Encouraging Faith Manifestoes for People with Open Ears: Biblical Narrative History

Encouraging Faith Manifestoes for People with Open Ears: Biblical Narrative History. In Tough Stuff from the Bible, Tendered Gently series (Vol. 1). By Calvin G. Seerveld, Jordan Station: Paideia Press, 2024. 

[404 pages, ISBN 9780888153432]

Find it on: Paideia Press

This is the first volume in a forthcoming series, Tough Stuff from the Bible, Tendered Gently. This volume is a collection of 18 Biblical meditations interpreting both Old and New Testaments. They are a compilation of what was spoken to mostly local congregations in the Toronto, Ontario area of Canada, between 1977 and 2011, by Calvin Seerveld. Certain old traditional hymns (no longer under copyright) and a few newly composed Psalms texts by Seerveld, with melodies, are included, which are relevant to the exposition. Occasional photographic illustrations document what is spoken.

Congregations of Christian believers constituted the majority of audiences for these public presentations. Exposition represents a hermeneutics in the tradition of Martin Luther and Jean Calvin, often with a contemporary twist that relates the biblical passages to current societal problems, political troubles, and ordinary daily life. A few meditations end with a prayer.

The Artistic Sphere: The Arts in Neo-Calvinist Perspective

The Artistic Sphere: The Arts in Neo-Calvinist Perspective. Edited by Roger D. Henderson & Marleen Hengelaar-Rookmaaker. Illinois: InterVarsity Press, 2024.


Available at: InterVarsity Press


Publisher's Overview:

While some Christians have embraced the relationship between faith and the arts, the Reformed tradition tends to harbor reservations about the arts. However, among Reformed churches, the Neo-Calvinist tradition—as represented in the work of Abraham Kuyper, Herman Dooyeweerd, Hans Rookmaaker, and others—has consistently demonstrated not just a willingness but a desire to engage with all manner of cultural and artistic expressions.

This volume, edited by art scholar Roger Henderson and Marleen Hengelaar-Rookmaaker, the daughter of art historian and cultural critic Hans Rookmaaker, brings together history, philosophy, and theology to consider the relationship between the arts and the Neo-Calvinist tradition. With affirmations including the Lordship of Christ, the cultural mandate, sphere sovereignty, and common grace, the Neo-Calvinist tradition is well-equipped to offer wisdom on the arts to the whole body of Christ.

Contents: 

Introduction

    Roger D. Henderson and Marleen Hengelaar-Rookmaaker

Part One: Roots

1. Geneva's Artistic Legacy: From Calvin to Today

    Marleen Hengelaar-Rookmaaker

2. Calvin and the Arts: Pure Vision or Blind Spot?

    Adrienne Dengerink Chaplin

3. Rumors of Glory: Abraham Kuyper's Neo-Calvinist Theory of Art

    Roger D. Henderson

4. Dooyeweerd's Aesthetics

    Roger D. Henderson

Part Two: Art History

5. Art, Meaning, and Truth

    Hans R. Rookmaaker

    Looking with Historical Depth: Hugo van der Goes, Filippino Lippi and Albrecht Dürer

6. The Vocation of a Christian Art Historian: Strategic Choices in a Multicultural Context

    E. John Walford

    Ridentem dicere verum—Pieter Bruegel’s Peasant Wedding of Circa 1567

7. More than Can Be Seen: Tim Rollins and K.O.S.'s I See the Promised Land

    James Romaine

Part Three: Aesthetics

8. The Halo of Human Imaginativity

    Calvin Seerveld

    The Meaning of the Crucifixion: Grünewald and Perugino

9. Rethinking Art

    Nicholas Wolterstorff

    The Social Protest Meaning of the Graphic Art of Käthe Kollwitz

10. Imagination, Art, and Civil Society: Re-envisioning Reformational Aesthetics

    Lambert Zuidervaart

    Redemptive Art Criticism

11. Art, Body, and Feeling: New Roads for Neo-Calvinist Aesthetics

    Adrienne Dengerink Chaplin

    Chris Ofili: Contemporary Art and the Return of Religion

Part Four: Theology and Art

12. The Theology of Art of Gerardus van der Leeuw and Paul Tillich

    Wessel Stoker

13. The Elusive Quest for Beauty

    William Edgar

14. Fifty-Plus Years of Art and Theology: 1970 to Today

    Victoria Emily Jones

"Knowing" in Ordinary Saints: Living Everyday Life to the Glory of God

"Knowing," chapter by Calvin G. Seerveld, in Ordinary Saints: Living Everyday Life to the Glory of God. Edited by Ned Bustard (Baltimore: Square Halo Books, Inc., 2023) pp. 71-74.

