Abraham Kuyper

Sphere sovereignty” is the English term used for Kuyper’s Dutch phrase (soevereiniteit in eigen kring). The Dutch here is a little difficult to translate literally, but it has the sense of each sphere having its own unique or separate character. Each cultural sphere has its own place in God’s plan for the creation, and each is directly under the di

The great error of unbelief, then, is the pretense that we are on our own, that we are not accountable to our Maker for anything that we do. The Christian community must live out its calling in the conscious recognition that secularism is false.

Kuyper’s convictions on this subject led him to a very personal decision at one point in his career. He had started off his life as a leader as an ordained Dutch Reformed minister. But when he became active in politics, seeking election in the Dutch parliament, he gave up his ordination. From that point on he was a member of the laity. This decisio

One of Kuyper’s favorite terms was “pluriformity.” He had a fondness for many-ness.

For one thing, he saw in Calvinism’s evolving support for the idea of religious freedom—the advocacy of the rights of diverse churches to pursue their various patterns of life and worship—an implicit endorsement of the idea of ecclesiastical pluriformity.

What human rebellion against the will of God does introduce into the picture is that now we have two very different patterns of cultural formation in the world: cultural disobedience as well as cultural obedience.

Calvinism is well known for its insistence that we are saved by grace alone, and that God “elects” those who are to be recipients of this saving grace. This perspective focuses on human sinfulness and divine sovereignty. Out of sheer mercy God does for human beings what they cannot do for themselves. He reaches into the depths of a human heart and

Our true “enjoyment” includes our flourishing in the kind of participation in created life that God intends for us.

The fact is, Kuyper insisted, that the true church “can reveal itself in many forms, in different countries; nay, even in the same country, in a multiplicity of institutions.”