Sublime

In 1897, at the twenty-fifth anniversary of his editorship of De Standaard, Dr. Kuyper said: “One desire has been the ruling passion of my life. One high motive has acted like a spur upon my mind and soul. And sooner than that I should seek escape from the sacred necessity that is laid upon me, let the breath of life fail me. It is this: That in sp

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.

Kuyper’s followers are fond of quoting the manifesto he issued at Free University’s inaugural convocation: “There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is sovereign over all, does not cry ‘Mine!’

I wrote above my Weekly paper the motto—“A free Church in a free State.”

Or is it the duty of the government to suspend its own judgment and to consider the multiform complex of all these denominations as the totality of the manifestation of the Church of Christ on earth? From a Calvinistic standpoint we must decide in favor of the latter suggestion. Not from a false idea of neutrality, nor as if Calvinism could ever be

The secularist perspective rightly wants to liberate these spheres from the church’s control. Where it goes wrong is in its insistence that to do so is also to take them out from under the rule of God. If there is a God, the secularists have said, he can have the church—but we will liberate everything else from divine control. Kuyper’s own view—his