Vol 75 Issue 01

Mr. Wigger is an elder in the Protestant Reformed Church of Hudsonville, Michigan. Congregation Activities For over five months the congregation of the Bethel PRC in Itasca, IL has waited patiently for various governing bodies in Cook County, IL including the highway department and the Army Corps of Engineers, to grant their approval to Bethel’s building plans and issue a building permit. Now, thankfully, all of that appears to be behind them, since finally in late August they were granted their much sought after building permit, for which we give God thanks. Actual construction at Bethel got under way about...

September 2 and 3, 1998 in Loveland, Colorado The March meeting of Classis West was held in Loveland, Colorado on Wednesday and Thursday, September 2 and 3. Rev. Richard Moore (Hull, IA) provided able leadership to the classis as the chairman of this session. The delegates of Classis West gathered already Tuesday evening, together with the congregation of Loveland Protestant Reformed Church, in a special worship service which was conducted by Pastor-elect Daniel Kleyn of Edgerton, Minnesota. The sermon he delivered was part of his classical examination. The meeting of classis on Wednesday was given to the examination of Pastor-elect...

Rev. VanBaren is pastor of the Protestant Reformed Church of Loveland, Colorado. “Science Finds God” (cf. Romans 1:19-21) One’s attention is immediately caught by the cover of one of the national news magazines, Newsweek. The cover story, July 20, 1998, is titled, “Science Finds God.” One is amazed by the statement!! Science now has come to the conclusion that there is truly God?? We are living in an age in which, so it seemed, the majority of scientists simply deny the existence of God—or else are admitted agnostics. But now, it appears, many scientists have come to the conclusion that...

Rev. Dick is pastor of Grace Protestant Reformed Church in Standale, Michigan. Last time we addressed the subject of “doctrine fruit.” This fruit is either absent from many so-called Christian and church vines, or hanging there, altogether rotten—doctrine which gathers flies. Lest you think this writer is declaring doctrinal doomsday when in actuality this year and the last decades will be known by connoisseurs and historians as vintage years of truth, allow just one example. A preacher I know was confronted after a worship service recently by a person who happened to be visiting that morning, and who took offense...

Mr. Lanting, a member of South Holland Protestant Reformed Church, is a practicing attorney. The [Milwaukee voucher] program does not involve the state in any way with the school’s governance, curriculum, or day-to-day affairs. The state’s regulation of participating private schools, while designed to insure that the program’s educational purposes are fulfilled, does not approach the level of constitutionally impermissible involvement. Supreme Court of Wisconsin, Majority Opinion (June 10, 1998). Early this summer, the Wisconsin Supreme Court gave the school voucher movement its most significant legal victory. In a landmark 4-2 decision, Wisconsin’s highest court surprisingly ruled that the controversial...

Rev. Woudenberg is a minister emeritus in the Protestant Reformed Churches. If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. Romans 10:9 Anyone who lived through the Protestant Reformed/Liberated controversy of the late ’40s and early ’50s will remember the debates which took place over the word “conditions.” On and on they went over the question of whether one can properly speak of conditions regarding the covenant of grace. Seldom was there much consideration as to whether these were conditions to...

Rev. Kuiper is pastor of Southeast Protestant Reformed Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan. The word arrow is not to be found in the New Testament. In the Old Testament it is used repeatedly, especially in the Psalms. It comes from the root Hebrew word which means to divide, to cut into two parts; then that which cuts in two, divides, wounds, destroys; and finally, an arrow with its cutting head. Arrows belonged to the offensive armament of the Israelites. Jehu drew a bow and smote Jehoram, “and the arrow went out at his heart” (II Kings 9:24). The followers of...

Rev. Cammenga is pastor of Southwest Protestant Reformed Church in Grandville, Michigan. One of the highlights of the 1998 synod of the Protestant Reformed Churches was the decision taken by the synod, on the advice of the Domestic Mission Committee, to call a second home missionary. The decision called for this missionary to concentrate his labors in the eastern United States, complementing the work of Rev. Thomas Miersma, who is laboring as home missionary in the western part of the country. The work would begin in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The reasons for beginning in Pittsburgh were twofold. First, the Domestic Mission...

Rev. Higgs is a minister in the Evangelical Presbyterian Church of Australia. In the first article that I wrote for the SB I gave some information concerning the early settlement of Australia, and how I perceive this to have affected us as a nation. In my last article I wrote, briefly, about the history of our denomination. Taking these things into consideration, what wonder of wonders that God should raise up the EPC as a denomination of churches! He has gathered His people from the midst of a wicked world: already this is a wonder that should cause us never...

Radical to the Extreme In Robert Decker’s review of David Calhoun’s two-volume work on the history of Princeton Seminary (SB, August, 1998), he quotes A.A. Hodge as saying that the difference between Calvinism and Arminianism “is one of emphasis rather than principle,” that Calvinism and Arminianism are “necessary to restrain, correct, and supply the one-sided strain of the other,” and that Calvinism and Arminianism “together give origin to the blended strain from which issues the perfect music which utters the perfect truth.” Decker correctly states that “there was some very ‘strange fire on Princeton’s altars.'” However, earlier in the review, Decker...