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AI GENERATED SUMMARY OF ABOVE:
The text is an article by Jake Van Dyk about a Church Society conference featuring a keynote speech by Rev. Nelson Kloosterman on the challenges facing the Reformed Church in the 1990s. The article discusses external pressures like secularism and internal issues like diminishing denominational identity.
- Rev. Nelson Kloosterman's speech addressed the "Present Reality of Being a Reformed Church in the '90s" and warned about the future survival of the church.
- Key challenges include aggressive secularism eroding faith and the rise of mega-churches minimizing denominational ties.
- Kloosterman suggested that Reformed believers must collaborate across denominations to survive.
- Top priorities for the church should be returning to true worship, preaching regeneration, and strengthening congregational life.
AI TRANSCRIPT OF ABOVE [with some confusion]:
A Kinder, Gentler Conference
Pessimism is not a virtue according to Scripture and neither is optimism. But what about realism?
by Jake Van Dyk
Rev. Nelson Kloosterman, keynote speaker at the Friday evening session of the fifth annual Reformed Ecumenical Council, delivered a message that his audience perhaps wasn't expecting. He said he did not want to hear, be popular or not, it did have prophetic ring to it, serving as a wake-up call to the approximately 400 to the over 500 people in attendance.
Working for the most part with a pallette of somber hues, Kloosterman painted a portrait of the current situation in the CRC by highlighting two factors directly influencing change in the church.
Externally, the church is facing an increasingly aggressive secularism which is eroding the foundations and causing those within to question whether "we can really know the truth."
Illustrating with the help of the poem, 'The Blind Men and the Elephant' by John Godfrey Saxe, Kloosterman said, "We grasp our part of the whole and we proclaim it as the truth and people say, 'What makes you think you know the truth?' At first that kind of thinking] was out there. Now it is in here. It is in the churches. It is in the council rooms."
To further illustrate the effects of an aggressive secularism on the CRC, Kloosterman referred to a speech given at Calvin College by James Bratt titled 'Cotton Mather, Joseph McCarthy, Leo Peters and the Hunt for Witches.'
Laced with what Kloosterman called "Grand Rapids humor," Bratt's assessment of the CRC today is that so called "witch hunters" such as Leo Peters are "an early warning sign that the difference is no longer between virtue and erring, that piety is losing out in prosperity and that informal charismatic authority is eroding all authority within."
The laity and some clergy no longer know the difference or want it to be reformed. In his opinion, reformed Reformed confession will not be easy task. He is suggesting we might indeed mark this as the end times [1990's]. Fifty years hence historians might ask how this era came about, if it worthwhile.
Compounding with an aggressive secularism, Kloosterman pointed to an internal factor affecting the CRC: Mega-churches Community Church Ministry. Two specific changes are that Sunshine longer include the Mega-churches Community Church CRC in their name.
Their ministry approach minimizes importance of denominational services, and for the most part pastoral assistants are raised internally within the church which lessens the need for an seminary training for church leaders. The baby-boom generation, according their parents to that helps them hold their lives together.
How can the Reformed church survive in the '90s? According to Rev. Kloosterman, since denominational ties will continue to lose their importance, reformed believers must stick out and work with other reformed believers across denominational lines.
They must be prepared to reach out to people in the Protestant Reformed church and the Orthodox CRC, to some parts of the Reformed church in Netherlands and elsewhere, and where there is deep Christian communion. Not conducted by God's people who live in the world."
Among the top priorities the church must return to are true worship, a regular call to regeneration and conversion and renewed congregational life. "Worship must take precedence over need fulfillment, over mission on daily conversion.
When true worship is practiced, mission, service and education are the results. There must be a sense of awe for God conducted and we must be conducted as instructed by His Word."
Kloosterman encouraged the ministers in his audience to regularly preach of the need for regeneration and daily conversion. "The greatest enemy lurking at our door is presumption," he said. Our emphasis must shift away from common transformational to mission on daily conversion.
The third priority for the church is renewed and strengthened congregational life. Churches must work to protect culture, not necessarily transform it. The church is not in a position to be
PHOTO: Rev. Barry Beutena (Lethbridge, AB) and Rev. Jake Tiemaga (Lethbridge, AB), after the fellowship ." [note: the person named Barry Beutena actually looks like Professor James Bratt]
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AI SUMMARY of above:
"This image is a text from a publication, likely an article titled "The Feminist Movement - What is Our Final Authority?". It discusses the historical context of feminism, the role of Christian resistance, and the views of key figures like Dr. Abraham Kuyper, Dr. Billy Graham, and Mary Pride.
