Having grown up in the Detroit area, I had no idea really that there was this major celebration that occurred every year in May in Holland, on the west side of the state. It’s called Tulip Time.

Once I began living and working in this section of Michigan, I learned of the event and have since seen many photos depicting participants sweeping the streets in Dutch garb. A couple of times I’ve attended an event or two at the festival. For some reason, I’ve always been comforted by knowing that this annual festival occurs.

It is a celebration of ethnicity — and sometimes that can be lost in our world today that is moving– somtimes racing, oftentimes stumbling  – toward a place of of inclusiveness and diversity. We, of course, need to get together and to work toward unity. But let’s not forget the past.

Making me think a bit about Tulip Time is an article in Wednesday’s Grand Rapids Press, chronicling the annual Durth-language service at the stately Pillar Church. This has been going on for 45 years.

Located in the heart of Holland, the church was “named for the six pillars that are part of its Greek Revival architecture.” The church was established in 1856 as the First Reformed Church, but later became one of the earliest of the congregations in the Christian Reformed Church.

Certainly this church is not stuck in the past and, says the news article, is working to be relevant to the needs of its community. It offers a range of ministries, including a summer Bible school for persons with disabilities. Still, this church should be congratualted for taking the time, every year, to hold a service that harks back to the founding days of the denomination. 

 Another of the Dutch-language services is set for 3 p.m. tomorrow. Although I don’t understand Dutch, if I am able to make it, I’d like to go.

 It’s a busy and racially charged world out there these days. 

Rev. Jeremiah Wright, the former pastor of presidential contender Barack Obama, is once again stirring the waters by speaking out on such issues as AIDS, United States foreign policy, and anti-Semitism. Among other things, he claims the U.S. needs to carry some of the blame for the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, because of how America has handled itself and oppressed others in the world.

Wright’s comments seem to have struck a chord, causing the issue of race, which is always there, to suddenly sit right there brazenly in the middle of our table.

Given the widespread interest on Wright and what he has had to say — and now Obama’s denouncement of some of his former pastor’s remarks – you wonder where this debate is going to go.

Regardless, though, of where it goes the Christian Reformed  Church is no doubt going to be part of the discussion.

I was thinking this as I sat in the lobby of a Christian Reformed Church in Kalamazoo, Mich.,  late last week and had a wonderful conversation with a man named Fronse Smith.

An elder in his church in nearby Holland, Smith is a softspoken man who is a chemist by trade but an advocate for racial equality and social justice by avocation. We were both attending the annual “Black and Reformed Confrence,” put on by Christian Reformed Home Missions. Smith is black and I’m white.

The reason for the conference was to take a hard look at the Belhar Confession, a document created by a church in South Africa that focuses on the need for Christians to strive for racial healing. The emphasis on the Belhar is one of the reasons why I see the CRC maintaining a role and a voice in the ongoing discussion on race relations.

 Here is what Smith had to tell me about the confession as we sat in the lobby of the church. “Theologically, this (the Belhar) is something that we need. With the help of the Holy Spirit, it can help free us” from the bonds of racism that continue to confront people, in and outside of churches.

The Belhar, he says, ought to become a formal creed of the CRC because of how it could help move people toward justice, reconciliation and unity.

There are some who claim the Belhar should not become an official creed of the church, partly because it does not seem to speak enough about the redeeming grace that Christ brought to all people. I don’t know about that.

What I do know is that the matter of race is making headlines as the presidential race unfolds. Forcing us to once again think about it is Wright.

Wright is clearly a very passionate man, who is willing to speak his mind on the subject of race. In a speech he gave on Sunday at a NAACP dinner, he said blacks tend learn and interact and think differently than whites and “some of our haters can’t get their heads around that.” He also said: “I come from a religious tradition that does not divorce the world we live in from the world we are heading to.” 

On Tuesday, Obama blasted his former pastor for some of his statements. And while that is the political thing to do, it also helps to keep the debate and the discussion alive. And that is crucial. But there is something else — and that is civility. Civility is crucial.

Why do I say this?

Because of the conversation that I had with Fronse Smith. It was simply that — a conversation, conducted in low tones  about a touchy topic. He spoke to me about being a black husband and father, employee and church member. I told him a little bit about myself.

When I left him, I felt a sense of connection. He opened his world to me, and I to him, and I think we’re both better for it. I hope Obama and Wright, and all of the others weighing in on the topic, try to keep that — civility — in mind as the months move forward, taking us toward November.

I was pleased by one story and deeply troubled by another that I read in the news this morning. The first one was about the son of a Reformed Church in America pastor whose son plays professional basketball. Over my coffee, I read about Kyle Korver, who now plays with the Utah Jazz.

