
Free Church Ecclesiology and Catholicity
The study of Baptist history, theology and ecclesiology has been one of the hallmarks of the Baptist Seminary in the Netherlands, and is an important focal point of the McClendon Chair. Before the McClendon chair, Henk Bakker held the extraordinary chair on History, Identity & Theology of the Baptist Faith, in short: the chair on Mapping Baptist Identity. In this assignment he concluded (after five years of research and supervising approximately 25 PhD. Ma, and Ba-theses) that Baptist Identity is on the move, and basically circles around topics as: (1) fresh expressions of moral judgment in local churches; (2) shaping up core practices and identity of local churches; (3) receiving necessary supplies for Baptist pastors; (4) shifting from intro to extra by transformation of Baptist crown-jewelry; (5) offering prophetic theological instruction by education; (6) underlining missional identity; (7) and overcoming generational barriers. (See the ‘Forschungsbericht’) Of special concern for the Baptist movement in the Netherlands, both in its deep structure, as well as in actual practice, is its confessional accountability and catholicity.
Research Program Free Church Ecclesiology and Catholicity
Currently, this research program consists of a number of completed and ongoing PhD dissertations, around the topic of Free Church Ecclesiology and Catholicity.
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A Believers Church contribution to the ecumenical ecclesiological debate: Looking into the other direction (Ongoing)Dit promotie onderzoek wil een bijdrage leveren aan het debat over kerk en kerkelijke eenheid vanuit de zgn. ‘Believers Church Tradition’ (BCT). De BCT behoort tot het zgn. derde kerktype, naast het katholieke en het protestantse, en benadrukt het kerk-zijn ‘van onderop’, wat wil zeggen dat de kerk zich eerst en vooral manifesteert via gelovigen die samenkomen. Tussen 1967 en 2017 zijn er 18 ‘Believers Church Conferences’ geweest, die in dit onderzoek in kaart worden gebracht. De resultaten daarvan worden in gesprek gebracht met het oecumenische project ‘The Church – Towards a Common Vision’. De ondertitel ‘Looking into the other direction’ is een citaat van Karl Barth uit 1948(!), waarin hij zegt dat ‘It is obvious that the last remnants of sovereign authority in the idea of a corpus christianum are disappearing; this suggests that we should now look in this other (Congregationalist) direction’. Aan dat ‘de andere kant uitkijken’ wil dit onderzoek een bijdrage leveren. Contact: Publications related to this research:Leer, van der, Teun, 'Which Future Church(form)? A Plea for a 'Believers Church' Ecclesiology' in Journal of European Baptist Studies 9.3 (2009), 40-51 |
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Daniel Drost |
Diaspora as Mission. John Howard Yoder, Jeremiah 29 and the Shape and Mission of the ChurchWhat does it mean to be church in the twenty first century? To answer this question I engage the work of American Mennonite scholar John Howard Yoder. He developed a thesis, working from Jeremiah 29, that the people of God, both Israel and the church, are called to an existence in diaspora. According to Yoder, this diaspora lifestyle is the social shape that God uses to reach the nations with His mission. He calls this perspective ‘diaspora as mission.’ Yoder’s proposal led to the main question of this study: Contact: Publications related to this research :Drost, Daniel, ‘Samen een weg vinden als Urban Expression in de wijk, met Yoder op de boekenplank’ in: Ingeborg Janssen-te Loo (red). Samen ontdekken. De uitdaging van de vergader(en)de gemeente: samen de wil van Christus onderscheiden. Baptistica Reeks. Amsterdam: Baptisten Seminarium, 2016 Drost, Daniel, ‘Leiderschap in de eerste joods-christelijke gemeenschappen.’ In: Jan Martijn Abrahamse en Wout Huizing (red). Van onderen! Op zoek naar een ambtstheologie voor een priesterschap van gelovigen. Baptistica Reeks. Amsterdam: Baptisten Seminarium, 2014 Drost, Daniel, ‘De volheid van Christus: John Howard Yoders spreken over ambt in de free church tradition.’ In: Jan Martijn Abrahamse en Wout Huizing (red). Van onderen! Op zoek naar een ambtstheologie voor een priesterschap van gelovigen. Baptistica Reeks. Amsterdam: Baptisten Seminarium, 2014 Drost, Daniel, ‘De joodse wortels van christelijke gemeenschap. Vragen over identiteit.’ In: Henk Bakker en Daniël Drost (red). Andersom. Een introductie in de theologie van James Wm. McClendon. Baptistica Reeks. Barneveld: Baptisten Seminarium, 2014 Drost, Daniel, ‘Het noachidische verbond revisited?’ In: Soteria. 30ste jaargang, nummer 3, 2013 Drost, Daniel, ‘Is JHWH een gewelddadige Strijder? Een vergelijking tussen Arie Versluis’ dissertatie Geen verbond, geen genade en John Howard Yoders geweldloze benadering.’ Wapenveld. Jaargang 62, nr 6, december 2012 |
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Jan Martijn Abrahamse |
The Stripping of the Ministry: A Reconsideration and Retrieval of Robert Browne's Theology of Ordained Ministry(Completed, 10-1-2018)There is a general concern for the role of the ordained ministry in contemporary theology. With the downfall of Christendom, institutional religion and its authorities have become suspect. Simultaneously, a renewed consciousness of the church’s participation in God’s mission to the world has shed new light upon the priestly ministry of the whole community, questioning the theological existence of a special ministry set apart by ordination. Among Baptists this is by many even regarded as a contradiction with congregational ecclesiology that grounds the existence of a local church in the faithful gathering under Christ’s Lordship, instead of a present priest or the Sacraments. ‘Other Baptists’ have in response to what they regard as an unduly functionalistic view of ministry – which reduced the role of the minister to a mere employee and an executor of some ecclesial tasks – reconnected with sacramental theology to formulate a theology of ordained ministry. In this study an attempt is made to rethink the present crisis of ordained ministry by a reconsideration and retrieval of the covenantal concept of ordained ministry in the literature of 16th century Separatist Robert Browne (c. 1550-1633). Against a dominant and oppressive state church, Browne envisaged a covenantal church separated from the world and grounded in God’s promise of provision and the obedience of the faithful. A communal church that recognized Godsend prophets to sustain them as a priestly community to live accordingly. Ordination is hence defined as a representation of God’s sending and the church’s reception. This Brownist theology of ordained ministry provides a fruitful theological framework for a missional church in a post-Christendom context. A special ministry called for the ministry of the church, whose existence flows from the local church instead of the other way around. In recent years theologians Stanley Hauerwas and Kevin Vanhoozer have urged to review ordained ministry in terms of prophethood and theological adequacy which bears a similar character: ordained ministers, as prophets among priests, called to sustain the church in its dramatical existence of living a different story in a violent world. Browne’s concept of covenant provides an adequate biblical framework to incorporate the church and its ordained ministry into God’s mission to the world. Supervisors: Prof. dr. Eddy van der Borght, Prof. dr. Henk Bakker, Prof. dr. Curtis Freeman (external) Contact: Publications related to this research:Abrahamse, Jan Martijn, “Robert Browne as an Unwanted Child: Explaining Separatism from the Nursery of Presbyterian Puritanism,” Perspectives in Religious Studies 40, no. 4 (2013): 349–365. |
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Kirsten Timmer |
An examination of Baptist origins in the context of Baptist and Mennonite relationships in the early seventeenth-century Dutch Republic (ongoing)An Examination of Baptist Origins in the Context of Baptist and Mennonite Relationships in the Early Seventeenth-Century Dutch Republic (ongoing) A few examples that help complete our understanding of baptist origins:
Supervisors: Prof. Dr. Henk Bakker (VU), Dr. Anthony Cross (IBTSC), contact: |