What To Do When IGoogle Closes

Published on by D. G. Hart

I believe I have made adequate preparations, but for those wondering what the world of the interweb will be like after today, the conference this weekend in Iowa on Presbyterians and Reformed Protestants in the United States may be a way to go into that gentle night of post-IGoogle browsing. Here are the details on Reformed In America: An Exploration of the History of Reformed & Presbyterian Christianity in the States, featuring Alan Strange and (all about) me: And here is a brief description:

Is there an American form of Christianity? Many believers who live in the United States would be content simply to identify themselves as Christians, others as American Christians, and still others would be inclined to say they are Christians in America. But are believers in any of these groups able to identify distinctive traits of American Christianity? Do you know enough of the history of Christianity in this country to recognize how your own expression of Christian faith and practice has been shaped by America in the modern age, for good or ill?

None of us are simply “biblical Christians” but have a history that has shaped us in one way or another. Reformed Christians have a rich heritage going back to the Protestant Reformation in sixteenth-century Europe, but they also have a peculiar history in the United States. Join us for this free two day conference which will explore some of the major outlines of the history of Reformed & Presbyterian Christianity in the United States.

“Reformed in America” will take place at Redeemer Evangelical Lutheran Church (3615 University Avenue, Des Moines, Iowa) starting at 7:00pm, Friday,
November 1 and running through the afternoon of Saturday, November 2. This conference is hosted by Providence Reformed Church and Grace Presbyterian Reformed Church, which are both congregations in Des Moines.

27 thoughts on “What To Do When IGoogle Closes”

  1. I’m bummed I’m not going to be there. Oct 1 indeed turned out to be a problem. Oh well, like, whatever dude. Make sure the Q & A is miked on both sides. All’s fair in war and love, but mainly skirmishes. Trip, push, shove, turn off his mike, write feverishly during his redress, put your feet up on the table and hum loudly while waiting your turn, throw empty peanut shells, the usual.

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  2. Saw this via iGoogle but am up and running with Feedly. Meanwhile catching up on ReformedForum podcast on ‘History of Calvinism’.

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  3. I dig RF…but I still can’t find the problem with biblical training dot org. I’m in full agreement that we reformed need all the more training we can get, and if the church history lectures are any indication, there’s other good stuff on that interweb. All about me and my commute, bros…….

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  6. Dan, Feedly does seem like a decent alternative, except you can’t search without paying a price. Why didn’t Richard Snowden blow the whistle on that?

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  12. The Lutherans have invited us to breakfast at the church at 8:00 Saturday morning. Lutherans, Reformed, and Presbyterians all eating pancakes together. It will be just like it will be in heaven.

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  13. Hart is teaching Sunday school at the OP on Sunday morning so I have to head over for that. I’m taking my wife (she isn’t doing the conference, but is sending Rice Krispie treats tonight). I’ve built Hart up in her mind to be a combination of Brad Pitt and Albert Einstein so she can’t help but be disappointed. Actually there’s a good chance she’ll punch him for taking up so much of my time at Old Life.

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  14. As if that would be the first time DGH has been punched by a girl. She may punch you when she sses him.

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  17. Eric,

    The Lutherans have invited us to breakfast at the church at 8:00 Saturday morning. Lutherans, Reformed, and Presbyterians all eating pancakes together. It will be just like it will be in heaven.

    But how will you all possibly have a principled way of knowing whether you should use maple syrup AND butter or just syrup on your pancakes?

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  20. http://literatecomments.com/2013/11/04/a-recap-of-the-des-moines-iowa-reformed-in-america-conference-november-1-2-2013/

    It’s Sunday afternoon and I’m reflecting back on the just completed “Reformed in America” Conference featuring Dr. Darryl Hart & Dr. Alan Strange. Here are some of the highlights:

    On Friday I didn’t get away from work in Ames until around 6:10 so I arrived for the first session – Alan on “The Tumultuous Beginnings of American Presbyterianism” – 10-15 minutes late. The crowd was good (I later heard around 60-70 and that seems right) and there were some people I recognized and others I did not. We had asked people to RSVP and hadn’t received too many so we weren’t sure what to expect.

