"If God is sovereign, then his lordship must extend over all of life, and it cannot be restricted to the walls of the church or within the Christian orbit." Abraham Kuyper Common Grace 1.1.
Mike Wagenman as part of an initiative for the Kirby Laing Centre is beginning a reading group looking at Dooyeweerd’s In the Twilight of Western Thought.
He will blog through each chapter on Thinking Faith Network’s FiSCh blog
Details of the reading group are here
Journal for Christian Scholarship
Koers: Bulletin for Christian Scholarship
No longer published
(the archives of the journals are available on www.allofliferedeemed.co.uk)
Rudi Hayward’s Reformational Readings and Roots of Western Culture YouTube https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCn-LoMSQ6ZXwwTPIqXK6G1Q
https://herunner.wordpress.com/
http://herman-dooyeweerd.blogspot.com/
Dick Stafleu http://www.mdstafleu.nl/
Reformational Digital Library: https://reformationaldl.org/
Research gate:
https://www.researchgate.net/search.Search.html?type=publication&query=Reformational%20philosophy
Academia.edu: https://home.academia.edu/search?q=reformational%20philosophy
My slides for the Reformational Philosophy Conference Panel 8: Digital initiatives for Reformational philosophy:
Their aim is:
is to develop research on the possibilities of Kuyper’s thoughts for contemporary Asian Christians and appropriations of his ideas while pondering the uniqueness of each country in Asia.
Thumbwidth Press and the All of Life Redeemed International Seminars Project is pleased to announce the publication of Findings, Issue 2. This is available free from
https://www.thumbwidthpress.net/shop
Contributions to this issue are:
Editorial: Bruce Wearne – Inspiration and Update
Isaac Njaramba Mutua – In Search of My True African Christian Identity: Journey from a dualistic to a holistic view of reality
Egbert Schuurman – Enlightenment of the Enlightenment
Mark Roques and Steve Bishop – Stewardship Epistemology
Chris Gousmett – Researching all that is “under the sun.” Creation order, the limits of science and the error of speculation in the thought of Antheunis Janse
Antheunis Janse – Translation: “The work of God that happens under the sun”
Bruce Wearne – Book Review: “The Frog and the Fish: Reflections on Work, Technology, Sex, Stuff, and Happiness.”
Issue 1 is still available, free at the same website.
If you are interested in discussing the Reformational approach to philosophy and other academic disciplines, you are welcome to join the email list:
https://groups.google.com/g/refoscholarship
Circa 1998 the Mythnet/Thinknet group was formed for such discussion. The Reformational Scholarship Discussion [RSD] list continues its purpose.
Important:
1) If you want to access the email list's google group website, you need to join with a gmail/google account.
2) Those using a non-gmail address can still join, be members of the list, send messages and replies, etc... but they can only do so from their email, not from the group website.
3) If you want to join with a non-gmail email address, contact RSD list admins <refoscholarship+managers@googlegroups.com>
4) A day or so after joining, if you don't otherwise see it, check your spam/junk folder for the welcome message or confirmation.
More information is here:
Mike Wagenman has a great piece in the Banner:
“Abraham Kuyper: Cancel or Celebrate?”
W. Robert Godfrey has a presentation on Kuyper
Abraham Kuyper did not ignore the realities that the church faced in the modern world. In this last lesson, Dr. Godfrey maps out Kuyper's vision of a pluralistic society that would not hinder our freedom to be Christians.
Mark Roques utilising some Kuyperian insights looks at:
Schedule:
Thursday 30 September “Why Faith in Democracy?”
Thursday 14 October, “Christianity and Secularism”
Thursday 28 October “Political Engagement by Faith Communities
8.00 am UK time
Full details and booking are available here
More details here [pdf]
Mike Wagenman and my paper on Kuyper’s apologetics has been published.
Bishop, S., & Wagenman, M. . (2021). Abraham Kuyper on Apologetics. Tydskrif Vir Christelike Wetenskap | Journal for Christian Scholarship, 57(No 1&2), 1-18. Retrieved from https://pubs.ufs.ac.za/index.php/tcw/article/view/540
Ashford, B.R. & Bartholomew, C.G. 2020. The Doctrine of Creation: A Constructive Kuyperian Approach. Downers’ Grove, Ill: IVP Academic.
Bishop, S. 2020. Abraham Kuyper: Cultural Transformer. Foundations, 79 (Autumn): Online: http://www. affinity.org.uk/foundations-issues/issue-79-article-4-abraham-kuyper-cultural-transformer.
Caudill, D.S. 2020.The Dutch Effect: Kuyper and Neo-Calvinism in Professor Cochran’s Scholarship. Pepperdine Law Review, 47(2):419-434. Available at: https://digitalcommons.pepperdine.edu/plr/ vol47/iss2/13.
