My paper looking at some of Kuyper's critics has now been published:
Saturday, 18 February 2023
Abraham Kuyper and some of his critics
Wednesday, 1 February 2023
Findings 4 is out
Findings 4 has now been published - Theme issue on "Theology."
Available free (PDF) to download from https://www.thumbwidthpress.net/
Go to "Shop" to select items.
Contents:
Kerry Hollingsworth: H Evan Runner – The heart of his vision
Chris Gousmett: What is theology?
Jim Skillen: What is public theology?
Raymundo Mendiola: Are we all theologians? Definition and contours of theology
D F M Strauss: How can we talk scientifically about God?
O. C. Broek Roelofs: Popma’s Philosophical Approach to Theology
Chris van Haeften: Divine reality
Alida Leni Sewell: Paul at Athens: An Examination of His Areopagus Address in the Light of its Historical and Philosophical Background
Thursday, 26 January 2023
A Kuyper Book Club - Reading through Pro Rege 3
KUYPER BOOK CLUB! Kuyper's Pro Rege Vol. 3
A group are going to read Kuyper's Pro Rege Vol. 3 over the next 6 months (starting Feb).
Jason of the Laymen's Lounge, has created a Facebook Group so we can throw up quotes, thoughts, questions, etc.
To join use this QR code
The provisional reading plan is:
Feb. 1-5: pp. 1-18
Feb. 6-12: pp. 19-43
Feb. 1319: pp. 44-68
Feb. 20-26: pp. 69-94
Feb. 27-Mar. 5: pp. 95-119
Mar. 6-12: pp. 120-143
Mar. 13-19: pp. 144-167
Mar. 20-26: pp. 168-186
Mar. 27-April 2: pp. 187-215
April 3-9: pp. 216-241
April 10-16: pp. 242-270
April 17-23: pp. 271-288
April 24-30: pp. 289-315
May 1-7: pp. 316-340
May 8-14: pp. 341-364
May 15-21: pp. 365-380
May 22-28: pp. 381-406
May 29-June 4: pp. 407-431
June 5-11: pp. 432-449
June 12-18: pp. 450-467
June 19-25: pp. 468-475
June 26-July 2: pp. 479-480
Thursday, 22 December 2022
Paul Tyson's A Christian Theology of Science
Friday, 18 November 2022
Justin Bailey’s Interpreting Your World - a review
Interpreting Your World
Five Lenses for Engaging Theology and Culture
Justin Ariel Bailey
Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2022
ISBN-13: 9781540965066
Justin Bailey is an assistant professor at Dordt College. This is a book about culture and theology, a lived-out everyday life. He wrote this book in part “in part because I am troubled by the dismissive tone with which many of my fellow Christians (and particularly my fellow Calvinists) approach culture”.
Karl Marx’s eleventh of his Theses on Feuerbach is: “Philosophers have hitherto only interpreted the world in various ways; the point is to change it.” Here Bailey writes on ways to interpret the world but as Marx observes interpretation must move on to engagement and where needed transformation. But then before transformation must come interpretation.
Culture is an elastic term. Bailey is rightly concerned that we do not adopt a thin view of culture or a reductive view of culture. To avoid that he discusses five lenses or “penta-focal lenses” through which culture can be observed and interpreted. He doesn’t define exactly what he means by culture – perhaps that is deliberate? One of the best definitions is that of Christian philosopher Herman Dooyeweerd – who is surprisingly absent from Bailey’s writings. Dooyeweerd in his Roots of Western Culture describes culture as “… the term culture refers to whatever owes its existence to human formation in contrast to whatever develops in ‘nature’.
Bailey’s five lenses are:
1. The Meaning Dimension: Culture as Immune System
2. The Power Dimension: Culture as Power Play
3. The Ethical Dimension: Culture as Moral Boundary
4. The Religious Dimension: Culture as Sacred Experience
5. The Aesthetic Dimension: Culture as Poetic Project
For each of the dimensions, he identifies a practice. For the meaning dimension the practice is hosting; for the power dimension the practice is iconoclasm; for the ethical dimension the practice is servant hood; for the religious dimension the practice is discernment; and for the aesthetic dimension the practice is making. These provide constructive and interesting insights into how we respond to, approach, and shape culture.
