Pro Rege (Volume 3): Living Under Christ's Kingship

By Abraham Kuyper

Abraham Kuyper believed that Jesus is King of all creation, making it absurd to distinguish between Christian life inside and outside the church. In previous volumes of Pro Rege, Kuyper examined Christ's universal kingship and its implications for the life of the church and the family; in this third volume, he extends his analysis of Christ's kingship and rule to areas of society not encompassed by the family and the church—specifically, culture and the arts, civil society, and government.

Created in partnership with the Abraham Kuyper Translation Society and the Acton Institute for the Study of Religion & Liberty, the Abraham Kuyper Collected Works in Public Theology marks a historic moment in Kuyper studies—one that will deepen and enrich the church's public theology.

Based in Grand Rapids, Michigan, the Acton Institute is a nonprofit research organization dedicated to the study of free-market economics informed by religious faith and moral absolutes.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lexham Press
• Release date: Jul 10, 2019
• ISBN: 9781683593126

Abraham Kuyper

Abraham Kuyper (1937-1920) was a prominent Dutch Calvinist theologian, politician, educator, and writer. His thinking has influenced the Neo-Calvinist movement in the United States and Canada. Many of his writings, including Pro Rege, have never been translated into English.

Book preview

PRO REGE

LIVING UNDER CHRIST’S KINGSHIP

Volume 3: The Kingship of Christ in Its Operation

ABRAHAM

KUYPER

Edited by John Kok with Nelson D. Kloosterman

Translated by Albert Gootjes

Introduction by Rimmer de Vries and Jordan J. Ballor

Pro Rege: Living Under Christ’s Kingship

Volume 3: The Kingship of Christ in Its Operation

Abraham Kuyper Collected Works in Public Theology

Copyright 2019 Acton Institute for the Study of Religion and Liberty

Lexham Press, 1313 Commercial St., Bellingham, WA 98225

LexhamPress.com

All rights reserved. You may use brief quotations from this resource in presentations, articles, and books. For all other uses, please write Lexham Press for permission. Email us at [e-mail].

Originally published as Pro Rege of het Koningschap van Christus. Derde deel. Het Koningschap van Christus in zijn werking. © Kampen: J. H. Kok, 1912.

Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version® (ESV®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Print ISBN 9781577996729

Digital ISBN 9781683593126

Translator: Albert Gootjes

Lexham Editorial: Claire Brubaker, Sarah Awa, Justin Marr

Cover Design: Christine Gerhart

ABRAHAM

KUYPER

Collected Works in Public Theology

GENERAL EDITORS

JORDAN J. BALLOR

MELVIN FLIKKEMA

ABRAHAMKUYPER.COM

CONTENTS

General Editors’ Introduction

Editors’ Introduction

Volume Introduction

Abbreviations

Series IV: Christ’s Kingship and Society

IV.1: An Independent Sphere

IV.2: From Creation

IV.3: Twofold Demand

IV.4: Family and Society

IV.5: Fear of Danger

IV.6: The Expansion of Life

IV.7: The Expansion of the Terrain

IV.8: Society and the Individual

IV.9: Custom and Habit

IV.10: Gifted Leaders

IV.11: The Power of the Word

IV.12: Money

IV.13: Play

IV.14: The Woman

IV.15: Private Initiative

IV.16: The Government

IV.17: The Christian Church

IV.18: Christian Schools

IV.19: Christian Organizations

IV.20: Public Opinion

IV.21: Good and Evil Spirits

IV.22: The Final Victory

Series V: Christ’s Kingship and the State

V.1: The Confusion of Speech

V.2: The Division Into States

V.3: The Unity of the Human Race

V.4: The Course of History

V.5: The Rulers

V.6: The Law

V.7: Political Parties

V.8: Colonial Possessions

V.9: Internationalism

V.10: The Relationships between the States

V.11: The Christian Land

Series VI: Christ’s Kingship and Knowledge

VI.1: Our Human Knowledge

VI.2: Jesus’ Knowledge

VI.3: Science as a Power

VI.4: Reflection

VI.5: The Truth

VI.6: Thinking God’s Thoughts after Him

VI.7: The Secret Things of God

VI.8: The Hidden Secrets of God (2)

VI.9: The Hidden Secrets of God (3)

VI.10: The Freeing of the Mind

VI.11: Majesty

Series VII: The Kingship of Christ and Art

VII.1: A Gift of God

VII.2: The Ideal and the Practical

VII.3: The Beautiful

VII.4: The Mystery of Beauty

VII.5: Our Awareness of Beauty

VII.6: Beauty and Sin

VII.7: The Origin of Beauty

VII.8: Beauty in Christ

VII.9: The Sublime and Worship

VII.10: Art and Religion

Conclusion

Bibliography

Subject/Author Index

Scripture Index

GENERAL EDITORS’ INTRODUCTION

In times of great upheaval and uncertainty, it is necessary to look to the past for resources to help us recognize and address our own contemporary challenges. While Scripture is foremost among these foundations, the thoughts and reflections of Christians throughout history also provide us with important guidance. Because of his unique gifts, experiences, and writings, Abraham Kuyper is an exemplary guide in these endeavors.

Kuyper (1837–1920) is a significant figure both in the history of the Netherlands and modern Protestant theology. A prolific intellectual, Kuyper founded a political party and a university, led the formation of a Reformed denomination and the movement to create Reformed elementary schools, and served as the prime minister of the Netherlands from 1901 to 1905. In connection with his work as a builder of institutions, Kuyper was also a prolific author. He wrote theological treatises, biblical and confessional studies, historical works, social and political commentary, and devotional materials.

Believing that Kuyper’s work is a significant and underappreciated resource for Christian public witness, in 2011 a group of scholars interested in Kuyper’s life and work formed the Abraham Kuyper Translation Society. The shared conviction of the society, along with the Acton Institute, Kuyper College, and other Abraham Kuyper scholars, is that Kuyper’s works hold great potential to build intellectual capacity within the church in North America, Europe, and around the world. It is our hope that translation of his works into English will make his insights accessible to those seeking to grow and revitalize communities in the developed world as well as to those in the global south and east who are facing unique challenges and opportunities.

