on religion and wanted to become a pastor. He stayed with his uncle, a theologian,  while studying for the entrance exam to the University of Amsterdam. He failed the exam and left his uncle's house.  He failed another course, but he was determined and in 1879 he took a position as a missionary in Belgium. While there, van Gogh gave his comfortable lodging to a homeless man and he stayed in a hut sleeping on a straw bed. Apparently this behavior was seen as beneath the dignity of the priesthood and in 1880, he returned home to Etten. His brother Theo encouraged Vincent to study art under a Dutch artist, Willem Roelofs, who encouraged Vincent to attend Academie Royale des Beaux-Arts. He studied anatomy, modeling and perspective at the academie. The first major work from this time period was The Potato Eaters. Vincent felt like his brother Theo was not doing enough to sell his works. Theo said they were too dark and not in line with the colorful style of the Impressionists which were popular at that time.  Vincent was supported financially by his brother, but he lived in poverty and barely ate because he preferred to spend the money Theo sent him on supplies. Next week we will discuss how his art shifted after moving to France, his ill fated dream of forming an artist's colony in Arles and of course, The Starry Night which went on to become his most famous masterpiece.  Check out www.whoartedpodcast.com for more images, information and resources.

Reverend Charlotte Sibanyoni is the first black woman to be ordained by the Dutch Reformed Church in South Africa (NG Kerk). She is currently a PhD scholar and lecturer in Hebrew at the University of Pretoria (UP), where she obtained her Masters of Divinity and undergraduate degrees. She is actively involved in the Pretoria community and runs the student Greenleaf student ministry on UP's Groenkloof (Faculty of Education) Campus. On this episode she speaks about:How growing up in the house of a Dutch Reformed minister shaped her character and love for her community. Leading change from within a community instead of criticising from outside, and how she has done this in her work. Rising above one's doubts to lead.How she is using her PhD to combine biblical ideas about exile and violence in current South Africa.Making an impact by serving in small and practical ways locally.Subscribe to the LeadUP Podcast today ­– click here to find LeadUP Podcast in your favourite podcast app, or go to www.up.ac.za/LeadUP and click on LeadUP Podcast. New episodes are out every second Monday. Help us out by rating and reviewing us.  LeadUP is a production of the University of Pretoria's Alumni Office. Our host is Lennox Wasara and our team includes Elna Schütz and Samantha Castle. Our sound engineers are Louis Cloete Productions.

This is episode 31 and we'll now take a broader look at what was going on across southern Africa after a few episodes peering closely at the northern Cape. We'll also take a closer look at how the Cape government was expanding. Sleeping giants were to awaken by the last quarter of the 18th Century, with the emergence and expansion of a number of increasingly centralized chiefdoms in the region between the northern and central Drakensberg and the Indian Ocean. A similar process was taking place at pretty much the same time among the Tswana-speaking societies on the southeastern fringes of the Kalahari Desert. There is not much documented evidence from this region which makes the telling of the story slightly more difficult. But as we've heard over the course of this series already, the wonders of archaeology have begun to paint a scientific picture – and historians have pieced together some of the emerging states of this time. We also hear about the growing role of the Dutch Reformed Church. The experience of VOC political institutions particularly the local government, formed part of this heritage. But the strongest unifying institution both emotionally and intellectually, was provided by the Dutch Reformed Church. The doctrine of this church was primitive Calvinism as embodied in the Heidelberg catechism and the decrees of the synod of Dort. Its emphasis was on the old testament and the doctrine was heavily weighted towards the concept of predestination. This particularly suited the colonial whites struggling to survive in a tough environment and accustomed from birth to treating nonwhites as slaves or serfs, and more often than not, enemies.

This is episode 31 and we'll now take a broader look at what was going on across southern Africa after a few episodes peering closely at the northern Cape. We'll also take a closer look at how the Cape government was expanding. Sleeping giants were to awaken by the last quarter of the 18th Century, with the emergence and expansion of a number of increasingly centralized chiefdoms in the region between the northern and central Drakensberg and the Indian Ocean. A similar process was taking place at pretty much the same time among the Tswana-speaking societies on the southeastern fringes of the Kalahari Desert. There is not much documented evidence from this region which makes the telling of the story slightly more difficult. But as we've heard over the course of this series already, the wonders of archaeology have begun to paint a scientific picture – and historians have pieced together some of the emerging states of this time. We also hear about the growing role of the Dutch Reformed Church. The experience of VOC political institutions particularly the local government, formed part of this heritage. But the strongest unifying institution both emotionally and intellectually, was provided by the Dutch Reformed Church. The doctrine of this church was primitive Calvinism as embodied in the Heidelberg catechism and the decrees of the synod of Dort. Its emphasis was on the old testament and the doctrine was heavily weighted towards the concept of predestination. This particularly suited the colonial whites struggling to survive in a tough environment and accustomed from birth to treating nonwhites as slaves or serfs, and more often than not, enemies.

This is episode 31 and we'll now take a broader look at what was going on across southern Africa after a few episodes peering closely at the northern Cape. We'll also take a closer look at how the Cape government was expanding. Sleeping giants were to awaken by the last quarter of the 18th Century, with the emergence and expansion of a number of increasingly centralized chiefdoms in the region between the northern and central Drakensberg and the Indian Ocean. A similar process was taking place at pretty much the same time among the Tswana-speaking societies on the southeastern fringes of the Kalahari Desert. There is not much documented evidence from this region which makes the telling of the story slightly more difficult. But as we've heard over the course of this series already, the wonders of archaeology have begun to paint a scientific picture – and historians have pieced together some of the emerging states of this time. We also hear about the growing role of the Dutch Reformed Church. The experience of VOC political institutions particularly the local government, formed part of this heritage. But the strongest unifying institution both emotionally and intellectually, was provided by the Dutch Reformed Church. The doctrine of this church was primitive Calvinism as embodied in the Heidelberg catechism and the decrees of the synod of Dort. Its emphasis was on the old testament and the doctrine was heavily weighted towards the concept of predestination. This particularly suited the colonial whites struggling to survive in a tough environment and accustomed from birth to treating nonwhites as slaves or serfs, and more often than not, enemies.

This is episode 31 and we'll now take a broader look at what was going on across southern Africa after a few episodes peering closely at the northern Cape. We'll also take a closer look at how the Cape government was expanding. Sleeping giants were to awaken by the last quarter of the 18th Century, with the emergence and expansion of a number of increasingly centralized chiefdoms in the region between the northern and central Drakensberg and the Indian Ocean. A similar process was taking place at pretty much the same time among the Tswana-speaking societies on the southeastern fringes of the Kalahari Desert. There is not much documented evidence from this region which makes the telling of the story slightly more difficult. But as we've heard over the course of this series already, the wonders of archaeology have begun to paint a scientific picture – and historians have pieced together some of the emerging states of this time. We also hear about the growing role of the Dutch Reformed Church. The experience of VOC political institutions particularly the local government, formed part of this heritage. But the strongest unifying institution both emotionally and intellectually, was provided by the Dutch Reformed Church. The doctrine of this church was primitive Calvinism as embodied in the Heidelberg catechism and the decrees of the synod of Dort. Its emphasis was on the old testament and the doctrine was heavily weighted towards the concept of predestination. This particularly suited the colonial whites struggling to survive in a tough environment and accustomed from birth to treating nonwhites as slaves or serfs, and more often than not, enemies.

Bergendal, Churchill's book tour, guerrilla warfare, De Wet's 4-pronged invasion, Botha and Kitchener's peace talks, and blockhouses ... all that in this episode. 1) Learn more dates and districts for Churchill's elections using this article: https://winstonchurchill.org/resources/reference/churchills-elections/ 2) Be a reason that there is a Q&A episode by using this link to send me questions related to the history we've covered: https://forgottenwarspodcast.com/contact/ 3) As of July 8, 2021, the show has yet to earn its first dollar of gross income. Be the first to help the show go on here: https://forgottenwarspodcast.com/donate/ OR here: https://forgottenwarspodcast.com/merch/

In this episode of Christian Mythbusters, Father Jared tries to break the myths surrounding LGBTQIA+ Christians by sharing the stories of three leaders in the Christian church. You can hear Christian Mythbusters in the Grand Haven area on 92.1 WGHN, on Wednesdays at 10:30am and Sundays at 8:50am. You can also subscribe to the podcast on Apple here. The transcript of the episode is below, or you can listen to the audio at the bottom of the post. This is Father Jared Cramer from St. John's Episcopal Church in Grand Haven, Michigan, here with today's edition of Christian Mythbusters, a regular segment I offer to counter some common misconceptions about the Christian faith. In last week's episode, I talked about the history of PRIDE month and how the church should be an ally in pride, exploring the question from the standpoint of Scripture. To continue our engagement with Christians and PRIDE, this week I want to exit the theoretical and enter the lived world of LGBTQIA+ Christians by sharing with you a few people in the church who have been tremendous leaders and role models for the gay Christian movement. I'm using a great resource put out by Stonewall, an LGBTQIA rights organization in the United Kingdom that is named for the 1969 Stonewall uprising which marked the start of the PRIDE movement. Their motto is “acceptance without exception” and you can find out more about these and other individuals by Googling their 48-page booklet “Christian Role Models for LGBT Equality.” Rachel Mann's given name at birth was Nick because she was assigned male at birth. However, from the age of four, she always felt like she was a girl. She prayed every night growing up that she would wake up as a girl the next morning. Eventually, she rejected God because she couldn't understand how a loving God could create someone like her, with such a deep internal struggle over her gender identity. Rachel began to transition when she was 22, and it wasn't until she was 26 that she had a strong enough sense of who she was to try once more to offer herself to God, to a God who, in her words “wouldn't let me go.” She finally prayed to God, afraid of what God might say back to her, and what she heard instead of condemnation was this: “Actually, I love you, Rachel, in your deepest being and I accept you completely.' Rachel returned to the Church of England and found a spiritual home there . Seven years later, she discerned a calling to the priesthood, went to seminary, and was ordained a priest in 2006, ten years after she had returned to faith in God. Now the Reverend Rachel Mann is a Canon and Poet-in-Residence at Manchester Cathedral in England. Judith Kotzé is an identical twin who was raised in the Dutch Reformed Church in South Africa, in a family that had generations of ministers. She didn’t know she was a lesbian growing up because she was focused on her sense of calling to ministry, eventually being ordained as one of the very first women clergy in the Dutch Reformed Church. While in university, she began to realize she was attracted to women, and she prayed for God to take it away , to give her the gift of celibacy. She was ordained and, after four years of ministry, she fell in love with a woman, making it clear that celibacy was not her calling. Eventually, Judith came to the belief that love is love and in 2000 met the woman who is now her partner. They married in 2007. She didn't think her parents would come to the wedding and when she did it was a milestone for the entire famil...

In this episode of Christian Mythbusters, Father Jared tries to break the myths surrounding LGBTQIA+ Christians by sharing the stories of three leaders in the Christian church. You can hear Christian Mythbusters in the Grand Haven area on 92.1 WGHN, on Wednesdays at 10:30am and Sundays at 8:50am. You can also subscribe to the podcast on Apple here. The transcript of the episode is below, or you can listen to the audio at the bottom of the post. This is Father Jared Cramer from St. John's Episcopal Church in Grand Haven, Michigan, here with today's edition of Christian Mythbusters, a regular segment I offer to counter some common misconceptions about the Christian faith. In last week's episode, I talked about the history of PRIDE month and how the church should be an ally in pride, exploring the question from the standpoint of Scripture. To continue our engagement with Christians and PRIDE, this week I want to exit the theoretical and enter the lived world of LGBTQIA+ Christians by sharing with you a few people in the church who have been tremendous leaders and role models for the gay Christian movement. I'm using a great resource put out by Stonewall, an LGBTQIA rights organization in the United Kingdom that is named for the 1969 Stonewall uprising which marked the start of the PRIDE movement. Their motto is “acceptance without exception” and you can find out more about these and other individuals by Googling their 48-page booklet “Christian Role Models for LGBT Equality.” Rachel Mann's given name at birth was Nick because she was assigned male at birth. However, from the age of four, she always felt like she was a girl. She prayed every night growing up that she would wake up as a girl the next morning. Eventually, she rejected God because she couldn't understand how a loving God could create someone like her, with such a deep internal struggle over her gender identity. Rachel began to transition when she was 22, and it wasn't until she was 26 that she had a strong enough sense of who she was to try once more to offer herself to God, to a God who, in her words “wouldn't let me go.” She finally prayed to God, afraid of what God might say back to her, and what she heard instead of condemnation was this: “Actually, I love you, Rachel, in your deepest being and I accept you completely.' Rachel returned to the Church of England and found a spiritual home there . Seven years later, she discerned a calling to the priesthood, went to seminary, and was ordained a priest in 2006, ten years after she had returned to faith in God. Now the Reverend Rachel Mann is a Canon and Poet-in-Residence at Manchester Cathedral in England. Judith Kotzé is an identical twin who was raised in the Dutch Reformed Church in South Africa, in a family that had generations of ministers. She didn’t know she was a lesbian growing up because she was focused on her sense of calling to ministry, eventually being ordained as one of the very first women clergy in the Dutch Reformed Church. While in university, she began to realize she was attracted to women, and she prayed for God to take it away , to give her the gift of celibacy. She was ordained and, after four years of ministry, she fell in love with a woman, making it clear that celibacy was not her calling. Eventually, Judith came to the belief that love is love and in 2000 met the woman who is now her partner. They married in 2007. She didn't think her parents would come to the wedding and when she did it was a milestone for the entire famil...

