Post 59—The Metro Vancouver Translink Plebiscite

Pete McMartin of VS was really upset when the citizens of Metro Vancouver rejected a slight additional tax to pay for Translink expansion (July 4, 2015).  He wrote a scathing column, using such strong language that a few days later the paper published an editorial openly disagreeing with their man (July 9, 2015).  Well, yes, they can’t afford to overly insult their readers as if they are bird brains. This is how McMartin describes his neighbours:

They’re resistant to change. They abhor densification. They’re conventional in their sensibilities and they’re highly dependent on the automobile. More importantly, they’re not just dependent on the automobile, they prefer it.

I would love to quote him for the rest of this post, but it might be illegal? So, a summary of his vitriolics has to do it for us. 

The excuse many use for not taking transit is that they would if it were near and more convenient. That, he charges, is an outright lie. He daily commutes by bus in less time than it takes a car, but the bus is seldom more than a quarter full. They voted “no” about a system they have never used and have no idea how well it works, whether good or bad. It does not occur to them that the system reduces the pressure on the road and thus those still driving also benefit from the subsidy. They reject a mere .5% tax hike subsidy for Translink, but think nothing of the subsidy of billions spent on roads and bridges that are forever inadequate and clogged. 

Though Vancouverites tend to see themselves as a special breed in a world-class city, McMartin finds that “we’re nothing special.” Our city “is like a hundred other cities. We can’t see past the ends of our driveways, much less into the future, and we don’t want to. The No side didn’t win the plebiscite. The car did.”

The subsequent editorial denied McMartin’s negatives and  insisted that the negative vote was the result of public mistrust of the Translink administration. Furthermore, while the No vote rejected the extra subsidy, it is already having a positive effect in that a movement has been created towards better and more efficient governance of Translink, including the firing of some of its top executives.  The Sun editorial supports the idea of moving the service from the Province back to Metro authorities, where it was a few years earlier, but snatched away by the Province.

Deep in my heart, I largely agree with McMartin, but he expressed himself too offensively for most people. I confess to enjoying his vitriolic. It is largely right on, not because people are ignorant so much as selfish, which leads to contradictions. 

I also largely agree with much of the editorial, but find that their its solution is superficial.  Some years ago, the provincial government took the service out of the hands of Metro authorities, who number over 20, each with its own agenda. It was difficult to move forward with so many strong-willed politicians at the table. To now return Translink back to these same authorities would be to set the clock back and restore the former blockage.

I believe that the basic solution is to amalgamate all these 20+ jurisdictions into one as, I understand, was done in Toronto.  The current makeup of Lower Mainland jurisdictions is nothing but ridiculous, absurd. It serves as a model for how not to organize local government. As long as we are so ridiculously fractured, it is unlikely that the Translink problems will be solved. 

Do I have any hope for this direction? Unfortunately, not at this point in time. Such a move  needs a popular movement to push it forward, something of which I see no sign at the moment. But surely, if we have been smart enough to organize our current Metro setup, we are also smart enough to realize that developments have overtaken that model and rendered it obsolete. Every progressive movement eventually spends itself and needs to be replaced by something more relevant to the succeeding newly developed contemporary situation. 

In closing, I do want it understood that it is not the current Translink mess that has brought me to this conclusion.  Behind this long-standing opinion is my rejection of  this selfish politics on the part of politicians, which is, I believe, the basic reason this clumsy system continues to exist. So, now we have to go back even one more step—overcome selfishness and personal or local ambition at the expense of the larger community. Remember the title of this blog: “My World—My Neighbour.”  We’re back to basic Christianity that’s open to the world and to the concerns of others—your neighbours.

Post 58--The Personal--The Flushed Treasure

       

In the last post I diverted myself from the intended topic to an article of human interest, at least, of this human’s interest!  Today I’ll try to control myself and stick to the intended subject. When you’re done reading, you can judge for yourself whether or not I succeeded. 

