Chair of the History of Neo-Calvinism

George Harinck is professor of the history of neo-Calvinism. In 2018 this chair was established to strengthen the profile of the Theological University. Harinck is a historian, trained at Leiden University and has been affiliated with the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam since 1985. There he earned his PhD and developed into a specialist in the history of neo-Calvinism, both in the Netherlands and in its international relations.

Prof. dr. George Harinck

The chair belongs to The Neo-Calvinism Research Institute (NRI) at the Theological University Utrecht, which was founded at the same time as the chair was established and functions as one of the three research institutes of the university. The NRI is part of an international network for research into neo-Calvinism, both (art) historical and philosophical, theological, pedagogical, economic and legal. 

An important aspect of the NRI and this chair is the website https://www.neocalvinism.org. This website contains the bibliographies of Abraham Kuyper (1837-1920) and Herman Bavinck (1854-1921), with links to their digitally accessible publications. In addition, this site contains the fully digitized archives of Kuyper and Bavinck. This site will be further expanded with sources from K. Schilder and others, and on representatives of the neo-Calvinist philosophy. 

Harinck provides Dutch-language and English-language education on the history of neo-Calvinism, supervises a dozen PhD students and leads (inter)national projects in the field of neo-Calvinism, in collaboration with neo-Calvinism researchers at the Vrije Universiteit, Edinburgh University, Calvin University and Theological Seminary, Redeemer University (Ontario) and Fuller Theological Seminary.