Remembering Bob den Dulk

Many of you have heard the sad news that Bob den Dulk has died after a long struggle with pancreatic cancer.  If you don't know who Bob was and you are a fan of the White Horse Inn, you certainly need to read Dennis Johnson's moving piece about Dr. den Dulk on the Westminster Seminary California website.  Click here: Westminster Seminary California newsevents.

I served with Bob for a time as a trustee and vice-chairman of the seminary, when he was chair.  In fact, it was he who "fired" me.  When the White Horse Inn moved back to California under the auspices of the seminary, I could no longer serve on the board since our by-laws did not allow someone to be both a trustee and an employee of the seminary.  Bob wryly smiled and said, "you know, you can't serve on the board anymore."  I already knew that, he knew that I knew that, but it was his way of expressing his pleasure that the White Horse Inn was back in California.

I first met Bob back when Westminster had just opened and was still in San Marcos.  He was the vice-president and business manager.  It was clear to me then, as it was throughout the time I knew him, that this was a man who not only knew what ought to be done, he made sure that it was.  Bob is one of those great men who tirelessly labors behind the scenes making sure things are done right and ethically.  Oh, for more like him . . .

Bob loved the Reformed faith and wanted to see it make a bigger impact upon American evangelicalism.  Bob was one of the first board members of CURE (the forerunner of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals).  His wisdom and guidance were instrumental in seeing us through those early days when the White Horse Inn was becoming popular, yet we knew nothing about handling the business side of things.  Bob's was a steady hand, and if you enjoy the White Horse Inn today it is largely because Bob helped us through very difficult times.

One Bob den Dulk story . . .

In June of 1994, we decided that a mountain retreat would be a good idea for the next CURE board meeting.  So, we rented a large home at Lake Arrowhead.  Bob and his beloved wife Nellie were there, as were Ken Jones, Rod Rosenbladt, Mike Horton, along with Luder Whitlock (then president of RTS), and Robert Preus (the noted and Solomonic-like Lutheran theologian).  Bob told stories of Cornelius Van Til ("Opa Case") witnessing to truckers in California's central valley.  He and Dr. Preus debated particular redemption with the rest of us just taking it all in.  It was wonderful to hear all the great stories and see such giants debate Reformation theology over dinner and libations . . . 

But when the time came for the afternoon session to get under way, here sat Bob den Dulk, Luder Whitlock, and Robert Preuss, all glued to the television.  We called them time and time again, but they wouldn't come.  They were absolutely engrossed.  Turns out they were watching a White Bronco drive the freeways of LA.

It was the infamous OJ chase!  We never did get much work done that weekend, but I'll never forget it!

Please pray for Bob's wife Nellie, their children (Gilbert, Tim, and Rob and their wives), and their 15 grandchildren.   May God grant them comfort in life and in death, through their confidence in the finished work of Christ and the sure and certain hope of the resurrection.

Old Dispensationalists Never Die . . . And They Never Seem to Fade Away . . .

I was making my semi-annual trip through the local Christian bookstore (actually, a trinket store) when I saw the third reincarnation of John F. Walvoord's best-seller Armageddon, Oil and the Middle East.  Originally published back in 1974 by Zondervan, the book was re-issued with a snazzy new cover after Operation Desert Storm in 1990.

Lo and behold, here it was again on the shelves of a Christian bookstore!  This time published by Tyndale with an update (apparently) by Mark Hitchcock.  I refused to buy it (since I've already purchased the two prior incarnations), so I can't tell you what has been updated.  But the title says it all.  Now that Saddam Hussein is pushing up daisies somewhere near Tikrit, the focus switches from a Soviet-Arab invasion of Israel and a revived Babylonian empire, to a more general Muslim threat to Israel and the new foil of dispensational end-times theorizing--Islamic terrorism.

Dr. Walvoord, who died in 2002 and now a member of the church triumphant, obviously, was not able to contribute to the new edition.

The shamelessness with which books like this can be corrected, updated and then republished with new covers and a new chapter or two, only to sell a gazillion more copies, is simply breathtaking.  Doesn't it trouble people that the 1974 edition and the 1990 edition got many things wrong?  I thought if we interpreted the Bible "literally" all the mysteries regarding the end-times would be cleared up.

The Soviet Union no longer exists . . .  Saddam Hussein is dead . . .  Militant Islam is the new menace from the east (displacing Communism and a revived Babylonian empire).  Barring the return of our blessed Savior, I suspect another edition, with another new cover, is a mere ten years away.  I can only imagine how the cover art and title will be tweaked this time.

As one who has written two books on eschatology, let me just say, if you see a new edition of A Case for Amillennialism or Man of Sin, in which my exegesis is "updated and corrected" to explain an as yet unforeseen world event that I failed to predict, don't buy it.  It means I didn't know what I was talking about!