I explained in the last post that we are experiencing serious drought in BC that started with a thin snow pack on the mountains and continues with reduced rainfall ever since spring. Our reservoirs are running unusually low. Not sure I should say “dangerously” low, but at least enough that the media talk about it every day and authorities are imposing rules for restricting the use of our water.   

            

An article by T. I Crawford and Kevin Griffin in the VS (July 8, 2015, p. A3) gives some interesting residential water stats and advice.  As to stats you may find interesting: The average Canadian household uses 340 litres of water daily, of which 30 per cent or 102 litres goes to the toilet. The average older toilet uses 12 litres a flush; the newer models, half of that. Even if this post does not get much beyond the toilet issue, if you act on it, the post will have served its purpose. 

The big toilet issue is, of course, that flush. Is it really necessary to flush after every use? Our family lived in Nigeria for 30 years; our kids grew up there till they went to college. During their early years our flush system was entirely manual, with the water coming out of a raised drum that was filled by some students who need jobs or, rather, money. So, we developed a culture of only an occasional flush, when it really could no longer be avoided. Later, we moved to the city with a complete water system, but often without the water!  Again, severe rationing was the name of the game: only when intolerable. 

When we parents found the toilet flushed, we would sometimes holler it out in shock, “Who flushed the toilet?! Why?!”  I know, it sounds ridiculous, but go live some time in a less well-equipped country and you will understand. The problem arose when we would come “home” to either Canada as in BC or the USA as in MI for a break, where there was water everywhere. Then, when someone had not flushed, I might get annoyed and yell, “Who didn’t flush the toilet?!”  And then we’d go back to Nigeria and fall back into the reverse routine! This was enough to create serious psychosis in our poor MKs! It’s a miracle our MKs (Missionary Kids) came out of that ordeal relatively unscathed.

Upon our permanent return to BC, we could not get used to the extremely wasteful use of water we ran into at every detail in our lives. By now the kids were gone and we decided to stay with the non-flush routine even in BC, though not as strenuously.  I remember discussing water usage with our BC friends and we might confide our flushing habits. They would be shocked and act horrified. We’d quickly move onto another topic!  We learned to avoid that subject altogether.  Embarrassing for us; disgusting for them.

But, ah, Griffin to our rescue in the VS. Apparently we are not the only ones, for there is this well-known little ditty that goes:

“If it’s yellow, let it mellow.

  If it’s brown, flush it down.”

Griffin advices we follow this ditty.  Thank you, Griffin. I no longer feel alone!

Another trick Fran, my wife, and I practice is to place a bottle with sand in the tank. That reduces the water by a bottle each flush. Just imagine how much water will be saved by this painless method for every toilet just in the city of Vancouver!  Go ahead. Get yourself a good-sized bottle, fill it with sand, and place it in your tank. Then go your way and forget about it, but each flush spells a save. We tried two bottles, but the tank was not big enough. 

Well, it’s time to get our mind out of the gutter. Just one more item about toilets and we move on: Make sure there’s no leakage. Griffin suggests you put some food colouring in the tank to see whether it shows up in the bowl. If it does, you should repair. Another Griffin bathroom tip: Turn off the tap while you’re brushing your teeth or shaving. Same with washing hands. 

I am amazed that this needs to be said at all. In some public male bathrooms there are notices above the urinals instructing men step by step how to wash their hands. I guess it does need to be said! How immature have we become?  Perhaps I should devote a post to how to properly wash your hands!  Come on. Give me a break. 

To finish off our litany on water preservation, I will summarize a few more of Griffin’s tips and let it go, at least for today.  I do expect there will be more about this liquity treasure in the future, but I don't want you to get bored with the subject.

Shower—Replace shower head with a “low-flow version,” take shorter showers, and shut it down while you’re lathering your body with soap and shampoo. Then turn it on to rinse. 

Kitchen tap and water—Wash food items in a bowl and then rinse, instead of keeping the tap running.  Use left-over dishwater on your plants and make sure the tap does not leak. A leak can cost 280 litres a week or 14,560 litres a year or 291 50-gallon drums wasted. Allow that leak throughout your 80 years and you’ve wasted 23,296 drums of precious water.

