The March 1965 issue of the popular Missionary Monthly contains a courageous editorial entitled “The Widening Gulf Between the Pulpit and the Pew.” Its author, the Reverend G. De Witt, finds that gulf in Protestant churches in general and in his own denomination, the Reformed Church in America, in particular. “The pew” is said to distrust “the pulpit” because […]

Writing the book, Dutch Chicago: A History of Hollanders in the Windy City (2002) gave me a new appreciation of our rich heritage. I was particularly intrigued, when tracing the history of the churches over the past 150 years, to find that some thrived and some died. Why the different outcomes, I wondered. The contrast […]