Protestant Theology and Modernity in the Nineteenth Century Netherlands examines how Dutch Protestant thinkers and theologicans met the challenges of the rapidly modernizing world around them. It shows that the nineteenth-century saw theology fundamentally transformed and reinvented in a variety of ways. Enlightenment values were fiercely attacked by orthodox Pietists but embraced by 'modern' theologians. Positions were not fixed and theologians has to work hard to maintain their intellectual integrity. Jewish Isaac da Costa converted to Christianity and fulminated against the Zeitgeist. Allard Pierson, who in his youth had been under the spell of Da Costa, resigned from his ministry and adopted an 'agnostic' stance. Abraham Kuyper modernized theology and politics, by laying the foundations of 'pillarization' (the segmented social structures based on differences in religion and worldview) of Dutch society. Abraham Kuenen revolutionized the study of the Old Testament, and Protestant theologians made ground-breaking contributions to the emerging science of religion. This book used in-depth studies of a small number of significant and influential Protestant thinkers to analyse how they addressed specific modern transformation processes such as political modernization, the pluralization of world views, and the emergence of critical historical scholarship. It also considers the significant Dutch contribution to the historical-critical study of the Bible, and the emergence of the modern comparative study of religion.

In The Eclipse of Liberal Protestantism in the Netherlands, Tom-Eric Krijger is the first to offer a synthesis of the development of the Protestant modernist movement in Dutch religious, social, cultural, and political life between 1870 and 1940. In historiography, the liberal Protestant community is said to have lost appeal and influence in these decades due to a lack of theological clarity, inner harmony, and organisation. Analysing liberal Protestants’ self-perception vis-à-vis Christian orthodoxy, self-understanding as a faith community, attitude towards other alternatives to orthodoxy, class-consciousness, literary criticism, political commitment, and involvement with foreign mission, Krijger challenges this view. Making an international comparison, he argues that the Dutch modernist movement failed to make headway primarily due to liberal Protestant expectations and discourse.

Herman Bavinck showed that othodox theology continues to speak authoritatively today. Since the English translation from Dutch of Herman Bavinck's magisterial 4-volume Reformed Dogmatics, there has been a blossoming interest in Bavinck's theology. Readers have been drawn to Bavinck for his faithfulness to the Reformed tradition while also engaging the questions of 19th-century Europe. Far from simply revisiting the older dogmatic systems, Bavinck faithfully engages modern trends like historical-criticism, the epistemological problems raised by Kant, the rationalism of the philosophes, and the radical changes ushered in through the French and European revolutions. The question then is, was Bavinck orthodox, modern, or both? In Orthodox yet Modern, Cory C. Brock argues that Bavinck acts as a bridge between orthodox and modern views, insofar as he subsumes the philosophical-theological questions and concepts of theological modernity under the conditions of his orthodox, confessional tradition. By exploring the relation between Bavinck and Schleiermacher, Orthodox yet Modern presents Herman Bavinck as a theologian eager to engage the contemporary world, rooted in the catholic and Reformed tradition, absorbing the best of modernity while rejecting its excesses. Bavinck represents a theologian who is at once orthodox, yet modern.

Editors Charles E. Hill and Frank A. James III bring together a group of evangelical biblical scholars and historical and systematic theologians to explore the doctrine of the atonement for a new millennium.

This book explores the organic motif found throughout the writings of the Dutch Calvinist theologian Herman Bavinck (1854-1921). Noting that Bavinck uses this motif at key points in the most important loci of theology; Christology, general and special revelation, ecclesiology and so forth; it seems that one cannot read him carefully without particular attention to his motif of choice: the organic. By examining the sense in which Bavinck views all of reality as a beautiful balance of unity-in-diversity, James Eglinton draws the reader to Bavinck's constant concern for the doctrine of God as Trinity. If God is the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, Bavinck argues, the creation must be more akin to an organism than a machine. Trinity and organism are thus closely linked concepts. Eglinton critiques and rejects the 'two Bavincks' (one orthodox and the other modern) hermeneutic so commonplace in discussions of Bavinck's theology. Instead, this book argues for a reunited Herman Bavinck as a figure committed to the participation of historic orthodox theology in the modern world.

Includes section "Book reviews."

Papa Bear's attempt to scare a band of young campers by telling them about ghosts in the woods comes to an unexpected conclusion with a double ghost lesson.