Nederduitse Gereformeerde Teologiese Tydskrif 

About: Nederduitse Gereformeerde Teologiese Tydskrif is an academic journal. The journal publishes majorly in the area(s): Context (language use) & Confession. Over the lifetime, 221 publications have been published receiving 659 citations.

Developing church leaders in Africa for reliable leadership:A Kenyan perspective

Abstract: Reliable leadership is an indispensable component of any progressive society. The rapidly changing African society with its numerous challenges calls for reliable leadership. The Church which is the most trusted institution has failed to offer this reliable leadership to the African society. In spite of the fact that the Church in Africa is experiencing tremendous numerical growth, she has failed to produce enough leaders and the few available are not well-equipped to meet the needs of the African people in this century. If the Church in Africa hopes to be relevant to the African society, she has to re-think her training system. She must produce leaders who can be relied on by the African people. This is only possible if she produces enough well-qualified leaders to match the rapidly growing African Church and society.

Missiology: Rise, demise and future at the university

Abstract: Although a latecomer as discipline, missiology had an impressive rise in the history of theology. Gustav Warneck’s “Evangelische Missionslehre (1897-1903)” resulted in missiology being regarded as an extremely influential discipline. This was not at all strange as Christian mission was a worldwide endeavour and accepted as the most important calling of the church. Throughout the 1900s missiology and missiological conferences continued to be the centre of theological discussions. With the political emancipation of Africa and the East, the whole concept of missions was challenged and this led to the demise of missiology as a discipline at universities. Influential missiologists, such as Johannes Verkuyl and David Bosch, published works of high theological value, but it seemed as if sociological, cultural and interreligious studies displaced missiology at university. Many seminaries are still putting up a brave fight to save missiology, but at university level it seems that classical missiology as discipline is being displaced. The future of missiology must, however, not be regarded as obsolete, but rather as an irreplaceable part of theology and faith.

With reasons of the heart before God. On religious experience from an evolutionary-theological perspective

Abstract: What does the affective-cognitive dimension of being human entails? Many contemporary scholars from theological (especially religious experience) perspectives as well as from evolutionary biological (especially neuroscientific) perspectives have made exciting inroads in the on-going anthropological discourses on this very dimension of being human. My article partially makes work of their respective contributions. For the former theological perspective I will utilize Pascal and Stoker. For the latter neuroscientific perspective I will concentrate on LeDoux and Damasio. I call my contribution an evolutionary-theological re-conceptualisation of religious experience for which I make use of Pascal’s famous words from his Pensees (1670) “The heart has its reasons which reason does not know” and “(i)t is the heart which experiences God and not the reason”. Therefore the title: With reasons of the heart before God. Such a formulation however immediately raises the question: Does such an emphasis on the “heart” re-introduce irrationality into the scientific scholarly dialogue? The answer is clear: Yes, it does. It is argued that it should be re-introduced constructively into contemporary science-theology discourses in order – on the one hand – to critically address the very accusation, and – on the other hand – to present us with a far richer, deeper understanding of personhood. From the constructive integration of the two perspectives, namely the theological and neuroscientific the words of Pascal is finally re-formulated from an evolutionary-theological perspective and qualified in which emotion is presented as the embodiment of the logic of survival.

Law and religion in South Africa: An African traditional perspective

Abstract: The discussion on the relationship between the law and religion in the South African context by somebody whose background and point of reference are based on the indigenous customary law of the land needs a special and honest approach. For the right approach, it is important that one has to be first honest to the inner self, to the religious community s/ he serves and then to the nation as a whole. I find it very difficult to compromise my inner self because I am expected to be politically correct even if I find flaws in the law of the land or I find some aspects of deliberate negligence in the implementation of the policies that are supposed to liberate all. This paper will therefore be straight to the point and will not be subjected to any blind loyalty either to the Constitution as the supreme law of the country or to the government programs and their attitude towards indigenous religion. It must be noted that there is a wide gap between what is said in the Constitution and the implementation of the theories documented. The Constitution of the country as the supreme law of the land is, on some very important issues too superficial and accommodating at the expense of the previously and in-fact still disadvantaged religious communities.