Pemikiran Filsafat John Calvin dan Relevansinya

Tulisan ini bermaksud menjelaskan pemikiran filsafat seorang reformator gereja, John Calvin. Metode yang dipakai dalam tulisan ini adalah deskriptif-interpretatif dalam rangka mengonstruksi pemikiran seorang tokoh dengan melihat relasi-relasi di dalam konteks hidupnya. Pertanyaan utama adalah bagaimana gagasan filsafat Calvin muncul dan dikontekstualisasi di hari ini? Metode pembahasan adalah pertama menjelaskan Calvin dan konteks hidupnya, kedua filsafat Calvin tentang manusia, ketiga filsafat Calvin dan aktualisasinya dalam gereja dan negara (pendidikan masyarakat), keempat filsafat Calvin dan aktualisasinya dalam konteks pandemi covid-19 dan terakhir beberapa kesimpulan. Hasilnya bahwa Calvin membangun pemikiran filsafatnya dari sumber pemikiran filsafat Stoa dan Augustinus. Filsafatnya tentang manusia mengusung gagasan pembebasan bagi hidup yang merdeka dari penindasan dan bekerja hanya untuk kemuliaan Tuhan. Filsafat tentang manusia ini kemudian diturunkannya dalam pemikiran terkait gereja dan negara, serta konstruksi manusia di masa pandemi ini.

What Christianity?

This chapter teases out many strands of Christian thought that inform the “Christian perspective” these curricula bring to bear in narrating history. It contends that they are unequivocally but narrowly Protestant. They reflect fundamental tenets of Martin Luther and John Calvin but incorporate facets of evangelicalism’s history from the eighteenth-century First Great Awakening to the present. Although the publishers do not acknowledge it, their understanding of “Christian” reflects every important evolution of evangelicalism and the battles fought both within that tradition and with external foes. The chapter highlights the broad variety of religious ideas contributing to these curricula’s undifferentiated “Christianity,” including providentialism, millennialism, and fundamentalism as well as narrower, minority religious views, notably dispensationalism, dominionism, and Christian Reconstructionism. These minority views were influential in shaping the contemporary alliance of the religious and political right.

Jeremiah and Homiletics

This chapter explores homiletical possibilities afforded by the book of Jeremiah to the Christian preacher. The earliest layers of contextualization are examined through consideration of preaching on Jeremiah in the early Church, focusing on sermons of Origen. In discussing the early modern period, the chapter attends to the preaching of Reformers Martin Luther and John Calvin. Finally, the chapter reflects on homiletical moves made by contemporary preachers in a variety of ecclesial contexts from the nineteenth century to the present, including Charles Spurgeon and Walter Brueggemann. Noteworthy in the homiletical reception of Jeremiah are four passages: first, the commissioning of Jeremiah (1:4–10), which foregrounds agonistic dimensions of prophetic witness and has served as a focus in liturgies of ordination; second, the lament, “Is there no balm in Gilead?” (8:22), transformed in a renowned African American spiritual into the asseveration that “there is a balm in Gilead,” namely, Jesus; third, Jeremiah’s depiction of the divine word as irresistible, “like a burning fire shut up in my bones” (20:9); and fourth, the promise of the new covenant that God will inscribe on the heart (31:31–34).

The Doctrine of Justification in the Neo-Latin Biblical Poetry of Silesian Reformation Poets and their Interpretation of the Biblical Theme of the Fall of the First Parents

The aim of this article is to analyze a selection of works by Silesian Protestants who, in poetic form, explained the biblical theme of the fall of the first parents in the context of the Reformation teaching on justification. The article consists of three parts. The first gives a short presentation of the literary phenomenon of neo-Latin poetic alterations of various books, fragments, and biblical themes by Silesian poets who were active in this literary field from the mid-sixteenth century to the mid-seventeenth century. The scale, area and time frame of the mass distribution of this literature are presented here, and it is noted that it was created as a result of the cultural and educational influence of the leading teacher of the Lutheran Reformation, viz. Philip Melanchthon. The second part of the article provides a theological explanation of the biblical story of the fall of the first parents, or original sin, in the context of the doctrine of justification as interpreted by Martin Luther, Philip Melanchthon, Huldrych Zwingli, and John Calvin. The third part discusses how some Silesian poets like Thomas Mawer (1536–1575), Laurentius Fabricius (1539–1577), Melchior Ostius (1569–1637) and Fridericus Wolbertus (active at the turn of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries) presented the doctrine of justification in poems describing the fall of Adam and Eve. The conclusions emphasize the importance of this type of work for the spread of the Reformation doctrine of justification, which opened the peaceful path to ideological and religious discussions in Central and Eastern Europe at that time.

Kuyper’s Spirituality in Its Calvin-Context

This article explores Abraham Kuyper’s spirituality by comparing it to that of John Calvin. Calvin’s Institutes exhibits three dimensions of his spirituality in the context of the mystical union with Christ, namely, the affective character of this union, its effects and its significance for a correct estimation of the world. By comparison, Kuyper put a greater emphasis on the importance of the affections in mystical union because he gives more weight to the regenerated life. This focus also coheres with Kuyper’s more optimistic approach to the Christian life, which contrasts with Calvin’s emphasis on the need for daily justification. In Kuyper’s approach the indwelling of the Spirit represents the union between heaven and earth, while Calvin stresses that God’s future kingdom is beyond the here and now.

