8
November 1920 A.D. Dr.
Abraham Kuyper, Dutch Theologian, Prime Minister of the Netherlands, Scholar,
and Author passed from this world to the next. Wikipedia offers these glimpses
of a life living under the Sovereign Light and Glory of the Triune God.
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Abraham
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Johanna Hendrika Schaay
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Abraham Kuijper (29 October 1837 – 8 November 1920), generally known as Abraham Kuyper,
was a Dutch politician, journalist, statesman and theologian.
He founded the Anti-Revolutionary
Party and was prime
minister of the Netherlands between 1901 and 1905.
Contents
- 1 Life
- 2 Views
- 3 Legacy
- 4 Bibliography
- 5 References
- 6 External links
Life
Early life
Kuyper's father Jan Frederik Kuyper -
who served as a minister for the Dutch Reformed Church in Hoogmade, Maassluis, Middelburg and Leiden - home-schooled his son. The boy received no formal primary
education, but received secondary education at the Gymnasium of Leiden.
In 1855, he graduated from the
Gymnasium and began to study literature, philosophy and theology at Leiden University.
He received his propaedeuse in literature in
1857, summa cum laude, and in philosophy in 1858, also summa cum laude. He also took
classes in Arabic, Armenian and physics.
In 1862 he was promoted to Doctor in theology on the basis of a dissertation entitled "Disquisitio
historico-theologica, exhibens Johannis Calvini et Johannis à Lasco de Ecclesia
Sententiarum inter se compositionem" (Theological-historical dissertation
showing the differences in the rules of the church, between John Calvin and
John Łaski). In comparing the views of John
Calvin and Jan
Łaski, Kuyper showed a clear sympathy for the more liberal
Łaski. During his studies Kuyper was a member of the modern
tendency within the Dutch Reformed Church.
Religious life
In May 1862, he was declared eligible
for the ministry and 1863 he accepted a call to become minister for the Dutch Reformed
Church for the town of Beesd. In the same year he
married Johanna Hendrika Schaay (1842–1899). They would have five sons and
three daughters. In 1864 he began corresponding with the anti-revolutionary MP Guillaume Groen van
Prinsterer, who heavily influenced his political and theological
views (see below).
Around 1866, he began to sympathize
with the orthodox tendency within the Dutch Reformed Church. He was inspired by
the robust reformed faith of Pietje Balthus, a single woman in her early 30s,
the daughter of a miller.[1] He began to oppose
the centralization in the church, the role of the King and began to plead for
the separation of church
and state.
In 1867, Kuyper was asked to become
minister for the parish in Utrecht and he left Beesd.
In 1870 he was asked to come to Amsterdam. In 1871 he began to write for the De Heraut (The Herald).
In 1872, he founded his own paper, De
Standaard (The Standard). This paper would lay the foundation for
the network of reformed organization, (the reformed pillar), which Kuyper would
found.
Doleantie
In 1886, Kuyper led an exodus from the
Dutch Reformed Church. He grieved the loss of Reformed distinctives within this
State Church, which no longer required office bearers to agree to the Reformed
standards which had once been foundational.[2]
Kuyper and the consistory of Amsterdam insisted that both
ministers and church members subscribe to the Reformed confessions. This was
appealed to Classis, and Kuyper, along with about 80 members of the Amsterdam
consistory, were suspended in Dec. 1885. This was appealed to the provincial
synod, which upheld the ruling in a 1 July 1886 ruling.[3]
Refusing to accept his suspension,
Kuyper preached to his followers in an auditorium on Sunday, 11 July 1886.
Because of their deep sorrow at the state of the Dutch Reformed Church, the
group called itself the Doleantie (grieving ones).
By 1889, the Doleantie churches had
over 200 congregations, 180,000 members, and about 80 ministers.
Kuyper, (although at first
antagonistic towards them), soon began to seek union with the churches of the Secession
of 1834, the Christelijke Gereformeerde Kerken (Christian
Reformed Church). These churches had earlier broken off from the Dutch Reformed
Church. This union was effected in 1892, and the Gereformeerde Kerken in
Nederland (Reformed Churches in the Netherlands) was formed. This denomination
has its counterpart in the Christian
Reformed Church in North America.
Political life
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Parties[show]
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Ideas[show]
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Documents[show]
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People[show]
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Abraham Kuyper
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Member of Parliament
In 1873, Kuyper stood as candidate in
the general election for parliament for the constituency of Gouda, but he was defeated by the incumbent member of parliament, the
conservative Jonkheer Willem
Maurits de Brauw. When De Brauw died the next year,
Kuyper stood again in the by-election for the same district. This time he was
elected to parliament, defeating the liberal candidate Herman
Verners van der Loeff.
