The political theology of Abraham Kuyper by Mateusz Wichary

Review of Saving the Reformation by W. Robert Godfrey

Saving the Reformation
The Pastoral Theology of the Canons of Dordt
W. Robert Godfrey
The Reformation Trust
ISBN 978-1642890303
255 pp, Hbk, £14.08
Publishers website:


It is at the Synod of Dordt (1618-1619) that the Calvinistic orthodoxy was forged on the anvil of Arminianism. The Calvinistic orthodoxy has often been described as the five points of TULIP - although the Synod of Dordt developed what has become known as the five points, the acronym TULIP was not part of the formulations at Dordt.

TULIP does not sum up Calvinism. Even if it does sum up the discussions at the Synod of Dordt - although the order here was ULTIP.  Godfrey, a professor of church history at Westminster Seminary, California, in this fresh look at the Canons of Dordt, makes a pertinent point:

“Calvinism is summarized in full confessional statements such as the Heidelberg Catechism, the Belgic Confession, and the Westminster Confession of Faith.”

The aim of this book is to help Christians “appreciate the important work of the Synod of Dort in the history of the church.” Godfrey focuses on the ”fundamentally religious convictions of the synod and the canons.” In this Godfrey does an excellent job. He succeeds in showing the importance of the synod and of the canons in Reformed theology. What is missing, however, is a critical engagement with the philosophical presuppositions that were inherent in the confession - South African, Christian philosopher, Bennie van der Walt, has done this, though his main work is in Afrikaans, a useful summary in English is found here. This though is undoubtedly beyond Godfrey’s remit. And Godfrey seems happy with the Reformed scholasticism that is at times evident in the confessions.

The first part of the book examines the historical and theological background to the synod and goes on to look at the character and the work of the synod.

The second part provides a new ‘Pastoral’ translation and in part 3 there is an extremely accessible and engaging exposition of the canons. This alone is worth the price of the book. There are several appendices, including a helpful brief biography of Arminius And a detailed outline of the canons.

Godfrey has succeeded in what he set out to do. Anyone who wants an introduction to the synod and its canons could do no better than start here.

Ethics in Brief

Ethics in Brief was a publication produced by the Whitefield Institute and then by KLICE. It is now published as Ethics in Conversation

Other articles are available here.

Here are some of the selected highlights from the series:

Cal Bailey 2008. Building God’s Empire or Ours? The Purpose of Work in Business

Andrew Basden 2009. Ethics of Information Technology

Andrew Basden 2015. The Rise and Demise of Thomas Cook Travel: A Case Study of the Relevance of a Christian Approach to Business

Jonathan Chaplin 2013. Nicholas Wolterstorff, Justice in Love – a review and response.

Jonathan Chaplin 2009. Talking God: The Legitimacy of Religious Public Reasoning

Jonathan Chaplin 2012. A time to marry - twice

Jonathan Chaplin 2017. Understanding Liberal Regimes of Tolerance

Philip Sampson 2015. The Curious Case of the Kind Evangelicals

Maarten Verkerk  2008. Reading the ‘Two Books’: a Christian approach to organisational leadership 


Whitefield Briefing:

Andrew Basden 2000. Towards a Biblical View on Politics 

Campbell Campbell-Jack 1997. Culture: Growth Towards Glory

Peter Heslam 2005. The Role of Business in Making Poverty History:Liberation versus Transformation

David I. Smith 2001. Christian Belief and the Spirituality of Education

Interview with David Koyzis on Political Visions & Illusions

David, it's been over three years since the last interview (here) when We Answer to Another was published - what has happened in the intervening years?

Well, I'm no longer teaching, and I am effectively retired. This has given me time to work on a second edition of Political Visions and Illusions, which was published at the start of the century and was in need of an update.

That book went through several printings and now has been revised. Were you surprised at its success?