Ford, B. 2020. Neoliberalism and Four Spheres of Authority in American Education: Business, Class, Stratification, and Intimations of Marketization. Policy Futures in Education, 18(2):200-239. https:// doi.org/10.1177/1478210320903911.
Freire, L.G. 2020. Abraham Kuyper and Guillaume Groen van Prinsterer as Anti-Rationalist Liberals. Journal of Church and State, csaa029, https://doi.org/10.1093/jcs/csaa029.
Freire, L.G. 2020. Christian ethics and entrepreneurship in an interventionist economy. In Christian ethics and political economy: Markers for a developing South Africa (Reformed Theology in Africa Series Volume 3) CapeTown: AOSIS, p.137–149. https://doi. org/10.4102/aosis.2020.BK220.05.
Gay, J. 2020. On Education by Abraham Kuyper. Church Times, 28 August. Online https://www. churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2020/28-august/books-arts/book-reviews/on-education-by-abraham- kuyper. Date of access: 29 August 2020.
Harinck, G. 2020a. Abraham Kuyper’s Vision of a Plural Society as a Christian Answer to Secularization and Intolerance. (In V. Karpov, M. Svensson (eds.), Secularization, Desecularization and Toleration: Cross-Disciplinary Challenges to a Modern Myth. Palgrave MacMillan, 115-133.) https://doi. org/10.1007/978-3-030-54046-3_6.
Harinck, G. 2020b. On Doing What Is Just, Right and Fair: Essay on a Dutch Example. In die Skriflig, 54(1), a2646. https://doi.org/10.4102/ids. v54i1.2646.
Kristanto, D. 2020 Is the Creation Under Destruction? Abraham Kuyper and Herman Bavinck on New creation. Veritas: Jurnal Teologi dan Pelayanan, 19(2):189–200.
Kuyper, A. 2020a. Ever in Thy Sight. 31 Devotions on the Psalms. Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press.
Kuyper, A. 2020b. Common Grace: God’s Gift for a Fallen World Volume 3. Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press.
Mouw, R. 2020. Abraham Kuyper’s Lectures on Calvinism. In Michael Allen and Scott R. Swain (ed.) 2020. The Oxford Handbook of Reformed Theology. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p.328-341. https:// doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198723912.013.2.
Oslington, P. 2020. The Kuyperian Dream of Reconstructing Economics on Christian Foundations. Faith & Economics, 75(Spring):7-36.
Schuurman, D.C. 2020. On Kuyper and Technology, or How a Voice From the Past Can Speak to our Digital Age. Christian Scholar’s Review, 49(2):161-174.
Stiemsma, S. 2020. The Presence of the Past: A Review of Abraham Kuyper’s On Education. Pro Rege, XLIX (1):43-47.
Sumpter, J. 2020. A Short Introduction to Abraham Kuyper’s Lectures on Calvinism. Moscow, ID: Francis Drake Press.
Vander Stelt, J.C. 2020 Faith Life and Theology: A Reorientation. Jordan Station, ON: Paidiea Press.
Wagenman, M.R. 2020. The Power of the Church: The Sacramental Ecclesiology of Abraham Kuyper. Eugene, OR: Pickwick Publications.
Yoo, Jeong Mo 2020. How Is God Known?: General Revelation in the Theology of Abraham Kuyper. Reform & Revival. (Journal of Korean Institute for Reformed Studies), 26: 181-226. https://doi.org/10.36365/ kukirs.2020..26.181.
The Reformed Pastor
Richard Baxter; updated and abridged by Tim Cooper
Crossway Books
Hardback; 176 pp; £18.50
ISBN 978-1-4335-7318-7
Richard Baxter (1615-1691) was known as 'Scribbling Dick' because of his prodigious writings. He was born Rowton, Shropshire. When a teenager he was influenced by the works of William Perkins, Richard Sibbes and Edmund Bunny. In 1638 he became the master at the free grammar school in Dudley, where he was ordained by the bishop of Worcester, John Thornborough. The main part of his ministry took place in Kidderminster at St Mary and All Saint's Church (1647-1661). During the Civil War he left Kidderminster as a chaplain to the parliamentary army, but later returned to Kidderminster. In 1662 he married and retired to Middlesex after being part of the Great Ejection bought about by the Act of Uniformity.
He was a prolific writer and wrote over 140 books. It was during his first spell at Kidderminster that he wrote The Reformed Pastor in 1656. That is the book is still in print today is and merits a new abridged edition is a testimony to its impact and longevity. James I. Packer named it among one of the five books that have most influenced him. Packer described Baxter as “the most outstanding pastor, evangelist and writer on practical and devotional themes Puritanism has produced”.
This is not the first time this book has been abridged - the standard edition was edited and abridged by William Brown in 1829 and republished by The Banner of Truth Trust in 1974. The BoT edition still used archaic language. What Tim Cooper has done is to make this book much more readable and accessible. It is also much shorter, but still keeps the key message of the book.
