When:

Fri, October 19 2012 4:00 PM - 5:30 PM

Created by:

system user system user

Where:

Chapel Sanctuary

Tags:

inauguration

Description:

"The Bible in the Calvin College Reformed Past and Worldwide Future"

Mark A. Noll, Ph.D.
Francis A. McAnaney Professor of History
University of Notre Dame

Because Scripture is foundational in the Christian Reformed Church's Three Forms of Unity and because it was crucial in the inspirational educational work of Abraham Kuyper, the Bible has always been important for the work of Calvin College. But because of the college's Dutch Reformed heritage, its reliance on Scripture has differed in important ways from how the Bible has been used by other Protestants in America. One of those distinctives has been concentration on the grand arc of biblical narrative (creation–fall–redemption–last things) and the implications of that narrative for all academic disciplines. But now, given the new shape of world Christianity, the Dutch Reformed heritage faces a new challenge. In burgeoning Christian movements throughout the world Scripture has become a guidebook for imitating biblical deeds of charismatic power. This address will ask how the riches of Calvin's biblical tradition might still be used for the benefit of other believers even as Calvin learns from the great diversity of biblical approaches that now characterizes a rapidly expanding Christian world.

Moderator

• Claudia Beversluis
  Provost
  Calvin College

Alumni Respondents

• Willie Jennings, M. Div., Ph.D. '84
  Associate Professor of Theology and Black Church Studies
  Duke University
• Bethany Keeley-Jonker, Ph.D. '05
  Assistant Professor of Communication Arts
  Trinity Christian College