No and yes. No, because it filled a gap in the literature that I first noticed when I began teaching just over three decades ago. I found plenty of books that treated political ideologies, but I couldn't locate one that did what I thought needed to be done. So I wrote my own. Eventually, it went through 12 printings, the last two of which were in late 2017. I am, of course, pleased that it was picked up by so many politics instructors for use in the classroom.

But there were a couple of things that surprised me. First was the success of the Portuguese translation and Brazilian edition, titled Visões e Ilusões Políticas, published by Vida Nova in São Paulo in 2014. I've made a huge number of contacts in that country over the past few years, and well over half my so-called “friends” on Facebook are Brazilians. I am hoping that Vida Nova will translate the second edition as well. I've also received an offer to translate We Answer to Another, but I've heard nothing concrete on this as yet.

Second, I was not expecting that PV&I would be used profitably in theological seminaries. That prompted one important addition to the new revision, which I'll get to in a moment.

I have to ask then—what is new in this edition?

Quite a bit actually. The most significant change is a tweaking of the central thesis, in which I connect political ideologies with idolatry—the making of a god out of something the true God has created. Soon after the first edition was published, I began to think of the stories each of the ideologies tells—a redemptive narrative that parallels the biblical story of salvation in Jesus Christ. This angle I got from my friend and former colleague, Mike Goheen, and from the man on whom he wrote his dissertation, Bishop Lesslie Newbigin. The new edition provided me the opportunity to rework the book so as to adjust its focus.

The second chapter on liberalism may have seen the most changes, because liberalism itself has changed since the start of the century. The longstanding effort to recast as many communities as possible as mere voluntary associations has taken a malignant turn in recent years. What began as an effort to expand and enhance individual freedom has effectively produced a climate in which this freedom has become the mere satisfaction of desires, with the larger society expected to affirm these desires indiscriminately. Those who persist in believing that such institutions as state, church, marriage and family answer to norms irreducible to the subjective wills of contracting individuals are increasingly vilified as narrow-minded and bigoted. The five stages in the development of liberalism that I described in the first edition no longer follow a linear progression. If the choice-enhancement state, the fifth stage, is followed through to its logical end, I believe it will foment the sorts of society-wide conflict that will lead to the Leviathan state of Hobbes, that is, it will double back to the first stage.

In recent years I have also come to see more clearly the importance of the institutional church for political life. In the first edition, my understanding of the church was primarily as the larger body of Christ living out its members' diverse callings throughout the broad array of life's responsibilities. But in a “Concluding Ecclesiological Postscript,” I now undertake to explore the role that the institutional church—the gathered community of the faithful meeting for worship and catechesis—might play with respect to political life. This will make the book even more relevant for ministers in training at seminaries, or even for seasoned parish clergy grappling with their roles in equipping their members for living out the kingdom in their daily lives.

Finally, at the end of the book are discussion questions for each chapter.

What are the key arguments of the book?

Well, I believe that political ideologies, such as liberalism, conservatism, nationalism, democratism and socialism, have each got something right. Liberalism is right about individual liberty. Conservatism is right about tradition. Nationalism, democratism and socialism are right about communal solidarity. However, each goes astray at precisely the point where it has seen a genuine truth. Liberals make too much of individual freedom at the expense of the legitimate claims of community. Conservatives stick with tradition, but they are often unable to distinguish between the positives and the negatives in a particular tradition. As I indicated earlier, each of these ideologies follows an implicit redemptive narrative, a story that parallels the biblical story of creation, fall, redemption and consummation. This is most evident in Karl Marx and his heirs, but it can be found in the others as well. Conservatism is a bit different, but I won't go into that here. The religious roots of the ideologies have escaped most of the writers on the subject, which is why I wrote the book in the first place.

Who is it aimed at and why should they get hold of a copy?

The book can speak to virtually any educated person, although the primary audience is a Christian one. Many Christians understand that they are saved only through Jesus Christ and that they are called to live in gratitude for this salvation through the empowering of the Holy Spirit. Yet it's not always evident to them that this has implications for their life in the larger culture and society. Some Christians do get involved in politics, but such involvement may take the form of crusades on this or that particular issue. My book is an effort to get them to think more deeply about the spiritual foundations of political life.

