Abraham Kuyper : A Centennial Reader

by Kuyper, Abraham

• ISBN13: 9780802843210
• ISBN10: 0802843212
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1998-02-01
• Publisher: Lightning Source Inc

Summary

This volume gathers sixteen writings by Abraham Kuyper never before available in English. Freshly translated and rendered in a clear, accessible style, these works present an excellent cross-section of Kuyper's wide-ranging Christian mind. The volume includes Kuyper's definitive statements on politics, education, culture, and the religious currents and social problems of his time. Also included are Kuyper's own conversion narrative, his critiques of Modernist and of Keswick holiness theology, his proposals on common grace and Calvinist politics, his reflections on a culture in thrall to pantheism and evolution, and his classic address on "sphere sovereignty." Editor James Bratt provides helpful explanatory notes and an introduction to each piece. Photographs, cartoons, and short excerpts from some of Kuyper's better-known works make this an attractive volume that will stand as the definitive Kuyper anthology for years to come.

Table of Contents

Foreword	x	(1)
Ronald A. Wells
Editor's Note on the Selections	xi	(2)
Acknowledgments	xiii
Introduction Abraham Kuyper: His World and Work	1	(18)
THE DOCUMENTS	19	(472)
Beginnings	19	(46)
Uniformity: The Curse of Modern Life (1869) First piece of systematic cultural criticism	19	(26)
Confidentially (1873) Narrative of Kuyper's conversion	45	(20)
Church and Theology	65	(140)
Conservatism and Orthodoxy: False and True Preservation (1870) Farewell sermon at Utrecht	65	(22)
Modernism: A Fata Morgana in the Christian Domain (1871) Seminal critique of theological liberalism	87	(38)
"It Shall Not Be So Among You" (1886) Sermon upon Kuyper's ouster from the Dutch National Reformed Church	125	(16)
Perfectionism (1879) Critique of Holiness theology	141	(24)
Common Grace (1902-4) The hinge of Kuyper's constructive theology	165	(40)
Politics and Society	205	(158)
Maranatha (1891) Keynote address at Antirevolutionary Party convention	205	(26)
Manual Labor (1889) Newspaper articles on the "social question"	231	(24)
Our Instinctive Life (1908) Articles on human nature and party organization	255	(24)
Calvinism: Source and Stronghold of Our Constitutional Liberties (1874) History and principles of Calvinist political conviction	279	(44)
The South African Crisis (1900) Critique of British imperialism	323	(40)
Culture and Education	363	(128)
The Blurring of the Boundaries (1892) Pantheism as the hallmark of nineteenth-century European culture	363	(40)
Evolution (1899) The deleterious philosophy and consequences of evolutionary naturalism	403	(38)
Common Grace in Science (1904) Constructive statement on epistemology	441	(20)
Sphere Sovereignty (1880) Inaugural address at the Free University: the summa of Kuyper's thought	461	(30)
Selected Bibliography	491