Kuyperiana
Readers of my publications listed under Boeriana
will notice a certain perspective common to all of it. In most
cases it is there as background. In some cases it is more
explicitly spelled out as in:
- Christians and Mobilization;
- Caught in the Middle, Chapter 15;
- Missionary Messengers...., pp. 484ff
- Missions: Heralds...., Ch. 9.
- Studies in Christian-Muslim Relations, Vol. 1,
"Introduction".
- See Point 6 below.
This perspective is known to its adherents by various
names, the most common ones being "Kuyperianism,"
"Reformational," and "Neo-Calvinist." It stands in the
Calvinist tradition, but is a further development of it
pioneered by a movement in The Netherlands that centers on a
man called ABRAHAM KUYPER (1837-1920).
In the paragraphs below I reproduce what some leading
Christians in North America have said or written about
Kuyper.
A. James E. McGoldrick
In his English-language book on Kuyper, Abraham Kuyper:
God's Renaissance Man, (Evangelical Press, 2000), author
James E. McGoldrick introduces him as follows:
While common people have always been the backbone and
mainstay of the church, exceptional leaders such as
Augustine of Hippo..., John Wycliffe, Martin Luther and John
Calvin have appeared at crucial times to serve their
undistinguished brothers and sisters in the faith. Such a
champion... appeared in the second half of the nineteenth
century when Abraham Kuyper became the dynamic leader of
Protestants in the Netherlands.
Kuyper was a person of massive intelligence, immense
learning, terrific energy and zealous faith. He... received
great adulation from...the working and lower middle classes,
many of whom struggled to survive economically and few of
whom could afford a higher education. Throughout his long
career as a pastor, journalist, educator and political
leader, Kuyper maintained close contact with the common
people and communicated with them effectively, even though
he was far above them in intellect and formal learning (pp.
7-8).
Goldrick's list of heroes is hardly exhaustive and should
certainly have included Thomas Aquinas, but the position he
ascribes to Kuyper is clear. He may not be as well-known in
English-speaking culture, but that is because of language
problems, not because he does not deserve to be there.
B. Charles Colson
Colson was a powerful White House personality who was
involved in Nixon's Watergate and landed in prison. His prison
experience led him to become a Christian and he now is a major
national spokesman in the US for the Christian community with
his radio programme Breakpoint and his Prison Fellowship
campaign. He is a popular speaker. I have witnessed him waving
Kuyper's Stone Lectures,
delivered at Princeton University over a century ago, before
his audiences as containing the seed perspective needed for
the healing of America. In the Introduction to Colson's A Dangerous Grace we read,
"The great Dutch Calvinist Abraham Kuyper said the battle
facing Christians today is between comprehensive life
systems--in which principle must bear witness against
principle, worldview against worldview, spirit against
spirit."
This is the burden of Colson's writings: to develop a
bibilically-grounded worldview. The name Kuyper occurs
throughout his books. The development of a Biblical worldview
was/is a major concern in both Kuyper's writings (Kuyperiana)
and my own (Boeriana).
C. Robert Butler
Robert Butler is an Afro-American who sought for a
perspective or platform from which to launch a ministry in the
inner city. After a long search he settled on the Kuyperian
perspective. He explained, "I found the Kuyperian model to be
exactly what I was looking for." (Calvin Mosaic, Spring
2000).
D. Richard Lovelace
A much-published American authority on revivals and
spirituality. In a recent lecture on Kuyper, he pleaded that
Christians should pray for 500 Kuypers with his intellect and
Spirit-filled mind.
E. H. Evan Runner
This Irish-German American philosopher who died in March,
2002, wrote the following some decades ago: "After nineteen
centuries of history the Church is here for the first time in
possession of a worked-out theoretical accounting of the world
of culture and of the Christian's relation to it."
F. Dr. Joel Carpenter
Joel Carpenter, formerly of Pew Foundation and now Provost
at Calvin College, has outlined the way this school of thought
is influencing Christian higher education throughout North
America and producing leading scholars. It is a perspective as
wide as life itself and world affirming. As Carpenter put
it:
Kuyper's solution to the problem of competing worldviews
in his native Netherlands was to embrace pluralism and to
emphasize the value-laden, commitment-driven nature of
knowledge. He reasoned that people quite naturally formed
communities of the like-minded that shared a singular view
of reality, a distinctive pattern for living and a
socio-political agenda. A just society would recognize this
social, intellectual and religious pluralism and encourage
the various communities to negotiate the common good.