[231 pages, ISBN 9781941106297]

Find it on: Square Halo Books

Over forty writers celebrate Square Halo’s twenty-fifth anniversary with essays on such topics as knitting, home repair, juggling, traffic, pipes, chronic pain, pretzels, and naps.

God Picks up the Pieces: Ecclesiastes as a Chorus of Voices

God Picks up the Pieces: Ecclesiastes as a Chorus of Voices. By Calvin G. Seerveld, Sioux Center: Dordt University Press, 2023. 

[138 pages, ISBN 978-0-932914-16-3]

Find it on: Tuppence

A fresh literary translation from the Hebrew of the biblical Older Testament book of Ecclesiastes, introduced and arranged as script for oral choral presentation, with comment on its meaning.

"Missing in Action" in Pro Rege

"Missing in Action," article by Calvin G. Seerveld, in Pro Rege, Fine Arts faculty issue (51:2, December 2022), 45-52.

[8 pages]

Find it on: Pro Rege

An article about Genevan Psalms 51 and 89.

Seeking Stillness or The Sound of Wings: Scholarly and Artistic Comment on Art, Truth, and Society in Honour of Lambert Zuidervaart

Seeking Stillness or The Sound of Wings: Scholarly and Artistic Comment on Art, Truth, and Society in Honour of Lambert Zuidervaart. Currents in Reformational Thought series. Edited by Héctor Acero Ferrer, Michael DeMoor, Peter Enneson and Matthew Klaassen. Eugene: Wipf and Stock, 2021.

Available at: Wipf and Stock Publishers

Publisher's Overview:

Seeking Stillness or The Sound of Wings pays tribute to Lambert Zuidervaart, one of the most productive Reformational philosophers of the present generation, by picking up the central concerns of his philosophical work--art, truth, and society--and working with the legacy of his published concern to see what more can be understood about our world in light of that legacy. Zuidervaart is an internationally recognized expert in critical theory, especially the work of Theodor Adorno, and a leading systematic philosopher in the reformational tradition. His research and teaching range across continental philosophy, epistemology, social philosophy, and philosophy of art, with an emphasis on Kant, Hegel, Marx, Heidegger, Gadamer, and Habermas. He is currently developing a new conception of truth for an allegedly post-truth society. At the Institute for Christian Studies (2002-2016), Zuidervaart held the Herman Dooyeweerd Chair in Social and Political Philosophy and served as founding Director of the Centre for Philosophy, Religion, and Social Ethics. He was also an Associate Member of the Graduate Faculty and Full Professor, status only, in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Toronto, and a member of the Advanced Degree Faculty at the Toronto School of Theology. Zuidervaart is currently a Visiting Scholar in the Department of Philosophy at Calvin University in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Seeking Stillness or The Sound of Wings seeks to promote new scholarship emerging from the rich and dynamic tradition of reformational intellectual inquiry. Believing that all scholarly endeavor is rooted in and oriented by deep spiritual commitments, reformational scholarship seeks to add its unique Christian voice to discussions about leading questions of life and society. From this source, it seeks to contribute to the redemptive transformation and renewal of the various aspects of contemporary society, developing currents of thought that open human imagination to alternative future possibilities that may helpfully address the damage we find in present reality. 

As part of this work, Currents in Reformational Thought will bring to light the inter-and multi-disciplinary dimensions of this intellectual tradition, and promote reformational scholarship that intentionally invites dialogue with other traditions or streams of thought.