Professor Christof Heyns occupied various roles at the University of Pretoria's law faculty - including Dean, Director of the Centre for Human Rights and the founding Director of the Institute for Comparative Law in Africa (where he made the faculty a magnet for talented African students). Internationally, he shone as UN Special Rapporteur and subsequently as a member of the Committee of the Human Rights Commission. Heyns chaired the UN independent investigation on Burundi and was instrumental in rewriting several UN protocols. He passed away at the age of 62, without having seen his father's murderer brought to justice. Johan Heyns, the former moderator of the Dutch Reformed Church was gunned down at his Pretoria home in 1994. However, he did help to rewrite the 'Minnesota Protocol', the gold standard for investigations into unlawful death. To colleagues, Christof Heyns was the guitar playing professor. To his friends, he was the easy-going intellectual who loved to tell jokes. In what was probably one of the last interviews he did, Heyns told BizNews that he remained positive that liberal values - which have taken a knock in recent years - will prevail, and that the idea of human rights is "alive and strong". Despite the murder of his father and the many atrocities he investigated, he always saw the glass of life as half-full. This interview was conducted in October 202o. Heyns passed away in March 2021.

Professor Christof Heyns occupied various roles at the University of Pretoria's law faculty - including Dean, Director of the Centre for Human Rights and the founding Director of the Institute for Comparative Law in Africa (where he made the faculty a magnet for talented African students). Internationally, he shone as UN Special Rapporteur and subsequently as a member of the Committee of the Human Rights Commission. Heyns chaired the UN independent investigation on Burundi and was instrumental in rewriting several UN protocols. He passed away at the age of 62, without having seen his father's murderer brought to justice. Johan Heyns, the former moderator of the Dutch Reformed Church was gunned down at his Pretoria home in 1994. However, he did help to rewrite the 'Minnesota Protocol', the gold standard for investigations into unlawful death. To colleagues, Christof Heyns was the guitar playing professor. To his friends, he was the easy-going intellectual who loved to tell jokes. In what was probably one of the last interviews he did, Heyns told BizNews that he remained positive that liberal values - which have taken a knock in recent years - will prevail, and that the idea of human rights is "alive and strong". Despite the murder of his father and the many atrocities he investigated, he always saw the glass of life as half-full. This interview was conducted in October 202o. Heyns passed away in March 2021.

Dr. Catherine Anraku Hondorp Sensei is a Soto Zen Buddhist Priest and an authorized Zen teacher in the White Plum lineage of Taizan Maezumi Roshi. Anraku Sensei is co-founder, with her spouse Ryūmon Hilda Baldoquín Sensei, of Two Streams Zen, a dedicated practice space for People of Color, in Westhampton, Massachusetts, United States. Anraku Sensei’s passion for social justice arose from growing up White in a northeastern U.S. urban Black community. Born to a Dutch Reformed Church minister father, and an Early Childhood educator mother in a multiracial family during the times of the Civil Rights Movement in the United States, racial inequities were painfully apparent. Anraku Sensei began her Zen studies with John Daido Loori Roshi at Zen Mountain Monastery in 1987. In 1996 she began studying with Enkyo O’Hara Roshi. Anraku Sensei received dharma transmission from Enkyo Roshi in 2009. Anraku Sensei is co-founder, with her spouse Ryūmon Hilda Baldoquín Sensei, of Two Streams Zen, a dedicated practice space for People of Color, in Westhampton, Massachusetts, United States. You can find out more by visiting the website for Two Streams Zen. https://twostreamszen.org/ Sit, Breathe, Bow is hosted by Ian White Maher. https://www.theseekerstable.com/ Sit, Breathe, Bow is sponsored by the Online Sangha of the International Kwan Um School of Zen https://kwanumzenonline.org  

Episode 96 - Dr. Ruth Kamber is a second-generation Assyrian American and the author of “Assyrians of Yonkers.” As the eldest grandchild, she inherited artifacts from her family--a collection of family stories, videos, and photographs. Her grandfather Nicolai Benjamin asked her to honor, preserve, and pass down her cultural inheritance, to "Keep it well." Her heritage and family heirlooms served as a springboard for her dissertation as a verbal monument to Assyrian Americans. In this episode you will hear about her great grandfather’s connection to the Dutch Reformed Church, an Assyrian baseball player who played for the New York Yankees, and more about the history of Assyrian Presbyterian community in Yonkers.  rkambar580@gmail.com  Support for this week’s episode of The Assyrian Podcast is brought to you by Tony Kalogerakos and the Injury Lawyers of Illinois and New York. If you know anyone that has been in a serious accident, please reach out to Tony Kalogerakos. Tony has been recognized as a Top 40 lawyer, and a Rising Star by Super Lawyers Publication and has obtained multiple multi-million-dollar awards. Tony can be reached at InjuryRights.com or 847-982-9516. 

Dr. Jordan J. Ballor, senior research fellow and director of publishing for the Acton Institute, joins us to speak about Abraham Kuyper's public theology. Dr. Ballor is a general editor of Abraham Kuyper's Collected Works on Public Theology published by Lexham Press. Kuyper was something of a polymath/renaissance man. Along with being an influential theologian and also a journalist, he served as Prime Minister of the Netherlands between 1901 and 1905. He established the Reformed Churches in the Netherlands, which upon its foundation became the second largest Reformed denomination in the country behind the state-supported Dutch Reformed Church. Jordan J. Ballor (Dr. theol., University of Zurich; PhD, Calvin Theological Seminary) is a senior research fellow and director of publishing at the Acton Institute for the Study of Religion & Liberty. He is also a postdoctoral researcher in theology and economics at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam as part of the "What Good Markets Are Good For" project.  https://vimeo.com/383799674

God’s children, above all, are fragile. Because we are called to allow the sadness of the world to pierce our hearts and take hold of us and it does not let us go. The Reverend Rykie Marx, Dutch Reformed Church in South Africa (NGK), preaches from Isaiah 40 and 40, Sunday, January 19, 2020.

Dustin Plantholt’s “Life’s Tough—You Can Be Tougher” podcast this week features Robert A. Schuller, an American author, televangelist and pastor, and head of the Robert Schuller Ministries, whose mission is to inspire the world by incorporating the whole person and seeking to minister to people physically, emotionally and spiritually—aptly titled “Vital Living.” Dr. Robert Schuller is the son of famed televangelist Dr. Robert Harold Schuller—founder of the Garden Grove Community Church. In 1955, the senior Schuller came to Garden Grove, California and started a church in the tradition of the Dutch Reformed Church in America (RCA). What evolved from a small gathering of parishioners at a local drive-in theater became America’s first “mega church” and, eventually, America’s first “television church.” In a span of twenty years, the Garden Grove Community Church had grown to 10,000 members and resided in the Crystal Cathedral, a massive structure constructed of glass walls and ceiling. Its weekly television worship service—Hour of Power—had become the most-viewed religious television program in the world.  Soon after graduating from Hope College in Holland, Michigan in 1976, Dr. Schuller became a regular participant on the Hour of Power reading scripture and occasionally preaching. Following his graduation from Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, California, Dr. Schuller was ordained in the one-week-old Crystal Cathedral. It was from that stirring pulpit, alongside his father, Dr. Schuller reached a television audience of more than 20 million people worldwide delivering a weekly message of “Possibility Living.” Dr. Schuller served as senior pastor of the Crystal Cathedral from 2006-2008 and now continues his ministry with Robert Schuller Ministries. As a highly successful author of 17 books—including the New York Times best-seller “Walking in Your Own Shoes”—he travels the world advocating for peace with The Global Peace Foundation and is regularly seen on national stages as a motivational speaker.  Dr. Schuller lives in Newport Beach, California and is married to Donna Greenough Schuller, a Certified Nutritional Consultant and author of three books, and a regular participant in the ministry in a variety of roles over the years. Together, they have four grown children and six grandchildren. When they are not engaged in ministry or visiting their children or grandchildren, the Schullers love the outdoors and scuba diving in the oceans of the world. Join Dustin and Dr. Schuller for a heartfelt conversation on his life’s mission to inspire the masses towards “Vital Living.”

Series 1: The Schuylers and the Ten Broecks Episode IV: The Next Generation Within ten months in 1772, three new babies were born in the Schuyler and Ten Broeck households: Susanna Willinger Roseboom, Elizabeth Ten Broeck, and Rensselaer Schuyler. Susannah is the eldest surviving child––who we know of––of Britt and Will, who were enslaved by the Ten Broecks and Schuylers respectively, Elizabeth is the eldest surviving daughter of Abraham and Elizabeth Ten Broeck, and Rensselaer is the youngest surviving son of Philip and Catharine Schuyler. Susannah and Elizabeth grew up in the same household: one of them enslaved, the other free. Rensselaer and Elizabeth grew up in the same social circle and were eventually joined in marriage. In the case of each individual, there are gaps in their histories. We’re going to explore what we know and what we don’t in this episode of Tales of Old Albany. “The Next Generation” PRESENTED BY AARON HOLBRITTER AND CASEY POLOMAINE WRITTEN BY JESSIE SERFILIPPI CONCEIVED AND EDITED BY AARON HOLBRITTER PRODUCED BY AARON HOLBRITTER AND CASEY POLOMAINE RECORDED BY ISAAC NEWBERRY Featuring: Ian laChance ……. Dirck Ten Broeck Laura Graver ……. Elizabeth Ten Broeck Schuyler Angelique Powell …… Susannah Willinger Roseboom Nick Bosanko ……. Rensselaer Schuyler Angela Potrikus ……. Elizabeth VanRensselaer Ten Broeck Gwen Wright ……. Britt Michael A. Lake ……. Peter Roseboom Krysta Dennis ……. Catharine VanRensselaer Schuyler Emmett Ferris ……. Thomas Willinger Evan Jones ……. Dutch Minister, School Teacher Samantha Hall-Saladino ……. Eliza Schuyler Hamilton Isaac Newberry ……. Alexander Hamilton Music: Theme song: Chase, Epic Adventure Composer: Johannes Bornloff http://audiograb.com/T2hGvDX5Fn Additional Music: Cinematic Piano by AShamaluevMusic. https://youtu.be/6Sq5Y2HzF1c Fife Feature: Lowlands Away Music by The United States Army Old Guard Fife and Drum Corps http://freemusicarchive.org/music/The_United_States_Army_Old_Guard_Fife_and_Drum_Corps/Celebrating_50_Years/04_1725 Greensleeves - adapted for and performed on harpsichord by Albano Berberi https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CKB5khkSXyc Johann Pachelbel - Kanon in D by Aitua https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-whoXu79zk Touch - Matt Cupelli Emotional Sad Piano Music © Music Copyright 2015 Mattia Cupelli https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_JYHk_D5A44 Dramatic Violin Epic Movie Music https://audiograb.com/um0DDQRQQ Court and Page - Silent Partner https://youtu.be/joJ25P-4DNU All music licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/… Resources: Albany Dutch Reformed Church Records https://mathcs.clarku.edu/~djoyce/gen/albany/part6.html#baptismal People of Colonial Albany http://exhibitions.nysm.nysed.gov//albany/ NYPL Archives, Schuyler Family Papers https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/collections/philip-schuyler-papers-2#/?tab=navigation Albany County Hall of Records Online Exhibit, “Living Black and Free in 18th and 18th Century Albany, New York” http://www.albanycounty.com/Libraries/Hall_of_Records/Black_and_Free_Exhibit_for_Website1CC.sflb.ashx Albany County Hall of Records Online Exhibit, “The Struggle for Education of Black Children in 19th Century Albany” http://www.albanycounty.com/Libraries/Hall_of_Records/TheStruggl_forEducationofBlackChildren19thCenturyAlbany_2017.sflb.ashx Schuyler Mansion State Historic Site Ten Broeck Mansion Sacred Texts of the Dutch Reformed Church http://www.sacred-texts.com/chr/nethlit.htm Family Search http://familysearch.org “Record of Slave Manumissions in Albany, 1800-28” by Harry B. Yoshpe The History of Buffalo http://www.buffaloah.com/h/1799.html#1795

:There is victory for people in same sex relationships and are members of the Dutch Reformed Church. The Gauteng High Court in Pretoria this morning overturned the church's decision not to recognise same-sex unions within the church. Same sex marriages have been legal in South Africa since 2006. We spoke to Laurie Gaum who is a Minister of the Dutch Reformed Church working in the field of gender equity and reconciliation...

In dieser Folge sprechen wir mit Antje. Sie ist vor vier Jahren nach Südafrika gezogen und arbeitet dort als Pastorin in der Dutch Reformed Church. Die Predigt beginnt bei 25:35. Predigttext: Spr 1,20-33 Predigerin: Antje Neue Folgen gibt es jeden zweiten Sonntag. Lasst uns gerne euer Feedback da! :) Wortkollektiv Pullover und T-shirts gibt es hier: https://shop.spreadshirt.de/glaube/wk-stripes?q=I152616441 Intro/Outro-Musik (with kind permission): Train Room - Delicate Bones https://www.facebook.com/trainroommusic/ Wenn du mit einer Spende helfen möchtest, den Wortkollektiv Podcast zu erhalten, kannst du das hier tun: Paypal: https://paypal.me/wortkollektiv Überweisung: Kontoinhaberin: Friederike Nordholt IBAN: DE62 1203 0000 1055 6198 50 BIC: BYLADEM1001 Danke für eure Unterstützung! Wortkollektiv ist Teil des ruach.jetzt Netzwerks.

