Abraham Kuyper: A Centennial Reader

I never understood how misquoted Kuyper often is until I read this book.

1. Abraham Kuyper: His World and WorkKuyper's work can be characterized by an "insistence on a consistent logic rooted in first principles and carried out until it comprehended every domain in life" (p. 4). Calvinism was Kuyper's "soul and his system, the purest form of Christianity, the treasure of the past, the hope of the future" (p. 1). He was deeply suspicious of modernity and sought to elaborate a worldview that would imbue all of the areas of life with the Christian perspective.2. Common Grace (1902-4)Common grace is the hinge of Kuyper's constructive theology. His work on the Reform doctrine of common grace was far reaching, but his opponents "complained that this was more `invention' than elaboration" (p. 165). The distinction between saving grace and common grace is "evident from the undeniable fact that, without common grace, the elect would not have been born, would not have seen the light of day" (p. 169). Not all common grace impacts all aspects of human life in the same way; one common grace "aims at the interior, another at the exterior part of our existence. The former is operative wherever civic virtue, a sense of domesticity, natural love, the practice of human virtue, the improvement of the public conscience, integrity, mutual loyalty among people, and a feeling for piety leaven life. The latter is in evidence when human power over nature increases, when invention upon invention enriches life, when international communiation is improve, the arts flourish, the sciences increase our understanding ..." (p. 181).Contrasting his view to the dialectic distinction between the church as institution and the church as organism, Kuyper proposes that the church is both. The church as institution is comprised of its baptized, believing members. It is like a circle whose circumference increases as its membership grows. Yet there is another circle whose circumference is determined "by the length of the ray that shines out from the church institute over the life of people and nation. Since this second circle ... is not circumscribed by a certain number of people listed in church directories, and does not have its own office bearers but is interwoven with the very fabric of national life, this extra-institutional influence at work in society points to the church as organism" (p. 195).3. Maranatha (1891)This was the keynote address at the Antirevolutionary Party convention where "Kuyper's rhetorical prowess swept the 700-plus delegates" (p 206). The speech "Maranatha," which means "Our Lord, come!" or "Our Lord has come" in Aramaic, united the Antirevolutionary Party as Kuyper recited lines from Da Costa's "Forward in the name of the Lord" (p. 227). Kuyper calls for "universal proportional suffrage but on the basis of the family, for a restoration of the old guilds in a new form, for Chambers of Labor and Agriculture," and for a "spirit of the Compassionate One [to] be poured out over our whole government administration" (p. 225).4. Sphere Sovereignty (1880)This inaugural address at the Free University represents the summa of Kuyper's thought. He lays out a framework for sphere sovereignty and for the State's role therein. He recognizes that "The various spheres of life cannot do without the State sphere, for just as one space can limit another, so one sphere can limit another unless the State fixes their boundaries by law" (p. 472).Some twenty years later, Kuyper expanded on this thesis by discusses the scholarly realm: "scholarly research is not a matter of human pride but a God-given duty. The honor of God demands that the human mind penetrate the entire system of creation to discover His greatness and wisdom there and to translate these into human thought through human words" (p. 474). The scholarly realm must remain "Sovereign in its own sphere" and not "degenerate under the guardianship of Church or State" (p. 476). Kuyper upholds the University's scholarship as being "free," which he defines not as "detached from its principle," but rather, as that "everyone can freely build on the foundation of his own principles, in the style of his own method, with the cornice being the results of his own research" (p. 486).

Bratt has created a gem with this volume. It has been in publication for more that ten years and I wish I had purchased it years ago. His introductory biographical material is worth the cost of the book. The author succinctly gives us a view of Kupyer's life and influence; not a small task. In the main body of the book jBratt does a masterful job of selecting various works of Kuyper that give us a very well rounded view of the man. This not an easy task given the massive corpus Kuyper created. The bibliography given in back of the book is a help in further research. In short, if you want or need a book that introduces you to Kuyper and his work, and the remaining influence of the man this is the book to buy.

What a great Book! Gets at the heart of the dutch calvinist revival.Very good