Neo-Calvinism

 

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Distinctives Five Points (TULIP) Covenant Theology Regulative principle

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Influences Theodore Beza John Knox Jonathan Edwards Princeton theologians

Churches Reformed Presbyterian Congregationalist Reformed Baptist

Peoples Afrikaner Calvinists Huguenots Pilgrims Puritans Scots

Neo-Calvinism, a form of Dutch Calvinism, is the movement initiated by the theologian and former Dutch prime minister Abraham Kuyper.

Introduction

James Bratt ^[1] has identified a number of different types of Dutch Calvinism: The Seceders—split into the Reformed Church “West” and the Confessionalists; and the Neo-Calvinists—the Positives and the Antithetical Calvinists. The Seceders were largely infralapsarian and the Neo-Calvinists usually supralapsarian.

Neo-Calvinism has been described in the following way:

Neocalvinism is postmodern Calvinism. Neocalvinism is a global cultural movement that is the result of people motivated by the religious dynamic of the Reformation trying to get to grips with the historical consequences and implications of modernity. ^[2]

Kuyper wanted to awaken the church from what he viewed as its pietistic slumber. He declared:

No single piece of our mental world is to be sealed off from the rest and there is not a square inch in the whole domain of human existence over which Christ, who is sovereign over all, does not cry: ‘Mine!’ ^[3]

This refrain has become something of a rallying call for Neo-Calvinists.

Emphases of Neo-Calvinism

• Jesus is lord over all of creation. Jesus’ lordship extends through every area and aspect of life — it is not restricted to the sphere of church or of personal piety.

• The idea that all of life is to be redeemed. The work of Jesus on the cross extends over all of life — no area is exempt from its impact. All knowledge is effected by the true knowledge of God through redemption in Christ.

• Cultural Mandate. Genesis 1:26-28 has been described as a cultural mandate. It is the mandate to cultivate and develop the creation. There is a historical development and cultural unfolding. Some Neo-Calvinists hold that the Cultural Mandate is as important as the Great Commission.^[4]

• Creation, fall and redemption. God’s good creation has been disrupted by the fall. Redemption is a restoration of creation.

• Sphere sovereignty (Souvereinitet in eigen kring). Each sphere (or sector) of life has its own distinct responsibilities and authority as designed by God — for instance, communities dedicated to worship, civil justice, agriculture, family, etc. — and no one area of life is sovereign over another. Hence, neither faith-institutions nor an institution of civil justice (that is, the state) should seek totalitarian control or any regulation of human activity outside their limited competence.

• A rejection of dualism. Dualisms are (purportedly false) bifurcations, dichotomies, contrasts, or oppositions, such as the dualism between nature and grace that dominated much of Scholasticism. In the Neo-Calvinist view, nature is the God-created and sustained cosmic order, not a "non-supernatural" category, and grace is God's means of renewing the cosmic order, it is not something "non-creational" added onto nature (albeit eschatological in consummated glorification of bodily resurrection to eternal life and cosmic transformation of the new heavens and earth).

• Structure and direction. Structure denotes created laws and norms for things, and created things themselves. Direction denotes relative deviation or conformity to norms; primarily regarding the central orientation of the human heart toward or away from God in Christ.

• Common grace. God providentially sustains the created order, restraining of possible evils and giving non-salvific good gifts to all humanity despite their fall into sin, God's curse, and his eventual condemnation of the unredeemed.

• The antithesis. There is a struggle in history and within every person — between submission to and rebellion against God; between the kingdom of light and the kingdom of darkness; between the age to come (already inaugurated in Christ) and this present evil age (of sin).

• World views. Neo-Calvinists reject the notion that theoretical thought can be religiously neutral. All thinking and practice is shaped by world views and religious ground motives. For the Neo-Calvinist, life in all its aspects can be shaped by a distinctively Christian world view.

• The role of law. For Neo-Calvinists, "Law" is more than the Mosaic Decalogue, or even the entire abiding moral will of God. Law is, rather, the order for creation (or creation ordinances) established by God and includes a variety of types of cultural norms including physiological, psychological, logical, historical, linguistic, social, economic, aesthetic, juridical, and faith norms.

Notes

Key individuals associated with Neo-Calvinism

• Guillaume Groen van Prinsterer
• Abraham Kuyper
• Herman Bavinck
• Herman Dooyeweerd
• D. H. Th. Vollenhoven
• E. L. Hebden Taylor
• H. Evan Runner

Neo-Calvinist institutions and organizations

• Kuyper Foundation
• Calvin College
• The Center for Public Justice
• The Christian Labour Association of Canada
• Dordt College
• Arrowhead Christian Academy in Redlands, California
• Free University in Amsterdam
• Institute for Christian Studies, Toronto, Canada
• Redeemer University College
• The Work Research Foundation

Key texts

• Abraham Kuyper Calvinism: Stone Lectures

References

• James Bratt Dutch Calvinism in Modern America, Wipf and Stock; original Eerdmans (1984).
• James Bratt “The Dutch Schools” in David F. Wells (ed.) Reformed Theology in America (Baker, 1997).
• James E. McGoldrick Abraham Kuyper: God’s Renaissance Man (Welwyn, UK: Evangelical Press, 2000).
• Richard J. Mouw “Dutch Calvinist philosophical influences in North America”, Calvin Theological Journal, 24 (1) (1989): pp. 93-120.
• Chuck Colson and Nancy Pearcey. How Now Shall We Live? (Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, 1999), p.295.

External links

• Kuyper Foundation
• Information About Neocalvinism
• Historic Calvinism and Neo-Calvinism
• Dutch Neo-Calvinism and the roots for transformation: an introductory essay (PDF file)
• Derek Melleby’s series on Neo-Calvinism: Neocalvinism 101
• All of life redeemed
• Al Wolters “What is to be done ...towards a neocalvinist agenda?”

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