The church today—both locally and globally—needs the tools to construct a compelling and responsible public theology. The aim of this translation project is to provide those tools—we believe that Kuyper’s unique insights can catalyze the development of a winsome and constructive Christian social witness and cultural engagement the world over.

In consultation and collaboration with these institutions and individual scholars, the Abraham Kuyper Translation Society developed this 12-volume translation project, the Collected Works in Public Theology. This multivolume series collects in English translation Kuyper’s writings and speeches from a variety of genres and contexts in his work as a theologian and statesman. In almost all cases, this set contains original works that have never before been translated into English. The series contains multivolume works as well as other volumes, including thematic anthologies.

The series includes a translation of Kuyper’s Our Program (Ons Program), which sets forth Kuyper’s attempt to frame a Christian political vision distinguished from the programs of the nineteenth-century Modernists who took their cues from the French Revolution. It was this document that launched Kuyper’s career as a pastor, theologian, and educator. As James Bratt writes, This comprehensive Program, which Kuyper crafted in the process of forming the Netherlands’ first mass political party, brought the theology, the political theory, and the organization vision together brilliantly in a coherent set of policies that spoke directly to the needs of his day. For us it sets out the challenge of envisioning what might be an equivalent witness in our own day.

Also included is Kuyper’s seminal three-volume work De gemeene gratie, or Common Grace, which presents a constructive public theology of cultural engagement rooted in the humanity Christians share with the rest of the world. Kuyper’s presentation of common grace addresses a gap he recognized in the development of Reformed teaching on divine grace. After addressing particular grace and covenant grace in other writings, Kuyper here develops his articulation of a Reformed understanding of God’s gifts that are common to all people after the fall into sin.

The series also contains Kuyper’s three-volume work on the lordship of Christ, Pro Rege. These three volumes apply Kuyper’s principles in Common Grace, providing guidance for how to live in a fallen world under Christ the King. Here the focus is on developing cultural institutions in a way that is consistent with the ordinances of creation that have been maintained and preserved, even if imperfectly so, through common grace.

The remaining volumes are thematic anthologies of Kuyper’s writings and speeches gathered from the course of his long career.

The anthology On Charity and Justice includes a fresh and complete translation of Kuyper’s The Problem of Poverty, the landmark speech Kuyper gave at the opening of the First Christian Social Congress in Amsterdam in 1891. This important work was first translated into English in 1950 by Dirk Jellema; in 1991, a new edition by James Skillen was issued. This volume also contains other writings and speeches on subjects including charity, justice, wealth, and poverty.

The anthology On Islam contains English translations of significant pieces that Abraham Kuyper wrote about Islam, gathered from his reflections on a lengthy tour of the Mediterranean world. Kuyper’s insights illustrate an instructive model for observing another faith and its cultural ramifications from an informed Christian perspective.

The anthology On the Church includes selections from Kuyper’s doctrinal dissertation on the theologies of Reformation theologians John Calvin and John a Lasco. It also includes various treatises and sermons, such as Rooted and Grounded, Twofold Fatherland, and Address on Missions.

The anthology On Business and Economics contains various meditations Kuyper wrote about the evils of the love of money as well as pieces that provide Kuyper’s thoughts on stewardship, human trafficking, free trade, tariffs, child labor, work on the Sabbath, and business.

Finally, the anthology On Education includes Kuyper’s important essay Bound to the Word, which discusses what it means to be ruled by the word of God in the entire world of human thought. Numerous other pieces are also included, resulting in a substantial English volume of Kuyper’s thoughts on Christian education.

Collectively, this 12-volume series will, as Richard Mouw puts it, give us a much-needed opportunity to absorb the insights of Abraham Kuyper about God’s marvelous designs for human cultural life.

The Abraham Kuyper Translation Society along with the Acton Institute and Kuyper College gratefully acknowledge the Andreas Center for Reformed Scholarship and Service at Dordt College; Calvin College; Calvin Theological Seminary; Fuller Theological Seminary; Mid-America Reformed Seminary; Redeemer University College; Princeton Theological Seminary; and Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. Their financial support and partnership made these translations possible. The society is also grateful for the generous financial support of the J. C. Huizenga family and Dr. Rimmer and Ruth DeVries, which has enabled the translation and publication of these volumes.

This series is dedicated to Dr. Rimmer DeVries in recognition of his life’s pursuits and enduring legacy as a cultural leader, economist, visionary, and faithful follower of Christ who reflects well the Kuyperian vision of Christ’s lordship over all spheres of society.

Jordan J. Ballor

Melvin Flikkema

Grand Rapids, MI

August 2015

EDITORS’ INTRODUCTION

Transposing a book from another time (early twentieth century) and another language (Dutch) into contemporary English is a delightful, but challenging process. That latter feature requires us to clarify for our readers a number of translation and editorial decisions designed to enhance this English edition of Pro Rege. These decisions, naturally, involve alterations, subtractions, and additions.

When citing Scripture, Kuyper employed either the Dutch Statenvertaling or his own paraphrase of the text. Consistent with our goal of producing a contemporary English edition of this work, we have used the English Standard Version (ESV) of the Bible, unless otherwise noted. To aid the reader, at some points we have replaced Kuyper’s paraphrase with the actual text of the ESV, and we have supplied (in brackets) those specific textual references, of either Scripture citations or paraphrases, that were absent from the original. The renderings of various doctrinal standards, such as the Heidelberg Catechism, are taken from the versions appearing in Reformed Confessions of the 16th and 17th Centuries in English Translation, 4 vols., ed. James T. Dennison Jr. (Grand Rapids: Reformation Heritage Books, 2008–14). The editorial style conforms to the Chicago Manual of Style, 16th edition.

In the footnotes, the opening formula Note by the author identifies notes from Kuyper himself. All other notes are editorial additions to these editions. These brief editorial notes have been added throughout in order to identify persons, terms, schools of thought, or events mentioned in the original that might be unfamiliar to contemporary readers.

Other stylistic alterations have been made for ease of reading and for the sake of appearance. Italics are used less frequently in the English edition than appear in the original. More importantly, large paragraphs and long sentences have been divided, and subordinate clauses have occasionally been rearranged to render accurately the emphasis present in Kuyper’s original. Sections within chapters were originally unnumbered; numbering has been added to aid readers in finding specific references.