That being said, I am now hard at work on an expanded eschatology text which will deal with a broader range of eschatological issues, including preterism and postmillennialism.  We do need a Reformed/covenantal/amillennial equivalent of the venerable J. Dwight Pentecost's Things to Come.  Lord willing, this will come to fruition . . .

Who Said That?

Who Said That?

 “This clash (between evolution and creationism) is an absurdity because on the one hand there is much scientific proof in favor of evolution, which appears as a reality that we must see and which enriches our understanding of life and being as such.”

Please leave your guesses in the comments section below.  Please no google searches! 

Update on Monday, July 30, 2007 at 08:32AM by Kim Riddlebarger

These comments come from Pope Benedict XVI (Reuters, July 26) as he reflected upon the debate between creationism and evolution.  Benedict did go on to say that evolution falls short of answering “the great philosophical question `where does everything come from?”'

The Pope would benefit greatly from reading Fuz Rana's Who Was Adam?  Genetics will eventually kill evolution as a viable theory of origins.

This One Cracked Me Up!

A new pastor moved into town and went out one Saturday to visit his community.  All went well until he came to one house.

It was obvious that someone was home, but no one came to the door even after he knocked several times.

Finally, he took out his card, wrote on the back "Revelation 3:20" and stuck it in the door.

The next day, as he was counting the offering he found his card in the collection plate.

Below his message was a notation "Genesis 3:10."  Upon opening his Bible to the passage he let out a roar of laughter.

Revelation 3:20 reads: (Pastors note) "Behold, I stand at the door and knock.  If any man hears my voice, and opens the door, I will come into him, and will dine with him, and he with me."  Genesis 3:10 reads: "And he said, I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked."

My Identity Crisis

Those of you who know me, know that I've always considered myself a proud German.  I sure have a Germanic temperament.  I've long thought of myself as one of the few Germans in a federation of men, most of whom are of Dutch ancestry (the URCNA).

Ten years or so, ago I became interested in family history.  Over time, doubt started creeping in about my German ancestry as the evidence began to point away from Germany (even the Palatinate, i.e., the region around Heidelberg) toward Switzerland and those Reformed families, who, as refuges from Roman Catholic persecution, relocated to the Alsace along the Rhine in the 1680's.  I could live with that.  My family might have lived in France, but they were not French, they didn't even speak French at first, and they liked France so much that within a generation at least one of them had emigrated to America.

In genealogical research, the creed is document, document, document.  Here's what I know for sure.  The first of my kin in America was one Christian Redelsberger, who arrived in Philadelphia on September 29, 1733 (Click here: Riddleblog - Old Family Photos and Documents - chrrsig.bmp).  The vessel which brought him sailed from Rotterdam six weeks before. 

I also know that Christian Redelsberger moved to South Carolina in 1742 and that he was one of the founders of the "Dissenting Protestant Church" (whose confessional documents were the Walloon [Belgic] Confession, the First Helvetic Confession and the Augsburg Confession of 1540).  The founders of the Dissenting Protestant Church didn't much like the pietists among the Swiss Reformed, nor did they like the very anti-Reformed Lutherans, who happened to live just to south (across the Savannah River, in Georgia, of all places).

It always troubled me that Christian would choose the Walloon confession.  If he were a Palatine, he'd be a Heidelberger.  If he were Swiss Reformed, he'd be a Helvetic man.  One of the other founders of the Dissenting Protestant Church was Swiss, which explains the use of the First Helvetic Confession.  The fact that they lived among mostly Swiss and Germans (in the Saxe-Gotha region of South Carolina!), probably explains the use of the Augsburg Confession.

Then there's the surname.  People often stumble over "Riddlebarger," but that is the highly anglicized version!  To date, I have found 51 different spellings for Christian's surname in PA and SC.  Many have a "Rhetels," "Rhedels" or "Ricktels" variant.  Since people recorded Christian's surname phonetically in public documents, we don't know what it was originally.  We just know how it sounded to the English ear.

That leads to my identity crisis.  In a moment of writer's block, I did a quick google search for "Riddelsperger" (the way Christian's son John spelled his name) and to my amazement got a hit for a Christian "Retlispergh" (and a number of other obvious family members) in a European church register in 1703.  I'm not yet sure this is our guy or not--it needs to be documented, which means looking through rolls of microfilm of church registers and going blind in the process--but for a whole bunch of reasons I won't bore you with, this is the first time I have ever had a concrete lead on my ancestors in Europe.  This may well be the real deal.  We'll see . . . document, document, document.

Here's the catch.  The name appears in a church register (Catholic) in Broekhuizen.  Broekhuizen is in the province of Limburg in what is now the Netherlands . . .  OK, you can stop laughing!