Perbandingan Konsep Teodise John Calvin dan C. S. Lewis serta Relevansinya terhadap Sikap Fatalistik dalam Menghadapi Covid-19

The world is currently enduring an epidemic of COVID-19 which causes suffering and pain. Facing the COVID-19 pandemic, Indonesian people have shown various responses. One pupular respond is theological fatalism, which believe that God has determined everything so that human efforts and actions are not necessary. In connection to this, the question arouse whether Christian theology, especially Christian theodicy, which was represented in this paper by John Calvin and C. S. Lewis, fell into fatalism? To answer this question, the writer would compare of the two theodicies by using a literature research. Through this research, it was concluded that neither John Calvin's theodicy nor C. S Lewis's had fallen into theological fatalism. Both emphasized free will and human responsibility in making choices and actions. The right attitude is to submit to the authority of God's word which commands us to act by doing good to others who are suffering and sick.Abstrak. Dunia saat ini sedang dilanda wabah penyakit COVID-19 yang menyebabkan penderitaan dan kesakitan. Berhadapan dengan pandemi COVID-19, manusia Indonesia menunjukkan berbagai respon. Salah satu yang umum adalah fatalisme teologis yakni kepercayaan bahwa Allah sudah menetapkan segala sesuatu sehingga usaha dan perbuatan manusia tidak membuat perbedaan dan dampak di dalam sejarah kehidupan. Berkaitan dengan hal tersebut muncul pertanyaan apakah teologi Kristen, khususnya teodise Kristen, yang diwakili di dalam paper ini oleh John Calvin dan C. S. Lewis jatuh ke dalam fatalisme? Untuk menjawab pertanyaan tersebut penulis akan membandingkan kedua teodise tersebut dengan menggunakan studi pustaka. Melalui penelitian tersebut disimpulkan bahwa baik teodise John Calvin maupun C. S Lewis tidak jatuh ke dalam fatalisme teologis. Kedua-duanya sama-sama menekankan kehendak bebas dan tanggung jawab manusia di dalam melakukan pilihan dan tindakan. Sikap yang tepat adalah tunduk kepada otoritas firman Tuhan yang memerintahkan kita untuk bertindak dengan berbuat baik kepada sesama yang menderita dan sakit.

Perancangan Buku Ilustrasi Sejarah Reformasi Gereja, untuk Anak Usia 6-8 Tahun di Sekolah Minggu GKKA-I Banjarbaru, Kalimantan Selatan

Pengenalan pengetahuan akan sejarah merupakan salah satu cara untuk memahami asal mula suatu kebudayaan maupun peradaban yang menjadi sebuah refleksi dari kejadian yang ada dimasa lampau agar dapat menjadi pedoman baik dimasa yang akan datang. Dalam Agama Kristen sejarah juga sebuah hal yang sangant penting. Salah satu sejarah yang mernarik yaitu sejarah yang berkaitan dengan reformasi Gereja. Tokoh yang cukup berpengaruh salah satunya yaitu John Calvin dari Perancis. Namun sayang sekali tidak semua orang memahami dan mengetahui mengenai sejarah reformasi Gereja. Oleh sebab itu diperlukan pengenalan sejak dini, terutama untuk anak usia 6-8 tahun. Dalam perancangan ini, Buku tersebut berbentuk buku cerita ilustrasi yang nantinya akan disajikan kepada anak Sekolah Minggu usia 6-8 tahun di GKKA-I Banjarbaru yang dimana gereja tersebut memliki latar belakang gereja reformed yang sesuai dengan tokoh dalam cerita tersebut. Buku dengan ukuran 21cm x 14,85cm tersebut, memiliki gaya ilustrasi flat design dengan outline. Dengan jumlah halaman sebanyak 24 halaman, dijilid soft cover, serta dimuat dalam bentuk fisik (cetak). Kesimpulan dari perancangan ini yaitu menyajikan sebuah cerita ilustrasi bergambar kepada anak Sekolah Minggu usia 6-8 tahun di GKKA-I Banjarbaru, yang mengakat kisah sejarah reformasi Gereja sebagai bentuik pengenalan untuk umat Kristen sejak usisa dini melaui media buku cerita ilustrasi, poster, PR package, Instagram feeds, stiker, tumbler, photocard, totebag, dan kaos dengan identitas perancangan.

Book Review: John Calvin. Crucified and Risen: Sermons on the Death, Resurrection and Ascension of Christ.

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The Word of God and the End of Politics

One of the most radical aspects of Reformation theology was the way it dissolved existing distinctions between natural and spiritual, temporal and ecclesiastical, even between individual virtue and the common good. These distinctions had been crucial to the articulation of a sphere of political thought in the opening years of the sixteenth century. Protestant political thought had a distinctive character because the Reformers tended to reject the idea that politics could be a separate discipline, geared towards temporal or natural flourishing. Protestants were not uninterested in the mechanisms by which human communities could be defended or preserved, but they analysed those mechanisms in the light of their wider theological agenda. The Reformation movement soon splintered into a number of different churches and groups, but most of these groups shared the same commitment to magistracy as an instrument of God, legitimate and authoritative insofar as it followed God’s law. This chapter focuses primarily on the political thought of figures associated with the larger Protestant groups, especially Martin Luther and Philip Melanchthon in Germany, and Ulrich Zwingli and John Calvin in the Swiss cantons. It outlines the theories of resistance developed as Protestantism came under threat and shows how these reflected and developed Reformation principles.