Bringing significant intellectual works into the modern day by way of translation frequently confronts the translator and editor with matters involving sensitive sociocultural views and associated language. As times change, so do modes of expression. This pertains to Kuyper’s work as well. For example, where possible we have opted for a responsible, though by no means rigorous, use of gender-neutral nouns and pronouns (for example, speaking of people rather than men). Where necessary and only infrequently, infelicitous formulations have either been altered for the modern ear or omitted altogether.

For some time now, translators and publishers have been laboring diligently to provide the English-speaking world with access to the formative writings of Dutch cultural theologian Abraham Kuyper. Combined with his seminal volumes on Common Grace, and with his 1898 Lectures on Calvinism, these three volumes of Pro Rege constitute an essential resource for faithfully transposing Kuyper’s insights into a modern key. Being far more than a mere supplement to his works on common grace and worldview Calvinism, these volumes of Pro Rege are fundamentally correlative and complementary to those well-known works. In other words, these three major works of Kuyper are mutually interpretative.

In contrast to the somewhat philosophical and sweeping timbre of Common Grace and Lectures on Calvinism, Pro Rege offers teaching textured specifically for the church in the world, that is, for Christians living life coram Deo, in the presence of God. Because Christians share in Christ’s own anointing as Chief Prophet, Only Priest, and Eternal King (Heidelberg Catechism, Lord’s Day 12, Q&A 33–32), they are called and may expect, among other things, with a free conscience [to] fight against sin and the devil in this life, and hereafter in eternity [to] reign with Him over all creatures. Until then, Christians live pro Rege within various spheres of human cultural activity, such as family, business, labor, art, science, education, and politics. As Kuyper’s title confesses and these volumes explicate, such living before God entails submitting to his pervasive sovereignty, to his gracious claims, and to the present kingship of Jesus Christ over the entire world and its history.

John Kok

Nelson D. Kloosterman

VOLUME INTRODUCTION

This introduction comes at the conclusion of a cycle of a 3-volume set within the Abraham Kuyper Collected Works in Public Theology and three-quarters of the way through the larger 12-volume series. Given the subject matter of Pro Rege as constitutive of Kuyper’s public theology, it is appropriate to provide some larger context for the series, including details about the motivations and history of the series and the hopes for its impact and future significance, as well as information about the varied stakeholders in this massive undertaking, from donors and sponsors, to translators, editors, and proofreaders, to artists, marketers, publicists, and more.

I (Rimmer) grew up in the Netherlands in a thoroughly Kuyperian environment. Families, churches, and clubs were all actively engaged in worship, study, and engagement in society.¹ This took the form of labor unions, political parties and movements, and even societies for young people. In my teenage years we had manuals that we used in weekly meetings that explored various aspects of the Reformed world- and lifeview and applied it to all these diverse aspects of the world. This is a vision that was exciting and inspiring, that painted the world in bright colors and was never dull or boring. This was a movement that was strong both in terms of education and action.

This vision contrasted sharply with the reality of life under Nazi occupation of the Netherlands during World War II, and the coherent and comprehensive Kuyperian vision dissolved after the conflagration. The distinctiveness of the Reformed world- and lifeview gave way to a growing together, an emphasis on common action and shared values. In this way the Anti-Revolutionary political movement transformed into the Christian Democratic Union, for example. Some remnants of the older Kuyperian vision remained, largely through the language of worldview, but the depth of that vision was increasingly lost over time.

For my part (Jordan), I came to study theology at Calvin Theological Seminary in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and Kuyper was one of two stern visages mounted on a wall in one of the classrooms. I remember him as the beardless one (Herman Bavinck was the other). Kuyper’s influence was still felt in that institution, although his name was often invoked, but somewhat less often engaged with significant depth. The famous proclamation could be heard: 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!’ ² But the echo of that cry was more often the end rather than the beginning of direct engagement with and learning from Kuyper’s thought.

Pointing particularly to Kuyper, Mark A. Noll writes about the relationship between American evangelicals and the Dutch Reformed, noting that the Dutch Reformed offered their American counterparts a heritage of serious academic work and experienced philosophical reasoning.³ Decades after Noll wrote this, however, my sense, as a newcomer to Dutch Reformed circles, was often that there was an expectation that American evangelicals needed to be converted to the deep insights of the Reformed and particularly neo-Calvinist traditions. The Dutch Reformed offer, to use Noll’s language, was not always well-meant, or at least was not, apart from some notable individual exceptions, exceedingly winsome and hospitable. Another way of putting it is that neo-Calvinists did not always seek with evangelistic zeal the enlightenment of those masses of evangelicals who knew nothing of the great Abraham Kuyper.

HISTORY

The best-known of Kuyper’s works in English is undoubtedly the publication of his Stone Lectures given at Princeton Theological Seminary in 1898. These six lectures, commonly appearing as Lectures on Calvinism, were critically important for the reception of neo-Calvinism in the Anglophone world, and especially for worldview thinking in the twentieth century. Other works by Kuyper also were available in English, including his work on the Holy Spirit and an abridged version of his Encyclopedia of Sacred Theology.⁴ And while the publication of his classic devotional collection To Be Near unto God, his speech on the Christian religion and the social question, and most recently James Bratt’s centennial collection of Kuyperiana provided a good insight into the breadth of Kuyper’s work, only a small fraction of Kuyper’s own work had ever appeared in English.⁵ The depth of Kuyper’s work remained accessible only to Dutch speakers and an increasingly narrow group of scholars.

Almost a decade ago, the publication of an introduction and translation of Kuyper’s thoughts on Islam sparked a number of conversations and dialogue concerning the untapped riches of Kuyper’s thoughts and their relevance for today.⁶ In 2011 a group of people interested in Kuyper’s writings on public theology met to discuss the possibility of translating some of these works into English. There were numerous motivations for this effort. Several requests were made by representatives of younger churches around the world who had become interested in worldview concerns and the development of public theology. They desired access to more substantive material that would help them deepen their understanding of the Christian faith and inform approaches to applying it to daily life and society. Many of Kuyper’s major works, such as Common Grace and Pro Rege, as well as numerous other essays, treatises, speeches, and lectures, had never been translated, at least in full, in the intervening decades.

