Sabbaticals Elsewhere in this issue is an article by the Rev. John De Kruyter on sabbaticals for ministers. He has amply established the value of such periods of study. We can be thankful to the Seymour Christian Reformed Church and other churches in taking the leadership in this. Such a policy that enables a minister periodically […]

The Apostle John’s final words in his first epistle are essential for the church of Jesus Christ today: “Dear children, keep yourselves from idols.” Naming God with feminine nouns and pronouns is often a clear decision to set before the church an idol. The Fatherhood of God is rooted in the Scriptural revelation of the […]

Just which god was Mr. Clinton asking to bless America? The Democratic convention’s centrist sound gave people what they wanted to hear, but confirmed a dismal trend in Western civilization. Behind the dulling rhetoric about families and the defense of children, President Clinton reached a high point of tragic irony when he suggested that the […]

Each week the TV show, Touched By An Angel, solves a problem and has a happy ending for the characters on the TV screen. What’s more, the show does amazing things for some of the real-life people who watch it. They say so in their letters. A man on the verge of killing himself watched […]

This morning devotional was given at the conference of the World Reformed Fellowship. “Meaningless! Meaningless!/I says the Teacher. Not only was the Teacher wise, but also he imparted knowledge to the people. He pondered and searched out and set in order many proverbs. The Teacher searched to find just the right words, and what he […]

Though its importance has not yet registered with many evangelical and Reformed Christians, there is a significant movement afoot to revise substantially the historic Christian understanding of the Triune God. Often termed the “open view” of God, this movement is represented by a number of well-known contemporary evangelical theologians and has made Significant inroads into […]

In a previous article in The Outlook, I summarized the argument of Boyd’s God of the Possible. Written for a popular audience, Boyd’s study presents a case for what has come to be known as the “open view” of God. Contrary to the classical understanding of God, which teaches that God exhaustively knows the future, […]

In two previous articles, I summarized the open view of God advocated by Gregory A. Boyd in his God of the Possible and offered a basic criticism of this view. Boyd’s book represents a significant movement within North American evangelicalism, which wants to revise in a substantial way the traditional understanding of God’s omniscience and […]

Ever since the September 11, 2001, attacks by Muslim terrorists against the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington, the question has been raised, “What is the difference between Christianity and Islam?” Many can’t see a real difference between these two major world religions. Students of comparative religion in secular universities […]

It was on Pentecost that Peter proclaimed that Jesus was delivered over to crucifixion by the “foreknowledge of God” (Acts 2:23). For centuries the church has rightly understood that God knows beforehand the things that will happen in history. Interestingly enough, the apostle also here refers to the basis of the divine foreknowledge: “Him, being […]