BAVINCK AS PUBLIC THEOLOGIAN: PHILOSOPHY, ETHICS, AND POLITICS

As a result of the Enlightenment, the privatization of religion, and the dissociation of theology and the university, public theology has become a very pertinent topic. While public theology emerged as a discipline in the 1980s, the neo-Calvinist tradition, led by Abraham Kuyper and Herman Bavinck, was engaged in public-theological reasoning long before. Although not using the expression public theology, Bavinck offers a public theology in multiple ways. For him, it is a theology for and of the church. His main contribution, however, lies in his philosophical works, where he brings theo-logic to bear on the questions facing the
various publics. Addressing current events, he sought to give answers founded on the Triune God. His essay “Ethics and Politics,” written during the Great War, is a primary example.