The lack of enthusiasm for translating Kuyper in part had to do with the controversial nature of some of his teachings. Common grace, for example, was a much debated and challenged doctrine, and remains so to this day. In other ways Kuyper was also a man of his times, and his indelicate and downright offensive expressions can be off-putting. The sheer volume of his work also presents logistical challenges. And in spite of his importance in the history of modern Protestant theology and social thought, the audience for ambitious translation projects for Kuyper’s works into English was not always clear. Some experts considered Kuyper’s real insights to be contained in his devotional and systematic works, and that his social thought and public theology had less significance.

So for various reasons much of Kuyper’s substantive body of work remained largely untranslated. The Dutch Reformed Translation Society, which has been such an important champion bringing important treasures of the faith to English readers, including the magisterial Reformed Dogmatics of Herman Bavinck, never translated Kuyper’s work.⁷ In the meantime, Princeton Theological Seminary acquired large collections of material related to Kuyper and his context, and the Kuyper Center for Public Theology was founded there, along with the establishment of the Ruth and Rimmer de Vries Chair of Reformed Theology and Public Life. An annual conference was hosted by the Kuyper Center, which also produced a review of articles and papers. Significant efforts also went in to making primary sources available in digital formats, and Rev. Tjitze Kuipers produced a comprehensive and exhaustive bibliography of Kuyper’s published works.⁸

The meetings discussing the possibility of translating Kuyper’s work eventually arrived at a consensus that there was indeed valuable material that ought to be published in English, and that there was a critical mass of new interest in Kuyper’s work, substantial funding for translation projects, and enthusiasm on the part of translators, editors, and other scholars for a large-scale project. The meeting’s discussions showed strong support for this project from the Acton Institute and Kuyper College, and the necessary financial resources for translation and editing were made available. In this way the Abraham Kuyper Translation Society (AKTS), an informal network of scholars, donors, institutions, and other supporters, was formed. Melvin Flikkema has ably served as secretary of the society, and later as a general editor of this 12-volume series, and is indispensable in organizing the multifaceted and disparate efforts to disseminate Kuyper’s work to a North American and global audience.

Initial exploratory efforts began with a focus on Kuyper’s three volumes on the doctrine of common grace. The Acton Institute published a selection of ten chapters dealing with the doctrine in the context of art and science that had originally appeared separately from the three-volume series on common grace. Wisdom & Wonder: Common Grace in Science & Art appeared under the Acton Institute’s Christian’s Library Press imprint.⁹ The positive reception of this volume led Acton to pursue publication of a translation of Kuyper’s Our Program and eventually the entire first volume of Kuyper’s Common Grace as well as a variety of other, shorter texts.¹⁰

In the meantime, it became apparent through the course of these initial publishing efforts that there was a much larger collection of material worthy of translation as well as an appetite for pursuing a more ambitious publication effort. This would require a broader set of partners and collaborators, as well as devoted, visionary donors and a publisher that would dedicate resources and expertise to these larger translation efforts. As secretary of the AKTS, Mel Flikkema, with advice and insight from the society’s network, explored a variety of publishing options. In the course of this work he became familiar with Lexham Press, an imprint of Faithlife, the parent company behind Logos Bible Software. Lexham Press, founded in 2010, was a relatively new publishing effort, focused on print resources in conjunction with the larger digital offerings. Lexham had already shown itself to be a dynamic and entrepreneurial endeavor, willing to take on major projects that required significant investment, most notably perhaps the translation and publication of Geerhardus Vos’s Reformed Dogmatics.¹¹

Lexham Press and Acton Institute signed a publishing agreement in 2015 to publish a 12-volume series, Abraham Kuyper Collected Works in Public Theology. This introduction appears as the majority of the volumes of this major publishing effort have appeared. In addition to various marketing and promotion efforts, Lexham developed a website dedicated to the translation project as well as to serve as a clearinghouse for materials aimed at facilitating a Kuyper renaissance.

LEGACY

The goal of this series and related translation materials is to catalyze a global resurgence of the Kuyperian vision. We have as a foundational motivation the conviction that the best introduction to Kuyper is Kuyper’s own work itself, and that the excellent but limited primary source materials available in English were increasingly insufficient for a deeper engagement with this comprehensive vision of world and life. Much of what is often considered to be Kuyperian today is in fact a rather significant departure, and even contradictory, to Kuyper’s own thought.

This is not to say that any disagreement with or about Kuyper is invalid. Many departures from Kuyper’s own views are entirely legitimate developments of Kuyper’s thought. Others are appropriate applications of general principles to new and ever-changing circumstances. But it is only possible to judge what is and is not valid in relationship to the original source material itself and by actually knowing and engaging that source material. This has to a great degree been impossible or undesirable for many who draw inspiration from Kuyper, and the result has been in too many cases a kind of Kuyperian gloss on ideas, movements, and perspectives that are altogether alien to Kuyper’s own way of living and thinking. A major purpose of this series is, therefore, to encourage greater substantial engagement with Kuyper’s larger body of work. The goal is not repristination as such but rather critical engagement and responsible resourcement.

In a review of James Bratt’s magisterial biography of Kuyper, which itself has opened up significant new insight into the great Dutchman’s legacy, James K. A. Smith encourages a holistic reception of Kuyper. Thus he warns his readers to be sure that we inherit the whole Kuyper.¹² Smith offers Bratt’s biography as an antidote to selective portraits of Kuyper.

Our contention is that the best antidote to an incomplete or inaccurate understanding of Kuyper is engagement with the thought of the man himself as available in the primary sources themselves (with guidance from reliable secondary sources, of course, and foremost among them Bratt’s fine biography). Even though this current translation effort has inherent limits related to logistical realities, it is the most ambitious and comprehensive translation effort of Kuyper’s own works that has ever been attempted, and at its conclusion will amount to more than two million of Kuyper’s own words newly accessible in English. We are convinced that the broader world has waited long enough for greater access to Kuyper’s works, and this series is conceived as an overdue attempt to remedy this lacuna.

