When it comes to Christian engagement with culture in its various forms, many Reformed and evangelical Christians have turned to the legacy of Abraham Kuyper (1837’1920). As modernism engulfed the Dutch Reformed Church, he led the founding of the Reformed Churches of the Netherlands and wrote weighty theological tomes. While emphasizing the irreconcilable antithesis between Christian and non-Christian worldviews, he was just as convinced that God’s common grace makes common society possible. He was fascinated by the whole range of cultural activity, arguing that government, education, the church, science, and the arts should be ‘sovereign’ in their own right, without one sphere controlling the others.
In a similar way, Kuyper met religious pluralism with his notion of ‘pillarization’: that Reformed, Roman Catholic, and secular communities should be free to develop their own social institutions. Following through with his ideas, he founded a national newspaper and the Free University of Amsterdam, and served as prime minister from 1901 to 1905. His Stone Lectures (published as Lectures on Calvinism), delivered at Princeton Seminary in 1898, advocated his vision of Reformed theology applied to various cultural spheres. Although he is largely forgotten in his native country, Kuyper is often invoked today by Christians in the United States on the political right and left. But is this the real Kuyper? We’ve asked a specialist, Ad de Bruijne, professor of ethics and spirituality at the University of Kempen in the Netherlands, to offer a sneak peek at his recent work on this seminal figure.
What is the significance of Abraham Kuyper in Dutch church circles and society these days?
Unlike in America and in countries where Christianity is on the rise, in the Netherlands for many years the attention and appreciation for Abraham Kuyper has been limited. Secularists consider him the prototype of the ongoing Christian ambition to control the public domain with Christian norms, even in modern times. With their farewell to the Christian past after World War II and during the sixties, they also abandoned Abraham Kuyper and his heritage of Christian public participation and the connected societal pattern of ‘pillarization’ that granted each worldview its own corner in the public domain.
Those Reformed Christians who tended toward a more liberal theological position found little relevance in Kuyper’s openness to creation and culture, because they themselves had become culturally adapted in a much more straightforward manner. Other Reformed Christians kept their distance from Kuyper precisely because of this cultural openness, which they considered indicative of secularizing tendencies and even to have caused the shift toward liberalism within once-Reformed circles. Kuyper’s direct neo-Calvinist heirs (such as Klaas Schilder, Gerrit Berkouwer, and Herman Dooyeweerd) developed new versions of neo-Calvinism that were meant to correct Kuyperian constructs of thought but resulted in new theories that detracted attention from the views of Kuyper himself.
Notwithstanding these intellectual attitudes, the typical Dutch phenomena of Christian public organizations and Christian public action (e.g., Christian political parties) have remained until the present. These should be seen as direct legacies of Kuyper and his combined vision of common grace and church-society antithesis.
Recent years have witnessed a remarkable resurgence of interest in Kuyper. For example, Dutch public television has broadcast a series about Kuyper’s journey around the Mediterranean and its historical significance. His evaluations of religious and political developments, particularly those concerningthe relationship between Christianity and Islam, strike many viewers as challenging and still relevant.
Secular and church historians have considered Kuyper as a unique and an intriguing historical figure because of his activities in church and society as well as his intellectual creativity. Today, albeit hesitantly, theologians are starting to regain a more open-minded and unbiased attitude toward Kuyper. I myself, having been educated with the vision that Kuyper was a great Christian intellectual but of no relevance today, have rediscovered the importance and impact of Kuyper’s thoughts for today’s ‘post-Christian’ or ‘post-Christendom’ Western societies. Likewise, Reformed and evangelical Christians, from nations where Christianity is on the rise and the church is becoming a visible participant in society, have convinced me that Kuyper’s thought should be engaged when reflecting upon possible Christian public responsibilities in church and community.
The contemporary dialogue between the Reformed and the so-called neo-Anabaptist positions on the relationship between church and society (the latter being represented for example by John Howard Yoder and Stanley Hauerwas and their disciples) could profit highly from his work. Kuyper appears to have already seen the new stage of Western history during which Christians would return to a minority position, and he offers guidance to form theories and practices for such times. Kuyper’s work could prove helpful for many necessary in-house Reformed debates about an appropriate attitude toward contemporary culture, especially between those who foster ideals of Christian cultural renewal and those who emphasize the importance of the distinction between this world and the coming kingdom of God. Kuyper confirms and challenges both ends of this spectrum, and I think hints at a promising ‘third way’ that utilizes the strengths of cultural engagement and ecclesial focus that would be helpful for today’s discussions.
