Kornelis Heiko Miskotte (1894-1976) was a pastor of the Dutch Reformed Church and a professor of dogmatics and ethics at the University of Leiden. Eleonora Hof (PhD, Protestant Theological University), translator, is pastor of Ieper/Ypres, United Protestant Church in Belgium. Collin Cornell (PhD, Emory University), translator, is visiting assistant professor of Biblical Studies for the School of Theology at the University of the South in Sewanee, TN (USA).
The publication of this English translation and edition of K.H. Miskotte’s Biblical ABCs is hugely welcome. Miskotte’s distinctive and arresting theological vision is still too-little known and under-appreciated, but the appearance of this important war-time tract will go a long way to address this. Here, we can learn again of the fundamental importance of the Old Testament to the theological and spiritual grammar and vision of Christian faith. Here, we find ourselves summoned and schooled by Scripture and are reminded of just how unnatural and unsettling that can and should be. Here, we are lead to discover anew the deepest sources of that ‘better resistance’ which the Christian church owes the world. -- Philip G. Ziegler, University of Aberdeen Sound theological catechesis is the beginning of effective political resistance. And the beginning of sound theological catechesis is the Name of God. Those are the perennially relevant insights that animate Miskotte’s Biblical ABCs, here translated into English for the first time. This labor of love by Eleonora Hof and Collin Cornell is a blessing for everyone seeking basic theological orientation for our own troubled times. -- R. Kendall Soulen, Candler School of Theology, Emory University