Some have criticized the project precisely because it promises to present Kuyper in his own words to new generations of Christians. Thus David Engelsma writes that the theory of common grace has no parentage in the Reformed faith of scripture and the creeds. Christianizing the world of the ungodly is not the legitimate offspring of Reformed Christianity.¹³

Similar concerns about the dangers of a hyperactive world-transforming approach have led scholars such as David VanDrunen to examine critically the relationship between Kuyper and the Reformed tradition. Excessive transformationalist triumphalism leads to infidelity to the gospel of Jesus Christ, and exchanging the soul of Reformed theology for a pottage of worldly achievement.¹⁴ In this way VanDrunen makes a threefold distinction between (1) the Reformed tradition, largely identifiable with the thought of John Calvin; (2) that of Abraham Kuyper; and (3) that of later neo-Calvinism. Out of concern particularly for problematic aspects of this last grouping, VanDrunen observes, In my judgment, neo-Calvinism is significantly different from Calvin’s own theology in some crucial respects. Its appeal to Kuyper is more plausible, but I believe … that in many important ways Kuyper bears more resemblance to Calvin and early Reformed orthodoxy than he does to neo-Calvinism.¹⁵ Placing Kuyper in the context of his Reformed forebears and his later claimants is an essential aspect of understanding his ongoing significance and contemporary appeal.

Acton Institute has a long-standing connection with Abraham Kuyper precisely because of overlapping interests in liberty and fidelity. From its beginning Acton Institute has been interested in exploring the deeper, historical foundations of a free and virtuous society. In its research agenda, Acton Institute has focused on Kuyper out of a conviction that he is equal in significance and importance to other, more famous figures such as Edmund Burke and Alexis de Tocqueville. Understanding that a truly free market is grounded in virtue and vibrant institutions of civil society, it is natural for Acton Institute to draw substantially from perhaps the foremost Reformed theorist of and activist in modern society. Making available more direct access to his work, and supporting explorations of the implications that work today, does a great service to the development of Christian social thought and political economy today. Kuyper provides a singular and highly instructive model of cultural engagement informed by scholarly erudition.

This does not, of course, mean that all of Kuyper’s thought must be in agreement with the prudential conclusions or even all of the principled foundations of a particular institution. Kuyper is one among many fountainheads of inspiration for Acton’s unique synthesis of free-market economics and theological reflection, grounded in the ideas and institutions of a free and virtuous society. One of the most worthwhile accomplishments of the institute has been found in the cross-confessional, ecumenical nature of much of the dialogue and conversation. Thus, Acton Institute in partnership with Calvin College sponsored a conference exploring the social thought of Abraham Kuyper and Pope Leo XIII on the centenary of Kuyper’s Stone Lectures in 1998, and the proceedings were later published in the institute’s academic journal.¹⁶ The institute has also engaged in various other activities, from sponsoring paper presentations and sessions at academic conferences, to translations and scholarly articles, to larger events, including a conference put on in 2014 in conjunction with the Calvin College business department exploring Common Grace in Business.¹⁷ Acton Institute’s promotion of Kuyper in the form of the Abraham Kuyper Collected Works in Public Theology is novel therefore only in terms of its scale rather than in substance.

The scale of this translation effort is, in fact, global. Collaborators and partners are involved from all over the world, particularly North America and Europe. But there is demand for these materials from all parts of the globe as well. Kuyper is increasingly seen as an important resource for the much-needed development of public theology on a global scale. John Bolt tells the story of an encounter two decades ago with West African theologian Kwame Bediako. As Bolt relates, After listening to him describe the chaotic political condition of West Africa and after having just watched two evenings full of a PBS documentary film on Thomas Jefferson, I asked Prof. Bediako if West Africa was not badly in need of its own Thomas Jefferson. He smiled and in his quiet manner responded, ‘What Africa needs even more today is its own Abraham Kuyper.’ ¹⁸ The International Fellowship of Evangelical Students (IFES), for instance, focuses on student ministry all over the world and has expressed great interest in access to more materials by Kuyper; its general secretary, Daniel Bourdanné, was named the recipient of the Kuyper Prize in 2018. Lexham Press, in connection with Logos Bible Software, has global connections and is facilitating the translation of Kuyper’s works into other languages beyond English, including Korean and Portuguese. There is enthusiasm for translating Kuyper’s works into French and Chinese as well.

There are, in addition, important efforts beyond the public theology series. There continues to be enthusiasm for translation of even more Kuyper material, which promises to provide new insights into Kuyper.¹⁹ Secondary sources drawing on these insights cover much new ground and identify key ideas from Kuyper that are of particular relevance for the church and world today.²⁰ George Harinck has popularized Kuyper’s international insights through two documentary film series in the Netherlands focused on Kuyper’s journeys around the Mediterranean (Om de Oude Wereldzee) and the United States. He also directs a neo-Calvinism center at the Theological University of Kampen. Conferences for scholars and church leaders focusing on Kuyper have been held in Paris and Rome, and there are plans for additional events in Hong Kong, Egypt, and Hungary. There is a new and reimagined Kuyper Institute for Global Faculty Development at Calvin College and Seminary, which also hosts an annual Kuyper Conference in Public Theology.

All of these efforts and more have the potential, we hope, to kindle a Kuyperian renaissance and to reinvigorate a Reformed world- and lifeview in the contemporary context. These translations are fundamental to such work, but they are only an initial step and must be followed up with vigorous efforts to convert these truths and insights into our daily living, in our homes, our churches, our schools, our businesses, and our governments. As we hope to conclude the series on the centennial of Kuyper’s death in 1920, the prospects for resurgent global neo-Calvinist public theology are encouraging.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

A project of this ambitious scope would not be possible without a vast collaboration of editors, essayists, fundraisers, encouragers, proofreaders, indexers, translators, and more. Lester DeKoster, a longtime librarian and editor of The Banner (as well as a critical interlocutor with Kuyper and neo-Calvinism), once noted the extent to which something as simple as a chair requires cooperation and mutual assistance on a dizzying level of complexity.²¹ This is true to an even greater extent on a multiyear, multivolume publishing project such as this, which comprises an investment on the level of a million dollars when considered from the perspective of direct and indirect costs. An incalculable number of hours have been worked on this project, from chairs in offices and workspaces around the world. This section of acknowledgments is offered as a token of appreciation for all the labor that has been offered in support of this project, with the recognition that it is only a token, and an inadequate one at that.

