Elementos para uma teologia pública em Herman Bavink

Abstract

The Holland of the 19th century witnessed the emergence of a Christian movement which came to be known as the Dutch Neo-Calvinism. In the origins of the movement were names such as Guillaume Groen van Prinsterer, Abraham Kuyper and Herman Bavinck. It was a period in which Holland was also beginning to experience a new era in which the changes in all areas were taking place in an ever more accelerated rhythm. In all the spheres of life the effects of Illuminism and of the revolutionary principles of the French Revolution were showing up. The Neo-Calvinists sought to react to the effects of secularization on the one hand, but they also did not agree that the church simply opt for isolation, distancing itself from the political debate and from the broader cultural challenges. The theological production of Kuyper and Bavinck strongly contributed to the emergence of new movements in the church and in theology, but also in Dutch cultural life as a whole. Herman Bavinck was the great systematic theologian of Neo-Calvinism and it is in his work that this research proposes to seek possible contributions to the debate in the church and in theology in Brazil. Doctrines such as the cultural mandate and the common grace, the criticism with regards to the influence of the Greek and Gnostic dualism in the church and in theology which separates matter and spirit and the whole recovery of the reformed theology based on Calvin, especially in the relation of the church with the state, are reference themes that are analyzed in this research. The goal consists in verifying the possible contributions of Bavinck’s theology to the theological and practical reflection of the Brazilian church. The first chapter presents Holland’s context in the 19th century with a biography which presents the pastor and theologian Herman Bavinck. Through an eminently bibliographic research texts of Bavinck are analyzed, especially his greatest work, the Reformed Dogmatic, from which one seeks, in the second chapter, to go deeper into themes such as cultural mandate, common grace, criticism of dualism and the relation between church and state in the comprehension of this author. The following chapter presents a brief panorama of the history of the Brazilian theology, especially in the last decades in which there has been an effort to do contextualized theology with the concern with the social, political, and cultural reality in Latin America. The so-called Liberation Theology and Whole Mission Theology represented proposals of those who were concerned with a theology and church which were engaged with the concern for justice in a continent of many challenges in the social area. And more recently, the Public Theology gives continuity to the reflection about the presence of the Christian religion in the public space. In the fourth chapter the discussion is around how Bavinck’s theology, based on the segments chosen for this research, can contribute to the current theological debate, denouncing the continued presence of the dualism which contributes to a practice of the church that is often alienated and which is not able to face and integrate the broader reality, and aims to furnish resources for this church in elements which can help it to take on a more dialogical and citizen posture in the concrete reality in which it is inserted. Since, even though the church awaits the full manifestation of the coming kingdom which is in the plans and care of God, it cannot live as if the immediate and concrete reality were not in the interest and concern of this same God.