Stephan van Erp
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- Theologian
Stephan van Erp | |
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| Born | October 6, 1966 |
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| Academic background | |
| Alma mater | |
| Doctoral advisor | John Webster (theologian) |
| Academic work | |
| Discipline | Catholic Theology |
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Stephan van Erp (born 6 October 1966), is a Dutch Roman Catholic theologian and philosopher who serves as professor of fundamental theology and holds the Ladies of Bethany Chair at KU Leuven, and is a professorial fellow at the Institute for Religion and Critical Inquiry at Australian Catholic University[1][2] He is also Senior Research Associate of the Von Hügel Institute at St. Edmund's College of the University of Cambridge.[3] Recognized as a leading scholar of Edward Schillebeeckx, van Erp has contributed to contemporary fundamental theology through his work on theological aesthetics, political theology, and Vatican II reception.[4]
Van Erp studied theology at the Theological Faculty of Tilburg and the University of Oxford, and philosophy at the Catholic University of Nijmegen.[1] His doctoral dissertation, completed at Tilburg, examined the theological aesthetics of Swiss theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar (1905–1988). Published in 2004 as The Art of Theology: Hans Urs von Balthasar's Theological Aesthetics and the Foundations of Faith by Peeters Publishers, this work approached Balthasar through careful rereading of Nicholas of Cusa and Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling.[5]
At the University of Oxford, he served as a tutor in Philosophy of Religion and Doctrine and Interpretation. He has held visiting fellowships at both Oxford and King's College London.[6] Van Erp joined KU Leuven in January 2015 and has since chaired the Research Unit Systematic Theology and the Study of Religions from 2016 to 2024, coordinating the Research Group for Fundamental and Political Theology, and co-founding the Interfaculty Centre for Catholic Thought alongside Henning Tegtmeyer. Since November 2018, he has held the Special Chair "Edward Schillebeeckx" at Radboud University Nijmegen, where he investigates Schillebeeckx's contributions to debates concerning church and politics.[1][7][8] Van Erp holds significant editorial responsibilities in Catholic theology, including positions at Concilium, Tijdschrift voor Theologie, Studies in Philosophical Theology (Peeters Publishers), Louvain Monographs in Theology and Religious Studies and Brill Research Perspectives in Theology.
Theological Vision
Van Erp's own theological work develops an incarnational and sacramental understanding of God's presence in history and politics, continuing the trajectory of Vatican II. A central conviction is that the world itself serves as a locus theologicus—a place where theology is done. His political theology, articulated in "World and Sacrament: Foundations of the Political Theology of the Church" (Louvain Studies, 2016), proposes that the Church functions "as a sign and instrument of God's political ordering of the world towards his Kingdom," with the sacrament lying "in the heart of citizenship, in so far as it means to create a space for the other."[9]
In De onvoltooide eeuw: Voorlopers van een katholieke cultuur (2015), van Erp offers a theological and cultural reading of twentieth-century Catholicism as an unfinished project marked not simply by decline or secularization, but by renewed sacramental engagement with modern life. Criticizing reductive sociological accounts of faith, he argues that Catholic belief is neither a private opinion nor a cultural residue, but an embodied, relational commitment oriented toward God's presence in the world. Through three exemplary faith biographies—the artist David Jones, the social activist Dorothy Day, and the theologian Edward Schillebeeckx—van Erp shows how Catholic faith took shape within war, poverty, culture, and theology as concrete participation in the mystery of divine love. Together, these figures illustrate a form of Catholic culture that neither withdraws from modernity nor assimilates to it, but sacramentally "inhabits" the world, anticipating a still-unfinished synthesis between faith, culture, and daily life.[10]
