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A Landmark in Turbulent Times
At the Synod of Dordrecht (1618–19), the deep questions of justification and faith, election and rejection, time and eternity, grace and free will, the individual and the body of Christ, Israel and the church, the acquisition of salvation through Christ and its application by His Spirit, baptism and regeneration, and especially the precise relationship between these, were at stake. These deep questions are addressed in this study. Lines are drawn to the historical, theological and political context of the time of the synod. Patristics and the Middle Ages are not absent, nor are the metaphysical questions related to these theological issues. Also the church polity of Dordt is discussed, especially the roots, influences and structures of its church order. This volume ends with a hermeneutical reflection on the way we confess the electing God today.
Church Polity, Mission and Unity: Their Impact in Church Life
What are the connections between the polity of the church and church unity - or division? Does the polity of churches serve or obstruct the missional nature of the church? These questions were the focus of the Third Conference of the International Protestant Church Polity Study Group (IPCPSG), held in Princeton, New Jersey in April 2016. The authors of the essays in this volume probe these questions from a variety of angles. The conference intended to model close attention to and reflection on the theological import and value of church order and polity. Attendees of the conference came from churches and denominations in the Reformed tradition, gathering from across the United States and around the world. They included scholars of church order and polity, and practitioners with depth of knowledge and experience gained through the exercise of polity in a variety of settings and contexts. Conference papers, discussions, and informal conversations turned from theological reflection to practice and back.
The Calling of the Church in Times of Polarization
In many societies all over the world, an increasing polarization between contrasting groups can be observed. Polarization arises when a fear born of difference turns into ‘us-versus-them’ thinking and rules out any form of compromise. This volume addresses polarizations within societies as well as within churches, and asks the question: given these dynamics, what may be the calling of the church? The authors offer new approaches to polarizing debates on topics such as racism, social justice, sexuality and gender, euthanasia, and ecology and agriculture in various contexts. They engage in profound theological and ecclesiological reflection, in particular from the Reformed tradition. Contributors to this volume are: Najib George Awad, Henk van den Belt, Nadine Bowers Du Toit, Jaeseung Cha, David Daniels, David Fergusson, Jan Jorrit Hasselaar, Jozef Hehanussa, Allan Janssen, Klaas-Willem de Jong, Viktória Kóczián, Philipp Pattberg, Louise Prideaux, Emanuel Gerrit Singgih, Peter-Ben Smit, Thandi Soko-de Jong, Wim van Vlastuin, Jan Dirk Wassenaar, Elizabeth Welch, Annemarieke van der Woude, and Heleen Zorgdrager.
Family and Christian Ethics
In this book, Petruschka Schaafsma offers an innovative appraisal of family. Eschewing the framework of worry and renewal that currently dominates family studies, she instead explores the topic through the concepts of 'givenness' and 'dependence'. 'Givenness' highlights the fact that family is not chosen; 'dependence' refers to being intimately included in each other's identities and lives. Both experiences are challenging, especially in a contemporary context, where independence and freedom to shape one's own life have become accepted ideals. Schaafsma shows the impasses to which these ideals lead in several disciplines – theology, philosophy, sociology, social anthropology and care ethics. She moves constructively beyond them by tapping literary, artistic and biblical sources for their insights on family. Grounded in a theological approach to family as 'mystery' rather than 'problem', she develops an understanding of the current controversial character of family that accounts for both its ordinary and transcendent character.
Theology of the Soul
Theology of the Soul engages with a thoroughly theological and philosophical subject in fresh and profound ways: the soul. The author examines the possibility of a concept of the soul in modern, Western theology. In the second part of the 20th century speaking about the soul was strongly criticized in Theology and Philosophy. Consequently, many academic theologians consider the word “soul” problematic. Remarkably, the word “soul” is very much present in contemporary culture. This book takes cultural notions of the soul as employed by, for example, Marilynne Robinson and Oprah Winfrey, as a point of departure. The author then investigates the functions of the soul in classical theolog...
Civil Religion in the Early Modern Anglophone World, 1550-1700
Civil Religion - a tradition of political thought that has argued for a close connection between religion and the state - made an important contribution to the development of religious and political thought at key moments of early modern British political and colonial history. As this volume shows, it was at work not just during the Enlightenment, but within a much wider periodical framework: the Reformation, the rise of the Puritan movement, the conflict over the Stuart state and church, the English Revolution, and the formation of key American colonies in the eighteenth century. Advocates of Civil Religion tried to reconcile a national church with religious toleration and design a constitu...
Reformed Theology from A to Z
"Reformed Theology from A to Z is an accessible guide to 116 theological terms and how they are understood in Reformed theology. Each article is approximately 300 words in length, offering main features of the term along with its use in the tradition"--
Longing for the Good Life: Virtue Ethics After Protestantism
This book argues that Protestant theological ethics not only reveals basic virtue ethical characteristics, but also contributes significantly to a viable contemporary virtue ethics. Pieter Vos demonstrates that post-Reformation theological ethics still understands the good in terms of the good life, takes virtues as necessary for living the good life and considers human nature as a source of moral knowledge. Vos approaches Protestant theology as an important bridge between pre-modern virtue ethics, shaped by Aristotle and transformed by Augustine of Hippo, and late modern understandings of morality. The volume covers a range of topics, going from eudaimonism and Calvinist ethics to Reformed scholastic virtue ethics and character formation in the work of Søren Kierkegaard. The author shows how Protestantism has articulated other-centered virtues from a theology of grace, affirmed ordinary life and emphasized the need of transformation of this life and its orders. Engaging with philosophy of the art of living, Neo-Aristotelianism and exemplarist ethics, he develops constructive contributions to a contemporary virtue ethics.
Reinventing Christian Doctrine
Providing an alternative to current Trinitarian and Christocentric approaches to dogmatics, this open access book instead centres the Augustinian and classical Reformation Law-Gospel distinction. Maarten Wisse demonstrates the viability of dogmatics based on the Law-Gospel distinction from both a historical and a systematic-theological perspective. From a historical perspective, Wisse shows that the actual use of Scripture should be understood as the interplay between a critical concern about the difference between God and the world on the one hand, and the witness to God's presence in Christ in the world on the other. From a systematic-theological perspective, the benefits of approaching dogmatics through the dynamics between Law and Gospel is exemplified by discussions of key dogmatic topics, such as the doctrine of Scripture, predestination, atonement, the Eucharist and the theology of religions. The eBook editions of this book are available open access under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence on bloomsburycollections.com. Open access was funded by The Protestant Theological University.
Between Providence and Choice Biography
Many Christians struggle with the topic of divine guidance. Yet, treatments of such guidance often do insufficient justice to the theological complexities underneath the practical questions. Therefore, in this book the author develops a Reformed approach to guidance using a systematic theological approach. First, he develops a typology of approaches to guidance in contemporary evangelicalism. This typology uncovers a number of underlying theological questions, which are discussed through extensive interactions with the writings of John Calvin and Jonathan Edwards. Based upon these interactions, the author proposes a Reformed approach to divine guidance in which vocation, wisdom, discernment, and transformation are central concepts. Furthermore, this approach to guidance emphasizes the importance of the Christian community and the ongoing influence of the Holy Spirit.