Kuyper subsequently moved to the
Hague, without telling his friends in Amsterdam. In parliament
he showed a particular interest in education, especially the equal financing of public and religious schools. In 1876, he wrote "Our Program" which laid the foundation for
the Anti
Revolutionary Party. In this programme he
formulated the principle of antithesis, the conflict between the religious (reformed and Catholics) and non-religious.
In 1877, he left parliament because of problems with his health, suffering from
overexertion.
In 1878, Kuyper returned to politics,
he led the petition against a new law on education, which would further disadvantage religious schools. This was an important
impetus for the foundation of the Anti-Revolutionary Party (ARP) in 1879, of
which Kuyper would be chairman between 1879 and
1905. He would be the indisputed leader of the party between 1879 and 1920. His
followers gave him the nickname "Abraham de Geweldige" (Abraham the
Great). In 1880, he founded the Free University in Amsterdam and he was made professor of Theology there. He also served
as its first rector magnificus. In 1881, he also became professor of literature. In 1886, he left the
Dutch Reformed Church, with a large group of followers. The parish in Amsterdam
was made independent of the church, and kept their own building. Between 1886
and 1892, they would be called the Dolerenden, (those with grievances). In 1892, those Dolerenden founded a new
denomination called The Reformed Churches in the Netherlands after merging with
other orthodox Reformed people who had seceded from the Dutch Reformed Church
in 1834.
In the general election of 1894, Kuyper was re-elected to the House of Representatives
for the district of Sliedrecht. He defeated the liberal
Van Haaften and the anti-takkian anti-revolutionary Beelaerts van Blokland. He
also ran as a candidate in Dordrecht and Amsterdam, but was defeated there.
In the election he joined the so-called Takkians, in a conflict between the
liberal minister Tak, and a majority House of Representatives. Tak wanted to
reform the census-suffrage,
but a majority in parliament rejected his proposal. Kuyper favoured the
legislation because he expected the enfranchised lower class voters would
favour his party. This orientation towards the lower classes gave him the
nickname "De bellringer of the common people" (klokkeluider van de
kleine luyden). His position on suffrage also led to a conflict within the ARP:
a group around Alexander de
Savornin Lohman was opposed on principle to universal suffrage
because they rejected popular sovereignty; they left the ARP to found the CHU in 1901. The authoritarian leadership of Kuyper also played an important
role in this conflict. Lohman opposed party
discipline and wanted MPs to make up their own mind, while Kuyper
favoured strong leadership. After the elections Kuyper became chair of the parliamentary caucus of the ARP. In his second term as MP he concentrated on more issues than
education, like suffrage, labour, and foreign affairs. In foreign affairs especially the Second
Boer War was of particular interest to him, in the conflict
between the Dutch-speaking reformed farmers
and the English-speaking Anglicans he sided with the Boers, and heavily opposed
the English. In 1896, Kuyper voted against the new suffrage law of Van
Houten, because according to Kuyper the reforms did not go far
enough. In the 1897 elections, Kuyper competed in Zuidhorn, Sliedrecht and Amsterdam. He was defeated by
liberals in Zuidhorn and Amsterdam, but he defeated the liberal Wisboom in
Sliedrecht. In Amsterdam he was defeated by Johannes Tak van
Poortvliet. As an MP, Kuyper kept his job as journalist, and he
even became chair of the Dutch Circle of Journalists in 1898; when he left in
1901 he was made honorary president. In the same year, at the invitation of B.B.
Warfield, Kuyper delivered the Stone Lectures at Princeton Seminary, which was his first widespread exposure to a North American audience.
These lectures were given 10–11 October 14 and 19–21 in 1898. He also received
an honorary
doctorate in law there. During his time in the United
States, he also traveled to address several Dutch reformed congregations in
Michigan and Iowa and presbyterian gatherings in Ohio and New Jersey.
Prime minister
In the 1901 elections, Kuyper was re-elected in Sliedrecht, defeating the liberal De Klerk. In
Amsterdam he was defeated again, now by the freethinking
liberal Nolting. He did not take his seat in parliament however
but was instead appointed formateur and later prime
minister of the Dutch cabinet. He also served as minister
of Home Affairs. He originally wanted to become
minister of labour and enterprise, but neither Mackay or Heemskerk, prominent
anti-revolutionaries, wanted to become minister of Home Affairs, forcing him to
take the portfolio. During his time as prime minister he showed a strong
leadership style: he changed the rules
of procedure of cabinet in order to become chair of cabinet for four
years (before him, the chairmanship of the cabinet had rotated among its
members).