You’ve recently returned from the United States after visiting major centers of Kuyper interest and research. What do you make of the ‘American Kuyper’? In what ways do we get him ‘right’ and ‘wrong’?
If I am not mistaken, there are not one but several ‘American Kuypers’! Without intending to stigmatize, I think I have noticed significant differences among those who relate to his work. The traditional Christian Reformed Kuyper perception seems different from the Presbyterian Kuyperians who approach him through the lens of Cornelius Van Til. Political and public theorists often value Kuyperian concepts such as ‘principled pluralism,’ ‘sphere-sovereignty’ and ‘faith-based public action’; yet they sometimes interpret him in substantially different ways with respect to the role of government, a more capitalist or social economic policy, and a Republican or Democratic public position. Mainline evangelicals appreciate the theological, philosophical, and cultural depth and breadth of his concept, while confessional evangelicals either use Kuyper as support in their ‘culture wars’ or expect him to liberate them from their traditional inclination to a dualist stance in which Christians keep their distance from the public domain and other ‘nonspiritual’ spheres of life.
It is hard to identify one or more of these ‘Kuypers’ to be absolutely incorrect, since Kuyper’s thought is flexible, complicated, and full of tension. However, I do see some weaknesses and potential dangers in the American interest in Kuyper. One of these is the development of a one-sided image of his concepts. Often only a very small selection of his prodigious work is read and used, mostly Lectures on Calvinism and Common Grace. Sometimes, his thought lines have been dissolved from their original surroundings and used as independent concepts, often mediated through secondary literature or the work of later neo-Calvinists.
For many scholars, the works of the neo-Calvinist Dutch philosopher Herman Dooyeweerd function as the source of Kuyperian thought. Others are influenced by contemporary neo-Calvinists such as Nicholas Wolterstorff. Without denying their importance, it should be realized that Dooyeweerd’s elaboration of Kuyper’s thought in some important respects has also meant a departure from Kuyper’s work as a whole. Returning to Kuyper’s own work is necessary to really understand and engage him, and’in my opinion’is also more rewarding for today’s challenges. I am glad that more of his work has been translated into English. This will deepen the American’and global’appropriation of and debate about his visions.
Another danger comes with the appropriation of Kuyper’s context-specific insights and activities. Transferring these historically grounded ideas to other contexts requires more hermeneutical sensitivity than is sometimes displayed in hasty appeals to his work. Many do not know that Kuyper could, on the one hand, imagine a time in which a state-church would be acceptable (though not ideal); while, on the other hand, expect a period in which Christians would be wise to more or less follow the Anabaptist example of a retreat from public life and display their Christian witness primarily within the context of the local church. Kuyper’s strong public claims and influential public and cultural activities were very much connected with (what he saw as) the particular Dutch calling of being a ‘Calvinist’ nation in the context of modernity. He even states that he would not pursue the same public strategy in Spain or in Belgium.
Despite the recent process of secularization, America still contains a large majority of ‘cultural Christians’ and a substantial minority of ‘committed Christians’ who could be mobilized for public engagement. Exactly the same state of affairs could be noticed in Kuyper’s Dutch context. Having lived in the United States for almost a year, I am struck by the ‘Christian atmosphere’ that still exists, even in the media, despite the strict separation of church and state and some almost-pathological efforts to remain religiously neutral. This is very different from what we experience in contemporary Dutch society. Moreover, contradicting Kuyper’s personal expectations, new ‘Christian’ nations have developed, especially in Asia and Africa. Nevertheless, conclusions should not be drawn without carefully analyzing these different contexts. This sensitivity doesn’t always seem present in references to Kuyper.
In addition, fellow Christians from non-Dutch contexts should be aware of some negative consequences of his strategies that occurred in later decades in the Netherlands. The new public power that Christians displayed in the wake of Kuyper’s activities has summoned a sentiment of resentment among non-Christians and a more vehement departure from the Christian tradition than in some ‘less-Christian’ European countries. Could it be that a relation exists between some versions of public Christianization and a subsequent more radical secularization and post-Christian re-sacralization?
