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The Emergence of Pastoral Authority in the French Reformed Church, c.1555-c.1572 offers an account of the issues and ambiguities connected to the implementation of the authority of the first generation of Geneva-trained French Reformed pastors.

The South African Kairos Document (KD) was written, signed and published in 1985 by an ecumenical group of theologians and concerned laity. In 2025, the KD is commemorating four decades since its publication. This article explored the images of God in the KD, which has not been done before in any academic publication. It furthermore attempted to understand these images against the background of that time by comparing them with the God images of two other documents of the same time, the Belhar Confession (BC) of the (then) Dutch Reformed Mission Church (DRMC) and the Kerk en samelewing or Church and Society (CS) of the Dutch Reformed Church (DRC). This study found: (1) In KD and the BC, God is portrayed by means of present tense verbs – as active, intervening, taking sides and correcting. In Church and Society, God is passively caught up in noun constructions, such as ‘the Kingdom of God’. When God is used in conjunction with a verb, the verb is in the past tense, referring to God’s actions in the Bible. (2) In all three documents, God is portrayed as transcendental, but in KD and the BC, God is portrayed as immanent—as co-suffering with the oppressed. (3) All three documents portray God as male. (4) KD and the BC portray God mainly in terms of the contextual issues of the time, such as justice, peace and reconciliation, using various strands of liberation theology. CS uses salvation history and a theology of predestination to determine God’s will for present times, arguing that God’s will has never changed for his chosen people since biblical times. (5) While KD and the BC refer to God in terms of the New-Testament God of love and justice, CS often refers to the God of the Old Testament.ContributionAll three documents show a preference to refer to God rather than to Jesus Christ who is only mentioned in reference to reconciliation.

In the middle of the Great Awakening, a group of religious radicals called Moravians came to North America from Germany to pursue ambitious missionary goals. How did the Protestant establishment react to the efforts of this group, which allowed women to preach, practiced alternative forms of marriage, sex, and family life, and believed Jesus could be female? Aaron Spencer Fogleman explains how these views, as well as the Moravians' missionary successes, provoked a vigorous response by Protestant authorities on both sides of the Atlantic. Based on documents in German, Dutch, and English from the Old World and the New,Jesus Is Femalechronicles the religious violence that erupted in many German and Swedish communities in colonial America as colonists fought over whether to accept the Moravians, and suggests that gender issues were at the heart of the raging conflict. Colonists fought over the feminine, ecumenical religious order offered by the Moravians and the patriarchal, confessional order offered by Lutheran and Reformed clergy. This episode reveals both the potential and the limits of radical religion in early America. Though religious nonconformity persisted despite the repression of the Moravians, and though America remained a refuge for such groups, those who challenged the cultural order in their religious beliefs and practices would not escape persecution. Jesus Is Femaletraces the role of gender in eighteenth-century religious conflict back to the European Reformation and the beginnings of Protestantism. This transatlantic approach heightens our understanding of American developments and allows for a better understanding of what occurred when religious freedom in a colonial setting led to radical challenges to tradition and social order.

Science unbound: In this book, the author explores Comprehensive Scientism by juxtaposing the philosophies of one challenging figure of the European Enlightenment with those of a legendary evolutionary biologist. Paul Henri Thiry d'Holbach lived from 1723-1789 and wrote one monumental work known as 'the Bible of atheists'. Richard Dawkins, a modern-day scientist and self-declared atheist, is currently galvanizing the secularist movement'. Gerold Reisinger's treatise aims to uncover the motives of d'Holbach and Dawkins for claiming that science is the only source of knowledge to defend atheism. Various aspects of their forms of scientism are outlined and elucidated in relation to the comprehensive form that combines epistemological, ontological, moral and existential scientism. Basic research by Stenmark and Peels frames this philosophical work's analysis and comparison of the two iconic philosophers and their writings. The book shows that scientism is what unites their positions and proves to be as powerful a motive today as it was in the 18th century to render science the know-all and be-all of truth and reality and thereby attempt to obviate religion for humankind.

