Prof. Dr. RM (Dolf) Britz, Director
Rudolph Marthinus Britz
(born 22 August 1953 in Bloemfontein, South Africa) received his tertiary
education at the Potchefstroom University for Christian Higher Education
(1972-1975), the University of Stellenbosch (1976-1979, 1984-1989) and the
University of the Free State (1990). His dissertation theological-critically
compiled An ecclesiological evaluation of
the literature in which the historiography of the Dutch Reformed Church
originated. He is married to Binty (neé Kloppers). They have three adult
children: Rudolph (married), Beate (Theology & Classical Languages, Yale
Divinity School) and Alice (Law, Northwest University). Fundamental to their
lifestyle is stability, balance and gratefulness.
Between 1984 and 1988 he
was academic assistant and part time lecturer, Department of Ecclesiology at
the University of Stellenbosch. In 1989 he was appointed in the Department of
Ecclesiology at the University of the Free State. He is an experienced scholar
who also has received recognition in the national higher education environment.
Since 2009 he serves as Professor: Programme Design and Approval in the
Directorate for Institutional Research and Academic Planning at the University
of the Free State. As head: Academic Planning Unit responsibilities include the
design of an high level academic appropriate undergraduate and post graduate
programmes and qualifications profile, the national approval, accreditation and
registration of qualifications and programmes, the UFS curriculum review
project (2010-1215), institutional quality enhancement and the accreditation
and review of Short Learning Programmes offered by the University of the Free
State. As Director of the Jonathan
Edwards Centre Africa in collaboration with the Jonathan Edwards Center at
Yale University, he is deeply involved in an international network of scholarly
research, focusing on primary sources.
His fields of
specialization include:
- Studies in the 16th century
Reformation and Post-reformation theology.
- Jonathan Edwards
- History of theology and ecclesiastical
tradition in South Africa.
- Faith and religion during the
Anglo-Boer War 1899-1902.
His teaching, for which
he has a passion, covers the whole spectrum of tertiary education, i.e. from
academic NQF level 5 (Higher Certificate) to level 10 (Doctoral study and
supervision) qualifications and programmes. Learning is facilitated in
differentiated and blended and active learning strategies (e.g. formal
lecturing, work integrated learning, workshops, seminars, open learning and
e-learning programmes). In 2010 he was one of nine UFS staff members selected
to teach in the UFS101 core curriculum. All first year students are required to
pass this intellectual challenging curriculum, which focuses on the development
of critical thinking. In his unit Did God
really say? the emphasis is on the ‘misuse' of God in arguments, as
illustrated i.a. in the Theology of Apartheid. In coming to terms with the
immediate past lecturer and students are subjected to reconciliation.
The focus areas of his
research are congruent with the South African National Research Strategy,
without sacrificing self initiated open-ended intellectual enquiry. They
therefore include:
- Faith and religion during the Anglo-Boer War (1899-1902).
- Poverty, injustice and the poor
according to the Reformed Confessions of the 16th century.
- Poverty, injustice and the poor in the
writings of i.a. John Calvin and the post-reformation theology.
- The reception of Edwards in Africa,
focusing on the theology and impact of the work of Mission Societies.
- Reconciliation as theological
trajectory in the South African theology.
He is a National Research
Foundation (NRF) Rated Researcher (C2).
Prof. Dr. AC (Adriaan) Neele
Adriaan Neele serves at the Faculty of Yale University
Divinity School as research scholar, associate editor and director of the
Jonathan Edwards Center at Yale University, and as Professor extraordinary at
the University of the Free State, Bloemfontein, South Africa.
Prior to arriving
at Yale in 2007, he lectured in Post-reformation studies at Montreal, Canada at
Farel Reformed Theological Seminary, and Pretoria, South Africa at the
University of Pretoria, and African Institute for Missiology.
His research
interest concerns 17th century European as well as early American (18th century
New England) theology and philosophy. He is the author of two books, The Art of Living to God (Pretoria
University Press, 2005), and Petrus van
Mastricht (1630-1706) Reformed Orthodoxy: Method and Piety (Leiden, Boston:
Brill, 2009) and various articles, including: John Calvin (1509-1564) and
Petrus van Mastricht (1630-1730): Continuities and Discontinuities in Biblical
exegesis; The Theoretico-Practica Motive as Framework for the Theology of
Cotton Mather (1663-1728); Trans-Atlantic exchanges: Jonathan Edwards
(1703-1758) in New England, Scotland and The Netherlands; Post-reformation
Reformed Sources and Children; Johannes à Marck 1656-1731: Theoloog van de
Schrift (Dutch), Een bizonder boek vir een bizonder collectie (Afrikaans);
Petrus van Mastricht (1630-1706) in Biographisch-Bibliographisches
Kirchenlexikon (German).
