Kuyper’s Spirituality in Its Calvin-Context (original) (raw)
Related papers
‘Colony of Heaven’: Abraham Kuyper’s Ecclesiology in the Twenty-First Century
2015
This article offers a concise exposition of the ecclesiology of Abraham Kuyper. Focusing extensively on Kuyper’s doctrines of the church as both institute and organism as well as on ecclesiological pluriformity, the enduring relevance of Kuyper’s vision is shown for our present context, both in the Netherlands and the United States. Contrary to neo-Calvinist critiques of the twentieth century, the term institute is just as contextually bound as organism—yet this does not negate the usefulness of either concept. Rather, it is the task of the church to adapt itself to the concrete circumstances of each place and age, even employing ideas from each context as appropriate. With reservations regarding his neglect of the liturgical character of the church, Kuyper’s distinctions are expounded and set forward as helpful ecclesiological guidelines for modern Christian social witness today. Ad de Bruijne, "'Colony of Heaven': Abraham Kuyper's Ecclesiology in the Twenty-First ...
A review on Abraham Kuyper and his teaching
Political movement and responsibility is a present day opinion of some Evangelicals, and it is not new. Once they thought that Church should not involved in Politics, now the notion has been shifted towards, and saying that the Church should involve in politics. In the early 19th century Abraham Kuyper wants to combine Calvinism principles with politics and he did succeeded for some extent as a Dutch theologian and a politician and even he became the president of the Netherlands with what he believed for. This paper will focus the Kuyper’s lecture of ‘Calvinism a life system’ and his life.
Creating a Christian Worldview: Abraham Kuyper's Lectures on Calvinism
1998
For too long, the English-speaking world has been without easy access to the abundant corpus of Abraham Kuyper. Publishings spawned by this year's centennial commemorations of his Stone Lectures at Princeton, however, remedy that lacuna. Two outstanding volumes have been released in the past year that will end that theological drought. Prior to 1980, besides Kuyper's devotional works (To Be Near to God and The Work of the Holy Spirit) and the massive Principles of Sacred Theology, only a few selections by Kuyper were widely available. Although Kuyper's 1898 Lectures on Calvinism were released earlier (1931), copies were often difficult to locate. The year 1991 saw the reissue of his The Problem of Poverty, formerly Christianity and the Social Question, and translations of selections on science and politics. Yet, prior to 1998, it would have been difficult to provide English-language texts for studies on Kuyper's own voluminous works-a corpus comprising 223 separate publishing entries exclusive of his newspaper editorials. With these two new books, classes on Kuyper's thought and Christian worldview now have adequate primary sourcing. James Bratt and Peter Heslam have provided two very different books that work well in tandem. Bratt's volume contains primary resource material that has long been out of print or never before translated. He has reproduced representative samples from various periods of Kuyper's writings and also from a variety of disciplines. Bratt attempts to complement the Stone Lectures (which present the mature conclusions of "the statesmanlike scholar") with documents from speeches, newspaper columns, sermons, party speeches, and other academic addresses to round out more of Kuyper's "nuances of thought, his pragmatic applications of principle, the
Abraham Kuyper and his Political Thought: Calvinist and Pluralist
Reformed Theological Review, 2013
Dutch theologian, journalist, and statesman Abraham Kuyper is commonly cited as an authoritative figure with regard to Christianity and politics. His example as a theologically sophisticated and politically active Christian is widely lauded and celebrated. However, his thought and impact have been rarely considered from the perspective of political theory, and his contribution to the field has largely been overlooked. There are notable exceptions to this, and some of these will be cited in this paper. None the less, due to this lack of theoretical clarity in political studies on Kuyper himself, this paper aims to provide a clearer vision of the theoretical basis of Kuyper's political thought. It will be shown that his political thought can be located in the broad streams of pluralism and Calvinism. We will first survey pluralist political thought, and then survey Calvinist political thought, focusing on John Calvin and Johannes Althusius. These surveys will lead to Dutch Calvinism and Abraham Kuyper's doctrine of sphere sovereignty. This core Kuyperian doctrine will be expounded, and will be shown to be an expression of Calvinist pluralism, thereby locating Abraham Kuyper's political theory within that stream.
Abraham Kuyper and Natural Theology
Koers, 2024
This paper explores Kuyper's approach to natural theology and general revelation. Kuyper's view of natural theology was that it is important but limited. Kuyper rejected the view that general revelation provides the foundations for special revelation as it results in the autonomy of reason. Furthermore, he rejected natural theology as rational proof or argument for the existence and nature of God. He distinguished but did not separate general and special revelation from each other. Kuyper also accepted "creational revelation", which is a better term for his view of general revelation.
Review of James Bratt's Abraham Kuyper: Modern Calvinist, Christian Democrat
Abraham Kuyper is one of the most important public theologians of the modern period. Not only did he call for religious believers to bring the full weight of their convictions into public life, he practised what he preached. The author of over twenty thousand newspaper articles and two hundred books and pamphlets, Kuyper edited two newspapers, co-founded a new university, cofounded a new religious denomination, lead a major political party and served as the prime minister of his native Netherlands. Yet sadly, an in-depth account of the numerous connections between Kuyper's dizzying public life and his original public theology has remained unavailable to English readers; that is, until now. James Bratt's new biography, Abraham Kuyper: Modern Calvinist, Christian Democrat takes readers beyond flimsy characterizations of Kuyper to a nuanced portrait of a complex person holding together seemingly incongruous qualities: intellectual and organized, instinctive and logical, traditional and innovative, principled and adaptive, championing liberation and championing order. In fact, as Bratt states, it was Kuyper's ability to live with such tensions that funded his theology.
Abraham Kuyper and some of his Critics
Journal for Christian Scholarship, 2022
Abraham Kuyper was not universally admired and followed. In this paper, I examine some of his critics and the reasons for their criticism. These include P.J. Hoedemaker, Klaas Schilder, Foppe Ten Hoor, A.A. Van Ruler, and ministers of the Protestant Reformed Churches in America (PRCA). The main issues with which they disagree with Kuyper include his ecclesiology, common grace, and presumed regeneration. These differences are then evaluated.
"'A theater of God's grace and glory': Abraham Kuyper and the Reformed Tradition on Natural Revelation, Theology, and Science." Delivered on September 2, 2021 for the workshop, “Kuyper, Science, and Philosophy: A Centenary Celebration,” hosted by the Faraday Institute for Science and Religion. In his landmark Stone lectures delivered at Princeton Theological Seminary in 1898, the Dutch theologian, pastor, and politician Abraham Kuyper devoted an entire session to the question of “Calvinism and Science.” His argument began with the assertion that “Calvinism fostered and could not but foster love for science.” Whence, we might ask, this love for science in Calvinism that Kuyper not only observed but also found to be inevitable?