A preacher-pastor in the Dutch Reformed Church, George Washington Bethune can teach us a lot about God's mysterious ways. Hoping to restore his health, Bethune had travelled to Florence, Italy, but had agreed to give a Sunday message at a local church.

Zooming out, this episode casts a wide net to summarize how the movement started by Luther, Zwingli, and Calvin affected Europe over the next century. We’ll see how the Reformation took root in Germany, Scandinavia, and the Netherlands while simultaneously failing to find fertile ground in France, especially among those in power. Lastly, we’ll consider Read more about 122 Reformations on the Continent (Five Hundred 7)[…]

Zooming out, this episode casts a wide net to summarize how the movement started by Luther, Zwingli, and Calvin affected Europe over the next century. We’ll see how the Reformation took root in Germany, Scandinavia, and the Netherlands while simultaneously failing to find fertile ground in France, especially among those in power. Lastly, we’ll consider Read more about 122 Reformations on the Continent (Five Hundred 7)[…]

Versatile scholar Jeroen Dewulf chats with Russell Shorto about Dewulf's article "Emulating a Portuguese Model: The Slave Policy of the West India Company and the Dutch Reformed Church in Dutch Brazil (1630-1654) and New Netherland (1614-1664) in Comparative Perspective." The main topic of the chat is the influence of Portuguese policies on New Netherland's system of forced labor.

Our quote for today is from Galileo. He said, "I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use." In this podcast, we are making our way through Garry R. Morgan's book, "Understanding World Religions in 15 Minutes a Day." Garry Morgan is a Professor of Intercultural Studies at Northwestern College. He served with World Venture for 20 years in Kenya, Ethiopia, Uganda, and Tanzania.  Our topic for today is, "Protestant Christianity"  Protestant is an umbrella term generally used to describe a vast variety of churches that are neither Roman Catholic nor Eastern Orthodox. The name comes from the "protests" by Martin Luther, John Calvin, and many others against abuses of power and some doctrines in the Roman Catholic Church. The Reformers were people of the fourteenth through the seventeenth centuries who sought to bring change to Christianity in Europe. Their writings continue to exert substantial influence over hundreds of millions of believers today.  Historically, the Protestant Reformation began as an attempt to, as the word implies, reform Christianity. Luther and the others saw their efforts not as bringing anything new to the faith but as restoring biblical teaching and practice established prior to the development of Rome's papal system. They didn't intend initially to form a new church organization—they did so only after they were excommunicated (removed from membership) and threatened with death by the Catholic Church hierarchy. The congregations that followed the Reformers became the Protestant churches.  That the word “reformed” is utilized in countless ways today can be confusing. The Reformation period produced several organizations. The churches following Luther's teaching and leadership came to be called Lutheran, while those that followed Calvin were called Reformed, even though both were part of the Reformation and are relatively similar in doctrine. Over time, the Reformed churches subdivided, usually along national lines, into many denominations (such as the Dutch Reformed Church and the Reformed Church of America). Calvin's doctrines, with additions by a number of others, came to be called Reformed Theology, best known for its doctrine of God's sovereignty, especially in election -- God's choosing of who will be saved. Over the years, newer denominations, notably the Presbyterians and many Baptist groups, embraced most of Calvin's "reformed" doctrines, while disagreeing with some beliefs and practices of the Reformed Church.  Historically, two core issues framed the Protestant disagreement with Catholicism. The first concerns salvation, the way in which a person avoids God's righteous judgment on the sinful nature and is reconciled into right relationship with him. Protestants insist that the Bible clearly states salvation is "by grace alone, through faith alone, in Jesus Christ alone," in contrast to a combination of grace and good works. The second, Sola Scriptura, is the belief that the Bible is the final authority for determining doctrine and practice rather than a combination of Scripture and tradition. Additional areas of divergence grew over time as Protestant leaders refined and developed their doctrines.  The various Protestant churches survived Roman Catholic attempts to exterminate them, in part because many European political leaders saw in them the chance to escape papal oppression and attain greater regional autonomy. Ultimately, Protestants contributed considerably to the rise of nationalism and the development of today's European countries. This association developed into the state church system, in which a whole country officially recognized just one denomination (such as the Lutheran Church in Sweden or Norway).  Unfortunately, this also led to a number of wars, both civil (within one country) and between Catholic and Protestant countries. Some nations were tolerant of those whose beliefs were not in step with the state church, such as Holland, which, although officially Dutch Reformed, became a haven for persecuted Christians from France, England, and elsewhere (such as the Pilgrims who later settled Plymouth Colony in North America). Elsewhere, persecution of dissenters ranged from moderate to severe. In some Protestant countries, Catholics were persecuted, and many Protestants were killed in France and other Catholic countries.  Persecution extended even to other Protestants of the "wrong" variety. The Baptist pastor John Bunyan, author of Pilgrim's Progress, spent much of his adult life in prison for refusal to "conform" to the Anglican Church.  New denominations proliferated as Protestant Christianity spread across Europe and then into North America. Beginning in the nineteenth century, the changes reached Africa and Asia. Without the central leadership authority that characterizes the Catholic Church, formation of new organizations is much easier. Sometimes these groups began because of doctrinal disputes. For example, Freewill Baptists in England split from the majority of Baptists (who theologically were closer to the Reformed Church). Some developed due to geography and politics. After American independence, for instance, Presbyterians in the U.S. chose independence from their Scottish origins. Baptists and many other American denominations split over slavery (although it has been argued that this was more a doctrinal dispute than a political one).  Spiritual revival has also led to the creation of denominations. The Azusa Street Revival of 1906, for example, led to the formation of the Apostolic Faith Movement, the Assemblies of God, and many other Pentecostal groups. Sometimes new groups form because of conflict of personality or conviction between leaders.  The twentieth-century Ecumenical Movement attempted to reverse the trend of proliferation with the goal of merging Protestants into one organizational structure. They've seen limited success with the United and Uniting Churches in Canada and Australia respectively; in both countries Methodists, Presbyterians, and Congregationalists merged into one organization. The movement has had more success encouraging cooperation between denominations through the World Council of Churches and its national affiliates than in bringing about organizational mergers and a reduction in the number of denominations. Now, for An Extra Minute  How many Protestant denominations are there? The diversity and geographic expansion of Protestant Christianity makes counting difficult. There are more than fifty different Baptist groups just in the U.S., where the largest, the Southern Baptist Convention, has more than sixteen million members. Adding to the complications is globalization: If missionaries of one denomination in one country start new churches in another country and those churches form an association, is that a new denomination or part of the original? They are usually independent (though related) organizations, but not always. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, renowned researcher David Barrett counted 33,830 Protestant denominations globally. 