Published in the Salt Lake Tribune, the story chronciled how Korver’s faith, and the faith of his family, have held them together and also make him something of an anomaly in the high-profile world of professional basketball. The story reads, “What Jazz fans may not know is that  Kyle is the living, breathing, high-sock wearing, three-point-shooting embodiment of Pella (Iowa) and its Third Reformed Church, where his father has been senior pastor for 15 years.”

With the money Kyle makes from playing pro ball, he gives away a good portion — perhaps as much as one third — to faith-based causes. These causes include his father’s church. Mostly, though, he won’t disclose the causes he supports.

We do know that before being traded to Utah from Philadelphia last year, he had started a Bible study with a group of inner-city kids. He is making $4.4 million this season.

Kyle’s was a positive and uplifting story – quite the contrary to one that I read on the international wire about famous movie director Paul Verhoeven, creator of such hits as “Basic Instinct,” “RoboCop,” and “Starship Troopers.” The story touched on a project that he hopes to launch — a story about the life of Jesus, in which he will contend that Christ’s father was a Roman soldier who forced himself on Mary. Apparently, a book will come out soon in which he writes about this.

From what I gather, Verhoeven has been promoting this belief for many years. A former Roman Catholic, he grew up in the Netherlands during the time of the Nazi occupation. I suspect the horror of that time shaped his vision of religion. I’m not sure where he gets his evidence about Christ being conceived this way.

The thing is, I guess I don’t care that much. In my world today, I choose to look at the Kyle Korver’s of the world and what they do. To tell the truth, I haven’t seen him play ball. But given the choice between watching him on the basketball court or getting a preview of Verhoeven’s movie about Jesus or a free copy of his book, I think I’ll take basketball every time.

I hope Calvin College doesn’t go too far afield as it spends the next year or so trying to chart a course for itself into the future. Charged with accomplishing this job is a task force made up of college officials, teachers, Christian Reformed Church representatives, pastors and others.

Among other things, the task force will be addressing such issues as “What ought to be the confessional,  philosophical and practical characterists and features that constitute the Reformed identity and mission of Calvin College?” Also, this: “What  should Calvin do to strengthen and maintain its Reformed identity and mission?”

I hope as this group gets going that it takes time to ask Kathleen Norris what she thinks. Why? Because she spoke eloquently this weekend at the bi-annual Festival of Faith & Writing about the things that makes Calvin the gem that it is in the literary world. Norris, an award-winning poet and memoirist, spoke Saturday morning about her new book that looks at the ways in which indifference, boredom and other behaviors take us away from connecting to and worshipping God.

But it was what she prefaced her talk with that struck me.  Norris said that the Calvin festival was known far and wide as one of the best — meaning most enganging and ultimately satisfying — conferences for writers in existence.  She said her editor in New York told her that she was so lucky to be attending.

Across the country and beyond, there are dozens of these conferences. But what makes Calvin stand out, she says, is the powerful ways in which its Festival of Faith & Writing weaves issues of faith into the craft and artistry — and appreciation — of writing. Once again this time, authors from a wide range of literary disciplines came to speak and inspire.

As sun shone on the campus after her talk in the Fine Arts Center, I walked along the sidewalk on the way to my car. Doing so, and watching many people move this way and that, on their way to or from conference sessions, I thought of how Calvin has done such a wonderful job in creating and maintaining this conference.  If the job of the college is to offer a platform from which to provide ways of looking at and discussing faith, and especially Reformed Christianity, and how it applies to the written world then it has succeeded wildly.

I wish the new task force well, but also hope that it is able to honor and praise and offer support for those things at Calvin that are already in place and helping to move the institution into the future.

I wonder if I would have gone if I had been invited — as has Rev. Jerry Dykstra, executive director of the Christinan Reformed Church– to attend a special prayer service officiated this week in a New York City church by Pope Benedict XVI.  I am clearly not the leader of a denomination. But what if?

Given that I’m a Catholic, it would have been a chance to get a close-up view of the man who sits at the head of the Catholic Church. Reflecting on it, I’m sure I would have taken the opportunity. At the same time, though, I am a bit mystified by all of the media hoopla surrounding this week’s visit by the pope.  I know, of course, that he is a world figure, and is worthy of press coverage.

At the same time, though, the pope isn’t a particularly central part of my faith. I think there are many others out there who would agree. I know the pontiff runs things and that he has been a stickler for Orthodox teaching. I know he represents a line of men who trace their roots back to Saint Peter, the first pope. I know that the pope is a symbol to many of a connection between God and the people of his church. I know the pope’s words can be powerful and address important issues confronting the world today.

