You should know Vollenhoven

 Laymen's Lounge have posted my piece introducing the Dutch Christian philosopher D.H.Th. Vollenhoven - check it out here

Mark Roques on Goliath's worldview

 

Book reviews: Cotherman's To Think Christianly and Basden's Foundations and Practice of Research

The Journal for Christian Scholarship have posted online two of my book reviews:

Charles E. Cotherman To Think Christianly: A History of L'Abri, Regent College, and the Christian Study Center Movement

Andrew Basden Foundations and Practice of Research: Adventures with Dooyeweerd’s Philosophy

You should know about "sphere sovereignty"

 

The Laymen's Lounge has posted an excellent article by Rudi Hayward on sphere sovereignty. 

It is well worth checking out.

Mark Roques discusses Iron Sharpens iron

 Mark Roques introduces Iron Sharpens Iron, and our new evangelism resource Slave Chronicles and Dangerous Faith.

   

For more information https://thinkfaith.net/events/iron-sharpens-iron

You should know neo-Calvinism

 The wonderful Laymen's Lounge has posted my short introduction to neo-Calvinism - you can read it here:  https://thelaymenslounge.com/you-should-know-neo-calvinism/

Also included is a tentative analysis of strands of Christianity and how they would answer key questions:

New Resource Helps Christians Story-tell Their Faith

 

Mark Roques has been busy working on a new course to help Christians to become confident evangelists - some details below

Author, teacher and working philosopher Mark Roques has developed an accessible online course to help Christians disciple others using creative storytelling.  Slave Chronicles and Dangerous Beliefs offers twenty short stories plus study material on the theme of historic and modern slavery. The material can be used in everyday conversations, religious education or talks.  

Each Chronicle contrasts Christian and materialist worldviews and demonstrates how to have  respectful conversations while telling a story. While most people wouldn’t confess to supporting slavery, many acquiesce to its ongoing evils through complacency or ignorance. Alongside each narrative the evils of slavery are shown to have their roots in wrong thinking about the value of all human beings.

Commissioned by Thinking Faith Network, this short course which launches online February 2021, demonstrates how to discuss a biblical response which challenges this social evil. It can be studied by individuals, student or other small groups working at their own pace over six-eight weeks and supported by an online peer-learning community. 

Mark first developed a worldview approach as an RE high school teacher in 1990s to attract the attention of dIsengaged sixth-formers:

 “I immediately saw that neither pious homilies or straightforward religious education were cutting it. Instead I brought in albums, video and newspaper clips. What story was Madonna inhabiting in Material Girl, or Roy Keane telling when he wrote that pro-footballers were just ‘pieces of meat’? By exploring the stories behind pop music, entertainment and sports reporting with them I was able to unpack the underlying worldview. 

I named and shamed the individualistic and materialist belief system that mugs so many today. Only by understanding this dark faith can we make sense of human trafficking. I pointed out that trafficked people are not just ‘pieces of meat’ for sexual consumption or slave labour, but precious creatures made in God’s image and likeness.The students hung on my every word. No sneering and smirking and excellent end-of-term feedback. Not only does this approach work, it works in every setting without any complaints of preaching or indoctrination. Vital in today’s pluralist society. You are sharing about something people know very little of through stories. Materialism is almost never scrutinised as a dangerous and destructive belief system . Many today ignore the Christian faith because they have never thought about the materialist mindset that has captivated their lives and imaginations.”

Talking about Mark’s method, the Right Reverend Dr John B Thomson, Bishop of Selby, said:

“This is a very impressive approach to evangelism. I like the way you deconstruct the assumed beliefs people rarely examine. I keep saying wherever I go that I have yet to meet a non-religious person in my life. Everyone has beliefs. The question I’m interested in is which religion or beliefs really hold water when faced with the big meaning questions of life? Your resources address this head on.” 

Co-developer Patricia Gray said: “Mark has a great track record of holding neighbours, audiences and readers enthralled. His lively and humorous storytelling has captivated thousands over the years. Yet all the while, he’s dealing with some of the most difficult and fundamental aspects of what and why people believe as they do. With Slave Chronicles and Dangerous Beliefs Mark brings a much-needed and useful online resource to the Christian community, educating and enabling both discipleship and evangelism at a time when meeting physically is still challenging for many.”

Findings: A Journal of Reformational Thought

 Findings: A Journal of Reformational Thought

It is available free from Thumbwidth Press.

https://www.thumbwidthpress.net/product-page/findings-a-journal-of-reformational-thought

This initial journal issue is also a Festschrift - a collection of articles by a number of reformational thinkers from around the world, dedicated to Bruce Wearne on the occasion of his 70th birthday.

Articles include an essay by Bruce himself: "The Revival of Christian Scholarship" selected by the editors as a fine example of Bruce's work over the years.

The other articles are:

• Robert Wolfgramm – The Bruce I Know
• Keith Sewell – Calvinism, NeoCalvinism and the Reformational Movement
• Roy Clouser – Romans and Genesis: An Exploratory Essay
• Jim Skillen – Modernity and the Secular
• Chris Gousmett – The Place of Robots in Human Social Life
• Alida Sewell – Fatherhood in Scripture and in Jane Austen's Novels
• Alan Cameron – Jurology and the Concreteness of Law: A Reformational Jurisprudential Perspective

We hope to publish Findings at least twice a year. Please contact the editors (Chris Gousmett and Alan Cameron) to submit an article for consideration.

While visiting the Thumbwidth Press shop, check out the other titles available for sale, or free.