Another urgent point of consideration consists in the adequacy today of the much acclaimed model of ‘principled pluralism’ (i.e., different communities with varying worldviews working together). In theory, I acknowledge its worth, but in practice I see some problems. Today’s postmodern versions of pluralism seem to be different from the pluralism we see in the nineteenth-century modern context. In those days, people still consciously identified with a coherent religion or worldview, which applied to all parts of their lives. In contrast, today’s pluralism is individualistic, eclectic, and fluid and refuses to be organized into fixed worldviews or traditions. Given this context, if we were to repeat the Kuyperian model, then we would be attempting to play a societal game of interaction with our fellow-citizens without realizing that they probably won’t participate and, as a matter of fact, are themselves involved in other public games with different rules.
What was Kuyper’s view of ‘cultural transformation’? Did he think that Christians could change culture directly through social, political, and ecclesiastical projects?
One of the discoveries I made during my Kuyper study is that much of his thought was built on Augustine’s work. His doctrine of common grace fulfills the same function as Augustine’s concept of the saeculum. This is indicative of a much more eschatological dimension in Kuyper than has often been realized, since many consider him as being mainly oriented toward creational structures that he equates with God’s kingdom.
In harmony with this Augustinian influence, Kuyper did not consider the Christian activity of reforming this world and its structures to be directly contributing to building the kingdom. This contradicts a common impression of his position, which is often summarized as ‘building the kingdom’ or ‘creating a Christian culture.’ Kuyper even explicitly denies the adequacy of such expressions. It is certainly true that he explicitly advocated Christian public action and aspired to develop, reform, and improve creation and culture. However, the fruits of such activities should not be characterized as direct contributions to Christ’s kingdom. As a matter of fact, Kuyper states that this cultural development will end during history and even turn into its opposite during the expected rule of the antichrist. All fruits of this process will be annihilated, at least at first sight. Only after the eschatological times when God inaugurates his new creation through an all-consuming fire, will he in his faithfulness bring back these seemingly vanished positive fruits of history, restored and consummated. Then they will be integrated into the new reality of the kingdom. During the course of human history, possible historical-cultural improvements and fruits should be seen in the context of common grace, but they should not be treated as direct evidence of the special grace of salvation that belongs in the context of the church.
However, this model contains an important nuance, since Kuyper does think that the history of common grace can proceed only after it has been stimulated and indirectly influenced by special grace. The presence of the gospel and the church in the Western world since Christ’s ascension has indirectly caused spectacular scientific and cultural developments. Kuyper articulates certain instances of common grace that have been enhanced by special grace as ‘Christian.’ But we should not forget that he carefully distinguishes between two kinds of ‘Christian identity,’ the first of which refers to a ‘Christianly’ colored reality of common grace, while only the second directly originates in Christ and in spiritual regeneration in the context of the church.
A further nuance develops as soon as we realize that Kuyper’s church not only refers to the institution that is Christ’s bride, but also to all organic realities of Christian community formation in which the new life of Christ is shared among the realities of creation. This new life being recreation and not an Anabaptist negation of creation, such communities are necessarily connected to existing creational structures and spheres. To the extent that this shared regenerated Christian life displays itself in the context of God’s creation, earthly firstfruits of the kingdom are anticipated. This, however, refers to a form of direct cultural renewal that in principle remains within the context of the church as an organism (i.e., Christians in their various callings), while the church as institution ministers God’s means of saving grace. Kuyper’s aim for Christian public, social, and political action was not to reform this world into kingdom reality, but to serve God’s intermediate aims with this world and thus glorify him under the conditions of sin, with the burgeoning shared life of the kingdom in the context of the church and in expectation of the new world to come.
As you know, there has been a tendency in Ameri-can Reformed circles to see Kuyper’s approach and a ‘two-kingdom’ view as polar opposites. Do you think Kuyper would see it that way?
One of the most intriguing but also disturbing observations I made when engaging today’s American Reformed scholars is the rather polarized character of the debates between the adherents of ‘one kingdom’ and those of ‘two kingdoms.’ In both, I recognized genuine Reformed and even neo-Calvinist accents, so that I found it difficult to understand and accept this polarization. I would rather consider this important difference of opinion as indicative of a range of possible Reformed answers. They are both challenging and stimulating precisely because they each seem to preserve some important insights. I would hope that brotherly dialogue between both could contribute to a convincing Christian engagement of society and culture in our times.
