Why I’m leaning toward theology

I will be forever thankful that I grew up in a Reformed home. My parents trained my four siblings and me “in the way we should go.” My dad had theology (and philosophy) embedded in his very tissues, I think. I guess that’s not surprising given that the Van Til genetic material seemed to leave that kind of mark in many members of our large extended family, going well back in history.

Since 2005 I’ve been writing a monthly column for Christian Courier, the biweekly Reformed Canadian publication of which I used to be the editor, and for which I worked on site in St. Catharines, Ontario, for 16 years.  Minor biographical detour: I moved back to the U.S. in 1990 to marry an American, Ed Cassidy. I don’t mean that I wouldn’t have considered marrying a Canadian.  Just that Ed was the person whom God graciously put in my path in that regard, and he is a fellow American; and we determined that things would work best if we lived in the U.S. rather than Canada. That has proven true. And we still live close enough — when the trees allow I can see the Canadian shore of the Niagara River from my home-office window —  to see our Canadian friends, and for me to continue to participate  in the excellent Canadian-based symphony chorus of which I’ve been a long-time member.

With every Christian Courier column, before my deadline looms, I begin to pray that God will lead me to a topic for the month, give me insight and clarity of vision. I even pray that God will give me the words to write, and that those words will be helpful or comforting or prodding to at least somebody in my audience. Every one of those prayers has been answered. I have been blessed because of that column, and readers periodically tell me that they have been too — for which I thank God. I’m not claiming, of course, that my writing is inspired (a la the biblical writers)!  Only that I have, and do, strongly feel the Lord’s leading in that writing. “Ask and you shall receive,” says Jesus. And when you ask whatever is in line with his will, he is lavish in his response.

John Calvin

In the last months my writing has been getting more “theological.”  I’ve always had that bent (those Van Til genes, I guess) .  But I gravitated in that direction (I read: was led) when it began to disturb me that a lot of Reformed church members (not to mention non-Reformed church members) were not reading the Bible so much any more for themselves; and in church were not being exposed to in-depth expository preaching either, including (if they were in the church of my baptism, the Christian Reformed Church) what used to be  weekly sermons based on the 52 Lord’s Days of the Heidelberg Catechism.

One thing led to another, and now, in my columns,  my readers and I are finding ourselves in the midst of an exposition of the five points of Calvinism — each one (supposed to be) explained in 850 words or less! Why the “controversial” points of Calvinism, of all things? Because I grew up believing, and still believe — after years of becoming familiar on a weekly basis with a variety of versions of non-Calvinist Christianity in my decades-long  job as a church musician — that there’s no better systematizing, no more profoundly biblical analysis of what the Bible teaches than the way John Calvin and his best adherents did it.

The upshot is, I’m going to post here some of what I’ve been writing in that column.  And if any of it is helpful to even one person reading this it will be yet another answer to prayer.  And I invite your comments.