The problem is that if this is where Christian's ancestors lived before he set sail to the New World from Rotterdam in 1733, the region was not under control of the Dutch at the time, but a mixture of German, Walloon, French and who knows what else.  Broekhuizen is but a couple of miles from the modern border with Germany.  Between 1600-1800, the region was ruled at various times by Spain, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany and Austria.

To add to the difficulty of documentation, Limburg even has its own dialect ("Limburgish" and no, I am not kidding) which is recognized by the EU as an official European dialect!  Some combination of German and Limburgish might explain the odd spelling of our surname (it is probably not German), as well as Christian's otherwise strange allegiance to the Walloon Confession.

Now comes the crisis--how am I to behave if I am a Limburger?  I know what Germans do, but what about Limburgers?  Will I have to learn Limburgish?  I have never even met another Limburger . . .  Have you?

I feel lost and confused . . . but I will find some way to carry on . . .

Who Said That?

Who Said That?

"If I do not return to the pulpit this weekend, millions of people will go to hell."

Leave your guess in the comments section below.  Please, no google searches.  The fun is in the guessing!

If you wish to look at past "Who Said That" entries, click on the "Index to Current Posts," then find the index to "Who Said That?" 

Update on Monday, July 23, 2007 at 09:43AM by Kim Riddlebarger

These words were uttered by the famed televangelist and anti-Calvinist, Jimmy Swaggart.  How ironic that the same man who denies effectual calling and sovereign election, nevertheless had so much confidence in his own preaching.  When the Assemblies of God suspended Swaggart from ministry while in the midst of a series of sex scandals (Swaggart got caught cavorting with prostitutes), Swaggart boasted that unless he return to his pulpit before his suspension was over, millions would perish.  The Assemblies of God stood their ground and defrocked him.  Meanwhile, Swaggart (and his wife) keep showing us all how happy they are.

My Personal "Voting Guide"

Many people (in our congregation and readers of this blog) have asked me about my thoughts on particular candidates in the upcoming presidential elections.  To put it bluntly, I'm not thrilled with any of them (at least not yet).

Rather than speak of individual presidential candidates, I thought I would post some of the criteria I will be using when I make my final choice.  Perhaps, you will find this helpful.  These apply to other state and national elections as well.

Like every other presidential election I can remember, my vote next time will probably be some form of a "lesser of evils" choice.  It has been a long time since I voted for someone with great enthusiasm.   But as Christian citizens, we must do our due diligence and weigh our vote carefully.

Since the focus of this blog is primary theological, I am reluctant to discuss presidential politics.  But this might be of help to some of you.  Again, the following list is largely descriptive, not prescriptive (i.e., this is how I will choose my candidate, not how you should choose yours).

Here, then, are a few of my personal criteria: 

I.  Moral issues:

1.  Is the candidate “pro-abortion” (i.e., supports partial birth abortion and federal funding for all abortions)?  I will not vote for such a candidate. 

2.  Is the candidate “pro-choice” (i.e., personally opposed to abortion, but defends a woman’s privacy over against state intrusion)?  Under very limited circumstances I would vote for such a person (that is, if the person is an otherwise sound candidate, does not advocate federal funding and if they are running against a pro-abortion candidate).

3.  Is the candidate politically pro-life (i.e., a generic conservative)?  Perhaps.

4.  Is the candidate consistently pro-life (i.e, in tax policy, supreme court appointments, etc).  Likely.

5.  Does the candidate favor homosexual marriage?  I will not vote for such a candidate.

6.  Does the candidate favor civil unions?  Under very limited circumstances I would vote for such a person (i.e, only if they were an otherwise sound candidate, and only if they are running against a gay-marriage advocacy candidate). 

7.  Does the candidate support the traditional definition of marriage?  Likely.

8.  Does the candidate express their concern about the poor and suffering through the advocacy of increased federal spending and centralized government programs?  Unlikely.

9.  Does the candidate express their concerns about the poor and suffering through the advocacy of federal/state/community programs involving job training, welfare reform, etc.  Perhaps.

II.  Constitutional Issues

1.  Does the candidate favor limited representative government?  Likely.  This is my primary voting criterion.

2.  Does the candidate defend second amendment rights?  Likely.

3.  Does the candidate understand that the establishment clause of the first amendment does not trump the free exercise clause?  Likely.

4.  Does the candidate defend the principle of avoiding all foreign entanglements (i.e., nation building), but nevertheless is willing to defend America’s citizens and vital interests when necessary?  Likely.

5.  Does the candidate defend private property rights?  Likely. 

III.  Disqualifications–Personal Reasons Why I Will Not Vote for a Particular Candidate:

1.  Does the candidate engage in rhetorical class warfare–“two Americas,” “tax the wealthiest Americans” etc?

2.  Does the candidate play the race card?  (This is different than addressing racial issues--something which is vital)

3.  Does the candidate have a thin resume for office?  Executive office holders (i.e. governors) are generally better suited for high office than is a legislator (i.e. senators).