- The text argues that the feminist movement demands equality without recognizing gender role differences, which it considers unnatural.
- It highlights the views of Dr. Billy Graham, who saw the movement as a sign of America's moral corruption and emphasized the husband's role as the head of the home.
- Mary Pride, a former radical feminist, is presented as an anti-feminist Christian woman who blames churches for the movement's growth.
- The article suggests that Christian resistance to feminism is weakening due to the rapid secularization of culture and the loss of moral absolutes.
AI TRANSCRIPT OF ABOVE:
-The Feminist Movement-What is Our Final Authority?
"in the late twentieth century, bereft of the biblical traditions by a generation that has turned away from Christian faith, history pursues a normal course, crowned with divine apatheia." -Herbert Schlossberg, "Idol for Destruction"
By J.B. Williams
Feminism wants equality between the sexes, without the recognitions of the distinctions. Feminism introduces legislative action to prop up women in positions of power, both within and outside of the church are very active in their attempt to change society. One of the more militant groups is the Unitarian-Universalist women's federation formed in 1963. Of all the lobby groups in Protestantism, it is the most militant. It produces a stream of radical literature, sprinkled with radical terminology—for example, "God is a symbol—male." The Federation has been hard for equal federal and local legislation to ensure equality for women.
Feminist pressure groups have made great gains. The rapid social changes of our times, and the loss of moral absolutes, have contributed to the feminist cause. "As society changes its laws must change apace," they say. Unfortunately, the Christian resistance to feminism is weakening. There is great desire to accommodate Christianity to our secular culture. John Whitehead, considered one of the leading constitutional attorneys in the United States, commented:
Surveying the pervasive secularism of our culture, it is harder still to deny that the Christian church has to a large degree made peace with it. In short, it has accommodated itself to a secular age, a serious matter since a dominant secularism, as Harvey Cox has pointed out, considers itself the sole belief system and never makes similar accommodations.
The mindset of accommodation has led to a corresponding willingness to dismiss the Bible's teachings as irrelevant, outdated, written by men in a male-dominated culture. "Times are changing," we are told. We must keep up with progress, with the new understanding of what it means to be imagebearers, male and female, of the Old and New Testaments. Henry Zylora and published by Paideia Press, translated by George Stulac, known in North American Reformed theological circles as, Vrouw, ambacht en kerk (e vrouw de opvoedster der Vrouw) (Women, Industry, and Church), published in 1914 by J.B. Wolters Kampen, the Netherlands, in the late forties. Paideia tells me he still disputes that women have equal rights at all of infinite value in His image. The Bible does not speak of equality without distinction. It takes into account the differences of men and women in every area of life. Because God created the difference between male and female, it is unnatural for man to rock the cradle and for the woman to be in the pulpit.
Dr. Abraham Kuyper
History has an honor scroll of heroines. France had Jeanne d'Arc, England had Florence Nightingale, the U.S. had Harriet Tubman, and the early Christian church had her saints and martyrs.
Dr. Billy Graham
Billy Graham needs no introduction. He is America's most prominent evangelical conversion head of state. When a woman opposes that order, she rebels against the will of God. He has repeatedly declared, "The husband is the head of the home." Women's liberation encourages moral permissiveness; it only leads to the further weakening of America's national fiber.
Mary Pride
Anti-feminism is not just the position of strident male chauvinists, as many claim. Many Christian women are also in vocal opposition. Before Mary Pride became a Christian she had been active as a radical feminist. She earned a B.S. degree in Electrical Engineering and a Master's degree in Computer Systems Engineering. Later she studied theology at Covenant Seminary in St. Louis. Since her conversion her attitude toward radical feminism completely changed. As a former insider, she gives an outspoken assessment of the failures and threat of feminism. She minces no words. Pride blames churches for the growth of feminism.
Edith Schaeffer
Edith Schaeffer, the wife of the late Dr. Francis Schaeffer, prolific author, well known speaker and counselor, has repeatedly warned against the dangers of feminism. Though the Schaeffers have done much travelling, she still was able to build a genuine home spirit. She worked with her husband, supported and encouraged him. She is concerned that the women's liberation movement takes women away from their true vocation, which is family life. The natural person to make the family is the woman. In her book What is a Family? she stresses the community aspect of the family. A wife who works out will find it hard to foster a genuine community spirit. When the marriage partners work on their own careers, something has to give. Tragic and unexpected results are in the offing when people forget the importance of the family."