If you think social conservatism is deficient, if you have doubts about the so-called social justice warriors, if you think populism may not be bringing the best leaders to the fore, then this book is for you!

What do you make of the current attraction for white evangelicals of Donald Trump?

I must admit, this came as a surprise to me. I didn't think Trump was a serious candidate at first; I thought he was merely trying to increase his brand recognition. Perhaps that's what he thought too. Some evangelicals appear to have sold their souls for Trump, but I don't think that's true of everyone. Many Americans voted less for him than against his opponent. Why?

Well, today's Democratic Party appears to have embraced all the logic—and illogic—of what I call the choice-enhancement state. You may have seen this statement from the US Supreme Court's decision in Planned Parenthood vs. Casey (1992): “At the heart of liberty is the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life.” The Court is claiming to make each of us into a god, but this is incompatible with life in community, where we are bound together by norms irreducible to our private predilections. The Democratic Party has run with this expansive understanding of liberty, but in so doing it is threatening the liberties of real communities with their own nonliberal traditions. What we are now seeing in the Trump presidency is the predictable backlash against this.

However, the Republicans have embraced a different side of the liberal agenda, and it revolves largely around economic choice and the market. Both Democrats and Republicans have embraced the expansive ego, and both are tending towards an unhealthy statism, as Patrick Deneen has so lucidly explained in Why Liberalism Failed (2018). Trump is by no means the answer to this. As I see it, he is only a symptom of what's wrong in American public life.

Any observations for those of us currently undergoing Brexit?

As with Trump, I understand the motivations behind those voting to leave the European Union. Having to answer to so-called “eurocrats” in Brussels has irritated many Britons, whose insular geography has protected them from so many European tyrannies over the centuries, the most recent of which was three-quarters of a century ago. 

However, I don't see why the EU needs to be a symmetrical federation along the lines of the United States, Germany and Australia. Here in Canada we have been compelled by our circumstances to experiment with an asymmetrical federalism in which Québec relates to Ottawa somewhat differently than the other nine provinces. Spain has done something similar with its regions. There is no reason why the EU could not consist of a more tightly integrated core, consisting perhaps of Germany, France, Italy and the Benelux countries, while other member states have a looser association with Brussels. The Maastricht Treaty of 1992 offers the principle of subsidiarity, often associated with Catholic social teachings, as a means of differentiating the powers of Brussels and the member states:

In areas which do not fall within its exclusive competence, the Community [or the EU] shall take action, in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity, only if and in so far as the objectives of  the proposed action cannot be sufficiently achieved by the Member states and can therefore, by reason of the scale or effects of the proposed action, be better achieved by the Community. Any action by the Community shall not go beyond what is necessary to achieve the objectives of this Treaty.

If this division of powers is taken seriously, it should be possible for the United Kingdom to remain in the Union while retaining its independence in domestic and much of foreign policy as well. Perhaps it's too late for that now, but the continual postponement of the departure date would seem to indicate that a lot of people are having second thoughts. Perhaps it's time for another shot at making EU membership work in a way that fits Britain's unique needs and aspirations.

Are there any other projects you are working on?

Well, a few years ago I wrote a series of reflections on the Heidelberg Catechism which I hope to publish at some point.

I have also worked out a quite detailed sketch of another major book on the relationship between political culture and political institutions. I've given this project the provisional title, “The Real Constitution.” For those of us in the tradition of Abraham Kuyper, I think we have not always been sufficiently aware of the cultural soil in which our political systems grow and develop. This cultural soil has religious foundations that cannot be called into existence by manipulating political institutions. Americans think their 18th-century founders were skilled constitutional engineers who produced something approaching a perfectly balanced system, but virtually every country that has tried to replicate these institutions for itself has ended up a presidential dictatorship. What is lacking in these countries is the culture of self-governance to which Americans had become practised during the colonial era. Culture matters much more than we are often aware.

