While the world is wholly and willfully foolish regarding the end of the world, the Lord our God “would not have us ignorant.” The series of articles and devotionals that follow bring us to the Word of God concerning the return of Jesus Christ through the parable of the ten virgins from the first thirteen verses of Matthew 25. By God’s Grace we will consider the topic of Christ’s return and the Parable of the 10 Virgins under four general parts, each of which will have several lessons attached.

And at midnight there was a cry made, Behold, the bridegroom cometh; go ye out to meet him.
Matthew 25:6
Its 2022 and thoughts of the end of the world are common and well documented both in the academy as well as in pop culture. It’s been a trend of the last several decades in countless books, Hollywood movies, and all types of shows, podcasts, and youtube channels to depict and orate on the end of the world as we imagine it. We have been left with shows depicting apocalyptic scenarios, zombie creatures, population destroying diseases, and other imaginations. As these ideas were hitting a fever pitch an actual pandemic came that killed many around the world, leading many of the survivors to embrace greater excess, anger, violence, drugs, science so called, in an effort to enjoy or extend their lives a little longer before the end.
For many cults the end of the world plays a prominent part in their history. The Jehovah’s Witnesses have been predicting dates for Christ’s return since their beginning in the late 1800s and as recently as 1975. Similarly, the World Mission Society Church of God grew in South Korea and around the world with promises of a heavenly jerusalem descending in Korea and ushering in the end of the world. This did not happen in 1988 or in 2010 as predicted but people keep following. In evangelical circles strange ideas of the end of the world are prevalent on the internet, social media, in best selling book series’s, and on the conference circuit. The 24 hour news cycle provides ample material for 24 hour newspaper exegesis wrecking havoc on many poor souls. In academia and business alike, scientists are regularly hypothesizing about when the sun will burn out and freeze the earth; when the ozone layer will disappear destroying our air, killing all life; or when an asteroid or comet will make a direct hit and wipe out humanity as we know it. All around us, the end of the world is considered, hypothesized, and modeled but few are searching for the truth where it is always found, in Scripture alone.
The end of the world, the day of judgment, and the return of Christ are all prominent themes in Scripture. Some of the longest chapters in the gospels are dedicated to Christ’s teaching concerning the end of the world. God spoke to us through the prophets in times past giving us lessons and pictures of the end of Jerusalem and the end of the world as a whole.
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Written by Abigail Ham, Hadassa Ribeiro, Ezra Craker, Katie Rosendale, and Savannah Shustack |
Thursday, November 17, 2022
Because Calvin is in a covenantal, ecclesiastical partnership with the denomination, that decision had implications for Calvin faculty, who are required to sign a covenant for faculty members in which they affirm, among other historical church documents, the Heidelberg Catechism. They are also required to pledge to “teach, speak, and write in harmony with the confessions,” according to the faculty handbook. For some faculty, Synod’s decision meant their affirmation of the confessions was now in conflict with their consciences when it came to LGBTQ+ issues.

Calvin’s board of trustees decided last Friday to approve the Professional Status Committee (PSC)’s recommendation to retain all faculty in the “pioneer cohort” — a group of faculty who were the first to file statements of confessional difficulty in response to decisions made at Synod in June. The statements were prompted by the Christian Reformed Church in North America (CRCNA)’s decision to elevate its stance on LGBTQ+ relationships to confessional status.
Synod, the CRCNA’s general assembly, voted to affirm that an interpretation of the Heidelberg Catechism used to justify the denomination’s stance against LGBTQ+ relationships had confessional status. For decades, that stance had been considered pastoral guidance, a much less firm designation.
Because Calvin is in a covenantal, ecclesiastical partnership with the denomination, that decision had implications for Calvin faculty, who are required to sign a covenant for faculty members in which they affirm, among other historical church documents, the Heidelberg Catechism. They are also required to pledge to “teach, speak, and write in harmony with the confessions,” according to the faculty handbook. For some faculty, Synod’s decision meant their affirmation of the confessions was now in conflict with their consciences when it came to LGBTQ+ issues.
Chimes granted faculty involved in the process anonymity due to the stakes of the situation and the sensitivity of the issue in the Calvin and broader CRCNA community.
Calvin’s faculty handbook encourages faculty who disagree with the denomination on a confessional issue to file a statement of confessional difficulty with the PSC. At a board of trustees meeting in July, administrators confirmed with the board that they were “all on the same page” about proceeding with the standard confessional difficulty process, according to Provost Noah Toly.

Toly told Chimes that this process has been the biggest part of his job since June.

