” Identifying the elephant Getting underneath the skin of insider movements, moving beyond the anecdotes, aphorisms and hype is no easy task. Shrouded in mystery, accompanied by hushed tones, as if the very telling of its stories places real people in danger, trying to get to its roots is a bit like Rudyard Kiplingʼs blind men trying to describe what is in fact an elephant. It seems too big, and is too diverse for anyone to gain a coherent picture. In part, I think thi

Introduction: The long and winding road I never intended to write what you see here. This started as a modest response to a request by the International Presbyterian Church. The IPC, is a diverse lot, representing many nationalities and cultures. That diversity extends to other things as well. Presbyterianism itself, as IPCers know is not monolithic. Though it is united within a broad, common polity, there are significant differences among Presbyterians and other Refor

The unfinished Reformation I think it is appropriate for Zurich to be the place where we call to complete the work that the Protestant Reformers began but never finished, but why bother? The events of the 16th and 17th century were incredible painful and costly. What could have been worth the lives of so many faithful Christians? These were real people after all: Jan van Essen and Hendrik Vos the Augustinian monks who heard the gospel from Luther & ended at the stake in Ant