The portfolio of home affairs at the
time was very broad: it involved local government, industrial relations,
education and public morality. The 1903 railway strike was one of the decisive
issues for his cabinet. Kuyper produced several particularly harsh laws to end
the strikes (the so-called "worgwetten", strangling laws), and pushed
them through parliament. He also proposed legislation to improve working conditions; however only those on fishing and harbour construction passed through parliament. In education Kuyper
changed several education laws to improve the financial situation of religious
schools. His law on higher education, which would make the diplomas of
faith-based universities equal to that of the public universities, was defeated
in the Senate. Consequently, Kuyper dissolved the Senate and, after a new one was
elected, the legislation was accepted. He was also heavily involved in foreign
policy, giving him the nickname "Minister of Foreign Travels".
Minister of State
In 1905, his ARP lost the elections and was confined to opposition. Between 1905 and 1907, Kuyper made a grand
tour around the Mediterranean. In 1907, Kuyper became honorary doctor at the Delft University of
Technology. In 1907, he was re-elected chair of the ARP, a post
which he would hold to his death in 1920. In 1907, Kuyper wanted to return to
parliament. In a by-election in Sneek he needed the support of the local CHU. They refused him support. This led
to a personal conflict between Kuyper and De Savorin Lohman. In 1908, he came
into conflict with Heemskerk, who had not involved him
in the formation of the CHU/ARP/Catholic General League
cabinet, thereby denying him the chance to return as minister. In 1908, Kuyper
received the honorary title of minister of state.
He was elected to the House of Representatives for the district of Ommen in the by-elections in the same year, defeating the liberal De Meester. He
also ran in Sneek where he was elected as sole candidate. Kuyper took the seat
for Ommen. In 1909, he was made chair of the committee which would write the
new orthography of the Dutch
language. In the same year he also received an honorary doctorate
at the Catholic
University of Leuven. In the 1909 elections he was re-elected in Ommen, defeating the liberal Teesselink, but he was
defeated in Dordrecht by the liberal De Kanter.
In 1909, he came under heavy criticism
in the so-called decorations affairs (lintjeszaak). While minister of
home affairs, Kuyper allegedly received money from one Rudolf Lehman,
to make him Officer in the Order of
Orange-Nassau. A parliamentary debate was held on the subject and a
committee was instituted to research the claim. In 1910, the committee reported
that Kuyper was innocent. Between 1910 and 1912, he was member of the committee
headed by Heemskerk, which prepared a revision of the constitution. In 1912, he
resigned his seat in parliament for health reasons, but he returned to politics
in the following year, this time as a member of the Senate for the province of South
Holland. He would retain this seat until his death. In 1913, he
was made commander in the Order of the
Netherlands Lion. During the First World War
Kuyper sided with the Germans, because he had opposed the English since the
Boer wars. In 1918, Kuyper played an important role in the formation of the
first cabinet led by Charles Ruijs de
Beerenbrouck. In 1920, at the age of 83 Kuyper died in The Hague and
was buried amid great public attention.
Views
Kuyper's theological and political
views are linked. His orthodox Protestant beliefs heavily influenced his
anti-revolutionary politics.
Theological views
Theologically Kuyper has also been
very influential. He opposed the liberal tendencies within the Dutch Reformed Church. This eventually led to secession and the foundation of Reformed Churches in
the Netherlands. He developed so-called Neo-Calvinism, which goes beyond conventional Calvinism on a number of issues.
Furthermore, Kuyper made a significant contribution to the formulation of the
principle of common grace in the context of
a Reformed world-view.
Most important has been Kuyper's view
on the role of God in everyday life. He believed that God continually influenced the life of
believers, and daily events could show his workings. Kuyper famously said,
"Oh, no single piece of our mental world is to be hermetically sealed off
from the rest, and there is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human
existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry:
'Mine!'"[4][5] God continually
re-creates the universe through acts of grace. God's acts are necessary to
ensure the continued existence of creation. Without his direct activity creation would self-destruct."
Political views
Kuyper's political ideals were orthodox-Protestant and anti-revolutionary.