The direct costs of this project are in excess of $500,000, and the money to meet these costs has been provided by a number of generous benefactors and supporters. A number of institutions have partnered in the project, including the Andreas Center for Reformed Scholarship and Service at Dordt College, Calvin Theological Seminary, Calvin College, Fuller Theological Seminary, Kuyper College, Mid-America Reformed Seminary, Princeton Theological Seminary, Redeemer University College, and Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. Other supporters include Andrew Beerends, Paule Heule, and the J. C. Huizenga family. Rimmer de Vries is not only a coauthor of this introduction, but more importantly is also the series’ main champion and supporter. Without him this series truly would not have been possible.

Partners in publishing the contents of the various volumes include Russell Media and Credo Communications, as well as the publisher of the series itself, Lexham Press. Jon Barry, Brannon Ellis, and Jesse Myers have provided excellent leadership on the project. Scott Hausman, Justin Marr, and Abigail Stocker have also been indispensable to the series. Joel Wilcox and Steve Kline have done fine work copyediting and working to impose some order on Kuyper’s dynamic style, and they deserve great praise for this difficult and substantive work.

Acton Institute is the other main institutional partner in this publishing project, and is the home of the general editors, Jordan J. Ballor and Melvin Flikkema. Andrew McGinnis and Dylan Pahman also have contributed important work to the series. Paul Brinkerhoff, Eduardo Echeverria, Joseph Sunde, and Matthew Wright deserve recognition for their contributions. Lisa Eary has done a wonderful job indexing the series and finding ways to improve the text along the way. Each of the 12 volumes has its own credits, which outline the various contributors as well.

We hope that these humble contributions to God’s kingdom might bear fruit well into the future.

Rimmer de Vries

Jordan J. Ballor

ABBREVIATIONS

SERIES IV

CHRIST’S KINGSHIP AND SOCIETY

IV.1

AN INDEPENDENT SPHERE

You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden.

MATTHEW 5:14

§ 1 When we discuss Christ’s kingship, we cannot pass directly from the family to the state. Between them lies what is usually called social life, and it has become very important especially in our days to give as clear as possible an account of what Jesus’ kingship means for society. It cannot be denied that in the previous century, as well as in the present one, social issues have increasingly attracted the attention of many. In this context, the word social should not be misconstrued as referring exclusively to the relationship between labor and capital. Instead we must insist that this relationship is just one of the many strands in the rich cord that holds social life together, and that the concept social includes everything, whatever it is called or looks like, that goes beyond the borders of the family, is not bound within the stays of the state, and still forms an integral part of the life of the world. Family, society, and state are indeed three independent factors in human life, to which is added the church as a fourth and extra factor. The first three are of creation, and to them the church was added as a fourth factor arising from the domain of grace, because of sin.

If we leave the church, which we treated separately above, to the side, and restrict ourselves here to what arises inevitably as a necessary part of our human life by virtue of creation—regardless of the presence or absence of sin—human life begins with the family, and finds in it its first original organization. Then it aims at a permanent, comprehensive organization in the kingdom or state, by virtue of the power of the law. But then between the family and the state lies the social organization of our human life, which we may simply refer to as the life of the world. This final factor of social life tends in general to be the last of the three to develop fully. The family is always there in and of itself, and usually, where multiple families live together, a certain form of governmental authority soon develops in a patriarchal, despotic, or more open fashion. But the organization of social life, which is wedged between them, has on the whole been very slow to develop. Among the tribes in Africa there is even now no social development to speak of in a comprehensive sense. Among the people of antiquity social life remained at a very low pitch, and even during the Middle Ages and after the Reformation there was hardly a hint of the heights that society has attained in our day. A variety of reasons contributed to society’s incredible growth especially in the nineteenth century, and this in turn helps to explain why there is currently a growing interest in nearly every question that pertains to the development of society and social life.

It cannot be denied that as these social issues came to occupy center stage, both family and state were put under pressure. Society now wants to lay down the law for the family and state as well. It ultimately wants to conquer all of human life and subject it to itself. The call for liberty and freedom is starting to mean more and more that neither the bond of the family nor the bond of the state ought to hinder the world in any way in its entirely open social development. Anarchy is the goal toward which this overpowering development of social life is heading. All bonds must be broken. People should be allowed to live according to the dictates of their nature. And this free natural life is to celebrate its triumphs in the uninhibited development of our lives—not in the family, nor in the state, but in society. If you eliminate the family and the state, so it is said, society will organize itself, and only in that free and independent social organization of human life will humanity be able to develop in such a way as to obtain the greatest happiness.

We hear this cry especially among the nihilists, anarchists, and socialists, but it can actually be heard throughout the modern world. The result is that family and state are being threatened in their existence more and more. That is why it is so important for us also as Christians to give a clear account of the limits within which social life is to remain. We too must work to promote and facilitate the development and organization of society, but we may never allow its aspirations to infringe on the family or to undermine the authority of the state. Accordingly, it goes without saying that we cannot be content to highlight merely the importance of Christ’s kingship for the family and the state, but must also inquire into what the significance of his kingship ought to be for social life.

§ 2 The life of the world comes to expression above all in society. What Scripture calls the world also penetrates the heart, causes turmoil in the family, and attempts to overpower the state, and yet it is especially in society that the world attempts to erect its throne. Whoever talks about the life of the world refers in the first place to the development of our human life as it is established in a free society. The word world can also be understood in many other ways; that is true in Scripture as well. But wherever we encounter in Scripture the contrast between the world and Christ’s kingdom, the world refers to a dangerous spirit that prevails and that leads human life as it freely discloses itself. Through its fixed structure, the family is as a matter of course accompanied by rules governing family life. And just like the family, so too the state obtains a fixed structure and fixed rules through its laws. But society does not have such a fixed organization or structure; fixed rules and laws are lacking here. And that is why the spirit that seeks to corrupt our life turns to society as its first object, attempts to bring it to its knees, and tries to establish its rule over it.

