https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/themelios/article/beginning-at-the-end-of-all-things/
The theology and thought of Abraham Kuyper (1837-1920) is riddled with contradictions. On the one hand contemporary Dominionists wishing to posit a monistic view of society will quote Kuyper's famous dictum : '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!'
It's a pretty bold statement suggesting the boundaries of the Kingdom are all encompassing and there can be no room for dissent.
And yet Kuyper is also rightly identified with being the architect of a pluralist order in which Reformed Confessional Christians could operate alongside other Christian factions and unbelievers and their collaborative efforts could collectively contribute to the advancement of the Kingdom of God.
The first statement sounds like he's throwing down the gauntlet and charging his hearers to take up the cause of conquest and forge a monistic and sacralist order. The second sounds like he's traded conquest for a modus vivendi compromise and collaboration. And through such mediation the Kingdom finally arrives in a less than impressive or Sovereign way. Or rather, the Kingdom arrives through supposedly Spirit-led cultural processes and extra-Scriptural means - not overt gospel or Word-based transformation.
On the one hand, his teaching is associated with antithesis - the Church at odds with the world. On the other hand, the antithesis all but disappears and the Church works hand in hand with culture.
They're both accurate assessments to some degree. Kuyper's understanding of Common Grace comes into play and this is where it gets confusing because the concept has been embraced by many, but not all agree as to what it means. Klaas Schilder's views on the one hand seem compatible with Kuyper but at the same time he is viewed as a dissident and opponent of Kuyper - so much so that for a season he was meeting with Herman Hoeksema and his PRC, a denomination formed as a kind of protest to Kuyperian theology and influence.
The Protestant Reformed Church (or PRC) was formed in 1924, breaking away from the American Christian Reformed Church (CRC). Schilder traveled to the United States in the 1930's and 40's and met with Hoeksema and exercised some influence on the PRC membership. Ultimately he and Hoeksema would part over issues concerning covenantal conditionality - which interestingly seems to parallel some of the debates over Federal Vision in the early 2000's.
In 1953, the DeWolf Schism resulted in the PRC losing about 60% of its membership and many within the PRC blame Schilder and his influence for fomenting the crisis. The small denomination would not recover its original numbers until the 1990's. Even today, the PRC is a small denomination of around 9,000 members. The bitterness over this episode is at times palpable. As such, they are hostile to both Schilder and Kuyper.
Beyond this incident and connection with the PRC (and perhaps some narrow studies within Dutch Reformed circles), Schilder doesn't receive a lot of attention in the United States. His primary influence was within the Netherlands and it is there some elements of the Kuyper-Schilder debate and divide still has resonance.
Kuyper's teaching on the one hand fueled the kind of worldliness and compromise that largely characterizes the Church in the Netherlands. As culture 'progresses', so does the Church. Likewise in another vein Kuyperian ideology was appealed to by the architects of Apartheid in South Africa in seeking to retain a Christian culture - as they saw it. The culture project can undergo numerous permutations depending on the context.
In the United States, Kuyper's thought has proven influential among Dominionist-minded Evangelicals and those wishing to transform society.
The article in question raises these points as some have (finally) after decades of Kuyperian Neo-Calvinist influence started to question the viability of the model itself. It's easy to see where it goes wrong. Maybe there's a problem with its foundations? Given that it is the orthodoxy of our day and even the dominant paradigm (if poorly understood) within Evangelicalism- this is a tall order. In Reformed circles only the PRC and handful of others are consistently willing to label Kuyperianism as unbiblical error. The trouble is, the PRC has many of its own problems and not all critics of Kuyper would want to be viewed as fellow-travellers with Hoeksema's Hyper-Calvinist PRC.
And what to replace it with? I would posit the New Testament's notions of antithesis and counter-culture are too extreme for most and so other options are being pursued. For someone who believes in Common Grace but rejects the abuses of Kuyper and Neo-Calvinisim - Schilder seems to fit the bill, or at least he's being reconsidered. It's an intriguing proposition and though I don't find myself agreeing with either man (though certainly leaning toward Schilder as opposed to Kuyper), the arguments provided an opportunity to revisit these questions and reflect on them.
Instead of focusing on areas of protology and wrangling over God's original design for creation, Greeson turns to eschatology, arguing there is commonality. They disagree on the road taken (and maybe something of the 'why') but both seek the same end.
Kuyper's focus is on creation, the original plan of God with regard to the forging of a holy culture and despite the Fall, he believes this project is still valid and an imperative for God's people. In terms of redemption, for Kuyper and his followers, Christ's death cannot be restricted to the salvation of the Church (and the individuals which comprise it) but must also include the reconciliation of culture and the wider world.
