Bavinck , livre ebook

Cover
Endorsements
“Because so much of Bavinck’s corpus has only recently been translated, we in the English-speaking world have not yet had the full benefit of Bavinck’s rich thought, which seems unique in how it stays fully biblical while taking into account the history of the church, of philosophy, and of social currents. But no one can grasp the theology of an Augustine or Aquinas, a Calvin or Luther, without knowing their life and context. Eglinton has provided this in his new critical biography of the greatest Reformed theologian of the twentieth century. It is a very important yet highly readable volume.”
— Timothy Keller , pastor emeritus, Redeemer Presbyterian Church of New York City
“Of obvious interest to those concerned with Reformed and neo-Calvinist traditions, this probing biography also speaks to the enduring questions of ‘Christ and culture’ as it explores how one Christian inhabited his orthodox faith in a complex and changing world. Indeed, the range of timeless topics that Bavinck explored with wisdom and prescience is staggering. As Eglinton invites us into Bavinck’s faithful and creative engagement with pluralism, psychology, Nietzsche, education for women, evangelism, missions, racism in America, and politics, we see that we still have much to learn from this member of the great cloud of witnesses.”
— Kristen Deede Johnson , Western Theological Seminary
“In 1910, a Scottish theologian who had recently visited the Netherlands referred in a lecture to Herman Bavinck as ‘Dr. Kuyper’s loyal and learned henchman.’ Now, a hundred and ten years later, another Scottish scholar sets the record straight. James Eglinton demonstrates that Bavinck was no one’s ‘henchman,’ but a brilliant, creative theologian in his own right. This important book confirms what many of us have been convinced of for some time now: Bavinck’s time has come as a world-class theologian for our own day.”
— Richard Mouw , president emeritus, Fuller Theological Seminary
“Scholarly but accessible, this biography offers an account of Bavinck’s life and work in its historical context, resisting the temptation to co-opt him to, or interpret him via, the concerns of later theological parties and conflicts. A wonderful companion volume to the Dogmatics .”
— Carl R. Trueman , Grove City College
“In James Eglinton, Herman Bavinck has the biographer he so richly deserves, his own Scottish James Boswell. Especially illuminating is the additional material on Herman’s father, Jan Bavinck; the young Herman; Herman’s wife, Johanna Schippers-Bavinck; and the legacy of their daughter and grandsons, all noteworthy on their own. This will be the definitive Bavinck biography for generations.”
— John Bolt , Calvin Theological Seminary (emeritus)
“For too long, Bavinck studies has operated on the assumption that he was often at odds with his confessionally orthodox self in his alleged adulteration of Christianity with modern thought and culture. Eglinton’s narrative critically debunks assumptions of this sort and convincingly portrays Bavinck’s multifaceted life as a testimony to his eclectic theology, which concertedly endeavored to remain committed to Christ at every single point of creaturely existence.”
— Shao Kai Tseng , Institute of Religious Studies, Zhejiang University, China
Half Title Page
Title Page
Copyright Page
© 2020 by James Eglinton
Published by Baker Academic
a division of Baker Publishing Group
PO Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516-6287
www.bakeracademic.com
Ebook edition created 2020
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—for example, electronic, photocopy, recording—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
ISBN 978-1-4934-2059-9
Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version® (ESV®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved. ESV Text Edition: 2016
Epigraph
So in practice man is the greatest puzzle that man has. He needs to know himself, in order to live and to make himself recognizable to other people. But at the same time he must remain concealed from himself in order to be able to remain alive and free. For if he ever finally got “behind himself,” and could establish what was the matter with him, nothing would any longer be the matter with him, but everything would be fixed and tied down, and he would be finished. The solution of the puzzle what man is would then at the same time be the final release from being human. As we experience being human, we experience it as a question, as freedom and as openness.
—Jürgen Moltmann, Man
Contents
Cover i
Endorsements ii
Half Title Page iv
Title Page v
Copyright Page vi
Epigraph vii
A Note on Sources xi
Acknowledgments xiii
Introduction: Prolegomena xvii
Chronology xxiii
Map of the Netherlands xxiv
Image Gallery
Part 1: Roots 1
1. The Old Reformed Church in Bentheim 3
“From the farmhouse to the town”
2. Jan Bavinck and Geziena Magdalena Holland 17
“At that time , we were still pariahs.”
