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The Bavinck Review 5 (2014) Released

The Bavinck Review 5 (2014)The Bavinck Institute at Calvin Seminary is pleased to release volume 5 of The Bavinck Review. The majors include:

  1. What Kuyper Saw and Thought: Abraham Kuyper’s Visit to the Holy Land — Bert de Vries
  2. The Missional Character of the (Herman and J. H.) Bavinck Tradition — John Bolt
  3. We Do Not Proceed into a Vacuum: J. H. Bavinck’s Missional Reading of Romans 1 — Gayle Doornbos
  4. An Adventure in Ecumenicity: A Review Essay of Berkouwer and Catholicism by Eduardo Echeverria — John Bolt
  5. The Pros and Cons of a Dogmatic System — Herman Bavinck, trans. Nelson D. Kloosterman
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Bavinck Bibliography Updates

We’re busily preparing the 2014 issue of The Bavinck Review. If you have any Herman and/or Johan Herman Bavinck bibliography items to share (i.e., theses, periodicals, books, websites) in any language, please let us know.

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2014 Rerum Novarum Conference: Neo-Calvinism and Roman Catholicism

Rerum Novarum Conference 4–5 September 2014, Rome, Italy

invite you to a two-day conference on neo-Calvinism (Abraham Kuyper, Herman Bavinck, Gerrit Berkouwer, et al.) and Roman Catholicism.

Plenary speakers include:

  • Prof. George Harinck (VU University Amsterdam)
  • Prof. Eduardo J. Echeverria (Sacred Heart Major Seminary, Detroit)
  • Prof. Richard Mouw (Fuller Theological Seminary)
  • Dr. James Eglinton (New College, University of Edinburgh)
  • Prof. Kees van der Kooi (VU University Amsterdam)

See the conference poster (PDF) for information regarding the call for papers, registration, and accommodations.

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Preview of The Bavinck Review 4 (2013)

TBR4_coverThe Bavinck Review 4 (2013) is now available to Bavinck Society members. Preview the contents and editorial.

This year’s essays include

  • an insightful study of the development in Bavinck’s view of non-Christian religions,
  • an exchange between two Society members regarding the relation of Herman and J. H. Bavinck to the contemporary insider missiological debate,
  • a review of digital Bavinck research tools,
  • and another voice in the discussion between Drs. VanDrunen and Klosterman regarding Herman Bavinck’s view of natural law and the two kingdoms.

The translation piece is a handful of letters that Herman Bavinck sent to one of his seminary students who was forced to leave his studies at Kampen due to a terminal illness.

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Upcoming Dissertation: A Theology of Learning

Student: Hanniel Strebel, Olivet University

Title: Eine Theologie des Lernens. Systematisch-theologische Beiträge aus dem Werk von Herman Bavinck (“A Theology of Learning: Systematic-Theological Contributions from the Work of Herman Bavinck”)

Content: Following the structure of Bavinck’s Principles of Education I outline the why (teleology), the who (anthropology), and the how (epistemology) of learning followed by a critical assessment.

Supervisor: Thomas K. Johnson

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John Bolt’s Dissertation on Bavinck’s Two Essays on the Imitatio Christi

A Theological Analysis of Herman Bavinck’s Two Essays on the Imitatio Christi by John BoltThe Bavinck Institute is pleased to announce its second publication this spring: John Bolt, A Theological Analysis of Herman Bavinck’s Two Essays on the Imitatio Christi: Between Pietism and Modernism (Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen, 2013).

Professor Bolt defended his original dissertation in 1982 at the University of St. Michael’s College, Toronto, under the title, ”The Imitation of Christ Theme in the Cultural-Ethical Ideal of Herman Bavinck.” For the published edition he has updated the scholarship and added a concluding chapter on application and relevance. Also, he has included the first available English translations of Bavinck’s two imitation articles of 1885/86 and 1918.

Bolt’s investigation of Bavinck’s essays on the imitation of Christ . . . immerses us in some of the most important aspects of the Christianity and culture debate. What is the relationship of God’s work of creation to his work of redemption? What is the relationship of nature and grace? What is the significance of common grace and natural law? What is the relationship of the Old Testament law, as summarized in the Decalogue, to New Testament ethics, especially as set forth in the Sermon on the Mount? Can the Sermon on the Mount really direct our social-cultural life and, if so, how? These will undoubtedly remain central questions to discussions about Christian cultural activity, and Bolt reflects on all of them as he expounds Bavinck’s essays. I predict that his conclusions will surprise many readers, challenge simplistic assumptions about Bavinck’s view of culture, and inspire many people to read Bavinck anew. (David VanDrunen, “Forward,” v–vi)

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Announcing The J. H. Bavinck Reader

The J. H. Bavinck ReaderThe Bavinck Institute is pleased to announce the publication of John Bolt, James D. Bratt, and Paul J. Visser, eds., The J. H. Bavinck Reader, trans. James A. De Jong (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2013).

The Reader makes ”some of the Dutch missiologist’s seminal works in revelation and religion, religious consciousness, and the engagement of the Christian gospel with other religious traditions available in convenient form for an English audience” (Editors’ Preface, ix).

Preview the book via Google Books.

Book Launch

On 7 May 2013 the following speakers participated in a book launch for the Reader:

  • John Bolt, editor and professor of systematic theology at Calvin Seminary
  • James Bratt, editor and professor of history at Calvin College
  • James A. De Jong, translator; did his doctoral work on the history of missions at the Free University Amsterdam with Johannes Vande Berg who was J. H. Bavinck’s successor
  • Diane Obenchain, professor of religion at Calvin College

View the multimedia recording of this book launch (skip slides 1 and 2 and go directly to 3). The order of speakers on the recording is John Bolt, James Bratt, James De Jong, Diane Obenchain, and John Bolt.

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Junius Institute at Calvin Seminary

Given that Herman Bavinck’s Reformed Dogmatics stands firmly within the theological tradition of the great sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Protestant scholastic doctors of the church, Bavinck scholars will be delighted at today’s announcement of the launch of the Junius Institute for Digital Reformation Research at Calvin Seminary.

Scholars and students have a new research center devoted to developing digital tools, resources, and scholarship focused on the religious reformations of the early modern era, particularly arising out of the Protestant Reformation of the 16th century. . . .

The institute is conceived as a forum to promote research into the Reformation and post-Reformation periods, covering the 16th to the 18th centuries, through the use of digital tools, skills, and resources. The Junius Institute will house the Post-Reformation Digital Library (PRDL), an electronic database covering thousands of authors and primary source documents on the development of theology and philosophy in these centuries. With the click of a few buttons, researchers can now download digital files with source material from hundreds of years ago. (Excerpted from the JI press release)