The Gift of Conversation Picture in your mind two businessmen sitting in an airport coffee shop, briefcases open, papers out spilling all over the table, earnestly in conversation about something important. Or two women sitting in a charming English tea room over a pot of Earl Grey. Or a young couple walking hand-in-hand down a beach as the sun is setting. So romantic. Or two older men sitting in a boat with fishing poles in their hands. Or two little children playing in a sandbox, making sounds like engines and front end loaders and bulldozers and doing some other things too. Or two older women sitting in rocking chairs on a front porch looking out over a mountain valley, reminiscing. Or two fans sitting together at the Durham Bulls Athletic Park conversing over a Triple-A baseball game. Or two teens with cell phones that just can't seem to stop talking, just something to discuss at every moment. All kinds of exciting things going on. All of these things, reflections of the great gift of conversation that God has given us, and I can't imagine going through a day without it. And it is a deep and theological principle that our desire to converse, to communicate, to have relationships, comes because we are created in the image of God. And as hard as it is for us to imagine, there was a time that there was only God and nothing else. Father, Son and Holy Spirit, eternally existing in three persons and able to have conversations among themselves. Inter-trinitarian conversation predates the creation of the world. And that gift of conversation, of relationship, of communication, one person to the next, was conferred on us at creation and it was discussed first before it was given. In Genesis 1:26 God says, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness and let them rule." And so there's an inter-trinitarian conversation about how we, male and female, are going to be created in the image of God, and part of that would be the ability to carry on conversations, the ability to have relationships with other persons. And I believe the gift of conversation in all of its richness unifies the verses we're looking at today. We're going to talk about heavenly conversation. We're going to talk about conversation between us and God in prayer. Praying about all things. We're going to talk about a different use of the word "conversation," just having to do with daily lifestyle, the way we carry ourselves in the physical world and the fact that we have an audience watching that all the time. And how important it is that we carry ourselves then with integrity. And then we're going to talk about the incredibly vital conversation of the Gospel. Sharing the words of life with those who need to hear it the most, that's what unifies our passage. Now, let's begin with the issue of prayer, conversation with God. Daily devotion and prayer. Look at verses 2-4. It says, "Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful, and pray for us too that God may open a door for our message so that we may proclaim the mystery of Christ for which I am in chains. Pray that I may proclaim it clearly as I should." We come immediately to the strategic importance of prayer. Conversation with God: A Daily Devotion to Prayer (vs. 2-4) The Strategic Importance of Prayer Now, for many years as we have received prayer cards from the church and people fill them out, one mystery brother or sister in Christ has written a single word on the card again and again, and that word is "revival." That brother or sister knows very well, we'll know what to do when we get that card, and we do. And we yearn to pray for revival. Now, you may ask, "What is Revival?" Revival is a moving of the sovereign Spirit on an individual, on people, on a church, usually with two great fruits, personal holiness, and evangelistic fruit, conversions. Lost people brought to faith in Christ, personal holiness and conversions, and that in obvious, open, magnificent ways that only God can get the credit for. Now, those that have studied revival again and again have seen a unifying theme, and that is concerted, extraordinary prayer. Dr. AT Pierson, who was the biographer of George Müller, one of the great prayer warriors in history, once said, "There has never been a spiritual awakening in any country or locality that did not begin in united prayer." Edwin Orr, a historian who made his focus the history of revivals, he agrees with this and he documents the prayer movements that are connected with great periods of revival again and again. The First Great Awakening, certainly, the Second Great Awakening. In 1857 there was the Businessmen's Prayer Meeting Revival that happened in Manhattan, New York, if you can imagine that. But there they were, it was 1857 and this Christian businessman named Jeremiah Lanphier sent out some advertisements throughout the city that there was going to be a businessmen's prayer meeting at noon, at a certain time, at the Dutch Reformed Church building in downtown Manhattan. This was advertised widely throughout the city, but the first time only six people showed up. Well, they prayed, they prayed fervently. And the next week 14 people showed up. And the next week after that 23 people showed up and then they decided they were going to meet every day for prayer. Not once a week, but every day at noon. By February of 1858, every church and public hall in Manhattan was filled up at noon with people praying. Imagine that, picture that in your mind. Incredible. Horace Greeley, the great editor of the New York newspaper that urged people, "Go west, young man," that one, published, he wanted to find out what was going on, so he sent a reporter around with horse and buggy, not having telephones or anything like that, they had to physically be there. And so this poor reporter flogged his poor horse and got to as many meetings as he could during the noon hour of prayer. He managed to get to 12. That's really quite remarkable, maybe a record of reporting, at least in New York City. And he found over 6,000 people meeting in those 12 meetings, actually, 6,100. It was a landslide of prayer, a revival, and it moved up the Mohawk River and groups all over in upstate New York, and then it spread throughout New England, and eventually, all over the country. Baptists, in upstate New York along the Mohawk River that winter had to cut holes in the ice to baptize people. Praise God for this baptistery here. I can just say that as one who's had to stand in it, but praise God. But they were so on fire for the Lord, they didn't care what the temperature of the water was, they just wanted to give public testimony to their faith in Christ. And DL Moody, the great evangelist, was converted during that prayer revival. That's what led him eventually to faith in Christ, and to his ministry. Again and again, prayer has been the undergirding and the beginning of revival. 1904, there was a great revival in Wales, the Welsh Revival. It started with a Welsh miner named Evan Roberts, who felt the call to preach, to get out of the coal mines and to preach. And he began training in seminary. And another man came and started preaching along the theme, "O God, bend me." And he began to pray this prayer, "O God, bend me." In other words, bend me to your will, transform me, make my will your own. Let me live only for your glory. "O God, bend me." So Evan Roberts started going around and preaching. And he preached in one Wednesday evening prayer meeting, it was the only slot he could get in that local church, not a well-known preacher at all. But he preached a simple message, the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and then some simple steps to personal revival, four of them. Step number one, you must confess any known sin to God, and you must put any wrong done to others right, make it right. Anything you know that you've done wrong, make it right. Secondly, you must put away any questionable habit. Anything about what your conscience is smiting you, put it away. Thirdly, you must obey the Spirit promptly. Whatever the Spirit prompts you to do, you must obey Him promptly. And finally, you must confess your faith in Christ publicly. These four things. Well, it wasn't long before God was pouring out His blessing on these prayer meetings. And just like happened in Manhattan, New York, now it was in Wales. And it was a tidal wave of revival. Within five months, there were 100,000 people converted throughout the country of Wales. It was interesting, a number of years later, five years later, a skeptic named Dr. JV Morgan wrote a book to debunk the revival, on the grounds that of the 100,000 people that had claimed a faith in Christ, only 75,000 were continuing to attend church regularly. Now, you tell me, is that not a revival, when the skeptic is saying 75,000 five years later are still walking with the Lord, God has worked in a mighty way. Now, it started there in Wales, but it spread all over Great Britain, Scandinavia, Continental Europe, North America, Australia, Asia, Brazil, Chile, Mexico, and in every location it was the same pattern, again and again. It always began with people praying, seeking the face of God. Now, what do we mean by extraordinary prayer? Well, we pray here, worship service every week. I pray, others pray, we had an opportunity to pray. You pray before meals, I would hope, and give thanks to God for the food. You have your daily prayer times, but that's not extraordinary prayer, that's not what we're talking about. We're talking about when people get together at 6:00 in the morning, in large numbers and pray for hours. When people meet together at lunch every day, for months on end, and give themselves to praying for the things of God, or when they spend half a night pouring out their hearts in prayer. Now, that's extraordinary revival. Now, I would contend, that when that kind of prayer is going on, the revival is already happening. It is the revival to move people out of their selfish holes and up into a great concern for the the things of God and the things of other people, the revival's already occurred, but we know it's not going to stay put there. Prayer is strategic. God has ordained prayer as a primary means for advancing His glory and His name to the ends of the earth. Why is it strategic? Well, first of all, it's strategic because it humbles us. It humbles us, and it also empowers us. Isn't that amazing how we can be both humbled and empowered? But so it is. It humbles us in the asking, and it also glorifies God in the giving. And prayer is strategic because through prayer, without moving, we can touch the distant parts of the Earth, to the ends of the Earth, we can reach out with prayer. Now, Paul here in Colossians is calling Christians to a commitment of prayer. Constant devotion in prayer. He says, "Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful." Now, the word "devote" has a simple meaning of, "Just continue. To keep doing something, to have a commitment to it." The Commitment of Prayer: Constant Devotion Many hear sermons on prayer, they get moved, they get motivated, something changes for a day or so, and then it fades away like the morning mist, like the dew on the grass in the morning. That's not what Paul is calling us to here. He's calling us to a movement of prayer, of commitment to prayer. The Greek word here means, to stand fast in prayer, to be fully devoted to the prayer, to hold firmly onto prayer despite all obstacles. To be immersed in it, to cling to it. David Brainerd, a missionary in the 18th century, a contemporary of Jonathan Edwards, was a missionary to the American Indians, an incredibly godly man, and his diaries have had a revolutionary effect on the worldwide missionary movement. Tremendous devotion poured out in those diaries. And you'd read these entries, April 12th, "Spent the entire day in prayer." January 27th, "Though the day was cold, my body was covered with sweat, simply because of my excursions in prayer." Again and again you get these readings. "Spent two thirds of the day in prayer. Wrestled much in prayer for the Indians." This kind of thing. It's a devotion and a commitment to prayer, and that's I think what Paul's calling us to. Now, it's not easy to do, because faith-filled prayer has tremendous obstacles. Let's take the same old three we always wrestle with, the world, the flesh and the devil. First the devil, he opposes prayer, in individual Christians, and in churches, because he knows that it moves the hand of God, for His own glory. And so therefore, he's going to try to squelch prayer movements as best he can. The world opposes prayer because of its fast-paced achievement orientation, the fact that it's so distracting, so alluring, so enticing, and therefore there are things we'd rather do than spend a bunch of time praying. The world has already captured our affections, and we don't want to give time to prayer. And then there's our own nature. Our own nature. We are very prideful. We want things done in our own way and in our own time. And we tried prayer back then, and God didn't do what I wanted. I was reading, as I was preparing for this sermon, reading about a pastor who came across his school-aged son, a young boy. He heard him praying, he kept praying. "Tokyo. Oh, God, make it Tokyo. Make it Tokyo, oh, God." And he thought, "My son's being called to mission work in Japan." Well, it wasn't the case. He had taken a geography exam, and he had put that Tokyo is the capital of China, and he was saying, "Make it Tokyo, God. Make it Tokyo." Have you ever prayed like that? Not your will, but mine be done, oh Lord. Move that will, that you established before the foundation of the world, that pillar, that unshakable... Move it to suit my needs. That's the way we tend to pray. "Make it Tokyo, oh, God." We're prideful, and so therefore, when we don't get our way we give up in prayer. We are self-centered, we don't really care very much about the needs of others. We are weak, we're easily swayed, we make commitments, and then we give up on them. And we are unbelieving as well and prayer is such faith-filled work. Think about, for example, the battle between Joshua and the Amalekites, when Moses is up on the hill, and he's lifting up his hands in prayer. Joshua's down there on the battlefield and he is fighting with a sword in his hand. Do you think that Joshua took a break in the middle of the battle? His arm is getting tired. He's like, "Amalekites, if we could just have a break for a few minutes?" Absolutely not. He kept fighting, and he knew that he needed to keep fighting, because it was physical, obvious, sensory work. But Moses, many times his hands go down that day. Godly man. But many times his hands go down. Finally he starts to get the cause and effect. Okay. My hands go down, we start to lose. And so, they prop his hands up with stones, and they hold him up so that he can keep his hands extended in prayer. But that's the way it is with us. We don't see the cause and effect, and therefore we don't know why we should keep praying. God's going to do what He's going to do anyway, so we think. These are all obstacles to prayer. But Paul is calling on us to overcome those obstacles and to devote ourselves to prayer. He's calling on us to make it a lifestyle, to weave prayer throughout our day. He says in another place, in 1 Thessalonians 5, that we should “pray without ceasing.” Now, this means, obviously, daily time spent in prayer, your morning devotions. You wake up in the morning, you have your time of prayer. Or concerted times when you get together, you can schedule a time and be with Christians. But, I think it also means weaving prayer throughout the day. Charles Spurgeon was somebody who did this. He just seemed to live and move and have his being in an atmosphere of prayer. He just moved through the day in prayer. I was reading a biography recently of Spurgeon, and Steve Miller was talking about C.H. Spurgeon on spiritual leadership. And he mentioned an occasion in which one of his friends, Spurgeon's friends, came from Brooklyn, a Dr. Theodore Cuyler, to visit him. And Spurgeon went with Dr. Cuyler for a walk through the woods, something they loved to do, just to be refreshed out in nature. And Spurgeon had a tremendous sense of humor, and something struck him as funny, and he shared that with his friend, Dr. Cuyler, and they both just began to laugh. And their hearts were just knit together as they were laughing. And then suddenly Spurgeon stopped him, and he said, "Come, Theodore. Let's thank God for laughter." And Theodore Cuyler reflected on this years later, said, "This is the way it was with Spurgeon. He moved from a jest to a prayer and back again at the breadth of a hair." And so it should be, I think, with us. We are just constantly living, and moving, and having our being in the presence of God. Enoch walked with God. Noah walked with God. We can walk with God, and we immerse our days in prayer. And so, he says "Devote yourself to prayer." But I think we also need to step back and be strategic in our prayers as well. What are the big themes of life? What is the purpose of history? What is God doing in the world? We need to be devoted to that in prayer. Jesus said in Matthew 9, "The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out laborers into His harvest fields." So we need to devote ourselves to the big strategic picture as well. Not just thanking God for laughter. We should do that. But also praying that God would thrust out laborers into His harvest fields. So devote yourself. The Manner of Prayer: Watchful, Thankful Now, he gives us here the manner of prayer. He speaks of being watchful and thankful. Later in this, he talks about wrestling, we'll get to that, God willing, next week. Wrestling in prayer, it's labor. But here he talks about being watchful. Paul commands us to pray in a state of watchfulness. Now, what does that mean? Well, I think it means at least, can we just agree that it means at least you should be awake at that time? You should be awake while praying? Now, I will confess to you, I've had some very quiet, quiet times. They're like time warps, you know what I'm saying? You know what happened, you know I'm a little too comfortable. You know, it's a little too early. And so I had an incredible time of 75 minutes of prayer with the Lord, don't remember any of it. Just whoosh, right through. And there are times that I literally just need to pace back and forth, just pace, and walk, and talk out loud, because I'm going to fall asleep. So we need to be watchful in prayer and not fall asleep. Imagine setting up a time with the president or some other dignitary, and falling asleep in their presence. This is not a good thing. And so, therefore, we ought to be watchful in our prayers. But I think it involves more than that. I think it means giving diligent attention to our prayer lives. Preparation, I think, is part of it. How do you prepare yourself to pray? Do you have a prayer sheet? Do you have a prayer notebook where you keep records of specific requests, and when they were answered by God? Do you have some sheets to help you in worship, or in confession of sin? Do you have some things to help you? There's nothing wrong with that. As a matter of fact, I would urge it, because our minds can become blank, and then we'll see a brother or sister, and we had told them we were going to pray for something, and we didn't do it. So I think you take the church's prayer list, you take your own, make your own prayer list. Get the directory of the church and just go through names and things will pop into your mind as you see their names, that's what I do. And so you're watchful in prayer, you're alert and you're preparing for it. Another way to look at it, not just that you're awake, and not just that you have been diligent in preparing the prayer time, but that you're expecting God to answer. You're expecting Him to do something. Prayer is going to move the mighty hand of God, the Sovereign King of the universe. And just one movement from His hand is worth more than any of the other efforts we could put toward something. Recently I was watching a movie, it was done by an outreach, as an outreach by a church in Georgia, the movie's called Facing the Giants, maybe some of you have seen it. It's about an embattled football coach struggling in his life with various issues, very discouraged, and thinks that he's going to lose his job. A lot of things going on for him at home, struggling. And at a key moment in the film, a godly janitor who's spent much of the time just going from locker to locker putting his hands on the lockers and praying for these students. God bless those kind of people, the heroes that you never see, and the prayer warriors that do all these kind of things behind the scenes. But he felt God was leading him not to be behind the scenes anymore in this one area. And he came to the coach and he read some Scripture to the coach that was appropriate for the situation. That God had set before him an open door that no one could close, and that he needed to make the most of his opportunity as coach there. To bloom where it is planted. Well, he said, "God led me say that to you," and then he went off. Well, the coach is just sitting there a little bit stunned. Then he got up and he followed this man, and he said, "Did God tell you to come say that to me?" He said, "Yeah, I think He did, I believe He did." And he said, "Well, I want you to know I have been struggling with depression. I've been discouraged. But I've also been praying." Then the janitor said, "You know, I heard a story once about two farmers, both desperate for rain, it was a drought. Both of them prayed for rain, but only one one went out and prepared his fields. Now, which of those two are you?" That's very convicting. I guess God wasn't done using the janitor that day. Now, which of the two are you? Are you acting like God actually will answer your prayers? Take a step back, are you praying any such prayers that'd be worth answering? Anything specific for His kingdom and His glory. And second step, are you expecting Him to do it? Jesus said in Mark 11:24, "Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it and it will be yours." You're like, "Oh, Jesus, you need to be more careful, you know I was going to leave this to name it and claim it." Jesus just says it. We know in the analogy of Scripture, we are going to be bound in by the will of God, and frankly, we don't want anything but the will of God, that's what believe means. Faith is stepping into God's world as it really is, not creating an alternate universe. But He says, "If you believe you have it, you have it." As I was going over this sermon this morning, I said, "Do I pray like this?" And at that moment, I felt the Spirit just leading me to pray that someone would come here today who needed to hear the Gospel. I mean an outsider, as is mentioned here in Colossians, who's never come to faith in Christ. And I felt that the Lord was leading me to stop right at this point in my sermon and pray for that individual to come to faith in Christ. That they would look to Christ whose blood was shed on the cross for them, that they would receive forgiveness of their sins by simple faith in Christ. Will you all pray with me for that individual? Father, I prayed this morning that someone would come here who needed to hear the Gospel. And that today would be, for them, the day of salvation. And I trust you right now and ask that you would move in that person's heart, and that they would fear Judgement Day, and find in the Savior all of the love, and compassion, and mercy that they need to free them from a life of sin and from fear of death, and that they would come to trust in the Savior. I pray this in your name, Lord Jesus, amen. And I've been convicted by this. Do I pray like this? Do I trust God for actual things for His kingdom? Being watchful in prayer. And what about being thankful? When God answers that prayer, should we not go back and say, "Thank you, God, for doing it"? And when He answers many prayers, should we not in the relationship go back and say, "You did it, Lord. To God be the glory, thank you"? We should. It's part of the relationship. And so we need to go back with thankfulness. The Focus of Prayer: Gospel Success Now, the focus of prayer, verses 3 and 4, is Gospel success. "And pray for us, too," he says, "That God may open a door for our message so that we may proclaim the mystery of Christ for which I am in chains. Pray that I may proclaim it clearly as I should." This should be the center of our prayer life: What is God doing in the world? Why are we here? What are His purposes? And His purposes are to call out “from every tribe, and language, and people, and nation,” a multitude greater than anyone can count, and save them from their sins, and sanctify them by His Word, and glorify them, and make them just like Christ. And they will dwell with him forever and ever. That's what He's doing, that's big. We ought to pray big like that, then. “Our Father in Heaven, may your name be hallowed, and may your kingdom come, and may your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” I want to pray big things like that. And notice how the mighty Apostle Paul asks for prayer for help in this area. Look what he prays for, he says, "Pray for us, too. I need prayer. Pray for us, too, that God may open a door for our message." He's asking for prayer. He feels his weakness. "When I'm weak then I'm strong," he's not too strong to ask for prayer, he wants prayer. And look what he asked for, he asked for an open door for the message. A fair hearing of the Gospel. Specifically, it's a prayer that God would exert His sovereign power over the wills of unbelievers to get them to be open to the Gospel ministry. Does God have that kind of power? Can He actually turn the heart of a king or an emperor so that there is an opportunity for the Gospel? I tell you He can, He's done it again and again. Proverbs 21:1 says, "The king's heart is in the hand of the Lord, He directs it like a watercourse whichever way He chooses." It's happened again and again. The Lord granted Joseph favor in the eyes of his jailer. Genesis 39:21. The Lord granted Daniel favor in the eyes of the Babylonian officials so he didn't have to eat the food that would defile him. The Lord granted Nehemiah favor in the eyes of King Artaxerxes so he could go back and rebuild Jerusalem. Nehemiah 1:11. The Lord granted Esther favor in the eyes of her husband, though he had not invited her, and the penalty for coming in uninvited is death. Still, Esther 5:3, God granted her favor. Does God have the power to change the heart of a potentate? He does. It's happened again and again. I was reading in the church history the story of Columba, who was a sixth century Irish monk whose heart burned with missionary zeal, who established Iona as a training place for missionaries, Irish missionaries going out all over continental Europe. But one place that God had laid on his heart was Northern Scotland, where the fierce Picts were. These people were so tough, the Highlanders, Scots, that the Roman Empire didn't want to mess with them, and built Hadrian's Wall as a result. Did not want to take on the Picts. Well, Columba took them on, and he went into their country, and he went right to the main fortress at Inverness, and wants to see King Brude, and he wants to tell him the Gospel. Well, the king is stunned, and doesn't want to have anything to do with this man, and sends him away. Well, he doesn't go away. He sets up shop right outside the walls of the fortress, and just begins to fast and pray. Well, it isn't long before the king invites him back in, and listens to what he has to say. The door is opened for the Gospel, the king eventually came to faith in Christ, and many of those Picts did as well. Columba brought the Gospel to northern Scotland by fasting and prayer. Notice that Paul also asks for clarity in presenting the Gospel. The Gospel is infinitely deep. Paul was amazingly learned. At one point, someone had said, "You're out of your mind, Paul, your great learning is driving you insane." Some people have gone insane trying to read Romans 9 through 11, and trying to figure out what that means. So there are depths of the Gospel, there are deep concepts and thoughts, there's meat. But Paul is here praying for simplicity and clarity: "Pray that I might make it clear as I should." A similar prayer he requests in Ephesians for boldness. In Ephesians 6:19 and 20 he says, "Pray also for me, that whenever I open my mouth, words may be given me so that I will fearlessly make known the mystery of the Gospel for which I am an ambassador in chains. Pray that I may proclaim it fearlessly as I should." Again, he's putting his weakness out on the line: “If you don't pray for me, I might wimp out. I might be a coward at a key moment. I might turn away from a great Gospel opportunity. Pray for me that I might be bold.” Well, I think we ought to just apply this to each other. Let's pray for each other that so-and-so would have an open door for the Gospel, and that they would make it clear as they should, and that they would be bold and courageous. We pray this three-part prayer at our staff meetings: God, give me an opportunity to witness today, and give me the clarity to see it, and the boldness to take maximum opportunity of it. Pray that for yourself, that could change your life. God, give me a chance to witness today, and give me the eyes to see it, and the boldness and the heart, to take advantage of it. So that's what Paul prays for. Conversation in Action: A Carefully Observed Walk A Watching World The second aspect of conversation is just our daily lifestyle. Conversation in action, a daily observed walk. Look at verse 5. He says, "Be wise in the way you act toward outsiders, making the most of every opportunity." We are living our lives before a watching world. We're on a stage, and the world is watching us. And it's not by accident God has ordained it so. Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount, "You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither does anyone light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead, they put it up on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before men that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in Heaven." God has lit a light inside you, the light of the Gospel. You are the light of the world, He's going to put you up on a stand and let your light shine all around. You are on a stage, you are being watched. And what he's talking about here is, be very careful how you live in front of the unbelievers who are watching. Now, I believe, from this point forward in the section we're looking at today, everything that Paul says is geared toward producing, living in such a way that lost people will come to you and ask you about Jesus. That you live in such a way that they will come and say, "Please tell me what's going on in your life, I want to know." And there's a verse behind this. This is 1 Peter 3:15, it says, "Sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts, and always be prepared to give an answer to anyone who asks you to give a reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect, keeping a clear conscience." So in other words, be ready for business, open for business. Live in such a way that people are going to be attracted to you, and want to ask you about Jesus, or at least ask what's different about you, what is going on in your life. Like the Philippian jailer who brings Paul and Silas out in the middle of the night, trembling, falls in front of them and asks them this question: "Sirs, what must I do to be saved?" Wouldn't you love to have that happen to you this week? Maybe you don't want the public beating without a trial, or to be in the jail in the middle of the night or any of that, but maybe you would like somebody to fall down in some sense before you and say, "What must I do to be saved?" And how ready would you be to tell them the truth? The Need for Wisdom So that's what I think Paul's getting at. And first he says there's a need for wisdom. Paul says, "Be wise in the way you act toward outsiders," and then he says, literally, "Redeeming the time." You need to redeem the time. Now, last week I preached on slavery, and the idea is of a captive, someone in chains, and you pay redemption money, and get the captive out of chains. Well, how is time then like a kidnapped captive? Well, to some degree, because it says in Ephesians, "The days are evil," you've got to go rescue the day. If you are passive toward the day, you will lose it, it will be gone. You must aggressively go, as the Latin people put it, carpe diem. You have to go seize the day. Like David and his men had to go rescue their wives and children from the raiding party that came, the Amalekites that came, so also we have to go rescue the day. Redeem the day. Redeem the hour, redeem the day, or you will lose it, that's what he's getting at. George Whitefield, in effect, said, "There's no better way that I could obey the Scripture than by sharing the Gospel with somebody." And he said, George Whitefield said, "Woe to me if I should spend half an hour in a carriage with someone without sharing the Gospel of Christ." That's how we redeem the time. That's how we act in wisdom toward outsiders: Share the Gospel with them. The Need for Integrity And there's a need for integrity, because basically, you never know who's watching. Daniel had enemies who were watching him, he didn't know it. They watched him carefully to try to find some dirt on him so they could get him fired from his job. There was nothing to see. And they said, "We'll never find anything against this man, he's always at work, or praying, or doing something. The only way we can get him is with his prayer life," and that's what they tried to do. But they could not find any dirt on him. So we have to be people of integrity, living what we proclaim. Conversation in the Gospel: Speaking the Words of Life Speaking the Words of Life The third kind of conversation he talks about here is sharing the words of life, the Gospel, look what he says in verse 6: "Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone." Now, I just said a moment ago, we have to put our Christianity on display, we have to set a good example. But may I say to you, with all due respect, no one is going to get saved from their sins by watching what a good example you are of the Christian life. No one is going to get saved by watching how you live, not at all. God has ordained that it is word and not action that saves souls. Christ's actions, yes, but when it comes to us, we are to share the word of life. We are to speak the words of the Gospel. Romans 1:16 says, "I am not ashamed of the Gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes." It is the power. The Gospel message is the power of God for salvation. Later in that same book, Romans 10:17: "Faith comes by hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word of Christ." Or in James 1:21, "Humbly accept the word planted in you which can save you." So we need to be ready to share the message of the Gospel. Now, recently Andy, and Eric, and I went to a conference out at Ridgecrest, a Building Bridges conference, and Don Whitney was there. And he was talking about, how well do we know the Gospel? And he was teaching a Sunday school class, and he asked them, "Do you think you know the Gospel pretty well?" And they said, "We've been hearing the Gospel for years.” Longer than you, sonny! That kind of message. And he's like, "Alright, that's fine." So he passed out some sheets of paper and some pens. He said, "I want you to take 10 minutes, and I want you to write down the Gospel message. Just write it down. And boy, did they struggle. You see, they'd heard the Gospel so many times they could recognize it when they heard it, but they couldn't articulate it, they couldn't speak it. Some time ago, I memorized a quick four-part outline of the Gospel on these headings: God, man, Christ, response. What do we say about God? He is a king, a creator, a law-giver, a judge. He is also savior. What do we say about man? He is sinful, and separated from God, all of us, created in the image of God, but yet sinful. What do we want to say about Christ? He is the eternal Son of God, who came into this world, who shed His blood on the cross, died, was buried, the third day He was raised to life. He is the only savior for the world. And what do we say about response? You must repent and believe this good news for the salvation of your soul. Are you able to do that in your own different style? Can you communicate the Gospel so that when someone comes, your speech is filled with grace, seasoned with salt, you're able to communicate the Gospel. If not, then study. “Study to show yourself approved unto God, a workman who doesn't need to be ashamed, but who rightly divides the word of truth.” Gracious Speech Gracious speech. Now, when I think of gracious speech, I think at least it means this: Mannerly, okay? No coarse language, no gossip, no slander, no off-color jokes, no worldliness. Your speech should reflect a heart filled with Christ. So gracious speech, but more than that, filled with the words of grace, with Scripture. Memorize lots of Scripture. Fill your heart with it, and when you open your mouth, Scripture may flow out. Because whatever you fill your heart with, that's what's going to come out of your mouth. So there you stand at a beautiful mountain valley, or one of those scenic overlooks, there's some people, strangers near you. What comes out of your mouth at that moment? "Boy, isn't that beautiful?" Well, that's very common, anybody would say that. Why don't you try something like this: "You know that the Scripture says that ‘God's righteousness are like the majestic mountains?’ What do you think that means, that God's righteousness is like majestic mountains?" "Gee, I never thought of it." "Well, it says it in Psalm 36:6. " Well, there's a conversation starter. They might say, "Woah, what a weirdo!" They might. Or they might come back and talk to you, and be interested in what you have to say. Or perhaps you're discussing a sensational crime, and a trial, and an issue of crime and punishment is the topic. What could you say that would be gracious at that particular moment? You could say something like, "Only the grace of God in Christ could cover a crime like that." Something like that. And a realization that I could, if it weren't for God's grace, I could commit a crime like that, a humility. Let your conversation be full of grace. Or you're standing there at Kroger, at the produce section, or Food Lion. I'm not endorsing one or the other, please. You get into all kinds of difficulties. Harris-Teeter, what are the others? Anyway, you're at a supermarket, and there's the produce. And somebody's there and you're going through. You could be silent, you could grab your cucumbers, whatever, and you could go. Or you could redeem the time. Be wise in the way you act toward outsiders, and say something about Christ. And you'll say, "They'll think I'm weird!" Well, they might. Is it worth it to you, though, that you might actually get in a conversation with somebody and lead them to Christ? Is it worth it to run the risk that they'll think you're weird? "I'd rather they not think about me at all than that I might actually bring them to Christ and they'd spend eternity in the presence of God." Oh, don't do that. Pay the price. Say something about Christ. Let grace flow out. I love this one pastor who, whenever he was asked by his church people, "How are you doing?" he always answered the same way: "Better than I deserve." Well, that's a gracious answer. Better than I deserve. "What do you mean, better than I deserve? Are you some kind of secret murderer?" Say, "Well, in one sense I am. The Sermon on the Mount says that if you're angry at your brother, it's like murder." Whatever, get in a conversation! Challenge Satan's status quo, go after the lost people, that's what I'm urging. Salty Speech Now, what does it mean, "full of grace seasoned with salt"? Well, I spent a little time learning about salt. Actually, at Barnes & Noble, there's a whole book, a 400-page book on the history of salt. And you're thinking, why in the world would you buy a book like that? Well, you buy a book like that if you're an expository preacher coming to Colossians chapter 4:6 and you know you're going to have to say something about salt. And after a while, you read and you start learning some things about salt like, for example, it's the only rock that we eat. That's an interesting thought, isn't it? Are there any other rocks that you know that we eat? I don't know of any. It's indestructible by water and by fire. It's a fascinating substance, really. I asked my mother, who's a chemist, "What is salt used for in the body?" and she started getting into all these ionic transport systems, and I said, "I'm not going to tell the people that. I don't get it, so there's no point in communicating." But it's essential to the body. And when you sweat it goes out, you gotta take salt back in to live. But what did Paul mean? Now, that's the real question. And if you look at Scripture, salt is used in a variety of ways. For example, it's used to season or flavor food. And there's some kinds of food that are just tasteless without it. I was reading one of those Arabian Nights stories, and there's this sultan, and he's got these three daughters. And he wants the daughters to come into his court and express their love for him. Well, what kind of man would do that? But at any rate, the first two daughters come in, and they give a flowery speech, "You are the... " You know, all this. And then the third daughter comes, and she's quiet and more studious, and she says, "You are the salt in my food." And he's actually insulted, actually enraged, and he ends up banishing her. Well, some time later, he is traveling through, and he stops at a place for a meal. And the meal tastes terrible, bland. Well, guess who cooked it? It was his daughter. And she gets finally to make the point. You bring out the flavor in the food, alright? And so it is there's certain kinds of things, starches, potatoes, whatever, that without the salt, they're totally bland. So there's an issue of flavorful speech, something that's fascinating, something that's worth listening to, not bland. It could be that. Or it could refer to salt's preservative aspects. The fact that salt preserves meat, it's a desiccant, it dries out the meat so bacteria doesn't spread all over it. And back in the days before refrigeration, it enabled people to eat meat for long periods of time after it was slaughtered. And so it was an issue of purity, freedom from corruption. So let your conversation be pure conversation, let it be holy, let it stop gossip, let it stop slander. It comes to the salt block in you, and it just doesn't go any further, because you turn it around with a gracious statement, and then make it a Gospel opportunity. You're a salty person, and you're stopping the spread of corruption, because we're the salt of the earth. There's another aspect, too, it says that all grain offerings, in Leviticus 2:13, should be offered with salt. And so all of the grain offerings were offered with salt. Well, what does that refer to? It refers to a covenant of salt. It says, in Numbers 19, "A covenant of salt that God made with Israel." It says in Numbers 19, "I have made a covenant of salt with my people." He says in 2 Chronicles 13, that, "God gave the kingdom to David as an everlasting covenant, a covenant of salt." And so I think it goes from preservative to eternity. Something that's preserved for eternity cannot change. And so let your conversation bring people's minds up into God's eternal covenant, salvation through faith in Christ. Speak of eternal things, things worthwhile, things that are worthy of conversation. Let your conversation be rich. And so, therefore, I think you ought to ask questions of people. You ought to ask questions. Ask, "Do you ever think what happens when you die? What do you think happens when you die?" Or say, "Let's say you're on your deathbed, you're in your 80s, and you've had a successful life. And you're looking back at a successful life. What elements are in that successful life, how do you count success?" Or ask this question: "Why do you think so many lottery winners end up worse off at the end in their lives than they were before they won the lottery?" Ask a question like that. Or, "What image do you have of Heaven?" or, "What image do you have of Hell?" These kind of thoughts. Or this one: "Why do you think Jesus Christ had such an impact on human history?" Ask those kinds of questions. But let your conversation be full of grace, seasoned with salt. Reasoned Speech And why? So that you may know how to answer everyone, this is reasoned speech. Answer what? Well, they're going to ask you questions like this: "Why am I here? What is the meaning of life? What happens to me when I die? How can I get my sins forgiven?" Will you have an answer for them then? When you've lived this kind of life, and you've enticed them into the Gospel, they will ask you to give a reason for the hope that you have. Be ready and share the Gospel then. I want to close just with an exhortation. After worship today, we have a meeting, you heard it already announced. It's in the bulletin, Connection Partners, it is our attempt to reach out to visitors who come our church. We are privileged to have a steady stream of visitors to our church. Some of them that come are not believers yet. This is an opportunity for you, evangelistically, to get involved in the spread of the Gospel. Many people that come are already Christians, but many are not. Those that are already Christians may be looking for a church, they may be new to the area. It's a strategic ministry, but it's also a chance to share the Gospel. The more laborers we have for that harvest field, the fewer, or less burdened it is on any one person. Just like those that take time to pray during Sunday morning worship. So I'd urge you to give consideration to come to a relatively brief meeting, I guess it can't be that brief if there's going to be food. But at any rate, it's going to be brief enough to eat the food, and to discuss Connection Partners. And I would urge you to consider sacrificing some of your time in being part of our ministry to guests and visitors. Close with me in prayer.