Research Associates
The Jonathan Edwards Centre Africa is assisted by a worldwide group of scholars of Research Associates assisting the Master and PhD students of the (Post) Graduate Programs. The Research Associates serve as advisor, co-advisor, and reader of (Post) Graduate theses, and disseratations.
Australia
Dr. Rhys
Bezzant is Dean
of Missional Leadership and
Lecturer in Christian Thought at the Faculty of Ridley
Melbourne College, and a prolific researcher on Edwards and ecclesiology, and
Director of the Jonathan Edwards Centre Australia.
Rev. Dr.
Ian Maddock (Ph.D.
University of Aberdeen) is Senior Lecturer at Sydney Bible College. He is author of Men of One Book (Pickwick: Eugene, OR, 2011), which
compares the preaching ministries of John Wesley and George Whitefield, two of
the leading figures in the eighteenth century evangelical revival.
Brasil
Prof.
Dr. Heber Carlos de Campos Jr.(PhD, Calvin Theological Seminary, Grand Rapids) is
Professor História, Centro Presbiteriano de Pós-Graduação Andrew Jumper (CPAJ),
Mackenzie University with expertise in Post-reformation studies at the Jonathan
Edwards Centre Brasil, and visiting professor at
Kuyper College in Grand Rapids.
Canada
Rev. Dr. Mark Jones (PhD University of Leiden). Rev. Dr. Mark Jones (PhD, Leiden Universiteit) has been the Minister at Faith Vancouver Church (PCA) since 2007. He lectures on Puritanism, Early Reformed orthodoxy and other related subject at various seminaries around the world and is currently writing a book on Antinomianism.
Czech Republic
Dr Anna
Svetlikova (PhD, Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic).
Here doctoral work is entitled "Typology as Rhetoric: Reading Jonathan
Edwards," examines Edwards' typology of nature from the perspective of
rhetorical criticism and discusses the literary form of the type in connection
to several forms of allegory. Anna presents papers on Edwards at various and
international events.
Hungary
Prof. Dr. Tibor Fabiny is Chair of the Faculty of Humanities at Károli
Gáspár University, Budapest, Hungary, and the Director of the Jonathan Edwards
Centre Hungary.
The Netherlands
Prof. Dr. E.A. (Erik) de Boer serves as professor at the Theologische
Universiteit Kampen, History of the Reformation, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam,
Professor h.c. Sárospataki Református Teológiai Akadémia, Hungary, and as
Research associate at the University of the Free State for studies in Early
Modern Reformed Theology: Church, Faith and Theology in Reformation and
Reformed Orthodoxy.
Prof. Dr. Aza Goudriaan is assistant professor of patristics, Faculteit
der Godgeleerdheid, VU Amsterdam, The Netherlands
with a focus on the apologetic argument in early Christian theology; Reception
of the Church Fathers; Early modern Reformed and Arminian theology and its
interaction with philosophy.
South Africa
Dr. Hannes Breytenbach (PhD Stellenbosch University)
Dr. Tshililo Liphadzi (PhD Northwest University, Potschefstroom) is
Chairman & Principal of Heidelberg
Theological Seminary
United States of America
Prof. Dr Michael A G Haykin is
Professor of Church History and Biblical Spirituality, and Director of The Andrew Fuller Center for Baptist Studies at
The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Louisville, Kentucky. His
present areas of research include 18th-century British Baptist life and
thought, as well as Patristic Trinitarianism and Baptist piety. Haykin is a
prolific writer having authored numerous books, over 250 articles and over 150
book reviews.
Prof. Dr. Kenneth P. Minkema is the Executive Editor of The Works of Jonathan
Edwards and of the Jonathan Edwards Center & Online Archive at Yale
University, with appointments as Research Faculty at Yale University Divinity
School. He is currently considered worldwide as the "doyen" of Edwards studies.
Dr. Junius Johnson received his PhD in systematic theology in 2010
from Yale University. He has been a lecturer at Yale University Divinity School
since 2007. He teaches courses in Ecclesiastical Latin and in systematic
theology, with a primary interest in Medieval theologies.
Dr.
Strobel (PhD of the University of Aberdeen) is Assistant Professor Systematic
Theology Grand Canyon University,
Phoenix, and writes extensively on Edwards, such as "Jonathan Edwards' Trinitarian Theology of Redemption."
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