Likewise, Kuyper insisted, one's knowledge of the world
was inevitably coloured and shaped by one's prior
commitments-most fundamentally, religious
commitments-concerning the nature of reality. Knowing was
never value-free; science could not be completely objective.
Scientific naturalism thus had no claim to a privileged
position over against other worldviews.
Kuyper was not calling for the fragmentation of public
life, however. Given God's common grace, he argued, there
would be much overlap in human's efforts to understand
nature and humanity, and thus opportunities for
conversation, debate and negotiation, both in learning and
politics. Yet the social-intellectual and religious
differences that drove outlooks and agendas were real, and
they should not be forced into unitary national
establishments, whether religious, intellectual or
political. Various communities of faith and values could
play public roles, yet not feel compelled to choose between
domination, accommodation or withdrawal. They would have the
social and intellectual space to work out their particular
convictions, but would retain the right to put their ideas
into play on an equal basis.
G. John Vriend
The late John Vriend--he died suddenly in February,
2002--was a professional translator of Dutch literature that
came out of the Kuyperian movement. He told me that he was
getting enough letters of inquiry from all over the world that
he came to the tentative conclusion that the real Kuyper
century was not the 20th but the 21st. Well, the world could
do worse.
H. John H. Boer (myself)
In the list of Boeriana, there are two titles directly
related to Kuyper:
- You Can Do Greater Things than
Christ (78 pages)
Out of print. Available in
photocopy from me.
- "The Role of the Holy Spirit in
Social Development According to Abraham Kuyper: 29
Propositions." (6 pages)
Available from me.
In addition to the above, in the "Introduction" to Vol. 1
of my Studies in Christian-Muslim
Relations, I summarize a number of key Kuyperian ideas
that are pertinent in any Christian-Muslim dialogue. Quite
apart from their utility in Christian-Muslim dialogue, I
reproduce them here as my further contribution to the
dissemination of the Kuyperian perspective.
- Kuyper developed his perspective in response to
19th-century secular liberalism in The Netherlands that had
become oppressive and intolerant. Kuyper countered it with a
type of thorough-going pluralism that would allow full scope
to all groupings in society to blossom on their own terms,
even the secularism that he considered demonic. This was
starkly different from secularism that denied others the
freedom to define themselves and sought to force them to
live by its definition. Specifically, secularism invariably
seeks to force religion into a straightjacket of private
spirituality and individualism that restricts its expression
to a so-called sphere of religion, that is, church or
mosque. It seeks to reduce the scope of religion to the
sphere of the subjective, while it regards secular knowledge
as objective and neutral and exclusively suitable for the
public square. Kuyper's form of pluralism would allow for
the unfettered development of all religions or
worldviews--note the plural--on their own terms, not as
defined by secularism, though including secularism.
- Kuyper posited the primacy of the religious impulse in
human life. The human race is, first of all, a religious
race, a race of believers. This is in contrast to
Rationalism, which emphasizes the rational as the centre
piece of human life. Everything is based on objective,
neutral reason. Reason is the neutral platform on which all
people can meet and reason with each other. It is not a
matter of "religion within the bounds of reason," as Kant
would have it, but, rather, of "reason within the bounds of
religion," as Wolterstorff of Yale put it so aptly in the
title of his book.
Marxism, another strong contender for human loyalty,
emphasizes the economic aspect as foundational and sees all
culture evolving on basis of economic interests.
Empirically, Marxism is probably closer to the facts than is
rationalism. There is a close affinity between the influence
of economic and religious factors. There is a strong mutual
influence on each other. One can argue that there is even a
kind of confluence of Kuyper and Marx here, for when people
give priority to their economic interests, that interest has
in fact become the centre of their religion and life, a new
idol. Their religious life imperceptibly changes to
accommodate their economic status. I have seen it happen in
my own denomination.
Kuyperianism focuses on religion as the basis of all
human life, with religion seen as the point of ultimate
loyalty and value in the lives of individuals and
communities. . All the other aspects are shaped by the basic
categories of the dominant religion, faith, beliefs or
worldview in a given society. Of course religion and the
other aspects mutually influence each other, but when all is
said and done, the foundation of it all is the religious or,
if you prefer, faith or worldview.
Among other things, this means that there is no neutral
zone in life like politics, economic or science, where we
can all meet as neutral, rational people. Though Nigerian
Christians sometimes seek a solution to the Christian-Muslim
controversy in that direction, it is a lost cause, for all
these cultural areas rest on that often hidden foundation of
worldview, faith or religion. Kuyperian Christians share
this insight with Muslims. They have, apparently, come to it
independent from each other. Unfortunately, many Christians
have been misguided into a dualistic scheme that separates
religion from these other areas. The implications of this
dualism will become clear as we proceed.
- Religion is not only the basis of a life, but it is also
comprehensive or wholistic in nature. Again, this is an
insight that Kuyperians share with Muslims. Both traditions
emphasize that religion is a way of life, not merely a slice
of life or a sector that belongs to the realm of church and
mosque. Both Kuyperians and Muslims produce books and
articles exploring the relationship between economics,
politics, and other cultural aspects to their religion and
regard the latter as basic to it all. Both reject secularism
because it seeks to compartmentalize religion and restrict
it to a small area of life, to the personal and private. It
squeezes religion into a narrow mold that does not fit its
genius. Again, unfortunately, Nigerian Christians have by
and large inherited a secular definition of their religion,
an inheritance that has deprived them of more relevant tools
in their relationship with Muslims.
- Bare facts are inaccessible to us. We all see facts
through the grid of our worldview or faith, never as they
are in themselves. We always observe through the colour of
our lens. This explains why people with different lenses
often interpret the same events in opposite ways as if they
are looking at different realities. During colonialism,
missionaries and nationalists in Nigeria interpreted
colonialism in opposite ways as I have shown in my 1979
publication. In this book, too, it will become very plain
that Christians and Muslims interpret the religious
situation in Nigeria in opposite ways. Though the objective
reality may be the same for all, their worldviews drive them
into opposite interpretations of the "facts." It is an
objective of this book to aid both parties to look through
the other's lens, if not to come to full agreement, at least
to reach some degree of mutual understanding.
- The human race is appointed as God's vice-gerent or, as
Muslims tend to call it, God's khalifat. Humanity represents
God in this world and is expected to develop it. Christians
know this command as the "cultural mandate." Most varieties
of Christianity have unfortunately downplayed this Biblical
teaching and separated this cultural mandate from the great
commission, a separation that has also encouraged the
trivialization of their religion. In fact, though almost all
Christians know about the commission, few are aware of the
mandate. In Kuyperian thought this mandate is as crucial as
it is in Islam.
- Kuyperianism recognizes along with Islam an antithesis
between the Christian or Muslim religion and all other
worldviews. There is a basic foundational difference between
these religions and competing worldviews that drive them
into different directions and account for the different
national and regional cultures of this world. This is an
antithesis between the Spirit of God and all other spirits.
Both religions are keenly aware of this antithesis. Both are
also aware of the fact that this antithesis can run right
through the heart of so-called true believers, for all
experience this battle of the spirits in their own lives
when, for example, serious inconsistencies occur between
their official religion or worldview and their behaviour.
However, Kuyperianism also recognizes common grace, a
term referring to the Spirit of God working in and shaping
truth even in philosophies and religions that reject
Christianity. The basic antithesis between them remains
active deep down in the foundation, but it is relativized at
the surface level due to the fact that the Spirit of God
reveals important truths to all religions and cultures.
Because of this common grace, Kuyperianism gratefully
recognizes many aspects of truths in other worldviews or
faiths and is thus ready to cooperate with them. That is
also the reason I appreciate so much of Islam. The current
mode in Islam, certainly among Fundamentalists, is to
emphasize the antithesis at the expense of common grace
considerations. The result is a strong rejection of any
truth in other religions and a militant affirmation of
"Islam alone." It has led to a high degree of intolerance.
No doubt, this current rejection on the part of Islam is
that they have woken up from their colonial and secular
slumber and are angry that they have been subjected to such
humiliation. In the current atmosphere of anger and
re-assertion, there is little room for anything but
antithesis.
- Evangelicals and Charismatics are very much steeped in
individualism and concentrate on individuals, while their
Liberal and Ecumenical counterparts have tended to be more
concerned with communities and structures. The Kuyperian
tradition will have none of these one-sided perspectives and
gives both their due, individuals and communities, people
and structures. The tradition has created structures in
various cultural sectors that were to be guided by basic
Christian perspectives. Christian newspapers, universities
and colleges, labour unions, housing co-operatives,
political parties have all been part of the history. The
reason for these was the insight that all of these
organizations are expressions of different worldviews,
faiths, sets of beliefs and values. When the underlying
worldview is secular, this does not render them neutral but
makes them pursue their goals along secular lines that
excludes many Christians principles. Today, Muslims,
especially the Fundamentalist variety, are deeply aware of
the difference between Islam and secular worldviews as they
undergird the various social structures. Hence, like
Kuyperians, they are in the process of establishing all
kinds of alternative Muslim structures and write extensively
about the differences they expect these to make for them.
- The Kuyperian tradition has a strong emphasis on
pluralism. It was born, remember, during a time when
19th-century secular Liberalism sought to force all people
in The Netherlands into one spiritual or worldview mode,
namely that of secularism. The quote from Carpenter
summarizes the perspective sufficiently for my purposes at
this point. Muslims have always claimed tolerance as their
hallmark, but today they are not known by others for it. The
Kuyperian version may help both Christians and Muslims to
develop a genuine sense of pluralism in Nigeria, for it is a
form that allows each community to remain true to itself. It
is a threat to domination of one group over another; it is a
friendly tool to those who really wish for constructive
co-existence.
- A major motivation for much of the above was Kuyper's
concern for the poor. His was not merely an abstract
philosophical or academic concern. The vision was surely
marked by such abstractions, but underneath it all lay his
passion for the poor and the oppressed. This is one aspect
that has largely gotten lost in the subsequent Kuyperian
movement. As the constituency moved up the economic and
political ladder, the passion for the poor largely gave way
for more middle class concerns. In North America most
adherents of Kuyperianism are found in academic and
ecclesiastical institutions where the philosophical and
theological aspects claim the major attention. Though Kuyper
formed, among other institutions, a Christian labour union
in order to empower the poor, today Christian labour unions
have rough sledding among most North American Kuyperians.
When I personally took up the challenge of empowering nurse
aids and other hands-on caregivers to Michigan's elderly by
attempting to organize them under the umbrella of the
Christian Labour Association, I met a solid front of
stonewalling in the Christian Reformed Church, the major
heir to Kuyperianism in North America. The focus of interest
is now on correct ideas more than on passion for the poor.
After all, the homes for the aged are owned by members of
this constituency and organizing their employees is now seen
as a threat to their economic interest. Every ideology, even
the best, is subject to tinkering and emasculation when the
economic status of its adherents has changed upward. Not
only is Carpenter's quote above useful as a summary of major
Kuyperian thoughts, it is also illustrative of this changed
focus in that it avoids any reference to Kuyper's passion
for the poor. I am not suggesting that Kuyperians are the
only Christians with this passion. Of course not! However,
in his own day, Kuyper was definitely ahead of most of his
fellow contemporary Christian leaders in providing
structures that were effective in overcoming poverty in the
long run. His was not the individualistic ameliorative soup
kitchen approach; he dealt with the structures needed to
overcome the problem itself.
I introduce Kuyperianism into the Nigerian discussion
because it gives Nigerian Christians an alternative to the
secular perspective they have inherited from missionaries
who were not always aware of the issues or their
implications. It is also a perspective that is increasingly
recognized internationally and sought after for its positive
potentials for a Christian approach to the world and other
religions on a global scale. This perspective is hereby
offered as a more legitimate interpretation of the Christian
gospel that simultaneously is one both Christians and
Muslims should be able to live, work and dialogue with. It
could become the basis for more fruitful relations between
the two faiths. It would enable Christians to withdraw the
red flag of secularism they are constantly waving before
Islam and that evokes so much negative passion in the Muslim
heart over the last century that it has sprouted today's
terrorism. May our political leaders become more conscious
of the role their secularism has played in creating an
atmosphere of terrorism, while they are challenged to check
out this Kuyperian perspective in their efforts to find a
solution beyond their counter-terrorism. American and
Canadian authorities especially will do themselves a favour
when they contact Center for Public Justice (Washington DC)
and Citizens for Public Justice
(Toronto--www.cpj.ca). |
