Guidebook for Instruction in the Christian Religion
by Herman Bavinck, translated and edited by Gregory Parker Jr., Cameron Clausing
DETAILS:
Publisher: Hendrickson Academic
Publication Date: June 7, 2022
Format: Hardcover
Length: 194
Read Date: July 3-17, 2022
What’s Guidebook for Instruction in the Christian Religion About?
…in writing this guidebook, I had in mind the pupils in the highest classes of our Christian gymnasium, public schools, in the education of teachers, and in normal schools, etc., and moreover those who desire to understand the main content of our Christian, Reformed confession of faith through a not too comprehensive or expensive book.
That’s it in a nutshell—this book delivers the main content of the Reformed Christian thought directed toward those in High School or those without much education.
In twenty chapters of 10 +/- pages each, Bavinck covers things such as the Knowledge of God, General and Special Revelation, the Trinity, Creation, Providence, The Person and Work of Christ, The Holy Spirit, Salvation, The Church, and The End of the World.
There’s not much more to say than that, it’s shorter and easier to read than Systematic/Dogmatic Theology that I can think of, written by one of the most significant and influential teachers of the Twentieth Century.
[His desire is] to discuss the material in a scriptural sense: that it is not only revealed in its teaching but also in its comforting character, and that it is applied to the heart and conscience. Religious instruction must be education in the true sense of the word, and it must be education in the religion—that is, in the most tender and sacred of what a human soul may possess.
Guidebook and The Wonderful Works of God
While this was an original composition, it is fairly similar to The Wonderful Works of God, published a few years earlier. The Guidebook is streamlined, no doubt, but many passages/paragraphs in both match*, and the translators give footnotes throughout showing that—and when they diverge. There are instances that I’ve found (and will likely see others in future reading/study) that a similar section in the Guidebook helps clarify a point in TWWoG.
* Bavinck says he “intimately connected” the two.
So, what did I think about Guidebook for Instruction in the Christian Religion?
It took three afternoons of semi-casual reading for me to read this—I could’ve done it in two, had I skipped an afternoon nap (much less the three I let myself take over the period). I spent months reading both The Wonderful Works of God and Reformed Dogmatics, I practically gave myself whiplash as quick as this went.
This is incredibly accessible—anyone from fourteen on up should be able to handle it (although parts might take a little work for some—but not often). It covers all the essential matters of Systematic Theology, and occasionally goes beyond. There might be things you’d like him to be a bit more thorough about, but that’s what the other works are for. The translators put it this way:
He traverses a path in which he attempts to bridge the gap between the theology in the academy and theology in the church In doing so, he provides the pilgrim with a theology that is uniquely accessible. For those who found his Reformed Dogmatics alarmingly academic and his Magnalia Dei* intimidatingly thick, Guidebook is the theological porridge that is “just right” for most readers.
* The translators use the Latin title for The Wonderful Works of God throughout the work.
I recommend this without hesitation—as I do everything I’ve read by Bavinck—but without having to worry that someone will be intimidated by it, or decide they’re not up for the work. Although I still maintain that people shouldn’t be as intimidated as they are by him. The translators have given us a gift in making this available to English readers for the first time—as much of a gift as Bavinck gave the church of his time in writing it.
The translators close their Introduction with these words, and I think they’re a great way to sum up the book:
In his Guidebook for Instruction in the Christian Religion, Bavinck has given a gift to the church. The reader will likely find little that is groundbreaking or novel (as one regularly does in Reformed Dogmatics). However, this book supplies the theology of an academic concerned with the life of the church. It is an example of catechetical theology produced by one of the foremost academic theologians of his time.
Above all, we hope this translation helps fulfill Bavinck’s hope for true theology: that it does not remain an object of the head but penetrates the heart and thus becomes an act of confession and praise. As he writes, “Dogmatics, therefore, is… a hymn of adoration and thanksgiving, a ‘glory to God in the highest’ (Luke 2:14). In this book, Bavinck gives us a songbook: setting God before us and calling us to sing God’s praises.
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