Some new(ish) Reformational books

 

Mike Wagenman The Power of the Church: The Sacramental Ecclesiology of Abraham Kuyper

Mike Wagenman's new book on Kuyper's ecclesiology has been published. Full details here.

I was honoured to be asked to write a blurb for the book - this is what I wrote:

“What hope is there for the church? What has the church to do with power and what has power to do with the church? These are the important questions Wagenman raises in this important and engaging work. By drawing on and developing the inchoate insights of the Dutch polymath, Abraham Kuyper, Wagenman address these key issues of church and power—issues that are perhaps more relevant today than they were when Kuyper was writing in the nineteenth century. Kuyper had a multi-aspectual view of power and Wagenman takes Kuyper’s seminal views and produces a much needed critique of power in the church today. With this book, Wagenman establishes his position as one of the leading Kuyper scholars. If you are interested in Kuyper, ecclesiology, or power—then get the book!”

 

A Short Introduction to Abraham Kuyper’s Lectures on Calvinism By Jesse Sumpter

Jesse Sumpter is a Classical school educator based in Moscow, Idaho. In this brief - 48 page - introduction to Kuyper’s Stone Lectures he begins by identifying three of Kuyper’s “key ideas”. These he identifies as the lordship of Jesus; Calvinism as life system; and spheres of authority. 

The remaining chapters in this booklet then follow each of Kuyper’s lectures. Sumpter provides a summary of each one and provides copious quotes from each lecture. 

The book provides an entry-level introduction to the lectures and would be helpful for those who haven’t as yet read Kuyper’s lectures.

Fashion Theology - a brief review

 Fashion Theology

Robert Covolo

Waco Texas: Baylor University Press.

ISBN 978-1-4813-1273-8

Hbk, xiv + 200 pp

This book is a wonderful, nuanced discussion of the relationship between fashion and theology. Covolo shows that fashion is not independent of theology. Theologians have not been as silent about fashion, as has often been supposed, and their discussions go beyond accusations of fashion being trivial and being about vanity. Those discussed include Tertullian, Augustine, Aquinas, Calvin, Kuyper and Barth.

In these excavations of theological discourse and 

fashion theory Covolo identifies several interesting interrelations. Fashion theology is much more than fig leaves!

Five Reasons for Reading Kuyper Today - a zoom seminar with Craig Bartholomew

 

To register go to:

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/craig-bartholomew-on-five-reasons-for-reading-kuyper-today-tickets-128822711197

Mike Wagenman discusses Kuyper at the Layman’s Lounge

 

Mike Wagenman discusses Kuyper on the Layman’s Lounge podcast here. 

It’s well worth checking out.

Review of Toxel’s What is Man?

What is Man?

Basics of the Faith

A. Craig Troxel
Philipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing
Pbk, 36pp, £3.99
ISBN 978-1-59638-166-7

This is a brief introduction to biblical anthropology and is part of the rapidly increasing series on the Basics of Faith from P&R Publishing. Troxel is a professor of systematic theology at Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia and is the author of a fuller book on the subject With all Your Heart. 

The strength of this book is that it begins with humans made in the image of God. He sees humans as a unity of body and soul and espouses a holistic dualism. He provides good arguments for the rejection of the trichotomous views (ie body, soul and spirit). 

He then moves in briefly to discuss the heart: “the Bible’s principal word to describe humanity’ inner self”. 

The central core of the booklet then utilises Thomas Manton’s notion of the fourfold state of man: man in a state of innocence, in the state of sin, in the state of grace, and in the state of glory. 

This is a useful introduction to a holistic dualism - even if I don’t fully agree with some of his points. I look forward to reading his fuller treatment of the human heart.

Bartholomew’s review of Reformed Theology & Evolutionary Theory

 Craig Bartholomew reviews Gijsbert van den Brink’s Reformed Theology & Evolutionary Theory at Sapienta

Bartholomew concludes:

I am grateful to van den Brink for his stimulating work. My own hunch is that there is more potential conflict between evolution and the biblical metanarrative than the author thinks. I am not a creationist but am reluctant to diminish the primary authority of Scripture as the lens through which we read and interpret the world, including science. I side with Bavinck and Kuyper in thinking that Christian faith needs to be fully engaged in the practice of science, rather than being kept separate from science, as van den Brink suggests. I take comfort from the fact that Christians need not put all their eggs in one basket but have various possibilities open to them on the question of origins. My sense is that the above issues need to be attended to in detail as part of our quest for the truth of evolution.

Adventures in the Kuyper archive

 Jasmijn Vervloet, curator of the Protestant Heritage collections at the VU Amsterdam, is embarking on an adventure in the Kuyper archive to gain a better understanding of Abraham Kuyper, the founder of VU Amsterdam.

Details here.

Square-inch.net

 Henry De Jong has created a website to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the AACS/ Institute for Christian Studies Niagara conferences. The site is full of photographs, reminiscences, interviews, YouTube clips and more. https://square-inch.net/

 

He has an article in the Christian Courier "A Legacy of Learning: Institute for Christian Studies Marks Milestone" explaining the project.

Review of Kuyper's On Education

 Stiemsma, Shaun (2020) "The Presence of the Past: A Review of Abraham Kuyper's On Education," Pro Rege 49(1): 43 - 47.  Available at: https://digitalcollections.dordt.edu/pro_rege/vol49/iss1/8

Kuyper in the Church Times

 John Gay reviews Kuyper’s On Education in the Church Times.