Cooper is no stranger to Baxter. He is author of Fear and Polemic in Seventeenth Century England: Richard Baxter and Antinomianism (Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing, 2001), John Owen, Richard Baxter and the Formation of Nonconformity (Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing, 2016), and co-editor of Richard Baxter: Reliquiæ Baxterianæ: Or, Mr Richard Baxter's Narrative of the Most Memorable Passages of his Life and Times (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020). Thus, he is well equipped to abridge and edit this book.
Cooper has added a useful summary at the beginning of each chapter. A series of pertinent and challenging questions also conclude each chapter. This adds to the value of Baxter’s book.
What Baxter puts forward in this book is a call for church ministers to take pastoral work seriously. This for Baxter entails, not only teaching and preaching from the pulpit but also daily visitation. Visitation includes private instruction with the use of a catechism - it is one-to-one personal discipleship. He stresses the need for pastors to know themselves and to know their flock.
What Baxter is very good at is exploring the motives behind the nature of pastoral work. He is both an encourager and an exhorter. He deals extremely well with possible objections to the nature of this type of ministry and pulls no punches.
Baxter held to a view known as neo-nomianism, and there are traces of this that can be seen in his (over)emphasis on the need for faith and repentance and human autonomy; sometimes his exhortation comes close to legalism. This does not detract from the importance of this book - it should be required reading for all pastors.
Thanks to Crossway for a review copy of this book.
Over at the Layman's Lounge is my family tree of Calvinistic philosophy - concentrating primarily on neo-Calvinists.
It has gone through several drafts - with helpful comments from Gregory Baus, Derek Schuurman and Jet Weigand-Timmer.
This is the latest iteration (click on the image to enlarge it):
The Baptist Times has a piece by Mark Roques on his excellent new resource for creative faith sharing. You can read it here.
Wordbridge Publishing has announced two new books:
Hoedemaker, P.J. 2021. The Politics of Antithesis
A translation of three short works by P. J. Hoedemaker that evaluate Abraham Kuyper’s prime ministry, along with Rudben Alvarado's commentary and contextualizing apparatus. Further information is available here
My paper on Abraham Kuyper's view of the natural sciences has now been published in Koers.
The pdf is available here.
These four books will be coming soon:
Jonathan Chaplin 2021. Faith in Democracy. London: SCM
Jessica and Robert Joustra (eds) 2021. Calvinism for a Secular Age. Downers Grove: IVP
Hector Acero Ferrer et al. (eds) 2021. Seeking Stillness or the Sound of Wings. Eugene, Oregon: Wipf & Stock
Mathew Kaemingk (ed.) Reformed Public Theology. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic.
Dooyeweerd identified 14 and later 15 modal aspects within creation.
Different terms have been used by Reformationals scholars over the years to describe these aspects - and some have modified the number and the order of them. I have attempted to show some of these changes in the diagram below.
(The order is from earlier to later aspects)
KLC ONLINE CONCERT:
Full Circle: From Lament to Praise and Back Again
Zoom Event: Saturday 15 May, 7-9PM U.K. time
You can read it here:
James C. Schaap on being a Christian [stone]mason:
... writing is no different from, say, laying cement. If a Christian mason wanted to witness to the Lord's saving grace in all that he did, and if he determined therefore that he would only fashion crosses in cement, eventually the poor guy wouldn't have many customers. If he wanted to be the best mason he could be he'd have to know every last thing there to know about laying concrete and erecting block walls. He'd have to ensure that his driveways would be flat and smooth, that they'd hold their set for decades. He'd have to know the very best mix. In short, he'd be far better off studying masonry than preaching. That's also true for bassoon players, garbage collectors, stand up comedians, and Zamboni drivers.
Schaap, James C. 1998. Our Family Album. Grand Rapids, MI: CRC Publications
Gregory Baus has produced a YouTube based on the article he and I wrote on Herman Dooyeweerd:
An introduction to Dooyeweerd by Gregory Baus and me is now live on Laymen's Lounge.
https://thelaymenslounge.com/you-should-know-dooyeweerd/
Laymen's Lounge have posted my piece introducing the Dutch Christian philosopher D.H.Th. Vollenhoven - check it out here
The Journal for Christian Scholarship have posted online two of my book reviews:
Charles E. Cotherman To Think Christianly: A History of L'Abri, Regent College, and the Christian Study Center Movement
Andrew Basden Foundations and Practice of Research: Adventures with Dooyeweerd’s Philosophy
The Laymen's Lounge has posted an excellent article by Rudi Hayward on sphere sovereignty.
It is well worth checking out.
Mark Roques introduces Iron Sharpens Iron, and our new evangelism resource Slave Chronicles and Dangerous Faith.
Also included is a tentative analysis of strands of Christianity and how they would answer key questions:
