Kerk en Theologie - Volume 75, Issue 3, 2024

Poverty, gender and sex, and biblical interpretation are informed and impacted by a long interpretive history and constitute various hermeneutical challenges. Notwithstanding terminological and definitional difficulties regarding poverty, its intersectionality with gender is vital for accountable and responsible hermeneutics. Poverty and gender intersected particularly within ancient households, and poverty and sex in ancient prostitution – and in both cases, not without interesting considerations for the modern-day context. In a final section, some suggestions are made regarding the value of investigating the intersection(s) of poverty, gender and sex in biblical interpretation, for the past and present.

Looking back at 75 years of magazine Kerk en Theology, we can conclude that the first generation of Dutch Reformed church leaders after World War II saw as their mission as curbing the secularization, or the 're-christianisation' of the Netherlands. In realizing that project, all kinds of means were employed including the church's participation in social debate. The editors of Kerk en Theology wholeheartedly supported this project by providing space for theological reflection and debates on concrete social questions. However, the assumption that this could halt the ongoing secularisation has proved false. Secularisation is a complicated cultural transition in which church leaders may have a role, but their role should not be overestimated.