 

And then there’s that outdoor stuff you can do, but we’ll let it go at this. From here on, use your imagination. There’s all kinds of small and not so small steps you can take to preserve this precious life stuff.  The bottom line is: Keep your imaginative eye on that reservoir high up on the mountain from which all of us draw. It is not a bottomless pit! And think of your neighbour.

In closing and on a lighter note, figure out the mistake in the “Kitchen tap and water” paragraph above! Where do the figures mislead you? Well, at least I stuck to my announced topic today! Give me at least that much credit!

Post 57--"Precious Resource" Revisited

The California drought gets plenty of media attention, not only in CA itself but also in other jurisdictions, certainly in BC. Our BC interest in the subject is due to the sharp increase in the price of  CA-grown fruit and vegetables that we consume in our province. We are confronted by the CA situation every day as we look for bargains in the local vegetable market just around the corner from us. It’s not a pretty scene for us seniors who are on fixed incomes nor, I’m sure, for working parents with growing children.

But as we speak, we have our own drought in BC to cope with as well. We depend for our water on two sources, snow on the mountains and plenty of rain forest precipitation. This year, we are short on both. Snow was so sparse that ski resorts had to occasionally shut down, a most unusual situation for us here.  And while we could somehow afford to truck in snow from more than a 150 kilometres away for the winter Olympics back in 2010…. Yes, truck in snow!  Ever heard of that?  Usually if there’s snow trucking to be done, it’s to get rid of it. Not in 2010. We had to truck it in! Imagine! And all that expense just so a few—probably less than 200?—die-hard winter sports activists can have their moment of fame after spending most of their lives on a few snow-oriented acrobatic exercises. Was that worth all that expense? That’s for another post someday.

Sorry, got so carried away about that snow trucking—pun intended—that I  didn’t even complete that sentence. Left you in the snow, so to speak. While we managed to pay for trucking snow for the Olympics, we couldn’t this past winter. What does that tell you? Could we draw the conclusion that the Olympics and its economy are more important than the daily lives of ordinary citizens under routine circumstances?  At any rate, the point is we got a lot less snow last winter with the result that there is less snow to melt and fill up our reservoirs.  For winter sport enthusiasts as well as for the tourist industry, it was kind of a disaster, while the rest of us enjoyed a very mild winter, milder even than we are accustomed to in the south-west of the province.  Alas, now we are paying for it, literally.  We are short of the precious stuff. 

Added to that fiasco—not sure “added” is the right word here—is the greatly reduced rain fall in spring and summer. We’ve just had gorgeous weather and lots of sunshine, but, again, no rain, no water. The only thing we have more of is drought. What we also have more of this summer is fires, forest fires over the top, throughout much of Western Canada. We always have forest fires in the summer, but this year all budgets have been far overspent and an unusual number of communities evacuated.

One of the worst features of the current fire scene is that, according to reports, many of them are caused by humans. Some by careless smokers who stupidly—and I use that word advisedly, for my daughter has forbidden her children to use the word—throw their butts (note the double “t’s”!) out of their car windows. Should these people be hanged, as a display along the Princeton Highway some decades ago used to “advocate”?

Others are lit intentionally! Not just one or two, but a large number of them! Can you imagine anything more fiendish than that? I am reminded of our RV trip to the far Canadian north, when we had a long and amicable chat with a couple of Aboriginals. They told us that their summer employment mostly consisted of fighting forest fires. What about summers with only a few fires? we asked. No problem. They would just light them!  Not having walked in their moccasins, I would not apply the term “fiendish” to them. I have no idea whether any of our 2015 fires are from Aboriginal arson or not. Of course, political correctness being alive and well in the country’s media, they would not likely report such if it were. 

All of the above was to lead me into the subject of water preservation. Stream of consciousness led me to and around the subject but not into it. With my apologies. Call it a human interest post, if you like. But I really should get into the preservation thing before all our water gets used up! So, that will be next. Or should I say “That should be next?  See you there, but don’t wait for my instructions re. water preservation. I’m sure you can think of some ways yourself. Do it! Now! We’re in a precarious situation.  Think of ten small ways in which you, yes, you, can reduce your use of water and then do it.  

