Em. prof. dr. R.H. Reeling Brouwer

Life and Functions

Prof. dr. Rinse H. Reeling Brouwer is Professor on the Miskotte/Breukelman Chair for theological hermeneutics of the Bible at the Protestant Theological University (location Amsterdam), and senior lecturer History of Christian Doctrine at the Protestant Theological University (location Groningen). From the start of the PThU in 2007 until 2013 he was the first Director of Education of the University.

He was born 1 January 1953 in The Hague, and studied theology at the University of Amsterdam (PhD-thesis in the Marquardt-thesis of Marxist influences on Karl Barth in 1988). From 1982 onwards he served as a minister of what now is the Protestant Church in the Netherlands in the parish of Amsterdam and from 1997 onwards he taught at the Theological University Kampen.

Since 2008 he is editor of the Zeitschrift für dialektische Theologie / Journal of Dialectical Theology and he is a leading member of the global Karl Barth scholarly research network, also providing the Karl Barth database. He coordinates the cooperation of the PThU with the Karl Barth Center of Princeton Theological Seminary.

He wrote books on Spinoza and Reformed Theology ('De God van Spinoza', 1998), Calvin ('De handzame Calvijn', 2004) and published a Textbook on the History of Systematic Theology ('Grondvormen van theologische systematiek', 2009: Origen, Augustine, John Damascene, Peter Lombard, Aquinas, Melanchthon, Calvin, Schleiermacher and others). His most recent book is 'Karl Barth and Post-Reformation Orthodoxy'(Farnham UK: Ashgate, 2015, 273pp.).

He edited works of the Dutch dialectical theologians K.H. (Heike) Miskotte ('Mystiek en bevinding', Verzameld Werk vol. 14, 2015) and F. (Frans) H. Breukelman (ET 'The structure of Sacred Doctrine in Calvin's Theology, Grand Rapids Mi.: Eerdmans 2009).

The English Translation (by Martin Kessler) of his inaugural address on the Miskotte/Breukelman Chair can be found on this webpage: 'This One is One and Unique; on the Task of Respecting the Singularity of the Name'.

As a part of the research program 'Transforming life' of the systematic theologians of the PThU he will write an essay on the importance of the thoughts of the continental philosopher Giorgio Agamben for theology.

Rinse Reeling Brouwer has a son: Pieter Benjamin Johan (2000).