The Banner: 160 Years and Counting

With the beginning of this year came The Banner’s 160th anniversary, and we feel that a yearlong celebration is in order. 

Since Synod 2025’s change of the mandate and instructions for The Banner and our editor’s following resignation, our small team has been in a time of flux for a good eight months. Yet we are journalists, and we’ve got a well-oiled machine, which we have kept running with our typical gusto and attention to detail. The arrival of our energetic interim editor in December brought a new version of flux and change, even as it brought a stabilizing force. Yet we know more change is on the horizon, as a long-term editor hunt is currently under way. 

So as we continue to live into our year of change, perhaps it is fitting that we find reason to celebrate The Banner’s long history. It was 160 years ago that Rev. John Y. De Baun began publishing a 16-page monthly for the True Protestant Reformed Dutch Church in New Jersey—a denomination that would become Classis Hackensack in the CRCNA 24 years later. That publication became The Banner of Truth, which then became The Banner we know today.

Over those years, The Banner’s various teams have certainly found themselves in many a time of flux, and The Banner has changed many times in a variety of ways. This year, 2026, The Banner became a bimonthly product, publishing in print every other month, while continuing weekly online publishing. This was a cost-saving measure (perhaps temporary?) that we took to help us to continue to serve our readers and the Christian Reformed Church. At the same time and for the same purpose (serving our readers) we also introduced two new columns. First is Gayla Postma’s dive into history. Each issue, she showcases some interesting part of The Banner’s history. The second column is Confessional Corner, in which Mary VandenBerg, professor of systematic theology, emerita, at Calvin Theological Seminary, explains the Confessions in a way all of us can understand. 

We are honored to be part of the history that has taken this publication across more than a century and half, and all the while, its writers, editors, and publishers have striven to use it to honor God and to educate, support, and encourage its readers. We, too, maintain those goals, and we continue to pray that God will bless this work and that The Banner will bless its readers.