Post 56—Introducing the Metro Vancouver Alliance (MVA)

Douglas Todd of the Vancouver Sun (VS) recently introduced the above Alliance to his readers. Though the Alliance’s address is only about four blocks from my residence, I had not heard of it before. It is my guess very few people had heard of it, but now that Todd has widely publicized the organization, it is my hope that many people will support it and actually join it via whatever organization they belong to. Actually, the Alliance is abundantly celebrated on the internet with many websites devoted to it. Go check it out for yourself, but be sure you include “Vancouver BC” in your search, for it is an international organization with more than 60 similar ones in various countries. 

We humans have a sad history of surrounding ourselves with fences to separate us from other humans. We do this in a myriad ways. We are born within some of these fences as, for example, tribal or national borders that clearly mark us as different from the people on the other side of the border, but often as better than them as well.  We may be born within religious borders that separate us from other religions or even from other denominations within the same religion as, for example, Protestants vs Catholics. Or, even within Protestants such as Reformed against Anabaptists. Or between organizations based on faith and secular ones, though that distinction, popular as it is and representing the common sense of our day, is a secular myth based on secular delusion.  

Now there is nothing wrong with borders per se. I doubt that we can live without them. They represent diversity within the human community; they enable diversity and they protect diversity. Vishal Mangalwadi, an Indian Christian philosopher, argues rather convincingly that national and tribal borders, for example, are willed by God.  In an age of intolerance in my birth country, The Netherlands, Abraham Kuyper argued for a radical political and social pluralism in which each party or grouping has a legitimate place around the table, including your most vociferous opponent, enemy even. I fully endorse that kind of pluralism that makes room for both borders and diversity within and across borders.

Right, there is nothing wrong with borders per se, as long as the people within one set of borders can tolerate, respect and cooperate within another set of borders. And that is precisely the aim of MVA. It is not to erase the borders so much as to encourage the folk on one side of the border to cooperate and improve the society within which the various groups co-exist as neighbours. The MVA includes a fairly wide range of religions, social groupings and labour unions who, after carefully listening to each other, have selected four issues to work on in its catchment area: transit, housing, living wage and social isolation. As a citizen of Metro Van, I can assure you these are indeed hot buttons in our community that seriously need to be addressed. They are not the only ones. If given the chance, I might have selected one or two additional ones, but, heh, just for an extremely diversified group like this to have agreed on four is itself a huge achievement.

I am deeply interested in all four issues, but today will concentrate briefly on the living wage issue. Deborah Littman, introduced by Todd as the “lead organizer” and a Jew, explains that among the “faith communities” interest in this issue “goes back to Catholic social teaching on the value of labour.” (I think she means within Christian faith communities.)  According to Todd,  the group has convinced the Vancouver City Council to “commit to a minimum wage of $20.68 for all its workers and contractors.”  According to Tara Carman in the next issue of VS (June 30, 2015), Mayor Robertson intends to offer a proposal to this effect this very week. MVA plans to be there with a “living wage rally” outside City Hall. Good for them.

Though in principle I fully support such a move, I do hope that those who have to make the final decision will have all the facts at their command and not simply act out of “leftist” idealism. Carman reports that Vancouver’s Fraser Institute has discovered that such a move “reduces employment for low-wage workers by 12-17 per cent.” It may be one thing for governments to pay such wages, but when it is imposed on business, problems arise. “Employers respond by cutting back on jobs, hours, and on-the-job training.” 

Justin Trudeau, the current leader of Canada’s Liberal Party, has just been quoted to insist that environmental issues like oil pipelines should be decided not on basis of idealism so much as on factual evidence (VS, July 2, 2015). I would hope that the final decision on living wage will similarly be based on factual evidence—and I do sincerely hope also that such evidence will indeed support a positive decision, for too many workers and their families make do with wages that simply do not meet their daily needs.  It appears that New Westminster, a member of Metro Vancouver, has already moved in that direction without the negative consequences having showed up so far. That is hopeful.  