This 130th episode is titled Up North, Then South.This is the last episode in which we take a look at The Church in Europe following the Enlightenment. The narrative is nowhere near exhausTIVE. It's more an exhaustING summary of Scandinavia, the Dutch United Provinces, Austria, and Italy. We've already looked at Germany, France, and Spain.The end of the 17th century proved to be a brutal time in Scandinavia. Some 60% of the population died from 1695-7 due to warfare and the disease and famine of its aftermath. As if they hadn't had enough misery, the Great Northern War of 1700–1721 then followed. In the desperation of the times, Lutherans provide devotionals offering hope and comfort, while calling for prayer and repentance.Along with northern Germany -- Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and Finland were Lutheran strongholds. Citizens were required to swear loyalty to a Lutheran State Church in league with absolutist monarchs.But during the Great Northern War, Swedish King Charles XII suffered a massive defeat by the Russian armies of Peter the Great. Sweden lost large tracts of land and the throne lost clout with the people. A so-called “Age of Liberty” followed that lasted most of the rest of the 18th century. The Swedish Parliament gained power and reformers gave a rationalist slant to Swedish education. They battled with Lutheran clergy who wanted to retain some  theology in the education of Sweden's young.Many returning captured Swedes imprisoned in Russia, had converted to Pietism by missionaries sent by Francke and the University at Halle we talked about last time. The soldiers became advocates for Pietism back home. Moravians also promoted revivals in Scandinavia.After a grab for power in 1772, Gustavus III nullified the Swedish Constitution restraining the reach of royal power. He imposed a new Constitution designed to reinforce Lutheranism as the basis of government. He said, “Unanimity in religion, and the true divine worship, is the surest basis of a lawful, concordant, and stable government.” But in 1781, limited toleration came to Sweden when other Protestant groups were once again allowed. Catholicism, however, remained banned.From 1609, when the Dutch won their liberty from Spain, until Louis XIVth's invasion in 1672, the Dutch United Provinces had its “Golden Age” and enjoyed what Simon Schama called an “embarrassment of riches.” This was due mostly to their lucrative international trade and free market economy. The Dutch eschewed the traditional monarchy dominating the rest of Europe in favor of a far more egalitarian Parliamentary system.Amsterdam was a thriving commercial and cultural center. Its population more than doubled from 1600 to 1800. Amsterdam's docks were always packed. Its warehouses stuffed with goods from all over the world and the trade of the massive and powerful Dutch East India Company. From its earliest days, this trading enterprise supported Reformed missionary work at posts in the Malay Archipelago, Sri Lanka, and South Africa. In July 1625, Dutch traders established New Amsterdam, later known as New York City.The United Provinces were intellectual a religious crossroads for Europe through its universities, publishing houses, and churches. Protestant students from Germany, Finland, and France flocked there to study at the University of Leiden and other schools.The main task of the faculty at the University of Leiden was the study of Scriptures. Its chief professor was Joseph Scaliger whose knowledge of the classics and biblical textual criticism made him one of Europe's premier scholars. Others notable scholars were scholars included Arminius and Gomarus.As many of our listeners know, the 17th century was the Dutch golden age of art. Thousands of painters created millions of paintings with scenes ranging from battles and landscapes, to churches, still life, and portraits. Among the more famous masters were Rembrandt, Frans Hal, and Vermeer. But by the 18th century, the quality of Dutch art had somewhat fallen.The Dutch Reformed Church affirmed the 1561 Belgic Confession of Faith. It addressed topics ranging from the Trinity, the work of Christ, and the sacraments, to Church-State relations. Although the Reformed Church was the “official” faith, the United Provinces were known for their toleration of other groups. That didn't mean there weren't heated theological rows. Two parties emerged in the Dutch Reformed Church: the “precise” Calvinists who wanted churches to possess binding doctrinal authority, and the “loose or moderate” Calvinists who desired greater freedom of religious thought.The Dutch Provinces often served as a haven for those seeking relief from persecution in other parts of Europe. Amsterdam was a notable home to a large Jewish community. Some 70,000 French Huguenots took refuge there and married into the populace. An Anabaptist community flourished. Religious dissidents like Baruch Spinoza and Anthony Collins, an exile from England, weren't much respected but they were at least not beat up.Many Europeans admired the Dutch Republic for its successful war of liberation from the Spanish, its egalitarian government, as well as its vital free market economy. By 1675, there were fifty-five printing presses and 200 booksellers in Amsterdam, adding to the burgeoning base of middle-class scholars.During the 18th century, the Dutch, while continuing to be officially Reformed, saw an increase in the number of those they'd been less tolerant toward; namely=Catholics, Dissenters, and Jews. Revivals frequently passed through more rural domains. In 1749 and 50, emotionally-charged revival meetings took place with the ministry of Gerard Kuypers. Villages in the Netherlands and nearby Germany experienced similar revivals.In a foreshadowing of Intelligent Design and the fine-tuning of the universe arguments, a number of Dutch theologian-scientists wrote works in which they sought to demonstrate that the intricacy of designs in nature prove God's existence. Until the 1770s, the Reformed Church played a dominant role in Dutch public life. Some 60% of the population was Reformed, 35% Catholic, 5% percent Anabaptists and Jews.There really never was a Dutch version of the Enlightenment. Most of its participants never espoused a militant atheism, but sought to accommodate their faith to educational reforms and religious toleration. They appreciated the new science and advances in technology.Now we turn back to Geneva; adopted home of John Calvin.During the early 1750s, Geneva was the home of both Voltaire and Rousseau, well-known Enlightenment thinkers and scoffers at Christianity.Several of Geneva's pastors proposed a reasonable and tolerant form of Christianity that warmed to some of the more liberal Enlightenment ideas. This was a huge turn from the position of Francis Turretin who in the mid-17th century, led the Reformed and conservative theologians of Geneva to the idea that the City was a theocracy with God as its ruler. Turretin said the government ought defend “the culture of pure religion and the pious care of nurturing the church.” Turretin's party defended the Masoretic pointing of the Hebrew text, making this belief binding on the Swiss church. These pastors feared if Hebrew vowels were left out, the Hebrew words of the Old Testament were susceptible to interpretations that varied from those they approved. They also tried to force pastoral candidates to repudiate the doctrine of “universal grace” being championed by an emerging class of theologians.But in 1706 Turretin's son, Jean, repudiated his father's work and embraced a more liberal theology that advocated the role of reason in determining truth. He denied his father's soteriology, doctrine of salvation, and eschewed limited atonement. By the 1720s, Arminianism had taken firm root in Geneva.In Feb, 1670, the Hapsburg, Leopold I, Holy Roman Emperor and a devout Roman Catholic, ordered all Jews to leave Austrian lands. Vienna became a major center of cultural. After the defeat of the Turks, it's population boomed, growing from about 100K in 1700 to twice that 80 years later. The construction of the Schwarzenberg and Schönberg Palaces enhanced its prestige while the music of Haydn and Mozart made Vienna famous across Europe.The Hapsburg Emperors Joseph I and Charles VI supported Jesuit missionary efforts to convert Protestants. Jesuits created a baroque Catholic culture in Austria and Bohemia with the construction of magnificent churches in cities and the countryside.Though loyally Catholic, the Hapsburgs rejected the pope's interference in Austria's religious and political life. They'd proven their devotion to Rome when in 1683, Leopold saved The Church from the Turks. Austria was the “rock” on which the Catholic Church was built. It was the Hapsburgs who saved the faith form the infidel, not the pope.In October of 1740, at the death of her father, Maria Theresa took the titles Archduchess of Austria, Queen of Bohemia, and Queen of Hungary. In 1745, her husband, Francis Stephen, became the Holy Roman Emperor under the name Francis I. Disturbed by the Prussian Frederick II's seizure of Silesia, Maria Theresa attempted to reform the military and governmental structures of Austria after Enlightenment ideals. She became the proponent of what's called “Enlightened Absolutism.” At the same time, she was ready to apply repressive measures against those who resisted her reforms. On one occasion she warned that he is “no friend to humanity who allows everyone his own thoughts.”Maria Theresa was a devout Catholic influenced by counselors favorable to Jansenism. With the advice of her chancellor, she tried to establish a national Catholic Church in which the pope had authority only in spiritual matters.Maria Theresa did not allow Protestants to sell their property or leave her lands. She required those who refused to convert to Catholicism to emigrate to Transylvania, where Protestantism was permitted. Nor did Maria Theresa intercede to save the Jesuits when their society was dissolved. She allowed 2000 Protestants to live in Vienna, but she forced the city's Jews to live in a ghetto.Upon the death of Maria Theresa, Joseph II passed Edicts of Toleration that allowed greater freedoms for non-Catholics and continued the policy of subjugating Church power to that of the State. He confiscated the property of over 700 monasteries, displacing 27,000 monks and nuns and used the proceeds to build new churches.Like Germany, during the 18th century, Italy didn't exist as a nation as we know it. It was a hodge-podge of various principalities. They didn't even share a common language.The population of the peninsula grew from eleven to fifteen million in the first half of the century. But in the 1760's a severe famine struck Florence, Rome, and Naples.The region of Tuscany was a hot-bed of the Jansenists who, as you'll remember, were a kind of Calvinist-Catholics.A handful of Italian academics promoted rationalist views in the Catholic church, eliminating what they regarded as backward features of Italian culture. But the Enlightenment just didn't gain the traction in Italy it did in the rest of Europe.The popes of the 18th century had difficulty dealing with the now powerful secular rulers of Europe, no longer threatened by Church power or political machinations.Even the Papal States were frequently invaded by foreign powers. Conquerors only left after they'd secured hefty ransoms. Popes were forced to make concessions that made their weakness evident to all. Despite that, Rome continued to attract large numbers of pilgrims, students, and artists. Pilgrims hoped for a blessing from the Pope or a healing while visiting the many shrines.Then there were the youth on the Grand Tour, as it was called. They were most often graduates of Cambridge, Oxford, the University of Paris or some other school who headed to Italy to gain knowledge in classical culture. In 1776, Samuel Johnson underscored the importance of Italy as a destination for those making the Grand Tour: “A man who has not been in Italy, is always conscious of an inferiority. The grand object of traveling is to see the shores of the Mediterranean. On those shores were the four great Empires of the world; the Assyrian, the Persian, the Grecian, and the Roman.”Several popes supported the establishment of academies, colleges, and universities and encouraged general scholarship. Under their generous patronage Rome's artistic riches in painting, sculpture, music, and monuments flourished. Pope Clement XI initiated plans for the Trevi Fountain and the Spanish Steps in the early 18th century.But to give you an idea of how the tables had turned and now kings dominated popes, it was this same Clement, who became a pawn in the hands of Emperor Joseph I and Louis XIV. Louis forced Clement to issue a papal bull dealing with the Jesuit-Jansenist controversy.Papal prestige suffered seriously during the French Revolution. Pope Pius VI was obliged to condemn the “Declaration of the Rights of Man” as well as the “Civil Constitution of the Clergy.” This split the French between those revolutionaries who wanted to throw off the Absolutist government of the French monarchy but maintain their Catholicism, and those French who wanted to be done with religion as well.Bottom Line: The Enlightenment witnessed serious challenges to both the papacy's temporal and spiritual authority.