Contributors:

Ronald A. Kuipers

Robert Sweetman

Janet Wesselius

Hendrik Hart

Calvin Seerveld

Joshua Lee Harris

Michael J. DeMoor

Shannon Hoff

Allyson Carr

Nicholas Wolterstorff

Adrienne Dengerink Chaplin

Rebekah Smick

Henry Luttikhuizen

Lauren Bialystok

Karen Nisenbaum

Martin Jay

Clarence Joldersma

Jonathan Chaplin

Artistic Contributors:

Joyce Recker

Michaeleen Kelly

Linda Nemec Foster

Sue Sinclair

Diane Zeeuw

Deborah Rockman

Jay Constantine

Ron and Miriam Pederson

Janet Read

Kunst D.V. (Neo)calvinistische perspectieven op esthetica, kunstgeschiedenis en kunsttheologie

Kunst D.V. (Neo)calvinistische perspectieven op esthetica, kunstgeschiedenis en kunsttheologie, eds. Marleen Hengelaar-Rookmaaker and Roger D. Henderson. Amsterdam: Buijten & Schipperheijn Motief, 2020. ISBN 978-94-6369-070-6 [Dutch]

Selected Chapter Titles:

"Verbeelding, kunst en civil society: een nieuwe kijk op neocalvinistische esthetica" (pp. 223-46), and "Verlossende kunstkritiek: Earth’s Lament van Joyce A. Recker"(pp. 247-52) [Dutch translation by Arend Smilde and Marleen Hengelaar-Rookmaaker] by Lambert Zuidervaart

"De aureool van de menselijke verbeelding" (pp. 169-192), and "De betekenis van de kruisiging: Grünewald en Perugino" (pp. 193-7) by Calvin G. Seerveld

"Calvijn en kunst: zuivere visie of blinde vlek?" (pp. 51-60), "Kunst, lichaam en gevoel: Nieuwe wegen voorde calvinistische esthetica," (pp. 253-271), and "Chris Ofili: Hedendaagse kunst en de terugkeer van religie" (pp. 272-278) by Adrienne Dengerink Chaplin

Find it on: Buijten & Schipperheijn

Kunst D.V. is a handsome, hefty volume (374 pages, untranslated) in the Dutch language. After a succinct introduction there are four sections. The editors and Adrienne Dengerink Chaplin explicate the roots of the Calvinian faith-thought tradition toward the arts found in Jean Calvin, Abraham Kuyper, and Dooyeweerd. Then Hans Rookmaaker, E. John Walford and James Romaine exemplify how art history can be done in a perspective sensitive to a Christian world-and-life vision. Calvin Seerveld, Nicholas Wolterstorff, Lambert Zuidervaart, and Adrienne Dengerink Chaplin show how their communal focus on aesthetic theory can contribute to understanding imaginative and artistic realities. Finally the "theology of art" tack is introduced by Wessel Stoker, William Edgar, and Victoria Emily Jones. The many colour reproductions are of excellent quality, the notes are substantial, and various of the authors take issue with the characteristic ideas of the other writers for a lively, open-ended, up to date introduction to the important contribution made by thinkers regarding art and aesthetics in the line of Reformational Christian philosophical reflection.

— Calvin G. Seerveld

Bewondering God's Dumbfounding Doings: God Talking to Us Little People in the Final Book of the Bible

Calvin G. Seerveld, 2020

Jordan Station: Paideia Press, 2020. [163 pages ISBN 978-0-88815-251-0]

Find it on: Tuppence

These 11 meditations were given live to a Toronto congregation over two years (2014-2016), and cover the troubling visions and events of the whole biblical book of Revelation, its metaphorical truth and urgent practical message.

How to Read the Biblical Book of Proverbs--In Paragraphs

Calvin G. Seerveld, 2020

Ed. John H. Kok. Sioux Center: Dordt Press, 2020. [iii-189 pages ISBN 978-1-940567-24-2]

Find it on: Dordt University Press (or to Canadian personal addresses via Tuppence by special arrangement)

An introductory fresh treatment of the Bible as God-speaking literature, showing that the book of Proverbs--aphoristic poetry--comes in paragraphs rather than as one-liners. Especially chapters 25-31 of Proverbs are presented to be read as clusters of surprising, wide-ranging wisdom for daily life.