4.  Does the candidate make unsubstantiated concerns (i.e. global warming) important themes of their campaign?

5.  Does the candidate invoke "Christian America" themes? 

6.  Does the candidate see the judiciary as a means of enacting public policy? 

IV.  Qualifications–Personal Reasons Why I Will Vote for a Candidate

1.  Is the candidate well-qualified for the position?

2.  Does the candidate understand the vocation of “public service”?

3.  Does the candidate possess strong leadership skills?

4.  Does the candidate possess good communication skills?

5.  Does the candidate manifest personal integrity?

6.  Does the candidate understand the great threat posed by militant Islam?
 

A Ten Dollar Tax on Cigars?

OK . . .  Now I'm really mad. 

The democrat controlled congress is seeking a ten dollar tax per cigar to pay for the rising cost of children's health care.  Can you believe it?  Ten dollars per cigar???  That's not per box, but per cigar . . .

Bush says he'll veto the tax increase if it ever gets to his desk--not because he favors cigar smoking, but because of other provisions in the bill which would expand federal health care.

While I am not thrilled with the democrats or the republicans these days, this is what democrats do--raise taxes.  Enough already! 

Click here: Business: Cigarmakers in a panic

Can you just imagine the impact this would have on the Reformed tradition?  We are already cranky enough as it is.  What would we do after those long synod and classis meetings?  This would set back friendships and fraternal relations for generations!  

Who Said That?

Who said that?

"Slavery as it existed in the South was not an adversarial relationship with pervasive racial animosity. Because of its dominantly patriarchal character, it was a relationship based upon mutual affection and confidence. . . . There has never been a multi-racial society which has existed with such mutual intimacy and harmony in the history of the world."

Please leave your guesses in the comments section below.  Please no google searches.  You must guess! 

Update on Monday, July 16, 2007 at 11:27AM by Kim Riddlebarger

This offensive screed can be found on page 24 of the "booklet" Southern Slavery As It Was, edited by Steve Wilkins and Doug Wilson.  Even if the distinction between race-based slavery as a sin and slavery as an institution can be sustained--and I am not sure it can be--the fact of the matter is that these sentiments are repugnant and Reformed Christians must repudiate them.

Southern slavery was race-based, and the subsequent failure of Reconstruction cannot be used to justify the supposed "idyllic" conditions of "Christian" antebellum south. 

Back from Synod

I'm back home from the 2007 URCNA Synod, which was held at Trinity Christian College (in Palos Heights, IL).

Like the three other URCNA synods I attended, the week was absolutely grueling.  Since we meet as a synod once every three years (which is fine by me), there is always a long and full agenda.  This time we started at 8:00 a.m. and several days worked as late as 11:00 p.m.  My butt can only take so much sitting, and my brain can only take so many motions, so like many of those attending, I found myself lurking in the back of the auditorium trying to clear my head and stretch out my aching back.  But for those of you who attend Synods and General Assemblies, you know that lots of good stuff gets done at the back of the hall during the meetings.

Unlike the three previous synods I attended, this time there was the profound sense that the URCNA is developing its own ethos, and despite the differences of opinion among us about how soon we will merge with the Canadian Reformed Churches, there was a strong and growing camaraderie among the ministers and delegates.  After ten short years of existence, the URCNA is starting to come into its own.  That's a good thing. 

The highlight of synod was the voice vote associated with justification.  When the agenda item reached the floor to affirm that "`Scriptures and confessions ... teach the doctrine of justification by grace alone, through faith alone, based upon the active and passive obedience of Christ alone.' Affirmed “that the Scriptures and confessions teach that faith is the sole instrument of our justification apart from all works,” the nearly two hundred delegates unanimously answered with great zeal, "aye."  When the call came forth, "all those opposed," there was dead silence.  It was absolutely glorious.  I wish you could have been there to have witnessed it.  Since I know that we are sinful and that we will find some way to screw this up, I'll enjoy the moment!

Among the other highlights were the approval of moving to phase two fraternal relations with the OPC--to all you OPC'ers who read this, "you are now stuck with us!"--we clarified (or at least tried to) our on-going efforts to move to full federative merger with the Canadian Reformed Churches, and since we are growing so fast, we split our classis and formed a new one (classis Pacific Northwest).  All in all, it looks like we are moving in the right direction.  May God grant us the grace to continue this progress.

My personal highlight was the Westminster Seminary California alumni dinner.  There are at least twenty URCNA pastors from WSC, and it was great to eat together.  Dr. Godfrey (who is well-loved and greatly esteemed by all us) was in fine form.  It was a great night!

Now . . . its back to researching and writing until I resume my regular pastoral duties at the end of August!