Henry Gunnink

What's the name of the book and who is the author?

thanks for sharing your reflections.  I'm preparing a series of messages on prayer.  I wasn't looking for this specifically but it suggests maybe another whole sermon or maybe even citing what you share here.  It's very gentle and very encouraging and helpful.

I came across your posting almost 2 years after you wrote it, so am not sure if my response will find it's way to you.

I think one needs to recognize the development of the church after Pentecost with the authority given to the elders to ensure that everything is done in good order.  There are the beginnings of that kind of welcoming into and sending out of fellowship already inherent in Jesus granting the keys of the kingdom to his disciples in Matthew 18.  

As for a public context for profession of faith,  Paul's words to Timothy in I Timothy 6:12 are intriguing.  "Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called when you made your good confession in the presence of many witnesses."   It certainly was a public context -- seems most plausible that it could have been a worship service.

Yet another evidence of some sort of structured or at least supervised welcoming into membership is the fact that the apostles kept track of how many were added to their number in the book of Acts.  

I hope these observations can be helpful for recognizing the legitimacy of practicing profession of faith in a context of public order and accountability and welcome into another dimension of responsible membership within the church.

Henry Gunnink,

June 2018

I'd recommend reading an editorial by Ross Doutha of the New York Times entitled, "Ross Douthat: The Way we fear now."  

He links Holmes and "Tthe Dark Knight Rises" in his reflection.  He uses adjectives like "lunatic moralists" and "Lunatic  nihilists" to describe the characters in the Trilogy.  They are different from previous  villains who sought to bring things down to erect an alternative order.  For these villains their main objective is destruction for destruction's sake.  These villains are "... inscrutable,  protean, appearing from nowhere to terrorize, seeking no higher end than chaos,  no higher  thrill than fear."  All they want from us is death.    He doesn't use the term "morally ill" but suggests strongly similarities between the motivations of Holmes and the progressively depraved villains portrayed in our media entertainment.   Henry G. world-burners, meticulous madmen, terrorists without a cause.  world-burners, meticulous madmen, terrorists without a cause. all they want from us is death.