He correctly realises that cultural participation must go beyond resistance and critique. It also needs to include the cultivation of beautiful things. And helpfully identifies some “characteristic flaws” in Christians’ approach to culture:
intellectualism (overreliance on analysis), triumphalism (overestimation of our ability to “transform the culture”), and parochialism (underappreciation of the gifts on the outside).
Sadly, these have often marred a distinctly Christian approach. Hopefully, Bailey’s book will go towards helping alleviate these unbiblical traits.
Bailey notes that
I was attracted to the Dutch “Reformational” tradition because of the way it trained me to recognize the multifaceted glory of creation and the beauty of ordinary life. This tradition has trained me to oppose reductionism at every turn.
And there are obvious echoes of this tradition in what Bailey writes, but, surprisingly, there is no interaction with Dooyeweerd – though Kuyper, Herman and J.H. Bavinck do get some mentions. Dooyeweerd identifies fifteen different modal aspects, and it would have been good to see all of these aspects explored concerning culture.
The book is well written and provides some excellent questions for reflection and discussion at the end of each chapter. The appendix also has a set of thought-provoking questions. Even though this book doesn’t have all the answers to Christian cultural interaction it does pose important questions and offers some wisdom into how we approach culture.
My thanks to Baker Academic for supplying an ARC.
Tuesday, 27 September 2022
Christian Atheists?
Christian Atheist: Belonging Without Believing
Brian Mountford
ISBN 978-1-84694-439-0
John Hunt Publishing, 2011
Tuesday, 6 September 2022
Friday, 2 September 2022
The translators of Herman Bavinck
My piece on "You should know: the translators of Bavinck" is now on line at the Laymen's Lounge
Have I missed anyone?
What needs to be translated into English by Bavink?
Thursday, 1 September 2022
Saturday, 27 August 2022
Neo-Calvinism in Spanish
Thursday, 25 August 2022
Neo-Calvinist doctoral theses: On Vollenhoven, on Dooyeweerd, & on Schilder
Wednesday, 24 August 2022
Tuesday, 23 August 2022
Abraham Kuyper and evolution
My article on Kuyper and evolution has now been published:
Bishop, S., 2022. Abraham Kuyper and evolution. KOERS — Bulletin for Christian Scholarship, 87(1). Available at: https://doi.org/10.19108/KOERS.87.1.2510
Monday, 22 August 2022
Doctoral Theses on Abraham Kuyper
Here are some of the doctoral dissertation on Kuyper
In English
Bacote, Vincent 2002 The role of the Holy Spirit in creation and history with special reference to Abraham Kuyper Drew University.
Campbell-Jack, Walter Campbell 1992 Grace without Christ? The doctrine of common grace in Dutch-American neo-Calvinism University of Edinburgh.
Casey, Ramon J. 1988 Abraham Kuyper’s Political Worldview Regent University, Virginia.
Chiu, Agnes S. 2016. Common Grace and Common Good For China: An Exposition Of Abraham Kuyper And Leo Xiii On Labor Struggles In Twenty-First Century China Fuller Theological Seminary.
Dagley, Logan 2018 The Missional Church As An Institution And Organism: How Abraham Kuyper’s Ecclesiological Distinction Clarifies The Church’s Mission In Relation To Selected Contemporary Missiological Challenges. Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary.
Duk, Kwang 1999 Ecclesiology and social ethics: A comparative study of the social and ethical role of the Church in the views of Abraham Kuyper and Stanley Hauerwas Kampen.
Douma, Jochem 1966 Common Grace in Kuyper, Schilder, and Calvin: Exposition, Comparison, and Evaluation. Lucerna: Crts Publications, 2017.