What that unholy spirit meets is an empty terrain. Imperceptibly it enters what we call public opinion, which is actually nothing but the perspective and viewpoint that manages to set the tone for social life in every one of its aspects. It is the world understood in this sense that Christ opposes with his kingdom. His very goal is to drive the spirit of the world out of our world, and to give our world the life of his spirit instead. It is the Holy Spirit who goes to battle against the unholy spirit of the world with that end in view. Even before Jesus went to Gethsemane, he announced to his disciples: Take heart; I have overcome the world [John 16:33]. Of course, this was not actually true; when Jesus died on the cross, the world remained what it was. Therefore, Jesus could only have meant that he had overcome the world in principle, and that the battle he had launched against the world would bring about its total downfall and destruction in the end. But this is why the battle against the world had to be continued after he ascended into heaven, making the rest of the history of God’s kingdom nothing but an endless struggle between the Spirit of Christ and the spirit of the world.

For that reason, it simply cannot be true that Jesus as our King concerns himself with his church alone, and leaves society to its own lot. Rather, the battle against the world only began for real after Jesus ascended into heaven. As King, Christ will fight for this kingdom in his church and in the family, but he will no less fight for his kingdom on the terrain of social life.

The fact of the matter is that you will not understand the struggle of Christ our King, to subject his enemies under his feet over the centuries, if you remove human society from his kingship. We admit, of course, that the power with which Christ seeks to rule society as well is often exercised by virtue of his influence on individual hearts, on the family, and on his church; and yet, this power is not enough. Social life forms a terrain of its own, and it too is a terrain that Christ enters with his kingly majesty in order to rule it. This is extremely important for us as Christians because we too live in society and are our King’s fellow warriors and soldiers. It was with a view to this that Jesus told his disciples: A city set on a hill cannot be hidden [Matt 5:14].

Our King does indeed work directly on society, without our input, but it cannot be denied that he similarly exercises his kingly dominion through us—and this is something we also need to acknowledge with a view to our life in society. Jesus did not pray that the Father might take us out of the world. Our destiny as Christians was not to withdraw as an isolated group from the world and into the desert. Jesus only prayed that the Father would keep us in the world [see John 17:15]. Our place, therefore, is in society, and we must occupy this place honorably. Every sect that has ever attempted to withdraw from society and live for Jesus outside it discovered that, in the end, it drifted away from its King. But because this is so, we may never allow ourselves to think that when we enter society we are actually leaving our King, and that we need to flee to the church in order to find him back again.

Christ’s kingship extends over all things, extends to every part of human life, also in society. Only when we recognize and honor the fact that Christ’s kingly dominion extends also over society can we stand strong in it. It goes without saying that this is the most difficult part of our service to our King. Our service to Jesus as our King is much easier in church and family, and even in the state. There we find paths that have already been trodden, and we can follow them with calm and steady feet. In fact, we may even feel that we are at home on all three of these terrains. But in society we live in the midst of opposition, and have to stand on our own two feet, while people raise innumerable hindrances and dig all kinds of pitfalls for us. This makes it altogether understandable that so many prefer to shun the world and hazard onto that slippery terrain as little as possible. But for the greatest majority of people it is impossible to do so. Their position in life, their work, or their office constantly demands of them that they engage the world. As a rule, we are called to participate in all of society, and this is why it is simply imperative for us to believe that Christ’s kingly dominion extends to society as well. Only those who enter society with their King can personally overcome the world in his power.

§ 3 Another factor that does not tolerate the exclusion of social life from Christ’s kingship is the very nature of that kingship. Such an exclusion might have been imaginable had this kingship been merely temporal and instituted for a specific purpose. But this is not the case. Christ’s kingship is directed to the last catastrophe when, at the final judgment, the world and its dominion will fall, and the kingdom of glory shall come in. And of course, in the reversal that will then take place, everything will be included—all of nature, all creatures that move on earth, and, above all, human life (including the past generations that already entered the grave hundreds of years ago, the current generation to which we ourselves belong, and the generations of those who will come after us).

The goal of Jesus’ kingship is that final judgment, that final outcome. He is not a King who rules to maintain law and order, and for the rest has no interest in the way his people live. The nature of his kingship is altogether different. While every earthly kingship aims to maintain the existing order, and every king is glad if he manages to leave his land and people to his successor in a state of flourishing and stability, in the case of Christ his kingship is one that seeks to do battle, that launches a fundamental assault on the existing order, and that seeks to put an end once and for all to the entire existing order and to usher in a totally new state of affairs. The goal toward which everything is directed is for Christ to hand the kingship over to God and the Father, and for a situation to be created where God will be all and in all [see 1 Cor 15:24–28]. Yet this will not be accomplished along the road of violence. If that were the case, the many centuries of preparation would have been unnecessary, and the world could just as well have ended soon after Pentecost already. But this was not how God would have things happen.

By now the struggle in the spirit world has been raging for some two thousand years. It is no aimless repetition of just one life from one century into the next. If that were the case, life would have no purpose. Accordingly, it is worth noting that history indeed shows us that new situations have arisen over the course of the centuries, that a higher and more versatile development was achieved, and that life’s great questions have constantly presented themselves to us in new forms. What this means is that the spirit of the world has constantly renewed its attack on the kingdom of Christ, that it always persists in its resistance to the Spirit of Christ, and that it announces again and again that the world does not need Christ, claiming that the world is capable in every way to overcome its misery and to usher in that state of happiness. Yet history will also show us that this attempt meets with constant failure, and that throughout the centuries the Evangelium sempiternum (the eternal gospel), wherever it holds sway, really does continue to bring peace and happiness. So, in one century Christ awaits those attacks and vain attempts, or waits for the century thereafter, in order to triumph in the fact that these attacks never amount to anything and that they are time and again unabashedly futile. And in the meantime, the course of history proves not to be a goalless one, because as a result of it a higher development constantly establishes itself in human life, new powers are unleashed in it, and human life is enriched by the plurality of available means and by the intensity of what is materially and spiritually expressed.

