Protestant Theological University

About: Protestant Theological University is a education organization based out in Kampen, Netherlands. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Religious education & Protestantism. The organization has 86 authors who have published 188 publications receiving 889 citations.

Responsive Aging. An Existential View

Abstract: Old age can be considered a radicalization of the human condition. In this phase of life, its fundamental relationality is experienced in its extremes; in its dependency and loneliness as well as in the intensification of personal relationships of love and friendship. In dominant discourses of modernity, relationality competes with – or is at the most additional to – autonomy, understood as individual independence. By contrast, this chapter develops a responsive understanding of human life which comprises both individual agency and dependency in their dynamic interplay.

Timelessness, Dementia and the Appeal to Practice: A Response to Swinton’s Rejoinder

Abstract: In this article, Wilko van Holten and Martin Walton continue the exchange with John Swinton regarding the understanding and usefulness of the “timelessness of God” (Swinton, 2016) in the context of dementia (see HSCC 8(1), “A Critical Appraisal of John Swinton’s Theology of Time and Memory” by van Holten and Walton, 2020, and “A Rejoinder to van Holten and Walton” by Swinton, 2020a). Both van Holten and Walton argue that Swinton’s restatement of God’s eternal presence in terms of unchangeableness comes with a serious theological price, namely, a static image of the divine. Swinton’s refusal to pay this price points to a tension in his thinking on this point. The authors adduce some empirical evidence to substantiate the claim that a timeless and immutable God is psycho-spiritually less appropriate in the context of pastoral care. For van Holten and Walton, their major concern is not with the intentions or conclusions at which Swinton arrives, but with the way in which he argues for those conclusions and expresses these intentions. In this exchange, practical and philosophical theology meet, and the authors explore some of the questions which are raised. These questions ultimately are concerned with theological method. A response to this article by Swinton will also be published in this issue of HSCC (see Swinton, 2022).

The Dead Sea Scrolls in Their Hellenistic Context

Abstract: This introduction aims at situating the contributions of the Thematic Issue into wider debates on Hellenism and Hellenisation and changes taking place in scholarship. Essentialist notions of Hellenism are strongly rejected, but how then to study the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Qumran site during the Hellenistic period? Each contextualisation depends on the (comparative) material selected, and themes here vary from literary genres, textual practices, and forms of producing knowledge, to material culture, networks, and social organizations. All contributors see some embeddedness in ideas and practices attested elsewhere in the Hellenistic empires or taking place because of changes during the Hellenistic period. In this framework, similarities are overemphasized, but some differences are also suggested. Most importantly, the question of Hellenism is a question of relocating Jewish and Judaean evidence in the study of ancient history.

Being a Church through Religious Learning at the Street Level

Abstract: How can religious learning-processes found in the missionary context of youth work and the guidance of these learning processes be understood religious-pedagogically? To answer this question, the results of fieldwork carried out in two Dutch cases of Christian youth work outside the church are presented and given religious pedagogical reflection. Religious learning processes appear to be situated in the encounter between youngster and youth worker; that is the encounter through living and acting together as well as through shared discussing of personal, societal and religious questions. This article discusses how such an encounter is related to the position of the church, concerning Scripture and regarding youth workers. It is discussed that churches own social forces for renewing their own practices as well as for supporting communities outside the institute leading in the direction of tribal communities that can meet the challenges and needs of a new generation of Christian youth.