Towards a relevant ecclesiology: An exposition of Articles 27–29 of the Belgic Confession

Abstract

Peer-review declarationThe publisher (AOSIS) endorses the South African 'National Scholarly Book Publishers Forum Best Practice for Peer-Review of Scholarly Books'. The book proposal form was evaluated by our Theological and Religious Studies editorial board. The manuscript underwent an evaluation to compare the level of originality with other published works and was subjected to rigorous two-step peer-review before publication by two technical expert reviewers, who did not include the editor(s) and author(s) and were independent of the editor(s) and author(s), with the identities of the reviewers not revealed to the editor(s) or author(s). The reviewers were independent of the publisher, editor(s) and author(s). The publisher shared feedback on the similarity report and the reviewers' inputs with the manuscript's editor(s) or author(s) to improve the manuscript. Where the reviewers recommended revision and improvements, the editor(s) or author(s) responded adequately to such recommendations. The reviewers commented positively on the scholarly merits of the manuscript and recommended that the book be published. v Research justificationThe Belgic Confession ( 1561) is one of the oldest Reformed confessions and is adopted by many churches in the Reformed tradition around the world. Not much, however, has recently been published on the Belgic Confession as a whole -especially regarding its contemporary relevance. This publication aims to fill this gap.The publication groups the 37 articles of the Belgic Confession together in order to cover the whole of the confession in 12 chapters (alongside an introductory chapter). The emphasis of the publication is on two aspects:(1) providing a scope of contemporary theological, ethical and general issues and possible controversies regarding the content of the Belgic Confession; and (2) formulating ethical perspectives and guidelines from the Belgic Confession that may assist in the building of societies. Where applicable, chapters also discuss the history of the text of the Belgic Confession, the organic unity between the articles of the Belgic Confession, a dogma-historical perspective on the development of the doctrine and content of the Belgic Confession and the relationship between the Belgic Confession and other confessions. The emphasis throughout, however, falls on investigating the contemporary relevance of the Belgic Confession.The various chapters of this volume are written by scholars who are experts in their fields. As such, this volume represents scholarly discourse for scholars. All chapters are original investigations with original results and were cleared of possible plagiarism by using iThenticate. No part of this work has been plagiarised. The findings of this investigation should be beneficial for today's Reformed community around the world. The target audience is specialists in the field of dogma-history and systematic theology.