Author: Jonathan Dodson

This new book looks like a great reference tool. Tom Oden gives it a hearty endorsement:

Ron Heine has written Reading the Old Testament with the Ancient Church for a wide variety of readers: pastors, New Testament and patristics scholars, and general lay readers. This is a very helpful introduction to the ways the ancient Christian writers viewed the Scriptures. Heine comes to the subject with a significant grasp of both primary sources and contemporary scholarship. The argument is illuminating and inspiring.”–Thomas C. Oden

Read an excerpt here.

I will be in San Fran with my lovely wife until Tuesday. My thoughtful brother, Luke Dodson (Masters from Oxford in Sociology), has agreed to guest blog a few posts. I’ll look forward to reading them when I am back. Enjoy!

Kuyper’s convictions regarding the sovereignty of God over all of life pressed him to advocate comprehensive reform in both the public and private sectors. He believed Christian education was essential to sustain the life and purity of the church. As a result he called for the formation of Christian schools that would weed out modernist philosophy and provide Christians with a biblical worldview. The Anti-Revolutionary party perceived an antithesis between secular Modernism and Christian Calvinism and affirmed God’s authority over all of creation. This included civil government, but did not advocate a theocracy. Instead, Kuyper sought a separation of church and state into separate but not alien “spheres of authourity” (more on this in Part III). The party also insisted that God’s moral laws should be the foundation for the governance of the nation. In 1874, with the support of the beloved kleine luyden (common people), Kuyper entered Parliament, accepted a seat in the Second Chamber, and resigned as minister of his church in Amsterdam.

Although Kuyper was required to give up his clerical participation in the Church, he continued to serve as an elder, defender, and teacher during his political career. Shortly after taking his seat in Parliament, Kuyper formed a coalition with the Roman Catholic party in order to gain greater political advantages in moral societal reform. In 1889 the Protestant-Catholic coalition successfully secured the passage of an Education Act, allowing private schools to obtain one-third of their support from public funds. During the same year, they scored another triumph in the Labour Act, which protected women and children from exploitation in the factories. Opposition rose against Kuyper, drawing fire especially from the liberals in higher education. Kuyper had proposed the formation of a Christian University founded on a biblical theology of Reformed orthodoxy, which was to inform and integrate all the disciplines with a view to social, cultural, and ecclesiastical renewal (also known as theological integration). Essentially, Kuyper advocated an educational philosophy that promoted a fully integrated Calvinistic Weltanschauung. Despite opposition, the Free University of Amsterdam opened for classes in 1880, starting with five students, five professors, and plans for five colleges (liberal arts, theology, law, medicine, and natural science).

Kuyper maintained that two main educational models exist. The first is driven by secularists and is committed to the autonomy of man; whereas, the second is formulated by confessional Christians and is committed to the sovereignty of God. Contrary to secularist’s claims, Kuyper asserted that neutrality toward God is not possible and that all learning begins with assumptions of faith, whether positive or negative. As a result he called for academic pluralism, which would require the state to honor both approaches to learning. Kuyper was a professor at the Free University from 1880-1901, during which he was unable to obtain legal recognition and accreditation from the state. However, in 1901 Dr. Kuyper was selected to be the prime minister of the nation and introduced a bill that became a law in 1905, granting full legal standing for private universities and schools.

Part I: Kuyper’s Conversion

In his book To Live in Peace: biblical faith and the changing inner city, Gornik rehearses John Perkins’ (Voice of Calvary) well-known “three Rs” for justice and reconciliation: relocation, reconciliation, and redistribution.

• Relocation – following the example of the incarnation, we are to live where we want to make an impact.
• Reconciliation – pursue vertical and horizontal reconciliation with God and man, across barriers of gender, ethnicity, class, and culture
• Redistribution – use your resources as a Christian to promote justice for the poor through sharing time, money, gifts, and skills.

Many have used the three Rs in pursuing justice in the city. This framework is undoubtedly biblical and helpful, challenging and redemptive. However, it is not meant to be a prescriptive program but a descriptive ecclesiology. As Gornik notes, justice and reconciliation are not programs of the church; they are the church, a community that is “constitutive of ecclesial life in union with Christ and in action in the world.”

Yet, in Gornik’s pursuit of an authentic, gospel-driven urban justice and reconciliation, he discovered that another R was needed–repentance. This R, he claims, needs to precede the other Rs. “Repentance means owning sin ans an offense against God but also moving forward to a new way of obedience, a turning in a different direction…” Repentance in taking responsibility for the brokenness, pain, and oppression in the city.