GRAND HAVEN, MI – Good Morning Grand Haven on 92.1 WGHN spoke with Karen Obits and Cynthia Spielmaker of ONTRAC: Ottawa North Tri-Cities Action Committee about the organization and an upcoming event in March.
Focused on Ottawa County’s District 10, Ottawa North Tri-Cities Action Committee (ONTRAC) is an independent political action committee. Its primary goals are to safeguard democratic
processes, communicate factual information on issues relevant to local residents, promote responsible voting, and recommend local candidates. District 10 includes the cities of Grand
Haven and Ferrysburg, the Village of Spring Lake and five of six precincts in Spring Lake Township.
ONTRAC welcomes people of all political parties and persuasions and hopes to provide a place where independents, Democrats and disaffected Republicans can work together for better
governance.
Hear the interview below.
For more information or to volunteer or donate to ONTRAC, please email info@ontracadvocates.com or visit https://www.facebook.com/ONTRACAdvocates.
Donations can be made here.
Community members are invited to join ONTRAC at Loutit Library on March 20 at 6: P.M. for a presentation by Calvin University Professor Emeritus James Bratt entitled
“America’s Non-Christian Founding and Christian Political Activism-Left, Right and Center.”
In addition to highlighting his research into America’s non-Christian founding, Bratt will discuss the ways in which “Christian nationalism is bad both for Christianity and for the nation.” This is the first installment of a planned open-to-the-public quarterly speaker series presented by ONTRAC.
ONTRAC will also host a public after talk following the event, beginning at 7:45 p.m. at Odd Side Ales. Bratt’s lecture will be centered on the following idea:
“The United States was intentionally not founded on a Christian basis. Yet Christians citizens have always, and legitimately, been involved in public life, advocating for positions across the entire political spectrum from left to
right. Thus it is a mistake to say that religion is simply a private personal matter that should be kept out of the public square, but it is also a mistake to say that Christians are entitled to
prescribe public policy simply on the basis of their religion.”
This presentation will lay out some of the complexity around this issue, concluding that the current movement for Christian nationalism is bad both for Christianity and for the nation, and that American history offers other far more valuable models by which Christians can make a positive contribution to our common life together.”
James Bratt is professor of history emeritus at Calvin University, where he taught American religious and cultural history from 1987 to 2016. Prior to that he served in the Department of
Religious Studies at the University of Pittsburgh from 1978 to 1987. A native of Grand Rapids, he earned his PhD from Yale University in 1978 and received three Fulbright grants, including a
lectureship in 2016-17 at Xiamen University in China. He has published widely in early American history, on Dutch-American history, and on religion and politics.
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