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Dec 6, 2024 | 
christiancourier.ca | Peter Schuurman
The Anabaptist-affiliated Meeting House church pastored by Bruxy Cavey in Ontario has become a rise and fall saga and stands now at the point of closure – without full closure for its members. In June 2024 attendees were told by the Meeting House Transition Board of Overseers that even though TMH has changed leadership and implemented many new practices and policies, all the regional sites had to shut down for the month of July. Why?
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Nov 22, 2024 | 
christiancourier.ca | Peter Schuurman
“Can you tell me your greatest legacy as an evangelist?” an aging Billy Graham was once asked. His answer: “Lausanne.”From September 22-28, over 5,000 Christian leaders from more than 200 countries gathered in South Korea for the 50th anniversary gathering of Lausanne. It was a rich variety of nationalities, traditions and languages (even though everything was in English, with headsets for others).
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Nov 22, 2024 | 
thebanner.org | Angela Reitsma Bick |Peter Schuurman |Paul Verhoef
Why are some Canadians currently deconstructing their Christian faith? Responses to this question shape this wise and winsome book by two born-and-bred members of the CRC in Canada. There are two key things to know about this book. It is deeply Christian—written by two of our Christian siblings who interviewed 28 people (geographically, gender, and age diverse from 18 through 70+).
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Sep 16, 2024 | 
christiancourier.ca | Angela Reitsma Bick |Peter Schuurman
“Never question a man of God.”That’s how Emily*, 42, summarized the Word of Life church. She was working as a Youth Pastor in her early 20s when the first scandal broke. Her pastor had sexually abused a staff member – was literally caught in the act in his church office – and faced zero consequences. He “took one week out of the pulpit” while the woman “lost everything,” Emily told us.
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Jul 10, 2024 | 
christiancourier.ca | Peter Schuurman
Summertime is the season for boats, or at least boating analogies. Angela Reitsma Bick and I have a book to be released this September that features boats as a spiritual analogy for the deconstruction and reconstruction of faith. We write mostly about canoes that run aground or get capsized. That’s how it feels in the Christian Reformed Church (CRCNA) for a number of people post-Synod 2024. Even shipwrecked. Lost at sea.
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Oct 18, 2023 | 
christiancourier.ca | Cathy Smith |Peter Schuurman |Lloyd Rang |Brian Walsh
All my knotted-up life: a memoirBeth MooreTyndale House Publishers, 2023. After reading All My Knotted-Up Life: A Memoir, I want Beth Moore to be my new best friend. She’s indefatigable. Hilarious. Vulnerable. I first heard of Moore when she made headlines for being treated crassly by some evangelical leaders, including, notably, John MacArthur.
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Aug 14, 2023 | 
christiancourier.ca | Peter Schuurman |Curt Gesch |Kathy Vandergrift |Cathy Smith
“The Word of God is inspired, inerrant, and infallible. And when he was about eighteen years old, he grew a beard.” This is one of Dr. Brad Jersak’s favourite provocative lines, which he uses to expound on a key text: “You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; it is these that testify about Me” (John 5:39). Put differently, the Word of God is more than a book. Jersak is one of the key Canadian voices when it comes to the notion of deconstruction.
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Aug 7, 2023 | 
christiancourier.ca | Derek C. Schuurman |Robert Bruinsma |Bob Bruinsma |Peter Schuurman
This year marks 20 years since I became a full-time professor in Christian higher education. At the time I discerned a call to teaching, I was in my early thirties and working as an engineer. To be qualified, I had to first complete my doctoral degree. My wife and I, together with our three children, moved to Hamilton so I could pursue my graduate degree at McMaster University. During that time, our family expanded with the birth of a fourth child (who is now attending McMaster University).
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Jun 9, 2023 | 
christiancourier.ca | James Dekker |Angela Reitsma Bick |Peter Schuurman |Jessica Lum
The Synod of the Christian Reformed Church in North America (CRC) will soon meet for a week in Grand Rapids, Michigan. The Agenda for Synod 2023 weighs in at 629 pages, with 76 overtures plus various communications. Over 60 of them respond in some way to the decision of last year’s Synod to declare that the Heidelberg Catechism’s meaning of “unchaste” in Question & Answer 108 includes adultery, premarital sex, extra-marital sex, polyamory, pornography and homosexual sex.
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May 19, 2023 | 
christiancourier.ca | Peter Schuurman |Angela Reitsma Bick |Sharon Dhavale |Emily Wierenga
Fatima’s Great OutdoorsBy Ambreen TariqIllustrated by Stevie LewisKokila, 2021Author, outdoors activist and founder of @BrownPeopleCamping (brownpeoplecamping.com), Ambreen Tariq relates the fictional narrative of the Khazi family, Indian immigrants to the United States who go camping for the first time. The youngest child, Fatima, has had a hard week at school. Her classmates teased her about the food she ate for lunch and the way she pronounced words. A boy pulled her long braid.
