Dr AARON DENLINGER

Dr AARON DENLINGER The University of Aberdeen Centre for Lifelong Learning Supervisor work +44 (0)1224 272812 pref a.c.denlinger@abdn.ac.uk pref King's College (KCF 23)

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Biography

After completing my BA in History (2000) and MA in Theological Studies (2004), I spent a year teaching Latin, Bible, and American Literature at Veritas Christian Academy in Parker, Colorado. In September 2005 I moved to Scotland to pursue doctoral research under the supervision of Nicholas Thompson at the University of Aberdeen. In March 2009 I was awarded my PhD in Church History, and in September of that year I joined the faculty of the University as a Teaching Fellow with responsibility for coordinating courses in early modern/Reformation Church History. From September 2010 to August 2012 I performed the further role of Research Fellow at the University in fulfillment of a postdoctoral fellowship awarded by the Hope Trust.

My wife Louise and I live in Aberdeen with our daughters, Kaitrin and Geneva, and our dog Oakley.

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Research Interests

I am interested in nearly every aspect of Reformed theology and praxis during the periods of Reformation and Orthodoxy. For my doctoral degree I examined the intellectual origins of Reformed theology's notion of covenantal solidarity with Adam—the notion, that is, that Adam's own guilt and corruption pertained to his descendents by virtue of God's initial covenant with humankind (foedus operum) rather than Adam's natural relationship to his posterity. I argued that Reformed teaching in this regard owed some intellectual debt to the doctrine of a prominent sixteenth-century Dominican friar, Ambrogio Catarino Politi (d. 1553). In March 2010 the fruit of my research was published as a monograph in Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht's Reformed Historical Theology series under the title Omnes in Adam ex pacto Dei: Ambrogio Catarino's Doctrine of Covenantal Solidarity and Its Influence on Post-Reformation Reformed Theologians.

Since completing my doctorate my research interests have increasingly gravitated towards the history and theology of the Reformed church in early modern Scotland. My most recent work focuses on the thought of those seventeenth-century Episcopalian divines collectively known as the 'Aberdeen Doctors' (John Forbes of Corse, Robert Baron, James Sibbald, William Leslie, Alexander Scroggie, and Alexander Ross), men best remembered for their religious irenicism and opposition to the National Covenant of 1638. An article considering the Doctors' contribution to John Dury's project of uniting Europe's Lutheran and Reformed churches into a single Protestant body appeared recently in the journal Church History and Religious Culture (92.1). An essay exploring aspects of Robert Baron's thought in light of disparate claims regarding his orthodoxy is complete and will appear in a multi-authored volume of essays on early modern Scottish theology which I am organizing and editing. An article on John Forbes of Corse's doctrine of predestination is forthcoming in the Journal of Ecclesiastical History.

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Current Research

In conjunction with my research on the Aberdeen Doctors and post-Reformation Scottish theology more broadly, I am presently editing a multi-authored volume of essays titled Reformed Orthodoxy in Scotland: Essays on Scottish Theology c.1570-c.1750 (London: T&T Clark, forthcoming). The volume aims to highlight the Scottish contribution to the international phenomenon of Reformed Orthodoxy and to bring significant, recent reassessments of that broader phenomenon to bear upon the study of Scottish theology and/or individual Scottish theologians in the era of Orthodoxy.

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Teaching Responsibilities

I coordinate the following courses:

• LT1009 Latin 1
• LT1507 Latin 2
• DR301J Reformation, Reason and Revolt
• DR351H Luther, Calvin and the Shaping of Protestantism
• DR4582 & DR552C Reformation in Scotland

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External Responsibilities

 I currently serve as Secretary to the Society for Reformation Studies.

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Selected Publications

Books:

• Editor, Reformed Orthodoxy in Scotland: Essays on Scottish Theology c.1570-1750 (London: T&T Clark, forthcoming).
• Omnes in Adam ex pacto Dei: Ambrogio Catarino's Doctrine of Covenantal Solidarity and Its Influence on Post-Reformation Reformed Theologians (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2010).

Chapters in Books:

• 'Scottish Hypothetical Universalism: Robert Baron (c.1596 - 1639) on God's Love and Christ's Death for All', in A. C. Denlinger, ed., Reformed Orthodoxy in Scotland: Essays on Scottish Theology c.1570 - c.1750 (London: T&T Clark, forthcoming).

Journal Articles:

• 'Swimming with the Reformed tide: John Forbes of Corse (1593-1648) on double predestination and particular redemption', Journal of Ecclesiastical History (forthcoming).
• '"Men of Gallio's naughty faith"? The Aberdeen Doctors on Reformed and Lutheran Concord', Church History and Religious Culture 92.1 (2012): 57-83.
• 'Ambrogio Catarino's Doctrine of the Devil's Fall: Christocentric Reflection on the Origin of Evil', Nova et Vetera 8.1 (2010): 107-24.
• 'Robert Rollock's Catechism on God's Covenants', Mid-America Journal of Theology 20 (2009): 105-29.
• 'Calvin's Understanding of Adam's Relationship to Humankind: Recent Assertions of the Reformer's "Federalism" Evaluated', Calvin Theological Journal 44 (2009): 226-50.
• 'Disentangling Ambrogio Catarino's Doctrine of Original Sin from that of Albert Pigge', Reformation & Renaissance Review 9.3 (2007): 235-63.

Popular Articles:

• 'The Passion of Christ—now on DVD', The Outlook 54.7 (July/August 2004): 9-13.
• 'Smoking in God's Image', Nicotine Theological Journal 8.2 (April 2004): 6-7.

Reviews:

• John McCallum, Reforming the Scottish Parish: The Reformation in Fife, 1560-1640 (Farnham: Ashgate, 2010) in International Review of Scottish Studies 37 (2012): 158-161.
• Michael A.G. Haykin, Mark Jones, eds., Drawn into Controversie: Reformed Theological Diversity and Debates Within Seventeenth-Century British Puritanism (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2011) in Reformation & Renaissance Review 13.3 (2011): 396-397.
• Herman J. Selderhuis, John Calvin: A Pilgrim's Life, trans. by Albert Gootjes (Nottingham: Inter-Varsity Press, 2009) in Scottish Bulletin of Evangelical Theology 28.2 (2010): 218-219.
• J. Todd Billings, The Word of God for the People of God: An Entryway to the Theological Interpretation of Scripture (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2010) in Modern Reformation 19.5 (2010): 45-46.
• Willem J. Van Asselt, et al, Scholastic Discourse: Johannes Maccovius (1588–1644) on Theological and Philosophical Distinctions and Rules (Apeldoorn: Instituut voor Reformatieonderzoek, 2009) in Reformation and Renaissance Review 11.1 (2009): 123-124.
• Allan Jenkins and Patrick Preston, Biblical Scholarship and the Church: A Sixteenth-Century Crisis of Authority (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007) in Reformation and Renaissance Review 8.3 (2006): 372-376.
• R. Scott Clark, Caspar Olevian and the Substance of the Covenant: The Double Benefit of Christ (Edinburgh: Rutherford House, 2005) in Reformation and Renaissance Review 8.1 (2006): 112-114.

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Professional Societies

•   Society for Reformation Studies: Member (2006 - present); Secretary (2011 - present)

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