The Tulip Driven Life

By: Thomas F. Booher The Reformed church is dying at the feet of Wokeback Mountain, and some prominent ministers are beginning to erect high places on Wokeback Mountain. If you told me ten years ago, when I first became a flame-throwing, cage-stage Calvinist, or even several years later after I matured a bit, that this is where we would be at the end of 2018, I would not have believed you. The Reformed church has been cowed by the culture, especially the homosexual culture and the so-called racial reconciliation movement. The Revoice conference put this on the map for homosexuality, and the MLK 50 conference did the same for racial issues, but make no mistake, these things didn't just pop out of the ground overnight. They have been growing and festering long before I knew anything about the doctrines of grace. Nine years ago I saw it at Covenant College, which is the college of the PCA, when my psychology professor praised his gay friend for marrying a woman a...

By: Thomas F. Booher Due to my lack of time, this will either be the last chapter I review for a while, or I will begin reviewing the other chapters in a much briefer format. At any rate, this chapter by Alexander Jun is going to still be a lengthy review, as it is the longest chapter by far and will be met with some of my strongest disagreement. In case you were unaware, Alexander Jun (the author of this chapter) was elected as the moderator last year of the PCA General Assembly. Per the bio on each author, he is "a TEDx speaker and Professor of Higher Education at Azusa Pacific University’s School of Behavior and Applied Sciences. He has published on issues of postsecondary access for historically underrepresented students in underserved areas and conducts research on equity, justice, and diversity issues in higher education. He is author of From Here to University: Access, Mobility, and Resilience Among Urban Latino Youth and White Out: Understanding White Privilege ...

By: Thomas F. Booher We now turn to Jarvis Williams' chapter The Gospel: A Uniquely Planned Strategy for Reconciliation. Williams reminds us that through Christ, man is reconciled to God, to his fellow man, and to all of creation/the cosmos itself. So naturally, cultures can find common ground and unity through redemption in Christ. Williams has some strong, perhaps controversial statements, such as "race in the American narrative has prioritized majority White culture and dehumanized and marginalized minority (and especially Black) cultures." In the 1600's race developed in our nation as a social construct in order to establish and maintain a racial hierarchy of whites over blacks. The construct of race has served "as a way to dehumanize and marginalize black and brown people and subjugate them to the White majority." And one more for good measure -- "The construct of race in the American experience has historically operated as a category of priv...

Part 3 of my review covers chapter two of the book, and I must say from the outset there is much in here that is commendable and helpful. The author is Irwyn Ince, graduated of Reformed Theological Seminary and Covenant Theological Seminary. He is Pastor and Director of the GraceDC Network Institute for Cross-Cultural Mission. Much of the chapter is spent demonstrating the undoing of the Tower of Babel in Acts 2, where the nations are gathered, the Spirit is poured out on them, and the unity of the nations is seen in the power of the Spirit bringing the nations to faith in Jesus Christ. Ince opens with Col. 3:11 and Gal. 3:28. The religious bond, the bond that we have in Christ, runs deeper than any other bond. We have one Lord, one Father, one faith, one baptism, one Spirit. We are the body and bride of Christ, and Christ's body and bride is comprised of human beings from every tribe, tongue, and nation. That is a very beautiful and glorious thing. that's the power of the ...

We now turn to chapter one of All Are Welcome: Toward a Multi-Everything Church. This chapter is written by Eric M. Washington, who is "Associate Professor of History and Director of the African and African Diaspora Studies at Calvin College." The chapter is entitled  The Most Segregated Hour: Roots and Remedies of An American Evangelical Problem. Washington opens with a lengthy quote of Martin Luther King Jr., who said in 1963 at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo that the worship hour on Sundays is the most segregated hour in the United States, and that the church can begin repenting by removing "the yoke of segregation" from itself. King goes on to say that "the church itself will stand under the judgment of God" for its racial segregation. (Certainly, I would agree that racism in the church will be met with the judgment of God if it does not repent.) Washington replies -- "Sadly these words still hold true." He then shares a 2008 re...

By: Thomas F. Booher I have decided to write chapter-by-chapter reviews of the book All Are Welcome: Toward a Multi-Everything Church, which is edited by Leon Brown. (Find parts two , three , four , and five of my review here). Each chapter is written by a different author, not a few of whom are in the PCA, my own denomination. From the book's introduction we find that:  "Within these pages you will hear from men and women, African Americans, an Indian American, a Hispanic, and those of mixed-ethnic heritage. Their insights are valuable. Their perspectives—like yours—have been shaped by their cultures, ethnic heritages, histories, and financial standings." This book comes with endorsements from some real heavy hitters in the Reformed world, including Michael Horton, Derek Thomas, D. Clair Davis, and others. The exhortation from Horton and others is to let non-whites/ethnic minorities do more talking concerning racial reconciliation. Horton also adds that...