For that matter, I’m not sure what the Catholic Church would be without a pope. I’m not one to argue that the position has no value or should be in any way  diminshed. Simply, I saying this: The pope to me is sort of like a sacred CEO, a person who chairs the board meetings and basically guides the organization.

Mostly, he is a distant figure to me. What he says doesn’t really play into how I view my religion. My religion is rather one that takes on form and shape every Sunday.

This Sunday, for example, I appreciated standing in the pew with my wife as the sun shone through the windows and the  choir sang familiar songs at the Catholic Church that we attend. As always, I took communion and marveled at the mix of humanity who walked up to receive the bread and wine. Although the priest’s sermon, on the need for more men to become priests, was only OK,  I nonethless obtained weekly refreshment from the Mass. Looking back, I thought about the pope’s visit only once — when I saw the front of the weekly bulletin welcoming the pope to America and wishing him well in his travels.

Top generals and diplomats continue to tell us about the progress we are making in the Iraq War. Presidential candidates tells us what we need to do to get out. Soliders and their families — not to mention the Iraqi people themselves — continue to carry the major burden of the cause.

 And many of the most of us have aching hearts and wonder and worry what can we do, if anything, to help make the  hurting in Iraq stop. Answers are hard to come by. Violence there seems out of our grasp — something happening in a movie or novel. I keep wishing there was more that I could do.

While what is in my reach is limited, helping me cope is my job. It gives me a chance to talk to people across the Christian Reformed Church in North America who are doing many things to address the sorrow and sinfulness — the carnage and the chaos, the sad reckonings and loss – that this war continually reflects and creates.

This is why church, in my opinion, can matter so much. We can argue over theology or wonder why young people aren’t going to church. We can ask what it means to be an evangelical, a fundamentalist, a Christian liberal, an emergent church member or a middle-of-the-roader.

But really, in some ways, these things are incidental to the what I like to think of as the boots of our faith being on the ground. The CRC is involved and in action, and that needs to be noted.

In the last few days, I have had, for instance, a chance to write about a CRC military chaplain in the Green Zone in Baghdad. As mortar shells and missles fall and explode in the zone, soldiers and civilians are being killed and maimed, and this chaplain — Gordon Terpstra — is right there offering prayer and comfort to those who have been injured or who are dealing with the terror of being constantly under fire. 

But CRC involvement in that war doesn’t end there. Jacob Kramer, international relief director for the Christian Reformed World Relief Committee, told me recently of the church’s efforts to feed the hungry in Iraq who have been victimized by the war. Outside of the country, he says, the church is starting to offer trauma care to the shattered psyches of men and women and children who have had to flee Iraq for Jordan or Syria.

Meanwhile, the CRWRC in Canada has been busy helping to place Iraqi refugee families into new homes so that they can build new lives for themselves in Canada.

And lately,  churches across the denomination have held prayer services to mark the fifth anniversary of the fall of Baghdad to the United States and coalition troops.

On nearly every front, as this terrible war goes on, the church is offering help. Politics aside, it is reaching out to all of those who are being affected and are in need of care –  the soldiers, the refugees, and Christians and non-Christian in Iraq itself. 

I feel honored to be able to write about it. In doing so, in some small way, I feel less helpless in the face of this complicated and controversial war.

On the night before Easter, my wife told me that there was a show on the Discovery Channel that I ought to see. So I plopped down on the couch and watched a good portion of “Jesus: The Missing History.”

It was interesting and posed some compelling questions. Especially, it had lots of computer graphics to recreate ancient biblical scenes and circumstances.

Little did I know that some folks would consider that show a type of hersey.

But that is what has happened in Grand Rapids, the home of  Kent Dobson, who helped to host the program on Christ and has apparently lost his job as a  teacher at Northepoint Christian High School because of it.

A story in the March 27 edition of the Grand Rapids Press reports, “It  was apparent to  both Kent and the board that some of the views expressed on the program were outside the Statement of Faith of NorthPointe Christian and therefore his resignation was given and accepted.”

I support statements of faith, in that they help to nail down what we believe. That said, I don’t get it.

I watched the program, found it interesting. Some of the scenes and the commentary didn’t really connect with what I believe. Yet, it did challenge me to think about it. My sense is that the program portrayed Jesus more as a rebel than as God, and more as a person trying to adhere to biblical prophesy than taking on the form and substance of a savior.

I enjoyed the show. Like I say it got me thinking. I took what I wanted and left the rest. I didn’t really know that Kent Dobson was from Grand Rapids, and I certainly didn’t think he or the show was pushing a view or stance on me that was way out there, but rather posing questions.