The concept of sphere sovereignty
was very important for Kuyper. He rejected the popular sovereignty of France in
which all rights originated with the individual, and the state-sovereignty of
Germany in which all rights derived from the state. Instead, he wanted to
honour the "intermediate bodies" in society, such as schools and
universities, the press, business and industry, the arts etc., each of which
would be sovereign in its own sphere. In the interest of a level playing field,
he championed the right of every faith community (among whom he counted
humanists and socialists) to operate their own schools, newspapers, hospitals,
youth movements etc. He sought equal government finances
for all faith-based institutions. He saw an important role for the state in
upholding the morality of the Dutch people. He favoured monarchy, and saw the
House of Orange as historically and religiously linked to the Dutch people. His
commitment to universal suffrage
was only tactical;[inconsistent] he expected the Anti-Revolutionary
Party would be able to gain more seats this way. In actuality,
Kuyper wanted a Householder Franchise where fathers of each family would vote for his family. He also favoured a
Senate representing the various interest, vocational and professional groups in
society.
With his ideals he defended the
interests of a group of middle class orthodox reformed, who were often referred
to as "the little people" (de kleine luyden). He formulated
the principle of antithesis: a divide between secular and religious politics. Liberals and socialists, who were opposed to mixing religion and politics were his natural
opponents. Catholics were a natural
ally, for not only did they want to practice religiously inspired politics, but
they also were no electoral opponent, because they appealed to different
religious groups. Socialists, who preached class
conflict were a danger to the reformed workers. He called for
workers to accept their fates and be happy with a simple life, because the afterlife would be much more satisfying and revolution would only lead to
instability. At the same time he argued that the system of unrestricted free
enterprise was in need of "architectonic critique" and he urged
government to adopt labour legislation and to inspect workplaces.
Legacy
Kuyper's political views and acts have
influenced Dutch politics. Kuyper stood at the cradle of pillarization,
the social expression of the anti-thesis in public life. His championing of parity treatment for faith-based
organizations and institutions created the basis for the alliance between
Protestants and Catholics that would dominate Dutch politics to the present
day. One of the current governing parties of the Netherlands, the CDA, is still heavily influenced by Kuyper's thought. His greatest theological
act, the founding of the Reformed Churches in
the Netherlands was undone in 2005 with the creation
of the Protestant Church in
the Netherlands which united the Dutch Reformed Church, the Reformed Churches in the Netherlands and the Evangelical
Lutheran Church in the Kingdom of the Netherlands.
In North
America, Kuyper's political and theological views have had a
significant impact, especially in the Reformed community. He is considered the
father of Dutch Neo-Calvinism and had considerable influence on the thought of
philosopher Herman Dooyeweerd.
Others that have been influenced by Kuyper include Francis
Schaeffer, Cornelius
Van Til, Alvin
Plantinga, Nicholas Wolterstorff, Albert M. Wolters,
Vincent Bacote, Anthony Bradley, Chuck Colson, Timothy J. Keller, James
Skillen, R Tudur Jones,
and Bobi
Jones.
Institutions influenced by Kuyper
include Cardus (formerly The Work Research Foundation), Calvin
College, The Clapham Institute, Dordt
College, Institute for
Christian Studies, Redeemer University
College, The Coalition for
Christian Outreach, Covenant
College, The Center for Public Justice, and the Washington
Institute for Faith, Vocation, & Culture. In 2006, Reformed
Bible College, located in Grand Rapids, Michigan was renamed in honor of Abraham Kuyper and is now Kuyper
College.
As well as Kuyper's profound influence
upon European Christian-Democrat politics up to the present, his political theology
was also crucial in the history of South
Africa. His legacy in South Africa is arguably even greater
than within the Netherlands. There, his Christian-National conception, centred
upon the identification of the Afrikaner Calvinist community as the kern der
natie became a rallying position for the Nederduitse
Gereformeerde Kerk. As Christian-Nationalists, Kuyper's
adherents in South Africa were instrumental in the building of Afrikaner
cultural, political and economic institutions to restore Afrikaner fortunes
following the Boer War.
Saul Dubow notes that Kuyper advocated
"the commingling of blood" as "the physical basis for all higher
development" in the Stone Lectures (1898). Harinck argues that
"Kuyper was not guided by the cultural racism of his day, but by his
Calvinistic creed of human equality".[6]
Kuyper's legacy includes a
granddaughter, Johtje Vos, who is noted for having sheltered many Jews in her home in the Netherlands from the Nazis. After World
War II she moved to New
York.[7] Conversely,
Kuyper's son Professor H. H. Kuyper, a supporter of Afrikaner Nationalism and
colour racism was a wartime Nazi collaborator, and his grandson joined the
Waffen SS and died on the Russian front.
