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David A. Hoekema

David A. Hoekema, Professor Emeritus of Philosophy and former Academic Dean at Calvin University, has written extensively on issues of coercion, deterrence, war and violence, both in scholarly publications and in articles for the Reformed Journal when it was a print publication.  (Samples: “Aftereffects:  the Legacy of Hiroshima and Nagasaki,” July 1985; “Nuclearism, Pacifism and Heresy,” June 1988.)  In retirement he migrates seasonally between West Michigan and southern Arizona, where his home is a few miles from one of the nation’s strangest tourist attractions, a decommissioned Titan nuclear missile silo.  

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WHAT COULD HAVE BEEN . . .

I invite readers to imagine a world where things turned out differently. Such a world is not very distant from the world we live in.  If a few individuals in each body had assessed the relevant reasons and conditions and come to a different conclusion, we might now be on the path toward a dramatically different future. 
David A. Hoekema
July 18, 2022
Essays

Olivier Messiaen: Music as Prayer

VISIONS OF AMEN: THE EARLY LIFE AND MUSIC OF OLIVIER MESSIAEN STEPHEN SCHLOESSER EERDMANS, 2014 $50 570 PAGES CONCURRENTLY RELEASED AUDIO RECORDING: MESSIAEN, VISIONS OF AMEN HYESOOK KIM AND STEPHANE LEMELIN, PIANO WWW.EERDMANS.COM/SCHLOESSER_AUDIO Few composers of the 20th century were as deeply shaped by a theological tradition as was Olivier Messiaen by French Catholicism in the period following the First World War. Born to a literary family – his mother a poet, his father an English teacher and translator of Shakespeare…
David A. Hoekema
February 28, 2018
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Truth, Reconciliation, and Human Rights: A Reflection on South Africa’s Transition to Multiracial Democracy

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) in the Republic of South Africa, created in 1995 just a year after the first multiracial elections, attracted attention around the world as an example of visionary and courageous political action in a time of great political and social upheaval. The world had seen nothing like it, and it suggested radical new possibilities for large-scale political change following the replacement of authoritarian rule by democratic rule (or, more accurately in this instance, replacement of…
David A. Hoekema
March 1, 2009
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“Just War on Terror” Revisited

In the closing months of 2006, news dispatches from Iraq have grown more discouraging by the week. Casualties continue to mount, both among the military forces of the United States and its allies and in the civilian population. Suicide bombings in crowded markets and near police recruiting stations have become routine. To these are now added the horrors of daily executions of Shiite partisans by Sunni militias and vice versa. The goal announced at the war's outset nearly four years…
David A. Hoekema
December 16, 2006
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Keeping the Faith in the Christian College, Past and Present

These two recent studies by veteran faculty members take dramatically different approaches to the question of how colleges that are serious about maintaining their Christian identity can resist the temptations of secularization. One seeks an answer far back in the history of Christianity, distilling common elements in the early church fathers that remain relevant for today's first-year students. The other looks instead to the recent past and the present complexion of six representative institutions and suggests models to guide them…
David A. Hoekema
January 16, 2003