I now have a question of my own: “Is our faith something to accept and never challenge?”

It seems in bumping up against different views my faith gets stronger.I’m sorry for Kent Dobson, and wish him well in whatever ventures he undertakes next.

It was tough watching our dog Dakota being put to sleep on that vet’s table a couple of years ago. It was awful watching his final death shiver, even as his eyes looked at mine, as if wondering just what we had brought him to.

Since then, I’ve taken comfort in thinking about meeting up with the old boy up there in heaven — assuming I get there after I die. I have liked to imagine him romping through that celestial place, no longer bothered by squirrels and able to eat whatever he wants to his heart’s content because, after all, he’s in heaven.

But now comes this. Please, tell me it isn’t true, Charles Colson. In a back page column in the April issue of Christianity Today, Colson says there is no solid theology behind believing that I’ll meet Dakota on the other side. Colson, the kill-joy, says  that the Bible tells us that “animals are soul-less creatures, and will perish with the rest of creation. We will will not see them while our souls rest with God.”

Those of us who think dogs go to heaven are basically sentimental slobs, Colson tells us.  Believeing this way, in fact, could lead to “our moral undoing.”

Sentimentality aside, I’d like to think that Colson is off base. You simply can’t tell me that Dakota had no soul — you could never convince me that he didn’t understand what we were often saying to him. You’ll never make me believe that he didn’t feel lonely when we were gone and delighted when we were around.

More than that, you’ll never change my mind that, as he died on that vet’s table, something special and sacred didn’t move out of him, floating, no make that loping, on its way to that better place. Maybe God  doesn’t have a special spot in his heart for dogs. But then again, maybe he does. Either way, my hearts tells me that there are dogs in heaven. As for cats, now that is a completely different story …

A story in the Los Angeles Times this week chronicled the growth of a few downtown, inner-city churches. I read the  story with interest, hoping to see a Christian Reformed Church congregation mentioned.

I know that the CRC has had a fairly strong presense in L.A.’s central city area because I visited there several years ago. I especially recall being on hand for a service at LA Community Church in South LA as they were celebrating the Lord’s Supper and Rev. Tom Doorn turned and invited me — a Catholic — to the table. His gesture of inclusiveness has stuck with me.

So, I at least hoped to find Doorn’s church among those mentioned by the Times. But it wasn’t. Nor were other CRC ministries that are active in the area. As a supplement to the Times story, I asked John Rozeboom, director of CRC Home Missions, if I was off base, if the CRC presense has diminished in that area.

His answer was a categorical “no.” Maybe, he says, the Times defined inner city as small area in the actual heart of the downtown business district. If so, the CRC isn’t really there. But close by are three pastors — Doorn, Jin Soo Yoo, and Melvin Jackson — who “all lead urban, and near-urban Los Angeles congregations varying in membership from 100 souls to 1,850.”

Actually, says John, Jin Soo Yoo’s large church, in a place called Lake View Terrace now, started near downtown, and reflects the growth spoken of in the article. Doorn and Jackson are in South Central, L.A. and Crenshaw district, both L.A. proper.

Reading the Times article www.latimes.com/features/religion, says John, brought to his mind other, newer CRC-sponsored ministries in that are not in that area. They include Emmaus Road, with pastor Eric Likkel, and Sanctuary, with Randy Rowland, and other really new ones as well.

Maybe I’ll send my blog to the Times to point out the strength of CRC congregations in the heart of that bustling city. Chances are that the paper has published what it will, and is on to other faith-based stories. But you never know if maybe the next time around the paper will find CRC ministries at work and offer the denomination a well-deserved mention.

In my previous post, I criticized Democractic presidential hopeful Barack Obama for what I assumed would be a speech in which he said he was sorry for his ties to his former pastor who has said some pretty nasty things about race from the pulpit.

Today, I eat my words. Obama’s speech, given in Tuesday in Philadelphia, was not an apology. Not by any means. Rather, it was a wonderfully eloquent discussion of his complicated relationship with his former pastor and, more broadly, how that relationship speaks to the larger issue of race relations in America.

In his speech, he did distance himself from the remarks of his pastor — and he did this with conviction. But he also defended his former pastor and spoke of what the relationship — and how it has brought him closer to God — has meant to him.

It seems, then, that there are ways to say you are sorry, but at the same time provide the larger platform — that is the heartfelt theology of human connection — from which you speak.

Barack Obama spoke bravely and well. I’m sorry if my comments of yesterday diminished him and his message in any way. His words showed how apologies can’t be wrapped in something that is rather marvelous after all.