Paul de Vries

Latest

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  Jun 7, 2013

  Seeing the Eternal: The Wedding Presence

  The most basic and stable relationships are triangular. In the two Bible passages that Rachel and Maria just read, each references three elements – the two humans plus the love that "never fails," in 1 Corinthians 13, and the man and the woman and the "pure fire of the Lord" that draws them together into unqualified commitment, in the Song of Songs.

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  May 29, 2013

  Why There Is a Persistent Education Gap

  Because of the dense smoke and misleading mirrors surrounding so much of federal and state education policy, most citizens are puzzled by the education gap – the fact that nationally African-American and Hispanic-American youth graduate from high school at 66% of the rate of European-Americans – and then enter college at 50% of the rate, and finish college at 33% of the rate of European-Americans.

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  Apr 30, 2013

  Reflections From the School Dummy: How One Teacher Changed My Life

  Some memories of our childhood remain persistent reference points the rest of our lives. For me, being the "school dummy" for six and a half years – kindergarten through the first half of 6th grade – is a reality that has helped shape every day since. An even deeper influential reference point is the miracle awaking initiated by an angel from heaven, Ethel Smith, who also happened to be my 6th grade teacher.

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  Apr 24, 2013

  Scientism Strikes Back

  As a professional philosopher of science, I invented the term "methodological naturalism" in an essay that the respected Christian Scholars Review published in 1983. The very fact that we choose to focus on natural realities while we do science means that the Spirit and powerful spiritual realities are still there when we remove our valuable scientific blinders of "methodological naturalism.

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  Apr 10, 2013

  Beware of Blinding Nature Religion: Scientism

  One of the most subtle and influential religions of America is "Scientism." Not the ever controversial "Scientology" or the so-called "Christian Science" of the "Christian Science Reading Rooms," but Scientism, the voluntary limitation of our beliefs and behaviors to only what is taught to us by the natural sciences.

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  Feb 20, 2013

  My FEMA Nightmare: Superstorm Sandy Policy to Help Nightclubs but Not Churches?

  Now I have one repeated nightmare: I am walking down the streets in Superstorm Sandy-ravaged sections of New York City, my town – especially near the shores of Brooklyn, Queens or Staten Island. As I walk, I grieve with immense sadness and anger when I see some churches boarded up because of their tragic superstorm damage. Perhaps some part of a floor is weakened or some electric wiring is damaged. It may be that some steps are broken or a dangerous level of mold has grown. Now failing our build

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  Feb 11, 2013

  FEMA's Ugly Superstorm Sandy Policy: No Churches Allowed

  It is stunning how policies in a country so blessed by God can turn into programs that severely undermine the good work done in God's name. This latest federal case is so insidious that it takes your breath away.

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  Jan 21, 2013

  Who Stole MLK?

  We live in a time of magical secularism. Right before our eyes the Gospel truth is ripped off, stolen, or at least seriously "dumbed down." For what reason do we allow fables to replace facts – even when the marvel and splendor of the facts far exceeds the secularist's ingenious fabricated fables.

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  Dec 30, 2012

  Grand Jubilee 2013: Biblical Emancipation

  We are set to celebrate the Grand Jubilee of the Emancipation Proclamation, and yet millions of our people unjustly languish from the horrific shackles of inadequate education—and hundreds of thousands, and their families, tragically suffer through the additional shackles of incarceration. How is this possible?

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  Dec 25, 2012

  The Christmas Paradox: Wholly Natural and Supernatural

  To us finite and flawed humans, for anyone to claim to be fully human and fully divine may seem blatantly contradictory. Still, from the Biblical record this momentous, paradoxical Christmas episode of the divine-human Savior is truly prophesied and fully produced.