Bibliography
Kuyper wrote several theological and
political books:
- "Disquisitio historico-theologica, exhibens Johannis Calvini et Johannis à Lasco de Ecclesia Sententiarum inter se compositionem (Theological-historical dissertation showing the differences in the rules of the church, between John Calvin and John Łaski; his dissertation, 1862)
- "Conservatisme en Orthodoxie" (Conservatism and Orthodoxy; 1870)
- "Het Calvinisme, oorsprong en waarborg onzer constitutionele vrijheden. Een nederlandse gedachte" (Calvinism; the source and the safeguard of our constitutional freedoms. A Dutch thought; 1874)
- "Ons Program" (Our program; ARP political program, 1879)
- Antirevolutionair óók in uw huisgezin" (Anti-revolutionary in your family too; 1880)
- "Soevereiniteit in eigen kring" (Sovereignty in its own circle; 1880)
- Handenarbeid" (1889; Manual Labour)
- "Maranatha" (1891)
- "Het sociale vraagstuk en de Christelijke Religie" (The Social Question and the Christian Religion; 1891)
- "Encyclopaedie der Heilige Godgeleerdheid" (Encyclopedia of Sacred Theology; 1893–1895)
- "Calvinisme" (Lectures on Calvinism; six Stone lectures Kuyper held at Princeton in 1898)
- "The South African Crisis" (1900)
- "De Gemene Gratie" (Common Grace; 1902–1905)
- "Parlementaire Redevoeringen" (parliamentary speeches; 1908–1910)
- "Starrentritsen" (1915)
- "Antirevolutionaire Staatkunde" (Anti-revolutionary politics; 1916–1917)
- "Vrouwen uit de Heilige schrift" (Women from the Holy scripture; 1897)
References
Notes
1.
Jump up ^ Richard J. Mouw, Abraham
Kuyper: A Short and Personal Introduction" (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2011),
p. 3
2.
Jump up ^ Dan Knight, Dr. Abraham
Kuyper, <http://reformed.net/bios/abraham-kuyper.htm> (Accessed Feb. 6, 2008).
3.
Jump up ^ Dan Knight, Dr. Abraham
Kuyper, <http://reformed.net/bios/abraham-kuyper.htm> (Accessed Feb. 6, 2008)
5.
Jump up ^ Kuyper, Abraham (1998).
"Sphere Sovereignty". In Bratt, James D. Abraham Kuyper, A
Centennial Reader. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans. p. 488.
6.
Jump up ^ George Harinck, "Abraham
Kuyper, South Africa, and Apartheid," The Princeton Seminary Bulletin
23 (2002): 187. <http://scdc.library.ptsem.edu/mets/mets.aspx?src=PSB2002232&div=6> (Accessed Jul. 20, 2012)
7.
Jump up ^ Hevesi, Dennis. "Johtje
Vos, Who Saved Wartime Jews, Dies at 97," New York Times. 4 November 2007.
Literature
- Bratt, James D. Abraham Kuyper: Modern Calvinist, Christian Democrat (2013)
- Charles Bloomberg (1990). Christian-Nationalism and the Rise of the Afrikaner Broederbond, in South Africa, 1918-48. London: The Macmillan Press. ISBN 0-333-48706-0.
- Tjitze Kuipers, Abraham Kuyper: An Annotated Bibliography 1857-2010. Foreword by George Harinck (Leiden, Brill, 2011) (Brill's Series in Church History, 55).
External links
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Wikiquote has a collection
of quotations related to: Abraham Kuyper
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- Digital Library of Abraham Kuyper
- Kuyper's Works at www.ccel.org
- Kuyperian articles
- Friend of Kuyper - Neocalvinist Resources
- Abraham Kuyper Center of Public Theology at Princeton Theological Seminary, which has some of his works online
- Online bibliography of literature about Abraham Kuyper maintained by Princeton Theological Seminary and the Vrije Universiteit
- Encyclopedia of Sacred Theology : Its Principles by Kuyper (in English translation) with a preface by B. B. Warfield
- Onze eeredienst by Kuyper (in Dutch)
- Biography
- Cardus
- Center for Public Justice
- Washington Institute for Faith, Vocation, Culture
- Institute for Christian Studies
- Jubilee Conference
- "Kuyper at All of life redeemed"
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