Greeson, Dennis 2021 Common Grace, Providence, and the Saeculum: Abraham Kuyper’s Theology of Culture Revisited. Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary
Heslam, Peter S. 1993 Abraham Kuyper’s lectures on Calvinism: an historical study Oxford University Published as Creating a Christian Worldview, Paternoster, 1998.
Himes, Brant Micah 2015. For a better worldliness: The theological discipleship of Abraham Kuyper and Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Fuller Theological Seminary, Center for Advanced Theological Study.
Jones, Timothy 2022 Saving Common Grace: Kuyper and Present Possibilities for Public Theology in the UK. King’s College London.
Kaemingk, Matthew 2013 “Mecca and Amsterdam: Christian Ethics between Islam and Liberalism Vrije Universiteit and Fuller Seminary.
Kobes, Wayne A. 1993 Sphere sovereignty and the university: theological foundations of Abraham Kuyper’s view of the university and its role in society Florida State University.
Langley, McKendree R. 1995. Emancipation and apologetics: the formation of Abraham Kuyper’s Anti-Revolutionary Party in the Netherlands, 1872–1880 Westminster Theological Seminary.
Naylor, Wendy Fish 2006 Abraham Kuyper and the emergence of neo-calvinist pluralism in the Dutch school struggle University of Chicago.
Park, Jae-Eun 2016 Driven By God: Active Justification and Definitive Sanctification in the Soteriology of Bavinck, Comrie, Witsius, and Kuyper. Calvin Theological Seminary. Published by V&R, 2018.
Porter, Jacob 2011 Abraham Kuyper’s Sphere Sovereignty: Theological Comparisons And Application To Poverty. Southern Baptist Theological Seminary
Prideaux, Louise 2020 Approaching the Complex, Cultural Other: Towards a Renewal of Christian Cultural Engagement in the Reformed Tradition University of Exeter.
Rooy, Sidney H. 1956 Kuyper vs. Warfield: an historical approach to the nature of apologetics. Union Theological Seminary.
Un, Steven A. 2020 Theology of the Public Sphere: An Interpretation of the Philosophy of Hannah Arendt and Jürgen Habermas from the Perspective of the Theology of Abraham Kuyper with Implications for Public Theology and the Indonesian Context. VU Amsterdam.
Van Heukelom, Raymond R. 1952/53 Abraham Kuyper's view of the function of the church in the world. Northern Baptist.
Wagenman, M.R. 2017. The Power of The Church: The Ecclesiology of Abraham Kuyper. Bristol University and Trinity College. Published by Pickwick Publications, 2020.
Westra, John 1972 Confessional political parties in the Netherlands, 1813–1949 University of Michigan.
Wood, John Halsey, Jr. 2010 Going Dutch in the modern age: Abraham Kuyper’s struggle for a free church in the nineteenth-century Netherlands. Published by Oxford University Press, 2013.
Young, William 1943. The development of a Protestant philosophy in Dutch Calvinist thought since the time of Abraham Kuyper. Union Theological.
In chronological order
Young, William 1943 The development of a Protestant philosophy in Dutch Calvinist thought since the time of Abraham Kuyper. Union Theological.
Van Heukelom, Raymond R. 1952/53 Abraham Kuyper's view of the function of the church in the world. Northern Baptist.
Rooy, Sidney H. 1956 Kuyper vs. Warfield: an historical approach to the nature of apologetics. Union Theological Seminary.
Douma, Jochem 1966 Common Grace in Kuyper, Schilder, and Calvin: Exposition, Comparison, and Evaluation. Lucerna: Crts Publications, 2017.
Westra, John 1972 Confessional political parties in the Netherlands, 1813–1949. University of Michigan.
Casey, Ramon J. 1988 Abraham Kuyper’s Political Worldview Regent University, Virginia.
Campbell-Jack, Walter Campbell 1992 Grace without Christ? The doctrine of common grace in Dutch-American neo-Calvinism University of Edinburgh.
Heslam, Peter S. 1993 Abraham Kuyper’s lectures on Calvinism: an historical study Oxford University.