I think both accents need, correct, and complete each other. The ‘one-kingdom’ approach, in my opinion, runs the risk of a more or less nineteenth-century progressive idea of Christian development from which the classical Augustinian ‘two cities’ concept has disappeared. The ‘two-kingdom’ line, on the other hand, sometimes forgets the deeper unity of these two and also the narrative character of all knowledge. In a post-Christian context, consensus between Christians and non-Christians will not be as obvious and predictable as in the past. While the natural knowledge of creation and its structures requires an overtly evangelical framework to be convincing and recognizably Christian, it should not be replaced by exclusively biblical content and be honored and used in its own relative value.
As for Kuyper himself, with his doctrine of common grace he basically came close to a two-kingdom position. He allows for a worldly sphere that should not be equated with God’s kingdom, but nonetheless remains under the rule of God and offers a stage for Christians to serve God by participation in the many earthly responsibilities of this world. During his lectures at the Free University, Kuyper explicitly stated that two kingdoms should be distinguished, that of nature and that of grace. His book Pro Rege presupposes these two kingdoms. However, Kuyper was not happy to accept this duality just like that. He meant that very book to explain how Christ’s kingship could be conceived as uniting and integrating both God’s providential kingship over creation and his coming kingdom of salvation, without blurring the distinction between the two. Considering the state of the discussions among my American colleagues, I think this Kuyperian ambition would still be valuable for both sides in the debate.
What are some important and perhaps even surprising discoveries you’ve made in this research project on Kuyper?
I came back to studying Kuyper after I had done my first readings of his work many years ago. This return has been a feast of discoveries, which has convinced me that we should stop working only with some often repeated ‘Kuyperian concepts,’ but instead engage his thought’and especially its theological roots’as a whole. Contrary to the commonly held perception, Kuyper was not mainly a strategic thinker and actor, and his theology was not inferior to that of Herman Bavinck. Most of Bavinck’s much acclaimed theological depth was already present in Kuyper’s work. However, since he found no time to write his dogmatics, all this lies under the surface of his many other works and has to be uncovered.
I think Kuyperian thought has great potential to help Christians engage the post-Christendom world. While many would consider Kuyper’who was, after all, a Christian prime minister!’to be the quintessential Constantinian or Christendom political leader, I found that he engaged Constantine and Constantinianism long before today’s debates. He is no less critical in his evaluations than Yoder and Hauerwas are today, and even anticipated most of their arguments. The same is true with some of the defenders of Constantine, such as the English ethicist Oliver O’Donovan and the American theologian Peter Leithart. Yet Kuyper proposes a route that challenges both sides of the debate and thus proves remarkably pertinent for today’s discussions.
There is also much more of eschatological emphasis in Kuyper’s work than has been acknowledged, which comes with some unexpected insights for the Reformed and neo-Calvinist readers. For example, he appears to have had far-reaching expectations of a spiritual and national future for the Jewish people, with direct consequences for Christian public and cultural ambitions. He also believed that God’s eschatological closing act of history was approaching during his days, and that the period of neo-Calvinist cultural flourishing in the Netherlands and North America would be the last positive era before the beginning of the dark times of the antichrist.
Especially in his later works (after the First World War), an aging Kuyper sometimes struck chords that some years later sounded in the writings of his younger contemporaries, Barth and Bonhoeffer. In those years, his high expectations of a Christian future for America had disappeared. In his evaluation of the developments in the American church and theology, he expressed deep disappointment with this ‘promised land.’ I also noticed a parallel in Kuyper’s thought between the plurality of nations and the pluriformity of the institutional church. In both cases, plurality is both a natural-creational reality and the most unnatural measure of God’s common grace since Noah, the latter being meant to preserve the former. What is also fascinating is Kuyper’s attention to spirituality, in which he foresaw the possible secularizing derailment of a neo-Calvinist position that (in the Netherlands at least) would later actually occur. He tried to prevent such a development by returning to the classical spiritual traditions, especially by extending the Reformed ‘mystical union with God in Christ’ to the spheres of Christian experience of creation and Christian creational activity.
Although I could go on mentioning relatively new insights in Kuyper that resulted from my studies, I will restrict myself to one final observation. It struck me that Kuyper already sensed the so-called hermeneutical question and the challenge of contextuality, which many younger neo-Calvinists engage with today. He combined classical truth-claims (e.g., the authority of Scripture) with historical and contextual sensitivity, while allowing for the subjective and provisional dimensions in our knowledge. In contrast to the overly eager quest for inspiration outside the Reformed tradition, Kuyper reminds us of what this tradition still has to offer contemporary challenges.’