    I hadn’t heard Alan speak before and I enjoyed his enthisasm and knowledge of the subject matter. I have read a fair amount on Presbyterian & Reformed history in America so I was familiar with a lot of what he talked about. For someone new to the subject he provided a good overview and a lot of food for thought for further reading.

    Darryl was set to go after Alan with his first talk, “The Challenge of Americanism”. Prior to that there was a 15 minute break and I had to go out to the hallway and check out the book tables and, as importantly, the snack tables.

    The book tables belonged to an outfit called Grace Books out of Pennsylvania. Apparently the proprietors also have a home in Ames, Iowa and when they heard about the conference they asked if they could participate. They brought a nice, fairly extensive, selection of Christian books, most by P&R authors, including several by Hart. I saw the newer edition of his & Mark Noll’s ”Dictionary of the Presbyterian & Reformed Tradition in America”, “J. Gresham Machen Selected Shorter Writings”, Hart & John Muether’s “With Reverence & Awe – Returning to the Basics of Reformed Worship” (which I bought), and Hart & Muether’s “Seeking a Better Country – 300 Years of American Presbyterianism”. It would have been nice to have more Hart books (like his recent “Calvinism – A History”) but there were a lot of other great books available. I also bought Muether’s biography of Van Til and had my eye on biographies of Charles Hodge & Herman Bavinck but showed some uncharacteristic restraint. On Saturday I saw my dad buying a stack of books and also saw one of my elders struggling to withstand the urge to buy several. I believe he succumbed at least somewhat as the weekend went on.

    The snacks were very good and bountiful the entire weekend. There was a lot of stuff from Jaarsma Bakery in Pella as well as lots of homemade treats from the ladies on the food committee (I had to stop home on the way to the conference to pick up the Rice Krispie treats my wife made — I confess to stealing one on the drive down). I like Dutch Letters (they’re known as “Banket” in the Netherlands, I was told during the weekend) so I made sure to have one of those with some coffee during each break. The diet starts on Monday…

    During the break I had the chance to meet Darryl in person for the first time. This was exciting as I have read several of his books over the past few years, have heard him interviewed and watched his lectures many times, and have been a regular (perhaps too regular…) at his Old Life Theological Society blog for the past year to 18 months. My greeting: “Dr. Lebowski, I presume?”. Old Lifers will get that, others will be left in the dark for now. We visited for a bit and then everyone returned to the sanctuary for his lecture.

    A word about the sanctuary: My church, Providence Reformed Church, rents from a Large Lutheran church in Des Moines which has a small membership these days. I spoke to one of their members recently and he told me they are in the 20′s for attendance on Suday mornings. That makes our church, which is small by most standards, around three times bigger than our landlord! They were very gracious in letting us use their larger sanctuary for the conference.

    Darryl’s lecture was solid, as always, and there was a brief Q&A afterwards. At that point it was around 9:30 and everyone was worn out after a long day (and a long drive for some — especially the speakers). Darryl, Alan, and Alan’s son Robert, a senior at Trinity Christian College in the Chicago area, headed back to their hotel in Downtown Des Moines and everyone else headed home for the night.

    A word about the conference attendees: I am pretty sure most of the P&R churches in Des Moines had people in attendance. There were several from Providence and several from Grace Orthodox Presbyterian, the other sponsoring church. I saw people I knew (including Pastor Michael Ericson) from Trinity Presbyterian Reformed. There was a couple I know from Sovereign Grace in Ankeny. I recognized a young man from the Des Moines Christian Reformed Church who was there both days. There was a young couple from the OPC in Pella (more on their pastor Chuck Muether later). I saw I guy I recognized who I believe attends the CREC church in Pella. It was a nice cross section of P&R people.

    The next morning I was wired so I woke up early and did some bookselling stuff on the computer. Or I should say I tried to, My computer was completely dead. I’m hoping it’s just a pad power supply. I have a spare so I set that up and got some work done.

    At 8:00 back at the church there was a breakfast that the Lutherans put on that they were gracious to invite us to. By the time they were done serving there were a handful of Lutherans, some men from our church, as well as both speakers and some conference attendees. One man who was a Hart & Strange fan drove in from Chicago (a 5 hour drive) and joined us for breakfast. I got to sit by Darryl and have another nice conversation.

