Welcome to “Summer 15” for all of us northerners. As to you
southerners, may you enjoy your skating and skiing this July.
Once again, I fell into a trap that has often beclouded the
blogs I have operated over the years. If you were with me then, you will know
what I am referring to. A long silence
due to lengthy travel, something I had intended to avoid—the silence, not the
travel! Even when away, I had decided, I would write a few posts. Nothing came
of it. Sorry.
In the meantime, my wife and I had a wonderful time in Grand
Rapids (GR), MI, where she grew up and where I did my college and seminary. It
is also the location of the mission board of the Christian Reformed Church (CRC)
under which I served for 30 years in Nigeria. I spent some fifteen years
in that city off and on. Many of my
in-laws live there as well as numerous friends. So, we had a great time, but in
the meantime, I left you in the lurch.
Remember this business of promises not kept many posts ago? Well, this
is another instance, private/personal
intentions not kept even. When will I learn my own lessons?
I actually had another topic picked out for this post, but
it will have to await Post 53. The above was meant to be kind of an aside before
I got to the real subject, but it occurred to me that I would be doing you a
favour by introducing that GRcommunity to you. It is a mid-size mid-western city
with a population of some 180,000 in the city proper and about one million in
its metro area. You may not be aware of
this city simply because of its average size, but, according to Wikipedia, in
2014, GR was named the No. 1 U.S. travel destination by Lonely Planet. Now
that should tell you something—it’s not just your average city.
But it has had its ups and downs, almost simultaneously, it
seems. A January 21, 2011 Newsweek article
listed Grand Rapids
as a "dying city." But in 2010
the city was named the "most sustainable midsize city in the U.S."
by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Go figure!
It is known for several distinctives and includes an
impressive array of “firsts” in the area of culture and the arts. The longest-standing
major reputation is that of “Furniture
City.” It remains a major
furniture city, but it is rapidly becoming known better as the country’s “Beer City,”
something that is likely to surprise people familiar with its history and
traditions.
Not many people realize that the place is probably best known
internationally
as a center of Christian publishing. It is home to Zondervan, Baker
Books, Eerdmans, and a number of smaller publishers, including Kregel and Our Daily Bread Ministries, as well as Family Christian Stores, a Christian
bookstore chain. The three majors supply the entire world with very substantial
Christian literature. They have a major
impact and influence throughout the world, especially Eerdmans with its
scholarly emphasis that by far overshadows the furniture and beer components in
influence if not in economics. Of course, in our secular world, those who
describe cities tend to either ignore or downplay such religious
contributions—which is the major reason I have deviated from the original
intent of this post. I want you to be aware of that unusual and substantial contribution GR makes to the world.
Of course, GR is also home to the usual run of Christian
denominations, but it differs from many northern cities in the number of church
congregations. It has more Catholics than any other brand of Christians, but
its distinctive is the presence of numerous Dutch Calvinist denominations. The
original is the Reformed Church of America, the
oldest Protestant denomination in the country. In GR it is overshadowed by
the break-away (over 150 years ago) CRC of which I am a member. It is that
church that has provided me with the worldview, theology and philosophy
underlying this blog.
The CRC is a mixed bag as far as its membership goes. It
comprises a wide range of folk ranging from fundamentalists to classic
conservatives and progressive social activists with the latter two deeply
influenced by my role model, Abraham Kuyper.
I am embarrassed by the presence of the first two and consider myself
among the third. The reason I belong to this denomination is partially the
“accident” of birth, but I might have absconded if it were not for the
underlying “worldview, theology and philosophy” of the previous paragraph. That’s where this church is unique,
potentially powerful and that’s where
I am at home. That’s what you’re
getting from me in this blog and that’s
what keeping me in the denomination. Probably no denomination in North America, apart from the Catholic Church, has
produced as many prominent philosophers as has the CRC, certainly not per
capita. And if you think that is not very important, you should realize that it
is the leading philosophers who this century create the common sense of the
next. These are consciously Christian
philosophers. I am grateful for and proud of them.
So, now you know more about GR, but, more important, more about
where I get my bearings that you read about in this blog. Calvin College
and Calvin Theological Seminary are the GR tertiaries I attended and both
belong to the CRC and are located in GR.
You can find out all about them from the internet. No need to repeat
what’s already accessible to you. And if
you’ve become curious about the city itself, there’s a good Wikipedia article
on it.
No comments:
Post a Comment