A Theologian Becomes Prime Minister

A Theologian Becomes Prime Minister

How would you like to have a godly theologian lead your nation?

ON October 29, 1837, a son was born to the pastor of the Reformed state church in Maassluis, the Netherlands. His name was Abraham Kuyper, but his family called him “Bram.”

Growing up in a pastor’s home, young Kuyper felt himself more repulsed by than attracted to the church. Yet when he enrolled at the University of Leiden, he took the pretheology curriculum. At this time the theological faculties of the Dutch universities were being taken over by Modernism, which exalted human reason over divine revelation. Kuyper did not escape this influence. He entered the university a person of orthodox faith but within a year and a half had become a religious liberal.

Right before he was to enter the Leiden University Divinity School in 1858, his favorite undergraduate professor encouraged him to enter a theological essay contest comparing Calvin’s view of the church with that of a Polish Reformer named Jan Laski. Kuyper scoured the libraries of Holland for the writings of Laski but found almost nothing. When he was about to give up his search, he suddenly found that his professor’s father had the most complete collection of Laski’s writings in all of Europe. Kuyper attributed this discovery to a direct act of the living sovereign God, and it had a profound effect upon his life. For the first time he began to experience doubt about his liberal theology.

The next major event in Kuyper’s religious pilgrimage was reading an English novel given to him by his fiancée. It was The Heir of Redclyffe by the Christian author Charlotte Mary Yonge. Kuyper so identified with the proud hero of the story that when the hero knelt and wept before God with a broken and contrite heart, Kuyper did the same. The transaction that occurred at that moment Kuyper would only understand later. But from that moment on he found himself despising what he once admired and seeking what he once despised.

The final step in his pilgrimage came in his first pastorate. In his church was a group of individuals of low social status who knew more about the Bible than he did. They had a Calvinistic worldview that he envied, even though he had a doctorate in theology. The debates Kuyper had with these folk proved to be short lived because before long they had convinced him that the Bible taught God’s sovereign grace. He later wrote, “Their unremitting perseverance has become the blessing of my heart, the rise of the morning star for my life.” The wisdom and faith of these simple people taught him to find rest for his soul “in the worship of a God who works all things, both the willing and the working, according to his good pleasure.”

Now fully embracing orthodox Calvinism, Kuyper held major pulpits in Utrecht and Amsterdam. Taking up the cause for private schools, he joined the Anti-Revolutionary Party, which opposed godless revolution and made orthodox Calvinism a political force. Eventually he became the head of the party and beginning in 1874 served repeatedly as a member of one or the other of the houses of the Netherlands legislature. He edited his party’s daily newspaper and wrote 16,800 editorials for it. In 1880 Kuyper and others founded the Free University of Amsterdam, dedicated to a Reformed theology. Kuyper became the professor of systematic theology.

In 1886 Kuyper led a break from the state church, founding “The Reformed Churches in the Netherlands.” In the subsequent years he did his theological writing, authoring the Encyclopedia of Sacred Theology in 1898, Calvinism in 1899, and The Work of the Holy Spirit in 1900.

In 1901 Abraham Kuyper became prime minister of the Netherlands, holding the position for four years. As prime minister he was used of God to shape a nation.

Reflection

God created the institutions of church, state, and family—all three. So many Christians just seek to represent God in one or two of these. Abraham Kuyper was the supreme example of the well-rounded Christian who represented God in all three. Have you neglected one or more of these institutions? Determine that you will seek to represent God in all three.

Show respect for everyone. Love your Christian brothers and sisters. Fear God. Show respect for the king.

1 Peter 2:17