Contours of the Kuyperian Tradition
In March 2017, IVP Academic published Craig G. Bartholomew’s systematic introduction to the Neo-Calvinist school of thought entitled, Contours of the Kuyperian Tradition.
Kuyper scholars like James D. Bratt, author of the 2013 Kuyper biography Modern Calvinist, Christian Democrat, have recommended Bartholomew’s book. “Agree with Kuyper or not, this is the place to go to learn, in brief, what he said, did, and wrought,” said Bratt.
Over at the Jesus Creed blog on Patheos, The Rev. Canon Dr. Scot Mcknight has two posts on the book. On December 22, McKnight overviews his familiarity with Kuyper’s work and poses the usual objection to Kuyperian thinking: the how. In the Reformed world, we have seen a variety of Neo-Calvinist interpretations from Rushdoony’s Reconstructionism to James K.A. Smith’s efforts to revive Augustine’s “permixtum of the saeculum.”
McKnight is likely familiar with this variety (and history) of its applications and expresses his nervousness at Bartholomew’s paragraph: “Mission is easily reduced to evangelism and church activities, and indispensable as these indeed are, mission is much broader. As David Bosch points out, “Mission is more than and different from recruitment to our brand of religion; it is alerting people to the universal reign of God.”
McKnight and I belong to the same Anglican Diocese, where he is Canon Theologian. While McKnight doesn’t embrace the term Kuyperian – I do and here’s one reason why. McKnight returned to Contours on December 28, 2017 and pulls up to Kuyper’s conversion story. Interestingly, this is a place where McKnight’s Anglican tradition and Kuyper can actually touch historically. Kuyper’s conversation happens while reading a popular novel: The Heir of Redclyffe by Charlotte M. Yonge – a disciple of Father John Keble, who closely supervised the writing of the book.
McKnight and Bartholomew point to Kuyper’s quote:
“I read that Philip knelt, and before I knew it, I was kneeling in front of my chair with folded hands. Oh, what my soul experienced at that moment I fully understood only later. Yet, from that moment on I despised what I used to admire and sought what I had dared to despise.”
It is not clear in his blog if McKnight has made (or would agree with) this connection, but I would posit that it is no coincidence that Kuyper’s conversion and ecclesiology are born out of a Yonge novel. McKnight is likely familiar with the “Tractarian/Puseyite” traditionalism (or Oxford Movement) that Yonge hopes to romantically entangle the reader with. Her inclusion of high-church, sacramental Anglo-Catholicism is essential to the historic import of the book. In Abraham Kuyper: A Centennial Reader, Bratt notes how Kuyper made the connections himself, “the hero’s funeral rite in the Church of England conveyed the comforts available from a pure ‘mother-church’ that was there to guide each step of the pilgrim’s way.”
McKnight goes on to connect Kuyper’s critique of modernity with his emphasis of separation and the sphere-sovereignty of the church. While Kuyperianism is often maligned as a political theology, McKnight, Bratt, and Bartholomew all point to his bold emphasis on the importance of the Church.
Perhaps, I am putting too much weight on Kuyper’s conversion story and its connection to the Tractarians, but they both spring from the same revolt against modernity. Both Neo-Calvinism and Anglican Traditionalism are born to combat the tides of what they saw as liberalism. It is impossible to understand the Anglo-Catholics as a liturgical movement alone, they also represented an anti-modernist political philosophy for the Church against the encroachments of “whiggery.” In a similar way, Kuyper would develop a political theology as a result of his high view of the church, as a defence against modernism, not as a tool for power or mere social engagement.
A Very Kuyperian Book List
Another journey around the sun is almost complete and some of our contributors have compiled a list of book recommendations just in time for Christmastide. Be sure and plunder the Egyptian’s After-Christmas sales before Twelfth Night. (more…)
In Praise of Bookish Christians
Guest post by Pastor Duane Garner
One of the most popular criticisms made against Reformed Christians and pastors is that they put way too much emphasis on learning, reading and teaching and way too little emphasis on “real ministry”. Now “real ministry” is defined in a number of ways by these critics, but the allegation routinely leveled against us from many quarters of Christendom is “there is no problem too big for us to recommend a book for.”
Is there any merit to this charge, and if so, how should we answer it?
My first response is that I really wish it were true. I am afraid that the stereotype of the well-read studious Reformed Christian is nothing more than a gross caricature. There are a few men and women I know who might fit that description, but I fear that the reality is that only a fraction of people in the Reformed world really care about or make the time to pursue any kind of study outside of Sunday morning worship. It is obvious that for the most part, people are not reading, they are not making time for any extra pursuit of Biblical or theological knowledge and they are satisfied to drift along not growing or maturing in any significant way.
Compare our present situation to the previous generation of Reformed Christians. A couple of decades ago Reformed publishing houses were printing, and people were reading, thick heavy hardback volumes of theology, but that is simply no longer the case. Today we are doing good if we have skimmed a handful of books on the family and on developing a “Christian Worldview” and having done so, consider ourselves well-read. (more…)
Book Review: The Way of Holiness: The Study in Christian Growth
Prior, Kenneth. The Way of Holiness: The Study in Christian Growth. InterVarsity Press, 1982
The book functions as a systematic overview of the Christian’s journey from salvation (justification) to glorification. With pastoral care, Prior engages the reader in a study of the way life works through the operation of the Holy Spirit. The Christian life is far from a mechanical model, but a dynamic model that undergoes various stages. The author leads the reader towards the goal of holiness. Holiness is not an immediate status achieved, but a status worked out by the Christian.
While providing a few helpful illustrations (33 & 95), a useful overview of the work of the Spirit, a valid critique of perfectionism, the author, in the reviewer’s estimation, fails the consistency test. Though the author discusses quietism and pietism (130) and offers helpful refutations of both models, Prior seems to fall into one category or another throughout the book. Perhaps he was seeking to avoid both extremes, but the language used throughout implies a variation of pietism and quietism inherent in his discussion of holiness. Simply put, the author does not distance himself enough from those categories. Quoting Keswick authors on two separate occasions, he seems to downplay the redemption of Christ’s work in the world after his Ascension. He treats passages that have a particular first-century context as universal for all times and all places. While Paul says the devil was the god of this age, can we make that statement universal in light of Jesus’ enthronement. Such language may imply a form of despair with this world’s status and plunge the Christian into forms of quietism or pietism precisely what the author wants the reader to avoid. (more…)