Continuing the mixing idea of the last posts, this one has turned out to be yet another example of mixing religions with both the self-described secular community and with "worldly" affairs. Actually, such mixing happens all the time and should happen, for neither religion nor the world thrive when separated from each other.

Thank you, MVA.  I encourage my root church, the Christian Reformed Church, to join the movement as has the other denomination of which I am an “adherent,” the Baptist Church, already. 

This post is based especially on these articles in VS: (1) Todd, “Metro Vancouver Alliance builds bridges and makes things happen,” 29-07-2015; (2) Carman, “$20.68/hr: City looks at paying all staff and contractors a living wage,” 30-07-2015. With thanks to both.

Post 55—Wasting Water: A Precious Resource

Spent part of yesterday at Derby Reach, a park on the Fraser River near Langley BC. There were many shrieking happy children voices as they ran around innocently playing their games without any thought of the potential effect or ramifications of their games. Well, of course not. Who would expect such concerns from happy playing children?

There was a water faucet nearby that was difficult to open, but once opened it spurted out water with great gusto, obviously under great pressure down below. There is probably only one activity that children playing in a river-side park like better than water faucets—throwing stones in the river’s water. We were not disappointed on either count. Many were the stones that ended up in the river and many were the gallons of water the children managed to squeeze out of that stubborn faucet and promptly dumped on the grass a few feet away—all evening. Perhaps we should have counted the gallons.  Water a precious resource as some claim? You’d never know from these children—or from their “supervising” parents who did nothing to stop the “innocent” play. 

It’s hard, if not harsh, to criticize children playing their innocent games.  I love watching them go through their antics.  So much fun; so much joy; so much innocence.  No, I won’t criticize them, but I will criticize their parents for allowing them to waste so much water. Today this group of families; tomorrow that group—but ongoing from day to day throughout the park season.  Gallons and gallons of it without let up.  

Water a precious resource? You’d never guess that to be the case either when you drive through North America’s suburbs with their spacious lawns in the summer time. Gallons upon gallons poured out daily to keep them green, only to be mowed every few days and that beautiful grass to be mulched on a weekly basis. An entire industry has grown up to serve that culture of beauty and—waste.  Yes, waste; pure waste of a precious and diminishing resource. Almost totally mindless.

It’s not only the people in Western countries who waste water mindlessly. I have lived in communities in an African country where women have for decades and even centuries had to daily haul water from distant places to cook and clean.  Usually on their heads; sometimes on shoulder or back. It was an unending and tormenting task without ever a break.  I have rejoiced with them when their government would install a water system for the community.  

You’d think that after life-long scarcity and hard work, they would be very careful in their use of the new easy supply of water, but that is often not the case. In contrast to the past where they rationed it carefully, they will often leave the faucets open and running when no one is around to catch the water. I’ve been amazed to see this. Just like the playing children and the law sprinklers above, they seem to think the supply is endless. They just let it run on and on and on….  Almost totally mindless. 

If you keep up with the news, you will know that in the US desert state of California, drought has set in with a vengeance, severely impacting the cost of food not only for the local people but throughout the US and even Canada. As we speak, I watch the price of food in Vancouver BC climb and climb and wonder when it will settle down. The question for all of us, not just Californians, is what can be done about it?  Where will it end?  Do we even have the gumption to address it?  Can a government that wants to address it seriously by restricting access in some way even survive?  

It’s a topic I plan to address off and on. I hope to occasionally describe various plans that are being offered to rescue the situation and the people’s reaction to them. What motivations might be needed for people to become more careful in their use of this precious resource?  Could financial incentives bring a change in behaviour? Perhaps water comes too cheap for us to bother?

