Ex Libris

I ran across this booklet at Mom’s house last night while looking for a couple of discs and couldn’t help but grab it for a look.  Entitled This We Believe, authored by Richard Postma and Rev. Peter A. Hoekstra and published by the Young Calvinist Federation originally in August of 1953, this particular booklet is the fifth edition from 1961 and is an example of the type of material available to young people (!) for Christian education as late as the early 60′s in the Christian Reformed Church.  Things have gotten a bit more watered down since then.  The preface:

This We Believe - Fifth Printing, 1961

A number of years ago the Rev. P.A. Hoekstra at the request of the Young Calvinist Federation wrote a series of articles explaining the Belgic Confession.  The purpose of these articles, which were printed in the Young Calvinist, was to aid youth organizations and others in the study of the Doctrinal Standards of the Church.  Frequently the desire was expressed to have these articles reprinted in a manner that would make them more readily available.  In response to this desire, it was decided to publish THIS WE BELIEVE.

The part of this book dealing with the first thirty of the Thirty Seven Articles of the Confession of Faith is a somewhat revised and condensed reprint of what appeared in the 1925-29 volumes of The Young Calvinist.  Material dealing with the last seven articles has been added to complete the series.  Questions have been appended to aid societies and individuals in their study and discussion.

Those who are responsible for this publication consider it a cause for gratitude that the excellent response accorded former editions has made a fifth printing necessary in the year 1961, four hundred years after Guido de Bres, a minister of the Reformed Churches of The Netherlands, finished the writing of the Confession of Faith.

Our hope and prayer is that our youth will make diligent use of this little book in order that they as members of the church may know what the church confesses and may come to love and live their Confession.

Richard Postma
Federation Director

January, 1961

I hope I’m not alone in longing for this sort of seriousness about confessional integrity in Reformed churches today.