June 2024
Download a full pdf of this issue below or find links to every feature, news, column, review, and Our Shared Ministry article included in this edition. Not the date you wanted? Find issues back to January 2016 here or use the search function at the top to find articles going back to 2005. To find something even older, The Banner archives are maintained at Calvin College's Hekman Library.
Features
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When we get impatient, we try to control change and force change. The result is the church sinking to another level of stuckness even worse than before.
Turning Over a New Leaf
What My Houseplants Taught Me About FaithREAD MOREI used to be the kind of person who inadvertently killed any houseplant to cross our threshold.
News
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Got something to say to synod? A lot of people (or councils or classes) have had a lot to share in the past five years
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Meeting May 1-3 in Grand Rapids, Mich., the Christian Reformed Church’s ecclesiastical governance board processed several documents for Synod 2024, thanked members whose terms end June 30, and acknowledged together the recent loss of Rev. Scott DeVries.
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Former Calvin University president Wiebe Boer, who resigned in February, and his wife Joanna Boer, who were both employed by Calvin, have filed claims against the school.
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Peace CRC in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and Gate of Testimony church in Gbarnga, Liberia, are “experiencing … the communion of the saints with the worldwide body of Christ.”
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Rehoboth (N. M.) Christian School won the New Mexico State Band Competition on April 20, coming out on top of all the 1A-3A schools in the state.
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After a very short diagnosis with cancer, Rev. Scott DeVries, who became the Christian Reformed Church’s director of synodical services in 2022, died April 27. He was 47.
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The Baldwin (Wis.) Christian Reformed Church Dorcas Ladies Aid Society marked 100 years of continuous ministry April 30, still holding to its original purpose: "by means of the labors of its members to accomplish something for the extension of God’s Kingdom."
Columns
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It’s more serious than some think.
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The act of sharing meals with each other is a tangible representation of God’s abundance and generosity.
Doing Asian American Theology
By Daniel D. LeeREAD MOREDaniel D. Lee focuses on Asian American identity and its relationship to faith and theology, providing a vocabulary and grammar, and laying out a methodology.
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One of the things I love about music is that it affects us more at the heart level. Music tends to make us feel.
Necessary Trouble: Growing Up at Midcentury
By Drew Gilpin FaustREAD MOREA memoir of coming of age in a conservative Southern family in postwar America.
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If you’re new to the magazine, there might be some things you don’t know.
Once a Queen: A Novel
By Sarah ArthurREAD MOREA mysterious manor house hides the keys to shocking family secrets—and rapidly fading portals to other worlds—in a richly woven opener to this young adult fantasy series.
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See how readers responded to recent Banner issues, articles, and columns.
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It’s been more than a year since artificial intelligence—especially generative artificial intelligence—took over technology news.
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A friend with a serious illness recovered quickly. He believes that God miraculously healed him. Medical websites say some people with that illness naturally recover quickly. Should I tell him?
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Friends of mine are struggling to decide whether they should move for a job. It sounds like a great opportunity for her, but she and her family are happy here. What advice can I give them, and how do I support them?
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The Pharisees complained about Jesus eating with “tax collectors and sinners.”
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With those four words, my son sent me on a journey of self-reflection.
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Two thousand years ago, on the island of Patmos, the apostle John had a vision of the greatest comeback of all time.
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This journalist and preacher’s son might be the one to define evangelical shift.
The Warsaw Sisters
By Amanda BarrattREAD MORESet in Poland during WWII, this richly detailed historical novel for adults narrates the stories of twin sisters Antonina and Helena Dabrowska, residents of Warsaw.
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There are real forces of evil at work in the world, so it can be tempting to conflate spiritual warfare and culture war. But it is also dangerous.
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Los fariseos se quejaban de que Jesús comía con “recaudadores de impuestos y pecadores”
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바리새인들은 예수님이 "세리와 죄인들과 함께 식사하는 것"에 대해 불평했습니다.
Our Shared Ministry
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It takes intentionality and a willingness to examine the barriers to access that exist in our systems, our architecture, our communication, and our attitudes.
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Algunos de los momentos más difíciles de mi infancia llegaron en la escuela secundaria, cuando tuve que pasar varios meses lejos de casa en un hospital pediátrico de Chicago.
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Some of my most difficult childhood moments came in middle school when I had to spend several months far from home in a pediatric hospital in Chicago.
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As Pavlo arrived for class on the LCC International University campus in Lithuania, his ears rang with the news being passed between students and staff: Ukraine was under attack
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After years of witnessing the celebration, Haudenosaunee people began to adopt the celebration of their Dutch neighbors.
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More than 30 years ago, Jessie stood in her wedding dress, exchanging vows with her beloved Martin at an evangelical church.
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어린 시절 가장 힘들었던 순간은 중학교 때 몇 달 동안이나 집에서 멀리 떨어져 시카고에 있는 소아 병원에서 지내야 했을 때였습니다.
