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Books > Christianity > Protestantism & Protestant Churches > Calvinist, Reformed & Presbyterian Churches
Nathaniel Gray Sutanto offers a fresh reading of Herman Bavinck's
theological epistemology, and argues that his Trinitarian and
organic worldview utilizes an extensive range of sources. Sutanto
unfolds Bavinck's understanding of what he considered to be the two
most important aspects of epistemology: the character of the
sciences and the correspondence between subjects and objects.
Writing at the heels of the European debates in the 19th and 20th
century concerning theology's place in the academy, and rooted in
historic Christian teachings, Sutanto demonstrates how Bavinck's
argument remains fresh and provocative. This volume explores
archival material and peripheral works translated for the first
time in English. The author re-reads several key concepts, ranging
from Organicism to the Absolute, and relates Bavinck's work to
Thomas Aquinas, Eduard von Hartmann, and other thinkers. Sutanto
applies this reading to current debates on the relationship between
theology and philosophy, nature and grace, and the nature of
knowing; and in doing so provides students and scholars with fresh
methods of considering Orthodox and modern forms of thought, and
their connection with each other.
John Calvin, a beacon for the Puritans, receives considerable
attention in this volume of Puritan Papers. J. I. Packer
contributes a chapter on Calvin as "a servant of the Word." Others
treat Calvin the man, his doctrine of God, the Institutes, and
sixteenth-century Geneva. These papers were originally presented on
the 400th anniversary of Calvin's death. Other biographical
chapters feature George Whitefield and Charles Haddon Spurgeon. In
addition, Packer writes on the Puritan approach to worship, Jain
Murray on "things indifferent, " and D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones on
Owen's view of schism.
Irish Presbyterians and the Shaping of Western Pennsylvania,
1770-1830 is a historical study examining the religious culture of
Irish immigrants in the early years of America. Despite fractious
relations among competing sects, many immigrants shared a vision of
a renewed Ireland in which their versions of Presbyterianism could
flourish free from the domination of landlords and established
church. In the process, they created the institutional foundations
for western Pennsylvanian Presbyterian churches. Rural Presbyterian
Irish church elders emphasized community and ethnoreligious group
solidarity in supervising congregants' morality. Improved
transportation and the greater reach of the market eliminated
near-subsistence local economies and hastened the demise of
religious traditions brought from Ireland. Gilmore contends that
ritual and daily religious practice, as understood and carried out
by migrant generations, were abandoned or altered by American-born
generations in the context of major economic change.
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