This 126th episode of CS is titled, Yet Again.Donations to keep the CS host site up are welcome and needed. You can do so at sanctorum.us. Just look for the “Donate” link.In the last episode, we considered the Second Great Awakening and ended with this . . .By the 1850s the United States was thriving, largely because of the benefits brought by the Awakening. The Mid-West was being developed, the economy booming. People made 18% interest on their investments. But as is so often the case, economic prosperity turned into a neglect of the Spirit. The pursuit of pleasure replaced the pursuit of God. The nation was politically divided over the issue of slavery.  And it wasn't just States that were divided. Churches and denominations split over itInto this national argument that ended up tearing the country in two was added a dose of religious turmoil.A veteran and farmer named William Miller rediscovered the doctrine of the 2nd Coming. For generations, most of the Church considered Bible prophesy a closed book. Miller began teaching on the Return of Christ. But he made the mistake many have and said Christ would return in 1844. About a million people followed his views.  When it didn't happen, they were bitterly disillusioned because they'd sold their homes, businesses, and farms. Skeptics piled on the fanaticism of the Millerites and fired up a new round of mocking faith.  Then, in 1857, things began to change.Another revival began as a movement of prayer. It was leaderless, though it produced several notable leaders.In September 1857, a businessman named Jeremiah Lanphier printed up a leaflet on the importance of prayer. It announced there would be a weekly prayer meeting at Noon, in the upper room of the North Dutch Reformed Church in Manhattan. When the time for the first meeting came, only Lanphier was there. He prayed anyway and at 12:35, six more businessmen on their lunch break came up the stairs. They prayed till 1 pm. As they broke up to return to work, they agreed they'd been so moved, they'd meet the following week at the same time and place.The next week, their number doubled to 14. They sensed something special was about to happen and agreed to meet every day, Monday-Saturday in that room at Noon. A few weeks later the room overflowed and they filled the basement, then the main sanctuary. A nearby Methodist Church opened its doors for noontime prayer. When it filled, Trinity Episcopal Church opened. Then church after church filled with people praying at noon, Monday-Saturday; mostly businessmen on their lunch break.Throughout the remainder of 1857, prayer meetings spread throughout the States. In Feb. 1858, New York newspaper editor Horace Greeley sent a reporter out to cover the story of the growing movement. The reporter went by horse and buggy and was able to make a dozen stops during the noon hour. He estimated there were over 6000 businessmen praying at those stops. Greeley was so surprised he made the story the next day's headline. Other papers didn't want to be outdone, so they began to report on the revival.The publicity further fanned the flames and more began showing up. Soon every auditorium and hall in downtown NY was filled.  Then, theaters filled.We might wonder what were these prayer meetings like. They were run by laymen, not professional clergy. Pastors were often present but did not conduct the meetings. They might be asked to open pray or read a scripture, but then the meeting was turned over to fifty minutes or more of prayer.There was a remarkable sense of unity that marked the meetings. Those who attended came from different churches but were cautious about debating doctrines. There was more a concern to focus on the things they agreed on. They were there to pray and that's what they did.At one prayer meeting in Michigan led by a layman, he said, “I see my pastor and the Methodist minister are here. Will one of you read a scripture and the other pray, then we'll get started.”  They did, then the laymen said, “I'm not used to this kind of public and impromptu prayer so we'll follow the example we've read about in the NY papers. We have so many here today please write your request down then pass them to the front. We'll read them one at a time, and pray over each one.”The first request said, “A praying wife asks the prayers of this company for the conversion of her husband who's far from God.” (That's certainly a common request.) But immediately a blacksmith stood up and said, “My wife prays for me. I must be that man. I need to be converted. Would you please pray for me?” A lawyer said, “I think my wife wrote that note because I know I'm far from God.”  Five men all claimed the request was surely for them. All were converted in a matter of just a few minutes.This was common at the beginning of the revival. People were converted during the prayer meetings. They'd simply express their need for salvation then would be prayed for by the rest.One minister stood up and said he'd stayed till 3 PM the day before answering the questions of those who wanted Christ. He announced his church would be open each evening from then on for the preaching of the Gospel. Soon, every church was holding similar meetings.As the revival spread across the States, 10,000 were converted each week. In Newark, NJ, of a population of 70,000; 2,785 were brought to faith in 2 months. At Princeton University, almost half the students came to Christ and half of those entered full-time ministry.The revival swept the colleges of the nation.On Feb. 3rd, 1858 in Philadelphia, a dozen men moved their daily prayer meeting from the outskirts of the city to downtown. They met at the James Theater, the largest in The City. A couple weeks later sixty were attending. By the end of March, 6,000 were literally crammed in.That Summer, churches united to hold mass services. They erected big-top tents and conducted evangelistic meetings that thousands flocked to. In Ohio, 200 towns reported 12,000 converts in just two months. In Indiana, 150 small towns saw 4,500 come to Christ.In two years, of a national population of 30 million, 2 million made a profession of faith.Edwin Orr remarks that this points up the difference between Evangelism and Revival. In evangelism, the evangelist seeks the sinner. In revival, sinners come running to God. It was during this Revival that a young shoe salesman went to the Sunday School director of the Congregational Church in Chicago and said he wanted to teach a class. He was turned down because there were sixteen ahead of him waiting to teach. They put him on the wait-list. He told the director, “I want to do something NOW.”The director said, “Okay – start a class.”  He asked, “How?”He was told to “Go get boys off the street, take them to the country and teach them how to behave, then bring them in.”He went out to the alleys, gathered up a dozen street urchins and took them to the beach on Lake Michigan. He taught them Bible games and Scripture. Then brought them to the church where he was given a closet to hold his class.  That was the beginning of the ministry of Dwight Lyman Moody who went on to preach all over the US and England and led tens of thousands to Christ.Today, we're accustomed to the secular press giving a cold shoulder to the things of God. That's not new; it's usually that way. Even during times of revival, the world tends to stand back and wait for it to pass. They may give grudging acknowledgment of the good fruit revival brings, but they always dig up some critic who dismisses it as religious fanaticism and emotionalism.  So the Revival of 1857-8 stands out because the secular press received it with enthusiasm. Maybe because it was a movement that began in the sophisticated urban centers of the nation and spread their first. It was called The Businessman's Revival. These weren't backwoods, country hicks who were “getting religion.” They were educated, literate, successful people being profoundly changed for the better. In a day when nearly everyone read the newspaper, they were familiar with the revival because it consistently made headlines. There was near-universal approval of it.Yes, it had a few critics, but their objections were dismissed as the grousing of unreasonable skeptics and the envious. The Anglicans were at first against it, until their churches began filling with seekers; then they approved of it as they saw its glorious effect. The same happened among the Lutherans.The prayer meetings were marked by order. And the conversions were as frequent among the older and more mature members of a community as the younger.It quickly spread up into Canada, then across the Atlantic to Ireland, Scotland, and England where conservative estimates say 10% of the population was brought to faith in Christ.  In London, every theater and auditorium was filled for prayer. It was during this time Charles Spurgeon built the Metropolitan Tabernacle and Hudson Taylor started the China Inland Mission.  Just a mile from where Taylor started, William Booth formed the Salvation Army.All of these came out of the Revival of 1857-9. The revival spilled over into Europe and reached India. The Dutch Reformed Church of South Africa still celebrates the revival for the huge impact it had on them. Jamaica was covered as were numerous other cities and nations.What I'd like to note as we end this episode is the date of this revival. Its peak was from 1857-60. A few years later the US was torn in two by the Civil War; a bloody chapter in my nation's history. Many of those who died in the war were saved in the Revival.This seems to be a consistent pattern of revival; that it takes place just prior to a major war. Dr. Orr says that this has been a consistent pattern throughout our nation's history.The First Great Awakening occurred shortly before the Revolutionary War. The Second before the War of 1812. The Revival of 1857-8 before the Civil War. The Welsh Revival that so affected Great Britain, Europe, and the US came right before WWI. It's as though God pours out His Spirit to reap a harvest before evil falls and there's a great loss of life.

