Hans Boersma

Hans Boersma was born in the Netherlands in 1961 and immigrated to Canada as a child, where his family settled into the Dutch Reformed tradition. His early theological formation took place at Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia, where he completed his doctorate in 1993 under Richard Gaffin Jr., writing on the theology of John Calvin. The dissertation would become his first book, but already Boersma was beginning to feel the constraints of the Reformed scholasticism he had inherited. What started as a study of Calvin's sacramental theology opened questions about the relationship between heaven and earth, the visible and invisible, that would eventually lead him far beyond the boundaries of his original tradition.

After completing his studies, Boersma joined the faculty of Trinity Western University in British Columbia, where he taught systematic theology for over two decades. During these years his reading expanded dramatically into patristic sources — the church fathers of the first eight centuries — and he began to sense that something essential had been lost in the Protestant tradition's emphasis on justification by faith alone. The fathers, particularly figures like Origen, Augustine, and the Cappadocian theologians, seemed to possess a richer understanding of how the material world participated in divine reality. This was not merely an academic interest. Boersma was experiencing what he would later describe as a kind of spiritual hunger that his Reformed heritage, for all its doctrinal precision, could not satisfy.

The turning point came in the early 2000s when Boersma began to embrace what he calls "sacramental ontology" — the conviction that the entire created order exists as a participation in divine being, and that this participation is most clearly visible in the church's liturgical life. In 2016, after years of internal wrestling and external controversy within evangelical circles, he left Trinity Western to join the faculty of Nashotah House Theological Seminary, an Anglo-Catholic institution in Wisconsin. The move represented more than a career change; it was a public declaration that his theological journey had led him into the Anglican Communion, specifically its Catholic wing. His former colleagues in the Reformed world viewed this as betrayal. Boersma saw it as homecoming.

His Writing and Theological Vision

Boersma began writing in the 1990s, initially producing works that operated comfortably within evangelical boundaries. His early books on violence, accommodation, and Reformed theology established him as a reliable voice in the tradition. But beginning with "Nouvelle Théologie and Sacramental Ontology" in 2009, his work took a decisive turn toward the retrieval of pre-modern Christian thought. The book argued that twentieth-century Catholic theologians like Henri de Lubac and Jean Daniélou had recovered something essential about the sacramental structure of reality that Protestants had lost. It was followed by "Heavenly Participation" in 2011, which made the case that Platonic metaphysics, far from being the enemy of biblical thought, provided the necessary philosophical framework for understanding how finite things participate in divine reality.

His mature theological vision crystallized in "Scripture as Real Presence" (2017), a dense and ambitious work that argues the Bible itself functions sacramentally — not merely conveying information about God, but mediating God's actual presence through the church's liturgical reading. This represents a fundamental challenge to Protestant approaches to Scripture that emphasize propositional revelation over participatory knowledge. Boersma's argument draws heavily on patristic exegesis, particularly the allegorical interpretation practiced by Origen and others, which he believes recovers the Bible's true spiritual meaning.

Boersma's influence has been complex and contested. Within Anglo-Catholic circles he has found a receptive audience for his argument that ancient Christian wisdom offers resources for contemporary spiritual formation that modern theology has largely abandoned. His work on the church fathers has introduced many readers to figures and concepts — theosis, cosmic liturgy, sacramental participation — that lie outside typical evangelical experience. But his journey from Reformed orthodoxy to Anglo-Catholic sacramentalism has also made him a controversial figure, particularly among those who see his trajectory as representative of broader defections from Protestant principles. The controversy has only intensified his conviction that contemporary Christianity suffers from what he calls "ecclesiastical amnesia" — a forgetting of its own deepest traditions.

Who should read Boersma: Readers who find themselves spiritually hungry within traditions that emphasize doctrinal correctness but struggle to connect that doctrine to lived experience of divine presence. He is particularly valuable for those raised in Protestant contexts who sense that something is missing in their tradition's approach to Scripture, sacrament, and the created world. He is not for readers satisfied with contemporary evangelical theology, or those looking for practical guidance rather than deep theological reconstruction. He is for those willing to have their assumptions about the relationship between faith and reason, Scripture and tradition, challenged by voices from the church's ancient past.