Heaven's Wrath explores the religious thought and religious rites of the early Dutch Atlantic world. D. L. Noorlander argues that the Reformed Church and the West India Company forged and maintained a close union, with considerable consequences across the seventeenth century. Noorlander questions the core assumptions about why the Dutch failed to establish a durable empire in America. He downplays the usual commercial explanations and places the focus instead on the tremendous expenses incurred in the Calvinist-backed war and the Reformed Church's meticulous, worried management of colonial affairs. By pinpointing the issues that hampered the size and import of the Dutch Atlantic world, Noorlander revises core notions about the organization and aims of the Dutch empire, the culture of the West India Company, and the very shape of Dutch society.

In this historical study, Jonathon D. Beeke considers the various sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Reformed expressions regarding the duplex regnum Christi, or, as especially denominated in the Lutheran context, the \"doctrine of the two kingdoms.\".

Worship of the triune God has always stood at the center of the Christian life. That was certainly the case during the sixteenth-century Reformation as well. Yet in the midst of tremendous social and theological upheaval, the church had to renew its understanding of what it means to worship God. In this volume, which serves as a companion to IVP Academic's Reformation Commentary on Scripture series, Reformation scholar Karin Maag takes readers inside the worshiping life of the church during this era. Drawing from sources across theological traditions, she explores several aspects of the church's worship, including what it was like to attend church, reforms in preaching, the function of prayer, how Christians experienced the sacraments, and the roles of both visual art and music in worship. With Maag as your guide, you can go to church—with the Reformers.

J.D. Vorster and the Dutch Reformed Church Order of 1962: The Church Order of Dordtrecht adapted to the demands of our day? J.D. (Koot) Vorster, was the moderator of the Dutch Reformed Church (1970–1974) as well as the specialist for the church order of the General Synod (1962–1970), had a strong influence on the content of the first church order of this denomination. He was the chairperson of the commission appointed to prepare the concept of this church order for acceptance by the first General Synod in 1962. This article investigates Vorster’s part in creating this church order. In doing so, the author studied relevant church historical and church political literature. Vorster wished their church order to be a replica, in its own circumstances, of the famous Synod of Dordrecht’s Dutch Church Order in 1618–1619. As far as Vorster was concerned, the Dutch Reformed Church was a Reformed church in the Dutch tradition. The Dutch Reformed Church Order of 1962 showed many signs of the Church Order of Dordtrecht. In articles, Vorster claimed the influence of the Dordtrecht Church Order on the Dutch Reformed Church Order of 1962. However, on certain important issues the Dutch Reformed Church Order had its own way: on the assemblies of the church and in its relation to the state authorities. Vorster not only had a determining influence on the church order, but a proposal of his paved the formal ecclesiastical way for synodical unity in the Dutch Reformed Church in 1962. Vorster was an influential figure in church government. His sharp reactions on things he did not accept as well as his leadership abilities made him a prominent, sometimes controversial, church figure in Southern Africa.ContributionWhile accepting the name of In die Skriflig as a norm for the study of church history and church polity, this article investigates the theological tradition in which the first church order of the Dutch Reformed Church as a whole was accepted by its first General Synod in 1962. The church orders accepted by following general synods kept to this line – be it in essence. This article tries to shed some light on this determining factor in the Dutch Reformed Church as well as the role J.D. Vorster played in its establishment. As a background for modern church orders in this church, it partly clears the positions taken up by present day general synods.

Departing from the Reformed tradition and its potential to contribute to the discussion about the connection between liturgy and ethics, this volume offers in-depth studies in how to understand God's acting in worship, the centrality of justice, and the formative meaning of the liturgy.

This book offers an in-depth history of Calvinism in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth 1548-1648. It traces the development of polity, liturgy, piety and church discipline. Bem questions the prevailing narrative of decline post 1570 and argues that the three Reformed Churches in fact continued to develop and flourish until the 1630s.