This episode is titled Colonies.The 16th C saw the growth of the Spanish and Portuguese overseas empires. The Spanish Empire included Mexico, extending well into what is now the western half of North America. In the 17th C, other Europeans began their own empire-building. The most successful of the new colonial powers was Great Britain. Among its first overseas enterprises were the thirteen colonies in North America. Though we've already talked about the settling of Plymouth and the Puritan settlements of Massachusetts, we'll do a little review.The first British colonial ventures in North America failed. In 1584, Sir Walter Raleigh was granted a charter for colonization. He named the area Virginia, after the Virgin Queen Elizabeth. But his first two ventures failed. The first group of settlers returned to England, while the second disappeared.Then, in 1607 the first permanent colonization of Virginia began at Jamestown, named after the new British King James. There was a chaplain among them since the Virginia Company who sponsored the venture hoped to establish the Church of England in the new land and to offer its services both to the settlers and Indians. It also hoped the new colony would halt Spanish expansion, which was feared for its spread of the dreaded “popery,” as Puritans called Catholicism. But the colony's main purpose was economic rather than religious. The Church of England never had a bishop in Virginia or in any of the other colonies. The stockholders of the Virginia Company simply hoped trade with the Indians, along with whatever crops the settlers grew, would bring a profit.The founding of Virginia took place at the high point of Puritan influence in the Church of England. // Several of the stockholders and settlers believed the colony should be ruled by Puritan principles. Its early laws required attendance at worship twice a day, strict observance of Sunday as a day of rest and worship, and the prohibition of profanity and immodesty. But King James detested Puritans, and would not allow his colony to be ruled by them. A war with the native Americans in 1622 became the excuse to bring Virginia under his direct rule. After that, Puritan influence waned. Later Charles I, following James's anti-Puritan policy, carved out a large part of Virginia for a new colony called Maryland and placed it under the Catholic proprietor, Lord Baltimore. Maryland was intended to be a Roman Catholic enclave in the British North American colonies. While many Catholics did move there, Protestants outnumbered them.The Puritan Revolution in England made little impact on Virginia. The colonists were more interested in growing the new cash crop of tobacco and opening new lands for its cultivation than in the religious strife going on back in merry old England. Puritan zeal lost its vigor in the midst of economic prosperity. One of the things that led to this spiritual decline was the acceptance of slavery.Tobacco is a labor-intensive crop. The importation of cheap labor in the form of African slaves allowed the colonists to grow the tons of tobacco now all the rage in Europe. But the Protestant work ethic that lay at the heart of so much of the Puritan mindset was gutted by slavery. Simply put, Puritan colonists lost touch with why the Puritans back in England wanted to reform the government and Church of England.Prior to Abolition, the Church of England neglected evangelizing slaves. They did so because of an ancient principle prohibiting Christians from holding fellow believers in slavery. If a slave got saved, his owner was obliged to free her/him. Then, in 1667, a law was passed saying baptism didn't change a slave's legal status as the property of his owner.While the new and emerging American aristocracy of Virginia remained Anglican, many in the lower classes turned to dissident movements. When strict measures were taken against them, hundreds migrated to Catholic Maryland, where there was greater religious freedom. The Quakers and Methodists took turns making successful forays into Virginia's church scene.Other colonies were founded south of Virginia. The Carolinas, granted by the crown to a group of aristocratic stockholders in 1663, developed slowly. To encourage immigration, the proprietors declared religious freedom, which attracted dissidents from Virginia and England. It didn't take long before the people who settled in the new colonies claimed little to no religious affiliation other than a generic “Christian.”Georgia was founded for two over-arching reasons. The first was to halt Spanish expansion. The second was to serve as an alternative for England's overcrowded debtors' prisons. At the beginning of the 18th C, there were many who wanted to help the sorry lot of those in England who'd fallen into poverty and couldn't get out. One of the leaders of this campaign was a military hero named James Oglethorpe. He thought a colony ought to be founded in North America to serve as an alternative to the imprisonment of debtors. A royal charter was granted in 1732, and the first convicts arrived the next year. To these, others were soon added, along with a large group of religious refugees. Although Anglicanism was the official religion of Georgia, it made little impact on the colony. The failure of the Wesleys as Anglican pastors in the colony was typical of others. The Moravians had a measure of success, although their numbers were never large. The most significant religious movement in the early years of Georgia was the response to Whitefield's preaching. By the time of his death in 1770, he'd left his stamp on much of Georgia's religious life. Later, Methodists, Baptists, and others harvested what he'd sown.As we've seen in previous episodes, it was farther north, at Plymouth and around Boston that Puritanism made its greatest impact. When Roger Williams was banished, he settled Providence, around which the colony of Rhode Island eventually coalesced.The Hutchinsons and their supporters started Connecticut.The Puritans, who baptized their children, were influenced by the Pietistic belief in the necessity of a conversion experience in order to be a genuine Christian. The question then rose; “Why do we baptize children if people don't become Christians till they are converted?” Wouldn't it be wiser to wait till someone was converted, then dunk ‘em – like, BTW, the Baptists do in Rhode Island? Some wanted to follow this new course. But that clashed with the Puritan goal of founding a Christian society, one in covenant with God and guided by biblical principles. A Christian commonwealth is conceivable only if, as in ancient Israel, one becomes a member by birth, so that the civil and the religious communities are the same. So children HAD to be baptized because that's how you become part of the Church, and the Church and society were one and the same, just as in ancient Israel they entered the covenant by circumcision as infants.To make matters even MORE complicated à If infants were baptized so as to make them  “children of the covenant,” what was to be done with infants born of baptized parents who never had a conversion experience?Many came to the conclusion there needed to be a kind of “halfway covenant,” that included those who were baptized but had no personal conversion experience. The children of such people were to be baptized, for they were still members of the covenant community. But only those who had experienced a conversion were granted full membership in the church and were vested with the power to participate in the process of making decisions.This controversy engendered bitter arguments and monumental ill-will which turned the original optimism of the settlers into a dark foreboding. The tension over the Half-Way Covenant spilled over into new debates over how churches ought to be governed and over relations between local congregations who took different sides in the controversies that began to swirl. The majority settled on a form of church government called Congregationalism. They managed to maintain a grip on doctrinal orthodoxy by adhering to the Westminster Confession.As mentioned, the main center of Roman Catholicism in the North American British colonies was Maryland. In 1632, Charles I granted Cecil Calvert, whose noble title was Lord Baltimore, rights of colonization over a region claimed by Virginia. Calvert was Catholic, and the grant was made by Charles in an attempt to garner Catholic support. Catholics in England wanted a colony where they could live without the restrictions they faced at home. Since it was politically unwise to establish a purely Catholic colony, it was decided Maryland would be a realm of religious freedom.The first settlers arrived in 1634, with only a tenth being Catholic aristocrats. The other nine-tenths were their Protestant servants. Tobacco quickly became the colony's economic mainstay, giving rise to large, prosperous plantations. Maryland was governed by Catholic landowners, but the majority of its residents were Protestants. Whenever the shifting political winds in Britain gave opportunity, Protestants sought to wrest power from the Catholic aristocracy. They succeeded when James II was overthrown. Anglicanism then became the official religion of Maryland and Catholic rights were restricted.Because of the religious liberty practiced as policy in Pennsylvania, a good number of Catholics settled there. Catholicism then made significant gains after the Stuarts were restored to the throne in England. But after the fall of James II, the growth of Catholicism in all thirteen colonies was restricted.The colonies of New York & New Jersey, weren't, at first, religious refuges for any particular group. Pennsylvania was founded as a home for Quakers. But not solely so. William Penn envisioned the colony as a place of religious freedom for all. The same was true for Delaware, which Penn purchased from the Duke of York, and was part of Pennsylvania until 1701.The religious history of New Jersey is complex. East New Jersey leaned toward the strict Puritanism of New England, while the West favored the tolerance of the Quakers. Sadly, many Quakers in New Jersey became a slaveholding aristocracy whose relations with the more traditional abolitionist Quakers of Pennsylvania became strained.What became New York was first colonized by the Dutch, whose East India Company established headquarters in Manhattan, and whose Reformed Church came with them. In 1655, they conquered a rival colony the Swedes founded on the Delaware River, then they were in turn conquered by the British in 1664 in a minor contest. What had been New Netherland became New York. The Dutch who stayed, most of them it turned out, became British; which they happily consented to, since their homeland hadn't given them support. The British replaced the Dutch Reformed Church with the Church of England, whose only members were the governor's party until more British arrived and settled.We end this episode noting religious motivations played an important role in the founding of several of the British colonies in America.  Although at first, some were intolerant of religious diversity, time softened that policy, and the colonies tended to emulate the example of Rhode Island and Pennsylvania, where religious freedom existed from their inception. Such tolerance eased the natural tensions that rival colonies had as they vied for economic prosperity. The colonies also witnessed from afar the religious tensions ripping the mother country apart. That may have moved them to cool their intolerance in favor of a more liberal policy of religious freedom. But other factors were at work that combined to erode the religious fervor of the early settlers of the thirteen colonies. Slavery, the social inequality of a plantation-based economy, the exploitation of Indians and their lands, combined to work against the conscience of the English settlers. They found it difficult to follow the pattern of New Testament Christianity while engaging in practices they knew violated the Spirit of Christ. They entered a phase of national life where a desire for wealth eclipsed the conviction of the Spirit. The result was a spiritual malaise that deadened the religious fervor of the colonies.But as we've seen repeatedly in our study of Church History, a period of spiritual declension either resolves in widespread apostasy or spiritual renewal. What would it be for the British colonies in North America? We find out, in our next episode.A donation of any amount to keep CS up and running is appreciated. You can donate by going to the sanctorum.us page and following the link. Thanks.