As to myself, I have an in-built water restraint: my Christian faith.  I don’t need a financial incentive to reduce my water consumption. I am very conscious of the very first command in the Bible that instructs us to manage well the garden God has bequeathed us. This demands that as the supply diminishes, we devise more economical ways to use it. It demands an end to mindless or selfish wastage. And if nothing else, having experienced those African situations, every time I observe wastage, whether water or anything else, I get nervous.  That experience should be enough for anyone. 

So, this post is an example of  the previous post: the Biblical tradition of mixing religion with the “secular” things of this world. They cannot be separated, for your faith, whatever it is, will always influence your response to these situations. Check yourself. What would be at the bottom of any attempt of yours to convince you to change you wasteful habits?  You will find there is always some value system or belief that underlies your response. If you’re a Christian, the previous paragraph should be part of your motivation and that should be stronger than any financial considerations, though they also have a legitimate part in all of this.

Post 54--Mixing the Spiritual with the Mundane

Here I am again, only a day or two after the last post. I am trying hard to appease you for the long delay you have just suffered. No, no promise it will not happen again, but I will try my darnest. I am foreseeing a couple of trips in my intermediate future: to Atlanta (GA) and Mountain View (CA). We’ll see what comes out of those trips. As I say….

One of the characteristics of this my blog is that I often go back and forth between so-called “religious” and “worldly” or “secular” topics.  I don’t keep a straight line of separation between the two; I don’t compartmentalize them. I discuss all sorts of topics in random order—abortion, Aboriginals, transparency, taxes, politicians and in between appear all kinds of religious and philosophical issues.  Why is this? Is my sense of logic impaired?  Am I propriety challenged?

Actually, I “mix up” all these issues quite on purpose and by design. Some years ago I published a book of daily meditations with the title The Prophet Moses for Today.[1] There, too, I mixed up all these topics and defended this practice in Meditation 339 under the title “No Compartmentalized Christianity.”  Topics just previous to this one include “A Banker’s Responsibility” (332), seducing virgins (333), forced marriage (334), sorcery (336-337) and bestiality (338).  Topics right after Meditation 339 include murder (340), politics (341) and aliens (342).  What a strange hodge-podge!

The reason for this sequence was actually quite simple: I was following the sequence of these subjects as found in the Bible--in the Ten Commandments, to be more precise.  But, you may ask, why does the Bible write in this “hodge-podgy” way?  Does this not confirm the negative misgivings so many people have about it?  Why did its writers not organize topics more logically and systematically?

Meditation 339 puts it this way:

There you have it again. Mixing religion with “secular” affairs. We have just meditated on sorcery and bestiality, while the next few verses deal with aliens and widows. So, why have just one religious verse mixed in with all this “secular” stuff?  Especially moving from bestiality to religion is to move from the ridiculous to the sublime. Why can’t the Bible keep these things apart a little more neatly?

Sorry about that. …the Bible does not compartmentalize religion from so-called “secular” life. It is against the Christian religion to do so. Christians who so compartmentalize have given in to secularism, which is simply another system of belief or religion.  They live by two religions, the Christian and the secular.  These are two opposing religions or perspectives. People who adhere to both are weak both in the spiritual life as well as their life in the world. Christians will often compensate for their weakness and contradiction by screaming and yelling in their religious gatherings. Screaming supposedly covers up the powerlessness in their lives and gives them a fake sense of spiritual power. 

So, our text for today (Exodus 22:20) is a witness to and embodiment of the centrality of religion in human life—in everyone’s life.  Your entire life is influenced and, indeed, directed, by the force, ideal or idol or God to which you sacrifice or dedicate your life. I urge that this be the Jehovah God of the Bible, the One the churches around you preach about regularly.

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A  random word of wisdom:  “When you don’t talk about something, then something will talk about itself for you.” (from Alexander Smith:  The Handsome Man’s de Luxe Café.)

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[1]Jos, Nigeria: Institute of Church & Society, 1995. You can access it free of charge on my website 

< www.SocialTheology.com/boeriana >.

Post 53--A Travelogue of Sorts

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.

As to other parts of my life, I refer you to my website <  www.SocialTheology.com  >.