What books have had the most influence on your life?

Well, this may seem like a terrible cliché, but the Bible has easily had the most influence. Over the decades I have maintained a regimen of daily morning and evening prayer, praying through the Psalms every 30 days (as prescribed in the Book of Common Prayer), and reading the Old and New Testaments in course. Every time I read through its books, I see something I hadn't seen before. I was raised in a Bible-reading household, I worshipped in a Bible-believing church, and I still love God's written word.

Al Wolters' Creation Regained remains an inspiration for me and for so many others. I was privileged to sit under Wolters' teaching at the Institute for Christian Studies, and I still have the handwritten notes I took—the nucleus of what would become Creation Regained a few years later!

Other books include H. Richard Niebuhr's Christ and Culture, Abraham Kuyper's Lectures on Calvinism, Jim Skillen's The Scattered Voice and Bob Goudzwaard's Idols of Our Time. 

Groen van Prinsterer

Bruce Ashford reviews Van Prinsterer's Unbelief and Revolution:  How an Obscure Dutch Historian Helped Me Understand 2019

A new PhD on Van Prinsterer:

Schlebusch, J. (2018). Strategic narratives: Groen van Prinsterer as Nineteenth-Century Statesman Historian. [Groningen]: University of Groningen.

Through the application of Carr’s narrative approach to the study of Groen as simultaneously statesman and historian, for the first time a holistic picture of Groen as Anti-Revolutionary public figure emerges, casting new light on the political strategies behind his public engagement. This enables a fresh appreciation of Groen’s historical significance for constitutional democracy in the Netherlands

James Skillen's new book: God's Sabbath with Creation

James Skillen has a new book published by Wipf &Stock:

God’s Sabbath with Creation: Vocations Fulfilled, the Glory Unveiled
Wipf & Stock, an imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers
ISBN 978-1-5326-5949-2 / paperback / $35

Full details are here

Jim was interviewed as part of the book launch - with Jim's permission I've reposted it here.


1. What do you offer in this book?
First, I am showing, on a biblical basis, that human responsibilities in this age matter for the age to come. Second, I’m presenting a distinct interpretation of Genesis 1-2 as the story of God’s days, which encompass all of creation from beginning to fulfillment. The text is not first about the “beginning of time.” Third, the book is a biblical, covenantal interpretation of the unfolding of God’s disclosure of creation’s meaning, all the way to God’s sabbath with creation. That climactic sabbath will include the full disclosure of the Alpha and Omega, Jesus Christ, whose work will be finished only when he comes again in final judgment and redemptive reconciliation. That will be the the time of God’s sabbath rest (the seventh day of creation) when humans will rest from their labors in God’s rest (see Heb. 4).

2. What is the audience for your book?
Any educated person with an interest in the Bible, in the meaning of creation, and the meaning of human life should find this book rewarding. Among such “educated persons,” those who will have special interest are seminary and university professors, pastors, and students who work in areas of biblical studies, theology, ethics, and pastoral care. The book deals with serious matters in a serious way, but it is not written for experts alone. One need not have a seminary or graduate school education to read it with profit.

3. How is the book structured and how does it progress?
First of all, the book shows my dependence on, and interaction with, a large number of authors in diverse areas of life. I have chosen three authors in particular as interlocutors with whom I converse throughout the book: N.T. Wright, Jurgen Moltmann, and Abraham Kuyper. They are introduced in the Preface.

The book has seven main sections, each containing 4 or 5 relatively short chapters. Part 1 develops the primary interpretive argument of the seven days of God’s creation. Part 2 looks closely at four of creation’s “revelatory patterns”: honor and hospitality, commission towards commendation, revelation in anticipation, and covenant for community. Part 3 presents an overview of the developing and cumulative disclosure of God’s covenantal bond with the human genertaions. Part 4 deals with the relation of the first Adam to the Last Adam. Part 5 takes up the peculiar biblical duality of the “already” and the “not yet” of the revelation of Christ and the coming of God’s kingdom. Part 6 shines new light on the relation of God’s covenant with Israel to the new covenant in Christ. And in the light of all that has been presented up to this point, Part 7 addresses questions about how we should live as followers of the Way, the Truth, and Life.

