’n Perspektief op Flip van der Watt en sy geskiedenis van die NG Kerk-familie ten tye van sy 70ste verjaarsdag

Authors

  • JW Hofmeyr

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.17570/ngtt.2008.v49n3.a12

Keywords:

church history, Dutch Reformed Church

Abstract

A perspective on Flip van der Watt and his history of the DR Church family at the time of his 70th birthday
Prof PB van der Watt, who recently celebrated his 70th birthday, was once attached to the Universities of Stellenbosch and Pretoria as church historian. He made an important and interesting, though relatively narrow contribution to the subject of church history in the South African context. In this article the focus is briefly on his life story but more extensively on his academic contributions in the field of church history. It is concluded that besides him popularising church history with lay people, his most important other contribution was in the field of denominational history and more specifically in the knowledge about the Dutch Reformed Church. Sadly he never succeeded to provide a broader and somewhat more kaleidoscopic or ecumenical perspective on the Dutch Reformed Church or to really focus on the Dutch Reformed Church family as a whole. In this respect, though there were already some exceptions to the rule, he was a typical representative of his times.

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Published

2008-12-31