Kobes, Wayne A. 1993 Sphere sovereignty and the university: theological foundations of Abraham Kuyper’s view of the university and its role in society Florida State University.
Langley, McKendree R. 1995 Emancipation and apologetics: the formation of Abraham Kuyper’s Anti-Revolutionary Party in the Netherlands, 1872–1880 Westminster Theological Seminary.
Duk, Kwang 1999 Ecclesiology and social ethics: A comparative study of the social and ethical role of the Church in the views of Abraham Kuyper and Stanley Hauerwas Kampen.
Bacote, Vincent 2002 The role of the Holy Spirit in creation and history with special reference to Abraham Kuyper Drew University.
Naylor, Wendy Fish 2006 Abraham Kuyper and the emergence of neo-calvinist pluralism in the Dutch school struggle University of Chicago.
Wood, John Halsey, Jr. 2010 Going Dutch in the modern age: Abraham Kuyper’s struggle for a free church in the nineteenth-century Netherlands. Published by Oxford University Press, 2013.
Porter, Jacob 2011 Abraham Kuyper’s Sphere Sovereignty: Theological Comparisons And Application To Poverty. Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.
Kaemingk, Matthew 2013 “Mecca and Amsterdam: Christian Ethics between Islam and Liberalism Vrije Universiteit and Fuller Seminary.
Himes, Brant Micah 2015 For a better worldliness: The theological discipleship of Abraham Kuyper and Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Fuller Theological Seminary, Center for Advanced Theological Study.
Himes, Brant Micah. 2015 For a Better Worldliness: The theological discipleship of Abraham Kuyper and Dietrich Bonhoeffer. PhD Thesis Fuller Theological Seminary, Center for Advanced Theological Study. Published by Wipf & Stock.
Chiu, Agnes S. 2016 Common Grace and Common Good For China: An Exposition Of Abraham Kuyper And Leo Xiii On Labor Struggles In Twenty-First Century China Fuller Theological Seminary
Park, Jae-Eun 2016 Driven By God: Active Justification and Definitive Sanctification in the Soteriology of Bavinck, Comrie, Witsius, and Kuyper.
Wagenman, M. 2017 The Power of The Church: The Ecclesiology of Abraham Kuyper. Bristol University and Trinity College. Published by Pickwick Publications, 2020.
Dagley, Logan 2018 The Missional Church As An Institution And Organism: How Abraham Kuyper’s Ecclesiological Distinction Clarifies The Church’s Mission In Relation To Selected Contemporary Missiological Challenges. Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary.
Harefa, Surya Hadianto 2020 A free church in a free state: the possibilities of Abraham Kuyper's ecclesiology for Japanese evangelical Christians. Kampen.
Prideaux, Louise 2020 Approaching the Complex, Cultural Other: Towards a Renewal of Christian Cultural Engagement in the Reformed Tradition University of Exeter.
Un, Steven A. 2020 Theology of the Public Sphere: An Interpretation of the Philosophy of Hannah Arendt and Jürgen Habermas from the Perspective of the Theology of Abraham Kuyper with Implications for Public Theology and the Indonesian Context VU Amsterdam
Greeson, Dennis 2021 Common Grace, Providence, and the Saeculum: Abraham Kuyper’s Theology of Culture Revisited. Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary
Jones, Timothy 2022 Saving Common Grace: Kuyper and Present Possibilities for Public Theology in the UK. King’s College London.
Non-English theses (thanks to Marinus de Jong @jmarinusdejong) and George Harinck
Friday, 19 August 2022
Doctoral Theses on Herman Bavinck
Recent years have seen an increase in interest in the work of Herman Bavinck. One indicator of this is the number of doctoral theses written on Bavinck.
Tuesday, 9 August 2022
Friday, 27 May 2022
Thursday, 5 May 2022
Johanna Francis, Fields of Orange: A True Welsh Love Story (Aberystwyth: Ylofa, 2022)
Herman Dooyeweerd's daughter, Johanna (Hanny), married a Welsh man and wrote a book about her life:














