Wortels en agtergronde van Hervormde teologie en kerkwees in Suid-Afrika

The Faculty of Theology of the University of Pretoria is celebrating its centenary during 2017. Since its inception in 1917, the Nederduitsch Hervormde Kerk van Afrika (by agreement) appointed lecturers in the Faculty and more than a thousand ministers of the Hervormde Kerk received their theological education at the University of Pretoria. As such, the centenary of the Faculty is also a celebration of hundred years of ‘Hervormde theology’. This contribution reflects on two publications (by M.J. Goddefroy and P.J .Muller, respectively) which appeared in 1890 and 1908, firstly to give an overview of the prehistory of the establishment of the Faculty of Theology and secondly to illustrate the diverse origins and nature of Hervormde theology as reflected in the publications of Goddefroy and Muller.

Section: Inleidendunclassified

Honderd Jaar Hervormde Teologie

Dreyer

2017

Kultuurkritiek en die Hervormde benadering tot teologiebeoefening: ’n Gestaltegewing en uitdaging

Beükes

2003

A critique of culture and the Hervormde approach to doing theology: A description and challengeThis article investigates the relation between a critique of culture and the theological approach which is detectable in the theological labour of the Nederduitsch Hervormde Kerk. This theological approach is being described with reference to the three main intellectual traditions that maintain this approach in an equivocal fashion, namely the ethical, confessional and dialectical traditions. After summarising the most prominent characteristics and claims of these traditions, the author proceeds to bring this approach in relation to aspects of contemporary critique of culture.

Voices carry: An archaeology of the Hervormd approach

Beükes

2008

From the investigative premise of a Foucauldian archaeology of knowledge, this article attempts to unearth the layers of ideas which constituted the Hervormd approach to doing theology over the past century. Digging into seemingly disassociated bodies of theological precedents, the article anatomizes four layers of ideas in a series of diverse orientations towards theology, namely the (1) ethical, (2) confessional and (3) dialectical orientations, and stemming from a Kantian orientation in particular, (4) the validity of 'the philosopher's voice' in the often tense relationship between theology and philosophy. Respecting the inexplicit nature of this multifarious kind of theology, the author calls for an ongoing estimation of the diversity of voices within the Hervormd approach, rejecting any attempt to integrate these different layers of thought into a monolithic enterprise of knowledge about God and the world.