This will continue until the spirit of the world has spent the last of its energy and no longer has anything with which to oppose Christ. Then the spirit of the world will have to resort to ruses and violence. Then it will become embodied in the antichrist so as to make short work of anything and everything that bears the mark of baptism. Then it will seek to root out the Christian faith. But then it will also become clear that the eternal gospel has stood firm against every higher development of the world, that it has successfully resisted every spiritual attack, that it has withstood the test until the end, and that it now shines in the fullness of its divine perfection. And when the world in its anguish finally sets power over against power, and in an act of desperation turns to violence against Christ, then the end will come, and the power of Christ our King will so immeasurably surpass the world’s power that it will sink into nothingness and Christ will destroy it with the breath of his mouth.

But if the nature of Christ’s kingship is as we have just described it above, how could this kingship ever be limited to the church, the family, or the state, and fail to extend to society as well? Or do we need further arguments to prove that the favorite target of the spirit of the world is social life, so that it may lay its siege, renew its attack on the kingdom of Christ, and oppose Christ’s power with its own power? This is why the statements Holy Scripture makes about the kingship are so comprehensive: he has been given all authority on earth and in heaven [see Matt 28:18]; all things are subject to him [see 1 Cor 15:27]. There are no exceptions. So why, then, would you want to exclude from his kingship that wide terrain of our human existence, where the greatest struggle between the spirit of the world and the Spirit of Christ in fact takes place? If you remove Christ’s power over society from his kingship, his kingship will fall apart.

§ 4 The same is true of our faith in this kingship. You could not properly conceive of this kingship if you were to believe that your King did have a kingly power to exert in his church, in your family, and (in part) in the state, but that you are not under his kingship once you enter society. Sadly, that is how many Christians indeed conceive of things. Furthermore, the lamentable result is that they may pray as priests in church, exercise their piety in their family, and oblige in state matters, but for the rest allow themselves to be swept along by the current of social life as if that part of their lives were unrelated to Christ’s kingship. In society they do still honor the demands made on their conscience from above. They feel that they are still responsible personally; and yet, they do not feel that the scepter of Jesus’ kingship extends also over this wide terrain of life. They do not know that all the turmoil in the world is directed against their King, and they fail to see that their King is active also on this terrain in order to strengthen his people and to bring his spirit to power. The result is, therefore, that Christ’s kingship is not alive for them. They may still confess it as a doctrine, but fail to experience it in their lives. The pivotal statement of their Savior that all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to him [see Matt 28:18] is meaningless to them.

But those who broke with their superficiality and recognized their calling to take Christ’s kingship seriously again felt the need to honor it in every way, to honor it on every terrain, and to honor and recognize it above all on that wide terrain where the largest part of our human existence is played out. And for by far the greatest amount of people this wide terrain is the terrain of society. For women this may be less true than it is for men; but of course, it is also men who are much more active in leading the spirit of the world. Moreover, the women who do participate in this wide social terrain do not do so insofar as they belong to the family but as members of society.

If Christ’s kingship is going to form an unbroken whole that truly guides and leads us along every path, then we undoubtedly also need to open our eyes to the work that his kingship performs in the sphere of society. Every exception that we allowed would break the whole for us. We would at most take refuge in God’s rule over the course of history and over the direction of our lives, and add Christ only insofar as this pertains to the salvation of our soul, but would no longer understand anything of Christ’s kingship outside the church. Our life would pass outside the giant struggle that is being fought between the Spirit of Christ and the spirit of the world. The salvation of our soul would be something separate, set apart from life. Our personal existence would be lifted out of what the Lord God is doing through Christ for our entire human race. We would be torn out of life in its interconnectedness, and the great reversal to occur in the last days would be something that goes on outside us and would concern us at the very most as interested spectators. Therefore, rather than leaving Christ’s kingship over society as an incidental aspect that may be left aside if needed, we should greatly emphasize that the struggle between the spirit of the world and the Spirit of Christ is being fought out especially on this terrain; that those who confess Christ as King fall short in the execution of their duty if they do not go to war with the full armor of the gospel also, and especially, on that terrain; and that those who do not see how significant the battle fought on this terrain is will be weakened in their faith.

God reigns, and indeed it would be altogether godless to reduce the holy God to an idle King, a roi fainéant, for the sake of Christ’s kingship. There is not a single operation of Christ’s kingship in which God is not working, because Father and Son are one. But in the dispensation of sin as it will continue until the final day, our holy God rules instrumentally through the one in whom atonement is found. Here too it is and remains: from God, and through God, and to God are all things [see Rom 11:36]. But until sin has been abolished, no kingly dominion of atonement is even imaginable for us except through Christ, who is God himself, worthy to be worshiped into all eternity.

IV.2

FROM CREATION

You shall not worship the LORD your God in that way.

DEUTERONOMY 12:4

§ 1 The word society [maatschappij] is an unfortunate word. Nowhere did the translators of our Dutch Authorized Version use this word in their translation of Holy Scripture,¹ and even now it is a bookish word that we find in theoretical treatises but that hardly ever occurs in normal conversation. We do hear of specific societies, such as the Railway Society, the Commerce Society, or the Society for the Common Good, but the word society is not commonly used to refer to society writ large, encompassing all human life apart from church, family, and state. The word the Germans chose (Gesellschaft) has a much warmer sound to it. In Dutch we might similarly have spoken about "a gezelschap of the people or human gezelschap," but at the time when Dutch was being consolidated as a language, there was little influence from Germany and a good deal more from France. This is why the French word société was literally translated into Dutch as maatschappij. Initially, people preferred simply to leave such French words untranslated, and spoke of a company [compagnie] or society [societeit], as when the Anabaptists, for example, referred to their churches as a group using the word society. Later on a club or a house for a group of friends was referred to as a society. At first it referred to the circle of friends itself. And when, later in the seventeenth century, resistance grew against such barbarisms and a Dutch word was needed for societeit or société, it was replaced by the formal term maatschappij. A maat (in English mate) is someone who does something together with us, you might say as our companion. Today the diminutive maatje is still current, more than the word maat.