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Abraham Kuyper and the Rise of Neo-Calvinism in the Netherlands

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

Justus M. van der Kroef
Justus M. van der Kroef
Affiliation:
Michigan State College, East Lansing, Mich
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Extract

Few men in modern Dutch history have played such a significant role as Abraham Kuyper. A theologian of European renown, a church reformer whose activities lastingly changed the existing church order in his country, a statesman who during five decades of an active political career combined his religion with a unique theory of government, and last but not least, a journalist and outstanding man of letters, Kuyper, during the course of his long life, placed a stamp upon the civilization of the Netherlands which it never was to lose. The immense breadth of his intellect, sustained by a tremendous energy, allowed him to speak with authority on subjects ranging from Calvin's concept of grace, through Islamic architecture, to the future of colonial reform, and earned him the epithet of Abraham de Geweldige (Abraham the Magnificent). His greatest achievement, however, was the foundation of a system of religious dogma upon which he erected a political and social philosophy which in the Protestant Netherlands since 1850 was the only one of lasting influence.1

Type
Research Article
Information
Church History , Volume 17 , Issue 4 , December 1948 , pp. 316 - 334
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Church History 1948

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References

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27 Notably the relation between Paul and the communities in Acts, 11, 15, makes Kuyper's position invalid. Cf. Vos, G. J., Het Keerpunt in de Jongste Geschiedenis van Kerk en Staat (Dordrecht, 1887), 62–6.Google Scholar

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60 Cf. Feikema, R. E., De Totstandkoming van de Schoolwet van Kappeyne (Amsterdam, 1929)Google Scholar, Chap. II-III, passim; and van der Mandele, K. E., Het Liberalisme in Nederland (Amsterdam, 1937), 184–189.Google Scholar

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