There is nothing surprising about this business of calling Christian preaching foolishness. It was already being done in Paul’s day, as chapter one of First Corinthians (verses 18–25) makes so very plain. The Greeks had their own reasons for thinking of preaching as foolishness, reasons rooting in their sophisticated man-centered ways of thought. A new […]
The board of Reformed Fellowship, Inc. was deeply honored when Rev. John Vander Ploeg accepted the invitation to become the managing editor of its monthly periodical, TORCH AND TRUMPET. Rev. Vander Ploeg is no stranger to our readers. He served capably as Editor-in-Chief of the Christian Reformed denominational publication, The Banner, for fourteen years. Now […]
Many impressions concerning the state of Protestant church life in Germany, received during a one year’s stay at the University of Hamburg, vie for supremacy. In the following lines an attempt will be made to sort out these impressions in order to present a picture of some of the more significant developments in German church […]
How do you address a minister of the Word? You call him “pastor.” But is that a correct description of his calling? You will know that a physician is called a doctor of medicine, and thus he puts the initials M.D. behind his name. That means he has studied medicine and now practices the medical […]
Dear Jim: Did you know that there are twenty million people in the United States (10% of our population) who are 65 years old and older? I didn’t either until I read the cover story of Time, August 3. It was a fascinating article, Jim, But it was also very depressing. It began this way: […]
ISN’T THE CHURCH “PRIMARILY MORE IMPORTANT”? “I would like to know…” wrote Arthur Davies in a recent TORCH AND TRUMPET article (August, 1970), “how that church is of primarily more importance than, for example, the God-instituted family.” “That church” to which he refers is the “church-as-institute-gathered-around-the-Word-with-its-Christ-appointed-officiary” spoken about by P. Y. De Jong in a […]
Editors, TORCH AND TRUMPET Gentlemen: Mr. Verno has built an unusual argument for cremation in preference to burial on the grounds that burial requires both an unwarranted expenditure of funds and an unnecessary occupation of real estate. However, he has omitted to deal with another consideration which ought to be decisive for the believer in […]
III. “New Evangelicalism” – The Old Dualism? 1. Proposition. The neo-evangelical understanding of the relationship between the Bible as the special revelation of God and science as the legitimate investigation of his general (natural) revelation in the works of creation and providence closely resembles the dualistic thought of Thomas Aquinas, the medieval scholastic who gave […]
In its August 1970 issue TORCH AND TRUMPET reprinted an article from THE STANDARD BEARER on “Father Groppi at Calvin College.” Following is a letter of response by three members of Calvin College faculty together with a reply by the writer of the article, Rev. Gise Van Baren. Dear Rev. Van Baren: Your recent article […]