Van Dixhorn Joining WTS June 2018

"With thanksgiving to the Lord, Westminster is pleased to announce the appointment of Dr. Chad Van Dixhoorn to the position of Professor of Church History and Director of the Craig Center for the Study of the Westminster Standards, beginning June 1, 2018. Dr. Van Dixhoorn has been serving Reformed Theological Seminary in Washington, D.C. since 2008, and was recently appointed as the Chancellor’s Professor of Historical Theology at RTS."

See the full announcement:
https://faculty.wts.edu/posts/van-dixhoorn/

I can't think of a more appropriate place for Van Dixhorn than Westminster (as much as RTS will miss him, I'm sure).

Wow!

Lane,

I don't believe that there's clear evidence that Chad will not continue as a Chancellor's Professor at RTS. I'll ask him to clarify.

Peace,
Alan

We very much enjoyed the few times he taught at our church WTS seems like a natural fit.

You were right, Lane. Chad indicates that his time with RTS will come to an end when he starts at WTS.

The press release was not written in a way that made that clear to me (it is not uncommon these days to be listed at more than one seminary).

Peace,
Alan

This interview with Chad crossed my desk via email and is apparently not available online. The email was an image so I OCR'd it for reading below.

Chad Van Dixhoorn (PhD, Cambridge University) will join the faculty at Westminster as Professor of Church History and Director of the Craig Center for the Study of the Westminster Standards in June 2018. Dr. Van Dixhoorn is considered to be one of the world's foremost experts on the Westminster Assembly. To mark the occasion, we've asked him a few questions about ministry, church history, and his favorite books.

For many, Church History might sound stale. What’s the practical value of familiarity with the history of the church for the pastor?

VAN DIXHOORN: I try to be up front with the students: everything we study in church history has already happened, so there are not a lot of surprises. But this hardly makes our subject matter stale! Church history offers an affordable travel package for visiting other times and places, and increases our cultural literacy. The time-travel shows us why we are where we're at. The cross-cultural dimension to church history makes it easier for Christians to be deployed in a diverse world. Of course there are other reasons for touring the history of theology, since a quick dip into any one century reminds us that there is more than one way of doing doctrine badly.

You graduated from WTS with an MDiv in 1999 and ThM in church history in 2000. How did your degrees prepare you for pastoral ministry?

VAN DIXHOORN: Westminster gave me a clear grasp of the gospel, a new view of the Bible, and an ability to discuss doctrine in complete sentences. The whole experience (except learning Hebrew) became charged with an electric delight as I met John Murray through his works, heard Harvey Conn laugh in class, or learned from Dr. Poythress that the complicated connections between passages of the Bible that only the smarter students seemed to find actually had some plausibility, and that I needed to up my game. I still struggle to do biblical theology well, but I appreciate the insights of others enormously.

If you could sit under the preaching of one post-Apostolic preacher who would it be?

VAN DIXHOORN: The preachers who have left the most lasting marks on my life and ministry have been my own pastors, and if you asked me if I could sit with one friend, they'd be near the top of my list. But if I was stranded on an island with just one preacher, I'd choose Sinclair Ferguson. Or maybe Phil Ryken. Or perhaps the nineteenth-century Scot Andrew Bonar. I get bored too easily, and I'm rather fussy about gospel sermons coming from the actual passage that the preacher is purporting to preach. When they were preaching weekly, it was my sense that these first two brothers hurdled these bars with seeming ease. They both preach differently than I do. That's probably why I am so blessed by their sermons. And Dr. Bonar fascinates me enough as an exegete and pastor that I'm sure I'd be able to work around his millennial views.

What drew you back to Westminster?

VAN DIXHOORN: I need to develop a succinct answer to this question. Truth be told, moving from Reformed Theological Seminary was one of the most difficult decisions of my life. RTS has been a wonderful place to work and I will sorely miss the faculty, students, and staff. That said, when I was asked to consider coming back to my alma mater, Emily and I recalled all that we have received from our alma mater, and knew we had to take the invitation seriously. As it happened, there was no one thing that proved to be the tipping point in our decision process.

We considered a family need, the opportunity to come alongside a larger group of students, a vibrant community of people willing to pick up and move to a place where they could invest in retooling for the kingdom, the attraction of having a few more course hours to teach church history, and then the faculty. It seems to me that each department is full of men from whom I have much to learn, and with whom I would like to build strong friendships. The Lord sometimes uses simple things like these to answer prayers and change hearts. And it didn't hurt that there is a study center on the Westminster Assembly that needs to be revitalized and used for kingdom purposes.

What traits are you hoping to instill in the students you will be training at Westminster?

VAN DIXHOORN: I am always encouraged by students who love people as well as ideas, and who love their Lord most of all. I hope that what we do in the classroom will help to equip a generation that will be apt to teach. But I will also be encouraging students not to 'professionalize' their devotion, and to treasure the Lord's Day with its fellowship and worship, to exercise hospitality, and to become incurable 'sermon junkies'-willing to do whatever it takes to get more live preaching into their regular diet. If students can leave WTS with these priorities-and then, on top of all that, learn to hold two-minute conversations with total strangers without breaking into a sweat-the/ll already be out of my league and ready for the majors.

What are three books incoming students should read before attending Seminary?

VAN DIXHOORN: Institutes of the Christian Religion by John Calvin, Grace and Glory by Geerhardus Vos, and The Christian Life by Sinclair Ferguson.