Why the Church Cares

On August 16, 1967, Martin Luther King was interested in the soul of America. At the eleventh Southern Christian Leadership Conference convention in Atlanta, he observed the domestic terrorism in the South, northern indifference to structural inequalities, and a stubborn resistance from the evangelical community to realizing its own hypocrisy.

Cindy Schreutelkamp loves her family. She has four kids and three grandkids. She serves at ClearView Church where she loves “walking with and equipping youth to take their next steps with Jesus Christ.” She lives with one of her sons, Zachary, in Oakville where he works at Kings Christian Collegiate. Zachary was born with Down Syndrome and “has a gift for loving people no matter what,” Cindy remarks.

During the proceedings of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission it was often said that the journey of reconciliation is long. Colonialism has a long and lasting legacy that requires continual commitment to the hard work of reconciliation. Therefore, we urge you today to continue the work as a matter of honouring God’s image in Indigenous people in Canada, to keep striving towards the high bar that Christ set for us: that we become reconcilers, following the example of the Great Reconciler, Jesus Christ (2 Corinthians 5:11-21).

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The Coastal Link pipeline and the planned Kitimat LNG terminal was heralded as the biggest private sector investment in the history of Canada. Prime Minister Trudeau and B.C. Premier Horgan celebrated this investment milestone in a major news conference in October 2018 as an example of getting resource and economic development right - in collaboration with resource and pipeline companies and First Nations along the route.   

It’s been quite the year! Thanks for reading and learning along with us, as we wrestled with faith and justice with the Bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other (Karl Barth).

Here are the top Do Justice articles (ranked by top pageviews) that got you thinking and acting in 2018: 

We’ve been hearing a lot of calls for civility recently. Maybe you have too.

People are rightly concerned about the toxicity of our current cultural climate(s). (You too, Canada!) There’s so little space these days for carefully reasoned, nuanced arguments. Each side of the political spectrum seems to have their own vocabulary, and people can be written off as “just a leftist” or “just a right-winger” (or more damning words) simply by using one word over another. Lines have been drawn in the sand, and people are choosing their sides.

On Monday, October 8th, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a group of scientists convened by the United Nations to guide world leaders, released a report that depicts the immediate and long-term consequences of climate change, which include a world of worsening food shortages and wildfires and a mass die-off of coral reefs as soon as 2040 — a period well within the lifetime of much of the global population. The report is clear: the consequences of human-induced climate change will be felt with greater severity and much sooner than we previously thought.

After retiring from teaching Chemistry and Environmental Science at Redeemer University College, Dr. Henry Brouwer is now the Eastern Canada Regional Climate Witness Project Coordinator of the Christian Reformed Church. In the wake of a flurry of historic climate change news in Canada, Dr. Brouwer agreed to share his expertise with Do Justice.

We noticed her standing just inside the front entrance looking up. While she was waiting to load her bus with the summer camp kids, she had stepped into the church foyer and saw the land acknowledgement: The Community Christian Reformed Church of Meadowvale is located on the Treaty Lands and Traditional Territories of the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation.

My wife and I were ready for our new adventure as a future clergy couple in New Jersey. In 1993, Sharon and I, along with our Persian cat Kuzak, stuffed our yellow Pontiac Sunbird to begin our ministry at Northside Chapel Community Christian Reformed Church in Paterson, New Jersey. My co-pastor, the late Rev. Stan Vander Klay, found a spacious apartment for us in neighboring Clifton.