    As I describe the conference sessions you have probably noted that I am not giving a lot of details about what was said. The reason for that is that we were blessed by Chuck Muether and a couple of young video producers (one of them is a distance student at Reformed Theological Seminary who Chuck mentors). These guys recorded the whole conference and our hope is to have it up on You Tube soon. This will be a great resource that hopefully people will benefit from for years to come. I know I have really enjoyed watching a conference that Hart did in Oregon a few years ago that is on You Tube.

    In the first session Alan spoke on “Politics and the Pulpit” and had a lot to say about Charles Hodge and the doctrine of the Spirituality of the Church. Once again he was solid.

    Much more to come, hopefully tomorrow!

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  21. Erik, and my loving response was, “Donny, you’re out of your element,” right?

    If only I were that clever.

    It was a great visit with the real Calvinists in Iowa.

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  22. Thanks for that Erik. I wanted nothing more than a road trip this last week. Instead, I got to work some more and prep financials and budgets. Oh well, sounds like great stuff.

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  23. I believe the longest trek, non-speaker division, was 7 hours from South Dakota. It was great working with the URC boys and I quite enjoyed the weekend. Like Erik, I’ll have some more observations later.

    I later heard that my own mother dissed Darryl (to his face) about his weight. Well, DGH said the Muether boys are illegitimate so what comes around goes around I guess.

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  25. Audio & video should be available soon. Here is the last part of my recap:

    After Alan’s talk I had to take off to coach my son’s final 1st & 2nd grade flag football game so I missed Darryl’s morning talk – “Kuyper & Machen – Models of Reformed Witness” as well as the lunch that the ladies of our churches worked very hard to pull together. I wish that I would have been able to experience both of those. I look forward to watching Darryl’s talk online.

    Alan’s afternoon talk, “Unity without Union – Beyond Acronyms” and Darryl’s “Anti-Modernism” were both interesting and were followed by a Q&A session. Questions were submitted beforehand and there were no fireworks.

    During an intermission in the afternoon I met a family from the Chicago suburbs who came from the Ukraine. They have been in the U.S. for a decade or so and worship at the OPC in Wheaton. This was interesting. I didn’t ask how they found their way to conservative Presbyterianism. It was great that they were able to make the trip to Des Moines.

    After the conference I was invited to the home of OPC elder & fellow conference organizer Mitch Mahan for a beer, cigar, and beef stew (which was great). An OPC pastor from South Dakota (originally from Chicago), Curtis Moleterno, was staying with Mitch for the conference and joined in as well. It was nice to be able to meet him and get to know him.

    After an hour or so we drove to downtown Des Moines to meet Darryl, Alan, and Alan’s son, Robert (a senior at Trinity Christian College) at Raccoon River Brewing Company, which was within walking distance of their hotel. We stayed there for a few hours, enjoying good conversation and beer (I have to assume it was good since I abstained as the driver). Everyone was tired after a long couple of days so we adjourned for the evening around 10:30 or so (hey, we’re middle-aged guys).

    The next morning Alan led worship and preached at Providence Reformed (unfortunately it does not look like the sermon is available online) and Darryl taught Sunday school at Grace OPC. My parents attend Grace so I decided to attend there with my wife. We arrived shortly before Sunday school and ran into Darryl in the parking lot. One of the nice features of Grace is that they serve coffee BEFORE they start activities. I took advantage of that and had a few minutes to chat with Darryl and my dad before class began. Darryl taught on the topic of “worldliness” and I really enjoyed it. How many Sunday school teachers manage to work a reference to Woody Allen’s “Annie Hall” into their lesson? After Sunday school Pastor Eddie Jensen led worship and preached, doing a nice job. He is relatively new to the church and this was the first time I have heard him. After the service my wife and I took off and the memorable conference weekend drew to a close.

    Hopefully other P&R churches are able to work together to bring scholars and churchmen like Alan Strange and Darryl Hart to their cities. These guys are incredible resources for our churches and they are also really warm, delightful, human beings. Given their talents they could be doing other things, making more money, gaining more worldly fame and rewards. They have devoted their abilities to service to God and His church, however, and we in the conservative presbyterian & reformed world are all richer for it.

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