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Top: Society: Religion_and_Spirituality: Christianity: Theology: Reformed: Calvinism: Neo-Calvinism
Neo-calvinists recognise the lordship of Christ over all of life. The articulator of neo-calvinism, Abraham Kuyper, famously and emphatically proclaimed that "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!'"For neo-calvinists this confession has been the spur towards an intense cultural engagement. Neo-calvinists believe that the lordship of Christ means that we must be redemptively involved in every sphere of society, seeking to bring about cultural renewal. This has meant that neo-calvinists have been deeply involved particularly in setting up Christian schools and trade unions, and in doing scholarship and politics.
Neo-calvinist cultural engagement shares with other Calvinists a social piety described by Nicholas Wolterstorff (Until Justice and Peace Embrace, page 21): "Restless disciplined reformism, or guilt for not being restlessly reformist: these are the characteristic components of the Calvinist social piety."
Herman Bavinck lived from 1854-1921 and was the son of Jan Bavinck, a minister of the Afscheding (Seceded) churches in the Netherlands. He, much to the surprise of his family, chose to study at the modernist University of Leiden, where he composed his doctoral thesis on the ethics of Ulrich Zwingli. However, this time at Leiden did not subvert Bavinck's Reformed foundations. He went on to become a professor at the seminary of the Seceded Churches in Kampen and would later join Abraham Kuyper at the Free University of Amsterdam. Bavinck's field was dogmatics and he made several important written contributions in this area, the most noteworthy of which was his four volume Gereformeerde Dogmatiek (Reformed Dogmatics, presently being translated into English). Bavinck introduced the notion of organic inspiration of the Scriptures and also developed a solution to the infra/supralapsarian conundrum. Although Bavinck died in 1921, he remains a powerful force in Reformed theology. Several important Reformed theologians owe large debts to him, including Cornelius VanTil and Louis Berkhof.
Herman Dooyeweerd (1894-1977) was a Dutch legal scholar by training, who by vocation was a philosopher, and the founder of a new approach called the philosophy of the cosmonomic idea.Dooyeweerd attempts to provide a philosophy which accounts for not only the differences between one thing and another, but also, between one thinker and another. He shows the remaining need of a consistent and radically Christian philosophy, and proposes his as a model. Following Abraham Kuyper, and other, earlier neo-calvinists, Dooyeweerd claims that all thinking is governed according to fundamental assumptions.
Any paper or book on Abraham Kuyper (1837-1920) worth its weight begins with this, perhaps his most famous quote, taken from his inaugural address at the opening of the Free University of Amsterdam, which he founded in 1880: "There is not an inch in the entire domain of our human life of which Christ, who is sovereign of all, does not proclaim 'Mine!'" In this simple but powerful assertion Kuyper summarizes both his world view and life passion.Abraham Kuyper was an extraordinary figure uniquely capable of wearing several hats throughout his long public career as pastor, theologian, scholar, journalist, educator and statesman. Although he began in the parish ministry, he moved on to become editor of two periodicals; to found the Antirevolutionary Party, the first Dutch political party and the first Christian Democratic party in the world; and to establish the Free University, a Christian university established on Reformed principles. He was first elected to the Second Chamber of the Dutch Parliament in 1874 and eventually served as Prime Minister from 1901 to 1905. Kuyper's thought was introduced to North America in 1898, when he delivered the Stone Lectures at Princeton Seminary.
Although Kuyper was not an academic political theorist, he nevertheless laid the foundations for a highly original approach to politics that would come to be labelled "Kuyperian." Its originality consisted in the fact that he sought to articulate a consistently Christian view of the place of politics in God's world free from the distortions of various non-Christian ideologies.
The most characteristic feature of Kuyper's political thought is the principle of "sphere sovereignty." Sphere sovereignty implies three things: (1) ultimate sovereignty belongs to God alone; (2) all earthly sovereignties are subordinate to and derivative from God's sovereignty; and (3) there is no mediating earthly sovereignty from which others are derivative. Current efforts at rehabilitating what is often called "civil society" owe something to this principle.
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