All Articles For Letters

The Student Aid Committee desires to correct two misconceptions that were conveyed in your Synodical Preview article “Blessings and Opportunities” (May 15, 2014, p. 364). Both had to do with the special Seminary Student Assistance Fund administered by the Student Aid Committee. The part of our report to Synod 2014 that appeared in the printed Agenda showed a balance of more than $100,000 in this fund. And that part of our report showed no disbursements from it. Understandably, you concluded that the Seminary Student Assistance Fund is a “large, little-used fund.” But it is not. Disbursements over the last five...

I commend the SB for publishing Rev. Clay Spronk’s recent article “The Bill Nye vs. Ken Ham Debate” (May 15, 2014, p. 370). Like Rev. Spronk, I watched the debate between Bill Nye and Ken Ham with great interest, and came away with an appreciation for the way that Ham defended the importance of Scripture in interpreting science. It is the Bible that must be the “corrective lens” for logical interpretation of scientific evidence by a believing scientist, as it is the only means for obtaining a true vision of the natural world around us. While I largely agreed with...

Having read Rev. Richard Smit’s article on Queen Esther [see December 1, 2013, p. 116], I would like to raise a few questions and comments. At the outset I wish to make it quite clear I am in overall agreement with his response to Prof. Lee Beach’s article. I quite agree that deliberately to deceive and lie can never promote the truth of the gospel. I do however think Queen Esther and her uncle Mordecai come under an undue and severe criticism. I will make the following comments and obser­vations as I understand the story. 1) It does not seem...

I have read your articles on “Calvin, Hoeksema, and the Free Offer” in the Standard Bearer, and I would like to comment on them. First, let me introduce myself. I taught Bible and Reformed Doctrine at Unity Christian High School in Hudsonville for eight years (1956-1964) and I have been a friend of the PRC since that period in my life. I was acquainted with Rev. Gerrit Vos, and my wife and I were good friends of his daughter Marilyn and her husband, Dr. Ben Zandstra. So I am well acquainted with the PRC and a regular reader of the...

Your recent article (“Calvin, Hoeksema, and the Free Offer (1)”—May 1, 2013) came in a timely manner. I had just finished my dissertation on “Providence” and wrote in the “Further Research” section that providence must be recovered over and against common grace. As an ex-Arminian, I too agree with the EPCA’s rejection of common grace and the well-meant offer on the grounds that it is the seedbed for Arminianism, and I wrote this in response [to that reality]. Nancy A. Almodovar, Newburgh, IN (Ed. Note: Mrs. Almodovar’s letter was slightly edited. In corre­spondence, in which she told us of her...

I have a question pertaining to Rev. Spronk’s ar­ticle on “The President’s Polytheism” (Feb. 1, 2013). Wouldn’t it be more accurate to identify President Obama’s religious perspective as pluralistic rather than polytheistic? Religious pluralism is the view that all re­ligions are equally valid. According to religious plural­ists, Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Sikhism, Hinduism, Buddhism, et. al., are all equally worthy, even equally true religions. In President Obama’s “New Beginning” speech in Cairo, he said: People in every country should be free to choose and live their faith based upon the persuasion of the mind and the heart and the soul. This...

May I comment on Rev. Cory Griess’ article on psalm-singing (SB, October 15, 2012). First of all, I commend Rev. Griess for the article, together with the recent articles in his rubric “O Come Let Us Worship.” I have found them both thought-provoking and profit­able. That said, I believe Rev. Griess’ good principles on biblical worship are fatally weakened by his claim that “It [the Synod of Dordt] did not advocate the notion that the regulative principle demanded exclusive psalmody” (p. 33). I do not see how we can maintain psalm-singing in our churches without holding to exclusive psalmody. Is...

Professor David Engelsma’s Reformation Day lecture November 2, 2012 on the Kingdom of God stirred the interest of some to re-read a series of editorials by him in the SB on the same subject. These editorials (volume 77: November 15, 2000 to September 15, 2001) were col­lected into a booklet by Southwest PRC. Reading these editorials either in the SB or in the booklet will enhance anyone’s understanding and appreciation of his valuable remarks Friday night. The first paragraph of his first editorial reads: The kingdom of God is not as well known among us as are the covenant of...

I just finished the “All Around Us” article on the CRC and the FOS. The last paragraph on the first page mentions a misquoting of the creeds and the classes’ abuse of the FOS going back to 1924, allud­ing, I assume, to the deposing of Herman Hoeksema, George Ophoff, and Henry Danhof. I would be in­terested in reading about that abuse in more detail. Is there an article in the archives of the SB or a book that relates those events? Thank you, Sharon Gordon, Wanaque, NJ Response The best book about the history of the adoption of common grace by...

Dear Brother: I have read your “Apology”, that you had printed in the Standard Bearer for July 1. It divides into three sections, the first two of which form the first part of your “Apology”. It reads and I quote: