Herman Bavinck

Herman Bavinck (13 December 1854, Hoogeveen, Drenthe – 29 July 1921, Amsterdam) was a Dutch Reformed theologian and churchman.

Bavinck was born in the town of Hoogeveen in the Netherlands to a German father. He first went to theological school at Kampen, but then moved on to Leiden for further training. He graduated in 1880 from Leiden having completed a dissertation on Ulrich Zwingli.

A year later, Bavinck was appointed Professor of Dogmatics at Kampen Theological Seminary. While serving there, he also assisted his denomination that had formed out of the withdrawal of orthodox Calvinists earlier from the state Hervormde Kerk, a withdrawal movement called the "Afscheiding" (Secession) in its merger with a second and subsequent larger breakaway movement that also left the Hervormde Kerk, this time under the leadership of Abraham Kuyper, a movement called "the Doleantie" (the Complaint: a historical reference to the term used by orthodox Reformed ministers who opposed Arminianism prior to the National Synod of Dordt, 1618–19).

The now-united Church combined the "Afgescheidenen" and "Dolerenden" into the Gereformeerde Kerken in Nederland (GKiN). As a result of the merger, GKiN inherited the denominational seminary of the Afscheiding churches and that seminary became the denominational seminary of the GKiN, where Bavinck stayed put, so as to ease the transition of his colleagues and people within the much larger new Church. Already, when the Afgescheidenen merged with the Dolerenden, there was a minority of the Seceders who stayed out of the union; they formed their new denomination as the Christelijke Gereformeerde Kerken (CGK), and they established their own theological seminary in the town of Apeldoorn.

Amidst all these developments, Bavinck stayed put and pursued his class lectures, research, writing, and publication - making his distinctive mark as an orthodox Calvinist theologian and churchman.

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