The Greatest Song: In Critique of Solomon

Calvin G. Seerveld, 2019 reprint

Music by Ina Lohr
Woodcuts by Flip van der Burgt
Design by Sypko Bosch

Find it on: Wipf & Stock (2019 reprint) or Tuppence

A poignant translation from the Hebrew of the Song of Songs as a chorus of voices. A convincing look at this enigmatic book of the Bible treated as God's Word about erotic human love in the wisdom tradition.

Personal Memories of God-given Opportunities 1959-1972 at Trinity Christian College in Chicagoland USA

Calvin G. Seerveld & Inès Seerveld, 2018

Find it on: Tuppence

Various speeches made at Trinity home-comings in the 1990s with reflections on the early years of Trinity's special place for philosophy in the curriculum. Mention of the Seerveld Art Gallery and "Art in Society" project, concluded by a meditation on Psalm 71.

Never Try to Arouse Erotic Love Until...

Calvin G. Seerveld, 2018

Find it on: Dordt University Press (or to Canadian personal addresses via Tuppence by special arrangement)

A companion study book to Cal's earlier translation of the Old Testament Biblical Song of Songs, The Greatest Song, in critique of Solomon. This book contains provocative questions for discussion, reflection on friendship, and comment on redeeming spoiled love.

Dordt University Press Seerveld Series

Calvin G. Seerveld, 2014

John H. Kok, series editor

Find it on: Dordt University Press (or to Canadian personal addresses via Tuppence by special arrangement)

A 6-book series of collected "sundry writings and occasional lectures" from Cal on a number of topics such as aesthetics, art history, cultural studies, and biblical studies:

Normative Aesthetics
Discussion of human imaginativity, of ordinary aesthetic life including humour, style, clothes, games and leisure, with ideas about the need for imaginative grit and giving away artistry in love to one’s neighbours.

Redemptive Art in Society
On the necessity of whimsical redemptive public artistry, especially in cities, with an extended celebration of practising theatre as a christian vocation.

Cultural Problems in Western Society
An assessment of how “tolerance,” xenophilia, and imaginative reenchantment of the European tradition can challenge artists today who want to make a living from their art in our post-christian Western society.

Art History Revisited
Schema for a cartographic methodology for doing art history, demonstrated with critique of the art of Watteau, Hogarth, Mengs, Peter S. Smith and Gerald Folkerts. Also, the genius of Vollenhoven’s philosophical historiography, with notes on art critic Kurt Badt’s use of Heidegger’s aesthetics.

Cultural Education & History Writing
A rationale for Christian college education, for learning foreign languages, with reflections on keeping history and writing history down truthfully.

Biblical Studies & Wisdom for Living
Biblical studies on psalms, on how to read Proverbs, on human corporeality, pleasure, becoming elderly, with songs on the weather, friendship, and married love.

Rainbows for the Fallen World

Calvin G. Seerveld, 2005

Find it on: Tuppence

Germinal essays showing how imaginativity can invigorate daily life, including schooling, and why "allusivity" is key to artistry. The biblical charter for Christians making art is spelled out, and suggestions are given for working communally at a redemptive culture amid our brilliant, needy artworld.

Voicing God's Psalms

Calvin G. Seerveld, 2005

Find it on: Tuppence

Original, fresh translations of Older and New Testament biblical psalms, highlighting the rough and tender tenor of God's voice to us today. Thematic and historical settings and singable versifications are given. An accompanying CD features Seerveld reading the psalms, with select versifications skillfully rendered by solo recorder (Cal Stapert).

A William B. Eerdmans publication available by special permission to personal Canadian addresses.

How to Read the Bible to Hear God Speak

Calvin G. Seerveld, 2003

Find it on: Tuppence

This study shows how Fundamentalist, Dogmatist, and Higher-critical Deconstructivists treat Numbers 22-24, and how readers in the line of the Reformation listen to what God is saying in these chapters for us today.

In the Fields of the Lord

Calvin G. Seerveld, 2000

Find it on: Tuppence

A Calvin Seerveld Reader

Diverse lectures and articles not available elsewhere on the topics of art, education, daily working life, philosophical matters, reading the bible.

Bearing Fresh Olive Leaves: Alternative Steps in Understanding Art

Calvin G. Seerveld, 2000

Find it on: Tuppence

A key thinker and teacher of philosophical aesthetics encourages mature, bold christian engagement with the arts.