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Is *cino Dutch?

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dan
Nov 22 2002
12:11 pm

*cino’s mission statement reads: “culture is not optional seeks to help Christians practically apply their faith to all aspects of their lives by learning and serving as a community of believers.” The worlds “CRC” or “Calvinism” are nowhere to be found but this identity seems to be implicitly understood by most involved.

Is *cino intended to be a forum for the Dutch Reformed community? At the moment it seems to be so. Obviously there are advantages such as insider vocabulary, worldview similarities, and possibility of funding from Calvinist foundations and such. In its current function the site acts as a catalyst for CRC dialogue and community. Is this the goal?

If so, might the word “Christian” in the mission statement need to be qualified? Or is the goal to eventually expand the community to include Catholics, Lutherans, and Pentecostals?

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JabirdV
Nov 22 2002
01:19 pm

I am not Dutch, and I do not belong to the CRC church. I am a Christian…that’s it. I love the forum.

Good question, however. I think that due to the area of the country from which cino was launched, and the college where Rob & Kirstin attended, there is bound to be a lot of “Dutch Reformed” involvement at first. As the news spreads I am sure that the demographics will change substantially.

As I see it, all are welcome regardless of background or affiliation.

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dan
Nov 22 2002
06:32 pm

How did you get connected Jabird?

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kirstin
Nov 23 2002
04:04 pm

funny you should ask these things, dan. rob and i were having a discussion on just these topics the other night in the car.

we’ve pretty much gone on the assumption so far that this is something we hope to actively expand to include other denominations, without diluting our obvious roots in the Reformed church. for a number of reasons, we believe that such a comprehensive worldview is something Christians of other backgrounds are looking for and something that does not generally contradict what other denominations believe. it’s a biblical approach that we believe Reformed theology articulates well.

our main points of discussion were:

-are we being dishonest by not explicitly claiming to be Reformed?
-is it enough to be an organization that meets our goals within the Reformed/CRC communities, while not excluding others who want to participate?

these are questions that the board of directors is ultimately going to have to answer. and since you brought it up, dan, what do people think about these issues?

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BBC
Dec 01 2002
01:58 pm

Hmmm. Interesting. As a Dutch CRC guy who is also Irish and Scottish and was raised half-Methodist and went to a public school let me take a shot at it.

Cino is, by definition, about as open as you can get. It is out there on the internet for crying out loud. Now, I think we might legitimately worry that we are excluding those who don’t have computeres, or at least those who aren’t on line, but the nature of this thing is that it is wide open.

Now, it may be that the make up of the community forming cino is predominently dutch or perdominetly reformed because most of us first found out about the thing through Rob and Kirstin — though clearly it has already grown beyond that small community into a larger one conissting, at least partly of people who are not dutch and reformed. But I guess what is central to this whole thing is that cino is doing nothing to try to remain an exclusive club for peppermint eating hollanders. In fact, the opposite is true.

There is this woman in my church (and the church i go to is probably less than 60 percent dutch and traditionally crc people) who has argued for over twenty years that our church is not welcoming. She argues this in spite of the new members form the neighborhood who join every year, in spite of the fact thatshe has served as a deacon, on the search committee, and on the hospitatlity committee. She argues it in spite of the people who greet her every Sunday, who visit her when she is in the hospital, etc, etc, and it has caused me to wonder whether her complain might actually be that the world is not more welcoming.

So anyway, when i get going on this topic, I think I tend to get a little defensive. As kirstin says, a reformed perspective (which is much much larger than a dutch thing, or a CRC, RCA, PRC, URC kind of thing) is nothing more than a unified way of applying what the Bible says to all of life. It is certainly nothing to be ashamed of or shy away from. Niether do I think we need some kind of warning system like:

WARNING: The perspectives and worldviews you are about to encounter may be, or be influenced by, a reading of the Bible and an attempt to apply it in life. BE CAREFUL OUT THERE.

Now, i am as embarressed of my Dutchness as the next guy. It is true that I can’t dance, have big feet, and love to eat potatoes (or is that the Irish side of me — I can’t ever remember), but this sort of thing doesn’t tend to come up too much on cino.

If we start having threads that address the practice of keeping the garbage can under the sink, or the value of the dutch bathroom birthday calender, then we have a problem. Until then, (cue the patriotic music in the background) bring on whoever in the universe whats to plan and scheme about how to live more unified Biblically responsible lives that address the injustices and flaws of this sinful world we live in, (music swells) and perhaps we will learn from the kalaidoscopic variety of people that God made, and, like Him, will learn to love and accept all people, regardless of whether they have king peppermints in their pockets.

Whew. I got a little out of control there. What was I saying? Did any of that make sense?.

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JabirdV
Dec 02 2002
10:13 am

Ha Ha Ha! BBC, I love those peppermints. Especially the Wilamena (sp?) ones in the white boxes. MMMMM!

Dan, I have known Rob & Kirstin for many years. My involvement with *cino spurs from that friendship and the fact that it actually keeps my interest. I love the way the forum makes me think and how it stretches my world view.

I admit that I am quite familiar with the Dutch and the CRC, I married into a Dutch family (whom I love very much) who are very active in the CRC church. I am proud to say, however, that my trash can remains out from under the sink and there are no calendars hanging in our bathroom.

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JabirdV
Dec 02 2002
01:03 pm

My apologies to the Dutch community, Sheri and Queen Wilhelmina for the incorrect spelling of ‘Wilhelmina’…

At least now I know that “betterment” IS an actual word. I was afraid I was pulling a Grant or something.

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Ryan
Dec 03 2002
08:56 pm

I just want to make clear that there is a marked difference between the “Christian Reformend” and “Dutch Reformed” churches. The two are not interchangable. I believe that in the Dutch Reformed church, those caught with peppermints during the sermon receive twenty days in the pillory and a sound whipping besides. To call them conservative is to call Al Gore charismatic.

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dan
Dec 04 2002
07:56 am

My apologies. I was not refering to a denomination per se, just the cultural and spiritual heritage. Outside of Reformed denominations, people generally refer to CRC, RCA folks, etc as “Dutch Reformed.” The same way a CRC person might refer to another person as German Lutheran, when that person sees herself as ELCA.

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Ryan
Dec 04 2002
10:43 am

No problem, dan. There are so many slices in these denominational pies it is tough to keep them all straight sometimes. Okeedokee.

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wscott
Dec 05 2002
10:39 am

A couple of coments from an “outsider”…

I am also not Dutch. I don’t even know what the CRC church is. And I am just now trying to understand the creed of the “Reformed Church.” So, needless to say, I feel a bit out of the loop as I take a look at this discussion in particular.

I’m not sure that I completely agree with this statement:
“Cino is, by definition, about as open as you can get.”

For this reason:
If Cino is made up primarly by a certain membership that has “obvious roots in the Reformed church” then it would be nice to know some of that up front. Only because when I found out later it was like I was entering into a private conversation.

Maybe I’m being a baby about it…but from somebody that just happened upon the webpage i thought i was jumping into a smorgasbord of backgrounds and ideas. I was not…

just so you know…