This episode of CS is titled, Back in the East – Part 2Last time we took a brief look at the Jesuit missions to the Far East; namely Japan, China, Vietnam and India.We encountered the revolutionary approach to mission work of Alessandro Valignano and his spiritual heirs, Michele Ruggieri and Matteo Ricci. Their accomodationist approach to evangelism, where the Gospel was communicated by seeking to build a cultural bridge with the high civilizations of the Far East, was officially suppressed by Rome, even though it had amazing success in planting a healthy and vibrant church. So healthy was the Church in Japan it came under fire from a fierce resurgence in Japanese nationalism that expelled the Jesuits and persecuted the Church, driving it underground.From the dawn of the 17th C, both Dutch and English trading interests moved into Asia. Their commercial and military navies dominated those of other European nations.The Dutch established bases in Indonesia and created a center at Jakarta. The Dutch East India Company was founded in 1602, and carried the Dutch Reformed Church to the East Indies. But don't think this means the Dutch conducted missionary work among indigenous peoples. It merely means they carried their religious institution with them and built chapels so Dutch nationals had a place to worship when doing business there.  Any converts from among the native population was by accident, not any kind of planned outreach. Dutch interests in the Far East were exclusively commercial.The English equivalent of the Dutch East India Company was, the creatively named à English East India Company. Though the directors of the Company were suspicious of missionaries, they appointed chaplains to their trading communities. This provided an opening for those with missionary vision in England and India, such as Parliamentarian William Wilberforce and Charles Grant, an employee of the company.Two outstanding East India Company chaplains were Henry Martyn and Claudius Buchanan. Martyn was a leading Cambridge intellect and winner of numerous academic prizes. He and other Cambridge students were influenced by the long ministry of Charles Simeon, whose preaching urged that the Gospel be taken to All Peoples. Martyn was a brilliant linguist and translator. He was appointed a chaplain in 1805, translated the NT into Urdu and Persian and prepared an Arabic version before his early death from tuberculosis at 31. His Indian assistant, Abdul Masih, converted from Islam to become a Christian missionary and advocate of the Faith. He was ordained in 1825 as the first Indian Anglican clergyman. Many others were inspired by Martyn's life of scholarship and devotion.William Carey, often regarded as the father of Protestant English missions, was both a shoemaker and Baptist preacher in Northamptonshire. He arrived in India in 1793. He was soon joined by 2 other Baptist giants, Joshua Marshman and William Ward, making what came to be known as the ‘Serampore Trio.' Serampore being the region where they lived and worked.  The trio greatly admired the Moravians and shaped their community on the Moravian model.Carey's passage to India had been denied by the East India Company, the de facto government of English holdings in India, with their own hired army enforcing their will on the regions they operated. That would be like Amazon being the City Council and Law Enforcement for Seattle. Later British colonies and India came under control of the Crown. The East India Company opposed Carey's plan to take the Gospel to the Indians. Chaplains for the British in India was fine, but they didn't want to foment hostility with the faiths of their trading partners. Carey had ONE goal in going to India; to evangelize the lost. His passion to raise support in England for foreign missions led to his being derided by critics like Sydney Smith, a clergyman and author of satire who wrote for the Edinburgh Review.But by steady perseverance, monumental labor at biblical translation, longsuffering through family tragedies and the loss of precious manuscripts by fire, Carey faced down all critics, became Professor of Sanskrit at Fort William College and earned the accolade from Bishop Stephen Neill, himself a missionary in India: “In the whole history of the Church, no nobler man has ever given himself to the service of the Redeemer.”For North Americans, an equivalent figure to Carey as a pioneer was the great missionary to Burma, Adoniram Judson. Judson received his inspiration to become a missionary from reading the sermons of Claudius Buchanan in 1809. After ordination as a Congregationalist minister, he applied to the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. On his voyage to India, he and his wife adopted a Baptist statement of Faith. On arrival in India he was baptized, having made his change of mind known to William Carey. He was refused permission to work by the East India Co as a Baptist missionary in India but began work in Rangoon in 1813. His work among the Karen people met with rousing success. The first Karen to be baptized was Ko Tha Byu, who came from a background of violent crime. Byu became a notable evangelist. The Karen became the largest Christian group of the region. In modern Myanmar they number 200,000 Christians in over 1,000 churches. Judson himself became a missionary icon and hero in mid-19th C North America.China closed its doors to foreigners of all kinds after imperial edicts against Christian preaching in 1720. Robert Morrison was the lone Protestant missionary from 1807, often at risk of his life. Although the East India Co was hostile to his mission, in 1809 he was employed by them as an interpreter so he could remain on Chinese soil. With the help of William Milne, he translated the entire Bible into Chinese and created a Chinese dictionary, which became a standard work for language studies. He and Milne founded an Anglo-Chinese school in Malacca.But any missionary incursion into wider China was impossible until the treaties of the mid-19th C opened the country by slow degrees.First, the so-called ‘treaty ports' became accessible in 1842 in the Treaty of Nanking, forced on China by British commercial interests. The Chinese were desperate for opium from India, supplied by the British, a major source of revenue.A bit later, the Treaty of Tientsin opened the interior to missionaries, preparing the way for the China Inland Mission.James Hudson Taylor was born in Yorkshire, England to a devout Methodist family. He trained as a doctor, but, before he qualified, offered himself as a missionary to the China Evangelization Society. Because of the political conditions in China during the pro-Christian Taiping Rebellion, he was sent to Shanghai in 1853.Hudson Taylor was inspired by Karl Gutzlaff, who'd travelled to the Chinese interior between 1833-9 as a freelance missionary.Gutzlaff was a German educated at a Moravian school. Drawn to the Far East by the urge to see China won to Christ, he began with the Netherlands Missionary Society in 1824 by serving in Thailand where he translated the Bible into Thai in just 3 years.In 1828 he broke with Netherlands Missionary Society because they wouldn't send him to China.  From his perspective, that's why he was in the Far East. So, he became a freelance missionary, distributing Christian literature along the coast. He became an interpreter for the East India Co in Shanghai and helped negotiate the Treaty of Nanjing. He recruited Chinese nationals as evangelists to the interior and raised funds for their support through his writings in Europe, only to find that many of his recruits had deceived him and taken the money for other purposes. Although discredited in the eyes of some, Gutzlaff's strategy of using nationals as Christian workers was sound. No one doubted his missionary zeal. Hudson Taylor looked on him as the ‘grandfather' of the China Inland Mission and its work in the interior provinces.Hearkening back to the accomodationist policy of Valignano, Taylor experimented with identification in Chinese dress and the ‘queue'; that is, the pigtail hairstyle worn by Chinese men. But Taylor caught grief from other members of the missionary community, by his “going native” as it was called. In 1857, he resigned from the China Evangelization Society he'd been working with. Stirred deeply by the needs of the Chinese of the interior, Taylor founded the China Inland Mission in 1865, aiming to put 2 missionaries in each province, recently open to foreigners after the Treaty of Tientsin. He was now a fully qualified doctor and married to Maria Dyer, daughter of a missionary and a leader in her own right, he set out with a party of 16 from London to Shanghai in 1866, narrowly avoiding total loss by shipwreck.From the beginning the CIM was to be a so-called ‘faith mission', with no public appeals for funds; and its missionaries accepted the absolute, if gently applied, authority of Hudson Taylor, described by some as the ‘Ignatius Loyola of Protestant missions.'The CIM came to number over 800 missionaries, including Methodists, Baptists, Anglicans, Presbyterians and others. It planted churches that had a membership of some 80,000 by 1897. The public profile of the CIM was greatly enhanced in the 1880s by the arrival of the “Cambridge 7”, 2 of whom were well-known sports heroes and popularized as making great sacrifices for the Cause of Christ. CT Studd was 1 of these, later to found of the World Evangelization Crusade  and the Heart of Africa Mission, which worked in the Belgian Congo.Hudson Taylor's publication, China's Millions, achieved a circulation of 50,000 and helped put the mission in front of the public. The society suffered heavily in the nationalist Boxer Rebellion of 1898 to 1900. A total of 200 missionaries, many of them Roman Catholic, and 30,000 Chinese Christians lost their lives. CIM lost 58 missionaries and several children. Even with this tragic set-back, the CIM continued to be an influential group under its 2nd director, Dixon Hoste, 1 of the Cambridge 7. In 1949 all missionary personnel were expelled by the Communists.Hudson Taylor is described by the eminent Church Historian Kenneth Scott Latourette as “1 of the 4 or 5 most influential foreigners who came to China in the 19th C for any purpose, religious or secular.”