The question for this author has always been very simple. What does the New Testament teach? I would argue that Kuyper's view actually has no basis whatsoever in the New Testament. It is instead a philosophical construct built on a selective reading of Old Testament passages and principles and fleshed out - driven by an impulse to create culture and civilization, even though this impulse and motive is completely absent in the New Testament.
On the contrary, the New Testament teaches we are ever strangers and pilgrims and that this Last Days world is already marked for judgment and destruction. Our Kingdom is not found in the redemption of the present evil age but in its destruction - itself a kind of reconciliation. In this sense 'reconciliation' is not restoration (and redemption) but harmonization and being brought into consistency - a kind of rectifying or resolution. For everything to be reconciled to Christ will involve the removal of the elements that oppose Him. That's what the New Testament alludes to over and over again - not cultural redemption and sacralisation.
The Cultural Mandate (so-called) cannot be read as it stands in Genesis 1. The Fall fundamentally changes the nature of man's relationship to the world and culture. We see this with the cursing of the ground, the dominance of the regime of death, and the rise of culture among the Cainites. After the Flood, the world must be reformed and repopulated, but the Edenic order is not repeated. The curse remains. The Cultural Mandate is not repeated verbatim but fundamentally modified. Man rules not in the context of an Edenic Kingdom of Heaven but in the context of death, fear, and dread. Only with the New Adam and the New Heavens and New Earth can we hope to find something akin to Eden once more.
Schilder's framing of Common Grace (as reported here) clarifies as to why he would find resonance with the Hoeksema faction. For them Common Grace is no grace but an extension of mercy and kindness that ultimately provides a basis for further judgment. There's a sense in which this is also true - regardless of whether or not one accepts the Supralapsarian-driven reasoning they embrace.
That said, Schilder is no separatist. Despite the fact that he rejects Kuyper's optimism regarding cultural flowering and transformation as well the view that unbelievers contribute to the building of the Kingdom, he still believes that Christians must be culturally engaged. Any charge of Anabaptism is without warrant.
As Greeson rightly observes, the implication is that Schilder creates a regenerate or Christian culture that is more or less re-activated by the Holy Spirit even if still in the context of the Fall. This is contrasted with the larger unbelieving culture.
For Neo-Calvinists, this creates a split and tends toward Christian ghetto-ism or turning the Church into a sub-culture that operates parallel to but largely outside the mainstream. They reject this as they believe it is the Church's task to affect and transform culture. As such it must capture the mainstream. In the context of twentieth-century American Christianity there is a parallel found in the tensions and ethos of Fundamentalism and Evangelicalism.
This is further confused by the fact that Kuyper himself embraced a form of pluralism - even if it was a less than absolute pluralism of the kind one might see within the context of Enlightenment Liberalism. His own confused statements and revisionism regarding the Liberalism of the American Founding only add to the dissonance and debate surrounding these issues.
Greeson touches on a smaller debate over eschatological continuity as both the Kuyperian and Schilderian camps believe that culture survives the eschaton. The disagreement is only with regard to extent.
From this author's standpoint the debate is moot and without basis in the New Testament - which in fact teaches explicitly to the contrary.
And yet this needs to be understood - for Kuyperians this is a real motivating factor. Their cultural achievements (or so they believe) carry over into heaven. We will have art and music, literature, and architecture. These will be perfected and fully redeemed. Some go further and posit that all aspects of cultural life will continue in redeemed fashion - government and for some even things like banking and finance. Some find this stimulating even profoundly moving. Others (such as this author) are left baffled and confused, wondering what Bible they read and if in fact we are adherents of the same religion. The extreme sanctification of the mundane is self-defeating. When everything is holy, then nothing is for all distinctions have ceased to have meaning. The Sabbath commandment alone (whether one believes in abiding New Covenant validity as one day in seven) belies this way of thinking. If the mundane becomes sacred, then the sabbath has no meaning.
For Kuyper and his followers a lack of cultural transference leaves this life bewilderingly empty and void of meaning. The implications of it for the Church in this world are too dark for them to contemplate. It's a life of utter antithesis. The life celebrated in the New Testament of wandering about in sheepskins and goatskins dwelling in dens and caves is too awful to even entertain.
They are of the world and judge these questions through the world's eyes.
For someone like myself, the Kuyperian view is depressing and oppressive and removes some of the lustre of heaven as it were.
