The classicists in Leiden have their own quarterly magazine: Frons. Their Summer special on metamorphoses includes an article about Monsters that I wrote. I blogged an English variant of the same article recently on Angels and Apes, an often-more-than-weekly-blog, maintained by Megen de Bruin-Molé, a PhD researcher at Cardiff University. (more…)
The Dutch Adventist Church asked me to do a quarterly column running through the Fundamental Beliefs of the Adventist Church. I plan to discuss one or two of the fundamentals per quarter. As you might Read more…
The Dutch Adventist Church creates a magazine, Contact, that goes to about 3000 people who are interested in the Bible. As some of these people have been receiving this magazine for quite a few years, the editors Read more…
The Dutch Adventist Church asked me to do a quarterly column running through the Fundamental Beliefs of the Adventist Church. I plan to discuss one or two of the fundamentals per quarter. Here is the Read more…
Refugees are a hot topic at the moment. The first Advent (the Dutch church magazine) of 2016 was about refugees, and included a title article by me ‘Op de vlucht’. The article discusses the topic of refugees, Read more…
The Dutch Adventist church decided to translate and publish the book on women’s ordination that I wrote for the Trans-European Division. There should be a copy for every household in the Union, about 4000 in Read more…
The Dutch Adventist church recently asked me write a short booklet on biblical hermeneutics. It was meant to be about 6000 words, easy to understand for any member, that will be distributed in Holland: one for each household. The timeframe was ridiculously short: writing, designing, printing and distributing within three weeks! But, we made the deadline (with thanks to my team of editors and designers) and the booklet will be distributed at the Union Session on January 31. (more…)
After the General Conference last year, Adventist Today contacted me. They wanted a retrospect on the meetings from various viewpoints. I suggested an article that even I thought was pretty out of the box. The article would be entitled ‘How Forbidding Incest Ruined the Church Manual.’ This was based on my reflections on the changes to the Church Manual that were accepted at a meeting that had historically low quorum of about 15-25% of the delegates. Changes that I felt were quite horrific. They liked my pitch, it was printed, and I just received a PDF of the copy. (more…)
Every five years or so the British Adventist church publishes an evangelistic magazine called Focus. This year they asked me to write an article about why I am an Adventist. That's a very hard question, and the best answer I could come up with is 'I like to believe that there's a God.' That was a good summary of my position. As the weird post-postmodern person that I am, I don't really attach any important if there is actually a God. I don't want to know if there is a God. All of this is the wrong question. I, personally, think my life is better if I believe in God, so I like to believe in him. (more…)
The theme of the Dutch Adventist church’s autumn edition of Advent was ‘The church of the future’. I reworked my That’s So Meta article from Adventist Today to fit the magazine. If you speak Dutch, you can read it here!
The Dutch Seventh-day Adventist Church publishes a quarterly magazine Advent, which gets sent to all its members. The June edition was on respect, equality and human rights and I wrote the main article. It is Read more…
I arrived home today to find an exciting bit of post: three copies of the latest Adventist Today. It is apparently the GC Session Special. It's twice as thick as usual, and has been sent to all the GC Session delegates, as well as the normal subscribers. The exciting part is that it contains an article written by me: That's So Meta: The Post-Postmodern Church. The article is based on a speech I gave at Reframe at the One project is San Diego. One of the editors of Adventist Today was in the audience and asked if I could give him a transcript. The wonderful editors at Adventist Today helped make the article much better than the speech, and definitely worth reading. (more…)
This last year has turned into my annus mirabilis for publications. In the last six months I published my PhD, a theological book on the New Testament, and a number of articles. Yesterday, I just received a copy Read more…
The Dutch Seventh-day Adventist Church publishes a quarterly magazine Advent, which gets sent to all its members. One of my many tasks for the church, is that I am the editor-in-chief of the magazine. The most Read more…
Just a short note to say: My book is mentioned on the website of the Dutch Council of Churches!
I recently returned from The One Project gathering in San Diego, where I gave a talk about what the future holds for Christians in Europe and the US alike. A longer version of that talk Read more…
Colleague and author dr Reinder Bruinsma recently read and discussed my book Avontuurlijk Wandelen in his weekly blog. I must say I am very honoured by the words he writes. I think my favourite sentence is: Read more…
Onderstaande is het eerste hoofdstuk van mijn boek Avontuurlijk wandelen: Onderweg met de Bijbel. Eén van mijn broers heet Paul. Hij is een levensgenieter. Hij heeft altijd tijd voor de leuke dingen in het leven, maar nooit voor de minder leuke kanten. Mijn ouders praten nu nog steeds over het grote wonder dat het antwoord was op hun gebed: Paul heeft de middelbare school afgemaakt! Zo druk als hij is met het genieten van de kleine dingen, zo weinig tijd heeft hij om zich zorgen te maken over stommiteiten als geld of carrière. Uiteraard is hij mijn grote held. (more…)