4. What led you to write this book?
Early in my college years I began to ask what it means to be human. I was not satisfied that traditional Christian liturgies, confessions, and theologies in which I had been raised offered enough to provide an answer. Serious and prolonged study of the Bible (including a seminary degree) and pursuit of my vocations in marriage, family, citizenship, teaching, and more led me to realize that Jesus is not first of all the savior of sinners, and humans are not first of all sinners. The incarnate savior is first of all the one through whom all things are created and hang together, and humans are first of all the creature made in the image of God to be the chief stewards, priests, and governors of creation. Therefore the sin-and-salvation story of the Bible needs to be located more firmly and comprehensively in what the Bible tells us about creation, human vocations, and God’s purposes and goal for creation. Fifty years of studying, teaching, and service in the political arena, have driven me to the completion of this volume.

5. What is your education and experience that grounds the book?
My early questions about “the meaning of life” led me to major in philosophy at Wheaton College, from which I graduated in 1966. Next was a three-year seminary degree at Westminster Theological Seminary where I studied Hebrew and Greek as part of the basic curriculum. My wife and I then traveled to The Netherlands where I studied philosophy for a year and where I became interested in Dutch politics and government. In 1970, we returned to the States where I completed my PhD at Duke University (1974), majoring in political philosophy, comparative politics, international relations, and Christian ethics.

My education after the Duke Years was in the trenches of college teaching, the birth and growth of our two children, and becoming involved in the founding of a civic education and research organization, the Center for Public Justice, which I directed full time from 1981 to 2009. Through the work of that center, I traveled throughout the country and to many parts of the world—east, west, and south—participating in conferences, learning about the multiple vocations of countless people in many different countries.

6. What impact do you hope your book will have?
My primary hope is that people of Christian faith will be inspired to join with others in reflecting on the importance of their earthly vocations and to change their view of life and their daily habits to pursue their calling to follow Jesus in faith, hope, and love. Of course, I hope that many university and seminary professors will engage the book in their classrooms and that graduate students in biblical studies, theology, ethics, politics, and many other fields will take on one or more of the theses in the book when writing their theses. And most important of all, I hope that pastors will look at and preach from the Bible in new ways, having read this book, and that many adult Bible-study groups will read and discuss it.

Neo-Calvinism Research Institute

The neo-Calvinism Research Institute has a newly launched webpage. It is well worth checking out and bookmarking

https://www.neocalvinism.org/

George Harinck's 2018 Bavinck Lecture: Neo-Calvinism in International Perspective

Herman Bavinck Lecture 2018 • Theologische Universiteit Kampen from TUKampen on Vimeo.

Harinck looks at the Neo-Calvinism in international perspective.

He begins with three important methodological observations:

1. In the past Christianity has largely been an 'export' from Europe. In the last century this has changed; Europe is no longer the centre. However, it has not been replaced by other centres; it has become poly-centric.

2. Neo-Calvinism has been previously studied under the history of ideas. However, ideas do not stand on their own, there is an economy of knowledge. Knowledge is not independent of context. Too long it has been thought of as a box of ideas, but now the stress is on interactivity.

3. Andrew Walls saw the spread of Christianity as a series of shifts marked by migration. Migration helps us to understand the transfer of neo-Calvinism to North America. There is a bilateral interaction - cross-pollination, where knowledge is less important than personal relationships. ideas are often the contexts.

Harinck poses the question why was neo-Calvinism more attractive to North America than say, Scotland or Switzerland?

He looks at three important heralds of neo-Calvinism in the US.
Nicholaus M. Steffens (1839-1912)
Henry E. Dosker (1855-1926) and
Gerhardus Vos (1860-1949)