Description: In this anthology of articles and reflections, Kuyper articulates a Christian vision for engaging with society. Though his analysis was intended for his late-nineteenth-century Dutch context, his thoughts remain strikingly relevant for Christians living in the modern world.
Brief description: Abraham Kuyper (1837-1920) was one of the most extraordinary individuals of his time. A prolific intellectual and theologian, he founded the Free University in Amsterdam and was instrumental in the development of Neo-Calvinism. He was also an active politician, serving as a member of Parliament in the Netherlands beginning in 1874 and serving as Prime Minister from 1901 to 1905. At this intersection of church and state, he devoted much of his writing toward developing a public theology. His passion was to faithfully understand and engage culture through a Christian worldview. The most famous example is his articulation of the doctrine of common grace. His work has influenced countless others, including Francis Schaeffer, Cornelius Van Til, and Alvin Plantinga.
Review Quotes:
English-speaking inquirers into Kuyper's formidable and influential social, economic, and political thought have so far had to rely on a restricted set of translated works mostly presenting his ideas in a general way. This collection offers us Kuyper in fine grain―steeped in the dynamics of European culture and politics, powerfully seized of the complex and fast-moving events of his day, and strikingly able to show how Scripture speaks effectively to those events. On social justice, poverty, labor, civil liberties, democracy, the place of the family, and much more, Kuyper is repeatedly a fresh and arresting read, even when we must depart from his specific analyses and prescriptions.
―Jonathan Chaplin, director, Kirby Laing Institute for Christian Ethics; member of the divinity faculty, University of Cambridge