Book Review: Bratt, Abraham Kuyper

Review Reviewed Work(s): Abraham Kuyper: Modem Calvinist, Christian Democrat by James D. Bratt Review by: Edwin Chr. van Driel Source: The Journal of Presbyterian History (1997-), Vol. 94, No. 2 (Fall/Winter 2016), pp. 82-83 Published by: Presbyterian Historical Society Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/44135528 Accessed: 25-09-2018 15:42 UTC JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at https://about.jstor.org/terms Presbyterian Historical Society is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Journal of Presbyterian History (1997-) This content downloaded from 66.212.133.10 on Tue, 25 Sep 2018 15:42:00 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Book Reviews scenario, but we are not the first school of political thought with to have experienced it. James D. no North American parallel, Bratt s book offers a biography of but that for the next century Abraham Kuyper (1837-1920), the leader of the schism that would become a major player in continental politics. Its tenets, divided the Netherlands Reformed based on the Gospel, held that Church, the national church in laissez-faire capitalism should be the Netherlands, at the end of the denounced as inimical to human, nineteenth century. Starting out asspiritual and material wellbeing. a highly talented theologian and Finally, Kuyper s party leadership minister in the more liberal wing, led to his being called to serve as Kuyper underwent a conversion prime minister of his country from experience in his first congregation1901 to 1905. and caught the attention of the Kuyper continues to exert orthodox party in the church. influence across the globe, not the least in Reformed circles in the Called to prestigious pulpits in Utrecht and later in the capital, Amsterdam, he soon became the United States. Kuyper visited the U.S. once, after being invited to give voice and organizer of those who the Stone Lectures at Princeton Abraham Kuyper: Modem Calvinist , were dissatisfied with the church's Seminary. His visit extended into Christian Democrat. By James D. Bratt. (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, liberal direction. By 1886 this led a several months-long tour of to the Doleantie, a schism that ledPresbyterian communities across three hundred congregations and the nation. It was not among 180,000 members to leave the the Princeton Presbyterians that larger ecclesial body. Kuyper left a lasting impression, A church, divided; two opposed By that time Kuyper s however, but rather among the groups of believers, liberals and extraordinary organizational talentcircles of the Christian Reformed 2013. 499 pp. $32.00.) had already moved him to new Church in Michigan and Iowa. projects to emancipate his people.Later generations of philosophers leading the church next; conflicts in He had resigned active ministry and theologians at Calvin College congregations and presbyteries. The to take his place as an elected would draw on Kuyper s work to conservative minority appealing member of parliament in 1874, and rethink politics and epistemology. conservatives, with very different intuitions about where God is its case to the higher councils and courts of the church, with had become the editor-in-chief We are all too familiar with this Christian Democracy, a European Kuyper s lasting influence among these circles is shown in the recent of a daily newspaper intended to a significant group threatening inform and shape the minds of the announcement of a twelve-volume to leave if their cause does not faithful. In 1880 he founded a new publishing project, Colleded Works prevail. And finally, schism, with university free of state supervision in Public Theology , offering Kuyper s the accompanying pain and trauma(the Free University), where future major works in English translation. in divided families and church ministers for the newly established Bratt s biography offers denomination would be trained. communities, the polemics and a well-rounded portrait polarization in the press, and the His political activities led him to of Kuyper s life and work, conflicts over church properties. become one of the architects of encompassing both the extraordinary talent and 82 • Book Reviews This content downloaded from 66.212.133.10 on Tue, 25 Sep 2018 15:42:00 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms the questionable ambitions embedded in Kuyper's character. To craft a successful introduction, in under four hundred pages, to a figure whose writings and activities were so wide-ranging as Kuyper's, testifies to the author's deep familiarity with his thought. The last chapter would grow more and more hope for a "mother church," a church whose faith accompanies liberal, with a slim but powerless conservative minority. us on every step of our lives. Not experiencing the church However, in reality things in this way made Kuyper feel turned out quite differently. One "homesick," and it was this deep hundred years later, Kuyper's denomination found itself at longing that motivated Kuyper's work of church renewal and, the far left of the theological eventually, schism. But history of Bratt's biography offers a spectrum, with its international sister and daughter churches, teaches that schism cannot solve quick overview of Kuyper's extraordinary influence overseas. Reformed Church in North including the Christian that problem. As Philippus Jacobus Hoedemaker, one of Kuyper's allies who in the end decided to America, declaring themselves in stay rather than leave, told Kuyper: impaired communion with their contemplate so much is Kuyper's Dutch counterpart. Meanwhile,"The church is our mother; but failure at home. Kuyper and his allies intended for their church, a spirit of renewal had begun toshe is sick. And who would leave What the book does not stir the national church in the its university, and its newspapers and political organization to 1930s and 1940s, leading to a become a conservative bulwark, new Christ-confessing church protected by its confessional order in the early 1950s. Early in base, while the national church the boot Bratt tells of Kuyper's primarily as a teacher, a pastor, a biblical commentator, and even a politician of the city of Geneva in the sixteenth century. Balserak's main thesis is that Calvin indeed perceived himself as a prophet directly called by God and identified his prophetic calling particularly with that of the Old Testament prophets such as Isaiah, Elijah, and Jeremiah. Calvin, according to Balserak, deliberately planned his lectures on the Minor Prophets in late 1555 or early 1556 for the purpose of training evangelical ministers to be sent to a mother for being ill?" Edwin Chr. van Driel Pittsburgh Theological Seminary Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania legal grounds for lesser French magistrates such as Louis of Conde to wage armed resistance against higher authorities during the first French religious war in 1562. To substantiate his thesis that Calvin trained evangelical ministers as early as 1555 to be sent to support the Huguenot churches in France, Balserak begins his work by tracing two major trajectories in the perception of prophets and prophecy during the Patristic, Medieval, and Early Modern Ages. Through precise and critical investigation of primary sources, France to encourage the HuguenotBalserak convincingly argues that churches in active resistance, Calvin and his contemporary namely, war, against the civil magis-reformers belong to the second trates and French Catholicism. trajectory, namely, "prophet as John Calvin as Sixteenth-Century interpreter of the law (scripture)," Prophet. By Jon Balserak. (Oxford: In . other words, Calvin, as seen rather than to the first stream that through Balserak's critical analysis Oxford University Press, 2014. 208 of his prophetic awareness, pursuedsees the prophet as a divine holder pp. $90.00.) an expansionist and insurrectionist of supernatural or foretelling As the title of the book reforming agenda aimed at making knowledge. Balserak points out France Protestant at all levels of that Calvin, like Zwingli, Vermigli, implies, Jon Balserak's work aims and Musculus, seemed to have society. Balserak contends that to explore the prophetic selfawareness of John Calvin, who Calvin's praelectiones on the biblical "ambiguity" in his thoughts on the prophets provided theological and continuity of the New Testament has been regarded by scholars Journal of Presbyterian History Fall/Winter 2016 • 83 This content downloaded from 66.212.133.10 on Tue, 25 Sep 2018 15:42:00 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms