Abraham Kuyper The Problem of Poverty (Dordt College Press, 2011)

The Problem of Poverty
Abraham Kuyper
Edited and introduced by James Skillen
Dordt College Press, 2011
ISBN 978-0-932914-87-3
94pp; pbk

In 1891 Abraham Kuyper opened the first Christian Social Congress in the Netherlands with an address "The social problem and the christian religion". This speech has now been made available by Dordt College Press (DCP).

This version was translated by James Skillen and was originally published by Baker Book House and The Center for Public Justice in 1991. A previous translation by Dirk Jellema was made available by under the title Christianity and the Class Struggle (Piet Hein, 1950). The original Dutch version Het sociale Vraagstuk en de Christelijke Religie was published in 1891 by Wormser.

Skillen's updated translation reads much more fluidly than Jellema's. The advantage of this DCP edition is that it includes Skillen's excellent introduction and concludes with a reprint of an excellent article on 'How Abraham Kuyper became a Kuyperian' by Roger Henderson. These two pieces are worth the price of the book alone and help place Kuyper within the historical, political and cultural milieu in which he was speaking.

The mind map below gives a summary of Kuyper's ideas in the book.