3. Herman’s Childhood and Schooling: 1854–72 41
“The modern youth has come under the influence of the modern society.”
Part 2: Student 57
4. Kampen: 1873–80 59
“The education there did not satisfy me.”
5. Leiden: 1874–80 73
“O God, protect me in Leiden!”
Part 3: Pastor 105
6. Franeker: 1881–82 107
“It is quite a big and, for an inexperienced candidate , fairly difficult congregation.”
Part 4: Professor in Kampen 131
7. Gathering Materials: 1883–89 133
“My books are my true company.”
8. Writing a Modern Reformation: 1889–1902 169
“It is the theology needed by our age.”
Part 5: Professor in Amsterdam 217
9. Christianity in the Age of Nietzsche: 1902–9 219
“In reality there are only two worldviews.”
10. Showing His Colors: 1910–20 255
“Mr. Chairman! Our modern culture and Christianity are inseparable.”
11. Bavinck’s Final Years: 1920–21 283
“Do not put it in the newspaper ; that does not befit me!”
Postscript 293
Appendix 1: “My Journey to America” 301
Appendix 2: “An Autobiographical Sketch of Dr. H. Bavinck” 315
Appendix 3: “Propositions: The Concept and the Necessity of Evangelization” 317
Abbreviations 319
Key Figures, Churches, Educational Institutions, and Newspapers 321
Notes 327
Bibliography 409
Index 445
Cover Flaps 451
Back Cover 452
A Note on Sources
B y chronicling many of his own experiences in journals ( dagboeken ) and letters, Herman Bavinck left his future biographers with a richly textured window into a significant portion of his life. These particular primary sources provide this biography with much of its rhythm and substance, and they will be referred to throughout. To aid readers in distinguishing between them, I have italicized quotations from the dagboeken and have left excerpts from his letters unitalicized. To date, one or both sides of three particularly important sets of correspondence—with his friends Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje, Henry Elias Dosker, and Geerhardus Vos—have been transcribed and published, respectively, under the titles Een Leidse vriendschap , 1 “ Men wil toch niet gaarne een masker dragen”: Brieven van Henry Dosker aan Herman Bavinck, 1873–1921 , 2 and The Letters of Geerhardus Vos . 3 Unless otherwise indicated, all other letters cited in this biography, alongside Bavinck’s dagboeken and unpublished manuscripts, have been accessed in the archives of the Historisch Documentatiecentrum voor het Nederlands Protestantisme (1800–heden) at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, the Stadsarchief in Kampen, and the Archief- en Documentatiecentrum van de Gereformeerde kerken in Nederland, also in Kampen.
A great deal of information on Bavinck’s life is found in the Dutch-language newspapers of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. These were published in his native Netherlands, in the Dutch East Indies, and in conservative Dutch diasporic communities in North America. His lifetime was one in which the recent democratization and liberalization of society had an obvious consequence for the press. In his youth, the abolition of stamp duty on Dutch newspapers made daily newspapers affordable and numerous. 4 In that context, Bavinck’s newly empowered social group made abundant use of their new media. As the course of Bavinck’s life can also be traced across the pages of these newspapers, I will make regular recourse to them. Unlike some, I have chosen not to translate the names of Dutch newspapers into English. When they travel internationally, The Guardian , Le Monde , and Die Zeit retain their names—and so should De Bazuin , De Heraut , and De Standaard .
Unless an English source is cited, the translations of foreign-language material in the book are my own. The original text is usually included in an endnote.
Acknowledgments
W hile this book is the story of someone else’s life, writing it has changed my own in many ways. The first five chapters were written in 2017, while I was on sabbatical as a visiting researcher at the Theologische Universiteit Kampen. It was a great pleasure to interact with many friends and colleagues there over a number of months, and to write in the beautiful city so central to the book itself. To Roel Kuiper, Dolf te Velde, Erik de Boer, Hans Burger, Janneke Burger-Niemeijer, Jos Colijn, Jolanda van Gelder-Bastiaan, Jolanda Zweers, Geert Harmanny, Marjolijn Palma, Koert van Bekkum, Ad de Bruijne, Wolter Rose, Wolter Huttinga, and above all George Harinck and Dirk van Keulen—who receive their own honorable mention a few paragraphs down— zeer bedankt voor jullie gastvrijheid . During those months, I spent many days working in the Stadsarchief Kampen, the Archief