The non-Christian participation in the Kuyperian model raises serious questions about the nature and extent of the Fall. It has always struck me as particularly odd that such a teaching would emerge from the context of Calvinism - the creed which so emphasizes total depravity. I suppose one could say it was a reaction to the epistemological and cultural crisis brought on by the Magisterial Reformation and the wars of religion - and in Kuyper's case the challenges of the Enlightenment and an attempt to preserve and celebrate culture (by sanctifying it) in contrast to the iconoclasm of the revolutionary age.
When viewed this way, the rise of Kuyperianism in the context of the late 19th century makes sense, but this does not mean it's right.
Greeson explains that for Kuyper, the Fall does not affect the particulars of knowledge but the persons seeking it and interacting with the world. The Fall (it is argued) destroys the ability to integrate knowledge - in other words to think in holistic terms. This is why we have such an emphasis on 'worldview' today which is also something of an odd turn, as this thinking, this emphasis on the part of Kuyper flows from Continental patterns of philosophical development. It's post-Kantian and tends toward Idealism's proclivity for coherence based models and validation. This strain of philosophy marks a sharp break from the Anglo-American Empiricist tradition which came to dominate American Christian life in the 19th century. Common Sense Realism emerged from its own internal debates and challenges posed by the likes of Hume and played a significant role in the thought foundations of Fundamentalism and later Evangelicalism. One thinks of the dominant Evidentiary approach to apologetics and the emphasis on Creation Science and the like. Worldview teaching emerged from Continental Reformed circles and as Evangelicalism was in a real crisis during the later half of the 20th century, this alternative or 'workaround' approach became very appealing, and through the efforts of Francis Schaeffer bore fruit in the larger Evangelical world.
By the 1990's it was becoming a watchword but it was clear by the 2000's that though it was on everyone's lips, what was meant by worldview was not really anything to do with coherence-based reasoning or holistic thought but rather to put a kind of rubber-stamp on an expansive political package and cultural agenda. As the Evangelical movement integrated ideas from a host of different sources and directions, this hodge-podge cobbled together (and often changing) package was identified as representing a Christian worldview and opponents and dissidents were attacked for embracing an other-than Christian Worldview.
This failure and the fact that more thinkers have realized this has led to some recent examination, and not a few have rightly traced the problem back to Dutch Reformed theology and Idealist philosophy - leading to a reaction in both the Evangelical and Confessional Reformed world. This also ties in with some of the more current critiques of Cornelius Van Til as his epistemology, apologetic method, and approach to theology are related to these questions. The discussion is interesting if not always helpful. In some quarters this has generated a turn back in the direction of Empiricism, Common Sense, and even Thomism. And for some, this is like the proverbial dog returning to its vomit.
Given all these developments it makes sense that some might turn to Schilder as a means of triangulation, of retaining the larger paradigm of Continental Reformed thought even while tweaking or fine-tuning the model a bit.
I would agree with Schilder on the question of Revelation 21 and the glory of the nations, though I must also reject his continued insistence on transference with regard to cultural achievements. I find his framing of these questions in terms of right-worship to be stimulating and something worthy of further reflection. Such a framing should (if followed through consistently) eliminate from consideration the vast majority of so-called Christian art.
Schilder posits a model in which Christians can pursue culture and yet apart from the kind of integration so central to Kuyper's thinking. That too is something this author finds stimulating. Truncated Pyramids can still be wondrous and yet to what end? That's the question.
I can and have argued a role for the arts in the promotion of transcendence and iconoclasm - pointing to revelation, not communicating it or reinforcing an existing so-called Christian order.
Schilder argues that the Christian posture toward culture demands teleological direction, thus rejecting art for art's sake. One immediately wonders how then could the dynamics of art and experimentation be considered legitimate - say in the realm of architecture, language, and things on that order?
I found Greeson's closing comment to be entirely apropos:
Abraham Kuyper and his theology are presently experiencing a resurgence among English-speaking evangelicals. The historic, and what often seems parochial, debates among Dutch Calvinists over Kuyper’s legacy offer necessary nuance to his thought from which those eager to embrace a revived Kuyperianism should seek to learn. This study is an initial proposal of one way such debates can produce a constructive harmony which addresses several dangers in Kuyper’s approach to culture. May there be more to come.
For my part, while I still find myself at odds with elements of Schilderian thought, he gives me much to consider and I wouldn't be disappointed to find his thought exercising some influence in Reformed and Evangelical circles. It would be (all things considered) a positive development.
See also:
https://proto-protestantism.blogspot.com/2025/04/a-dutch-reformed-reading-of-cultural.html
https://proto-protestantism.blogspot.com/2024/09/the-architect-of-modern-evangelicalism-i.html