Reformed Churchmen

We are Confessional Calvinists and a Prayer Book Church-people. In 2012, we remembered the 350th anniversary of the 1662 Book of Common Prayer; also, we remembered the 450th anniversary of John Jewel's sober, scholarly, and Reformed "An Apology of the Church of England." In 2013, we remembered the publication of the "Heidelberg Catechism" and the influence of Reformed theologians in England, including Heinrich Bullinger's Decades. For 2014: Tyndale's NT translation. For 2015, John Roger, Rowland Taylor and Bishop John Hooper's martyrdom, burned at the stakes. Books of the month. December 2014: Alan Jacob's "Book of Common Prayer" at: http://www.amazon.com/Book-Common-Prayer-Biography-Religious/dp/0691154813/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1417814005&sr=8-1&keywords=jacobs+book+of+common+prayer. January 2015: A.F. Pollard's "Thomas Cranmer and the English Reformation: 1489-1556" at: http://www.amazon.com/Thomas-Cranmer-English-Reformation-1489-1556/dp/1592448658/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1420055574&sr=8-1&keywords=A.F.+Pollard+Cranmer. February 2015: Jaspar Ridley's "Thomas Cranmer" at: http://www.amazon.com/Thomas-Cranmer-Jasper-Ridley/dp/0198212879/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1422892154&sr=8-1&keywords=jasper+ridley+cranmer&pebp=1422892151110&peasin=198212879

Tuesday, December 3, 2013

Thanksgivings for Calvin Seminary's PhD Program

http://dedeo.org/journal/miscellaneous/giving-thanks-calvin-seminarys-phd-program/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+InThyLight+%28de+Deo%29

Giving Thanks for Calvin Seminary’s PhD Program


On 9 October 2013 Calvin Seminary celebrated the twentieth year of its esteemed PhD program. The celebration’s program included Dr. James De Jong’s brief retrospective on the original vision for the PhD program and how it was established. Prof. Richard Muller delivered the plenary address, “Reflections on Two Decades of the Ph.D. Program,” after which his former students and colleagues presented him a surprise, massive festschrift overflowing with no less than 55 contributions: Church and School in Early Modern Protestantism: Studies in Honor of Richard A. Muller on the Maturation of a Theological Tradition (Leiden: Brill, 2013).
After watching the presentations I am even more grateful to the Lord for granting me—no doubt the least of the cadre of scholarly sojourners seeking the office of doctor with which to serve the church—a place in this program at this time in its existence and with these teachers.


I
t is clear from the presentations that that the program was designed with specific ends in mind: to attract students from all over the world, to maintain a high academic standard with an emphasis on research and writing, and to specialize in Reformed catholic theology. And it is also clear that, twenty years into the program, a legacy of attaining the desired ends has been established—no doubt due to the two decades of hard work and wise leadership of the program’s leaders, Professors Feenstra and Muller, coupled with full support from the first-class faculty and library. There is much here for which God may be glorified for his abundant mercy and grace upon the program and upon its leaders.

The results of the program speak for themselves—literally!

Her graduates are teachers, writers, professors, and institutional leaders in stations all over the globe. Even in the minute back corner of Christ’s garden in which he has planted me, the NAPARC world, the influence of CTS PhDs looms large both in numbers of teachers taking up stations in NAPARC seminaries and in the ever-growing body of top-tier publications, especially in the field of Reformed historical theology, flowing from the pens of CTS PhD’s.
To give a handful of cases in point (cf. the archive of downloadable CTS dissertations):
As one who is halfway through the program and who has hit no small amount of speed bumps along the way (even some large ones such as “The Awful German Language,” as Mark Twain put it) I can testify to the program’s rigor. This is even more true following the transition from the trimester system to the semester system according to which students now write three twenty-five-page papers each term. But more importantly I can testify to the program’s wisdom. Though the means are painful (let me tell you, three papers per term for four terms plus course reading, assistant teaching, foreign languages, etc., was no walk in the park either for me or my family), the ends are starting to come into view.

I am different now than when I started the program three years ago. I care about bigger (catholic) issues. I am owning up to my own background with its limitations and prejudices. I’m learning, albeit ever so slowly, to read different languages (and hence to outgrow my monolingual, Anglophone narrowness), and I am learning to read differently (critically) in my own language. I write differently—with concrete aims and genre-appropriate methods. I teach differently—focusing on primary sources and fostering critical thinking. In these ways I see the program beginning to bear fruits in my life, and for that I give thanks to God.

While I stare down the still long, windy way to the PhD marathon’s finish line, it is an encouragement to be reminded along the way not only that the sowing in tears is designed to yield harvests of joy in due time but also that over the past two decades the Lord God has manifestly blessed this program with exceptional teachers whose living epistles are blessing Christ’s bride all over the world.


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