When's the last time you checked your smartphone? Does the mere mention of your phone make you reach for your pocket? If your use of your smartphone borders on addiction, you're not alone.

Calvin Seminary held what we called a "Smartphone Retreat", a week-long series of exercises and practices designed to help us answer the questions “how much and how well do we use our smartphones?” and “what are the positive and negative effects they have on us?” Jeff Sajdak, Dean of Students, and Aaron Einfeld, Director of Lifelong Learning, planned and facilitated the week. Our then Educational Technologist, Nathan Bierma, talked to them about why they started the smartphone retreat, based off a TedTalk by Manoush Zomorodi and her book "Bored and Brilliant", and what they learned.

How can the church speak into a time of bitter partisan divisions? How can we be a redeeming presence in politics? How can the insights of John Calvin guide us even today?

Dr. Matthew Tuininga, Professor of Moral Theology and the History of Christianity at Calvin Seminary, asked these questions in his new book, Calvin's Political Theology and the Public Engagement of the Church: Christ's Two Kingdoms (Law and Christianity). Tuininga spoke with Kevin den Dulk, the then director of the Henry Institute for the Study of Christianity and Politics at Calvin University. Let us listen in to that conversation.

It is estimated that 50 million people around the world suffer from dementia. Individuals with dementia lose the sense of who they are, as their cognitive and behavioral functioning diminishes. Their loved ones who care for them are faced with a slow and agonizing decline which takes a physical, emotional, and financial toll on them.

How can we show the love of Christ in the midst of this loss? How can we view life and death in a way that might go against North American culture? Mary Vanden Berg, Professor Emerita of Systematic Theology at Calvin Seminary, addressed these questions at our first Loving Your Neighbor Today Conference.