A group of faculty began meeting during the summer for conversations about how the process might work. Toly guided these conversations. A group of faculty also met off-campus several times to discuss the issue, a faculty member said.
Around the beginning of the school year, a number of faculty decided to submit statements of confessional difficulty, also known as gravamina, to the PSC. About a dozen faculty filed gravamina, according to English and gender studies professor Linda Naranjo-Huebl, who was not among those who signed.
The PSC assesses gravamina and makes recommendations to the board regarding the involved faculty. The Calvin gravamen process for the pioneer cohort concluded at a board of trustees meeting on Oct. 28, in which the board affirmed the PSC’s recommendation to allow the pioneer cohort to continue to serve at the university within a set of expectations based upon Calvin’s existing policies on human sexuality and academic freedom. Those expectations apply to all faculty members, not just those who have gone through the gravamen process, Toly said.

“While we understand that not every member of the Calvin community will agree with every position or decision the University makes, our desire is that this be a place where even our disagreements are characterized by respect and love for one another,” Toly told faculty and staff in an Oct. 28 email. “I am hopeful that this process and outcome can serve as a model for our students and other observers as we continue to wrestle with important issues.”

According to Toly, the board found the PSC’s recommendations to be “respectful of the university’s covenantal partnership with the CRCNA, consistent with confessional commitment, congruent with existing policies and procedures, supportive of academic freedom and reflective of constructive engagement.”
To File or not to File
Naranjo-Huebl told Chimes her scholarship and personal convictions are “directly at odds” with Synod’s interpretation of the confessions as they apply to LGBTQ+ relationships. Naranjo-Huebl signed the denomination’s Covenant for Office Bearers 20 years ago, when LGBTQ+ relationships were not a confessional issue, so she believes leadership will need to take the initiative in redefining policy and issuing guidelines. She chose not to join the initial cohort of faculty signing a gravamen.
“Because I disagree that Synod has the authority to interpret the seventh commandment the way they have, I don’t intend to file a gravamen at this time,” Naranjo-Huebl said.
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Written by J.V. Fesko |
Monday, August 19, 2024
Search engine companies such as Google have claimed that such SEME is not possible, and they seek to operate with transparency for the processes that inform their search engine algorithms. The chances are high that search engine companies do their best to operate in a fair and transparent manner. Nevertheless, this doesn’t preclude or eliminate the possibility that a company might engage in SEME. As Forrest Gump might theologize, “Sinners are as sinners do.” In other words, in a fallen world we should never put our absolute and unswerving trust in any organization.

Every day millions of people use internet search engines for business, research, entertainment, and other various tasks. Many likely use search engines the way they would use a dictionary or, in days gone by, a phone book. The assumption might be that the search engine is value neutral: you plug in search terms and your desired query pops up with your results. But we should recognize that few things in life are truly value neutral. Software programmers have made decisions on how search engines work, and they have made value judgments about how the search engine should function. There are several different ways their value judgments appear in the seemingly innocuous use of a search engine.
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I used to work for a Christian nonprofit organization that strategized how our institution could come up on the first page of a search (i.e., search engine optimization). One of the ways to do this was to ensure certain key words were embedded in our web pages so that, if those words were searched for, our web site would have a greater chance of appearing on the first page of a search. This was the low-cost option. The higher-cost option was to pay for our organization to appear first. We decided to budget a certain amount of money to use ad words to boost our odds of coming up on the first search results page. When you search for “books,” for example, why do Barnes & Noble, Amazon, and Books-A-Million appear on the first page of the seventeen billion-plus results that come up? This is largely because they have paid the search engine company. Like placing a large phone book advertisement that catches your eye when flipping through its pages, companies spend money to ensure that their business comes up early in your search. Such a value judgment may make for good business, but does it mean that he who spends the most money is necessarily the best fountain of knowledge? In other words, just because someone pays to get to the top doesn’t mean that it is a click-worthy link.
A Cultural Mirror
When you type in a search query, one of the most common factors that accounts for initial results is the auto-complete function. One of the more popular forms of the auto-complete phenomenon is Wired.com’s series of auto-complete interviews. These videos feature one or more celebrities answering popular search queries that appear such as, “What is [insert celebrity name]’s real name, favorite movie, or favorite food.” Each of the suggested auto-completes represents the most popularly searched queries on the internet. But this raises the question: Is a search engine a genuine database of knowledge, or have software engineers designed search engines to reflect the people using them? Do you access a knowledge database or a cultural mirror? The answer to this question likely hinges on what type of query you enter.
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