John Bolt: A Free Church, A Holy Nation: Grand Rapids, Mich: W. B. Eerdmans Pub., 2001. xxv + 502 pp. $38.00.
“This book is in part a response to American evangelical interest in Abraham Kuyper, an interest heightened by the 1998 centennial commemoration of Kuyper’s own onetime visit to this continent to deliver the Stone Lectures at Princeton Theological Seminary in October 1898" (xii). There is no doubt that Kuyper would be saddened by the condition of those institutions and ideas for which he so passionately worked - the Free University of Amsterdam, De Gereformeerde Kerken in Nederland, the (no longer existent) Antirevolutionary Party. He would, no doubt however, be encouraged to see the renewed interest in his work and ideas in the United States. But how can we explain (at least in part) this renewed interest in a country that Kuyper only visited once? Bolt’s book helps us answer that question.
Specifically, Bolt argues for the relevance of Kuyper for an “American Public Theology.” Even more specifically, Bolt sees Kuyper as relevant to and helpful for the creation and maintenance of a robust evangelical American public theology (223). In that vein, Bolt offers a new interpretation of Kuyper’s public theology, “an interpretation that can serve as a basis for the further detailed explication that still begs to be done” (xviii).
Initially, Bolt envisioned this volume as an application of Kuyperian theological emphases to politics. Kuyper’s notion of antithesis, sphere sovereignty and common grace were meant to provide the overall structure of the discussion. Bolt’s vision changed, however, as he began to view Kuyper more as a rhetorician than a theologian. With that vision came a new interpretation of Kuyper, or of Kuyper’s influence, and thus new emphases and comparisons began to follow.
The outline of the book itself is intriguing. A significant part of Bolt’s new interpretation of Kuyper is his argument for Kuyper as political poet.
Specifically, this involves a consideration - including biblical and national metaphors, symbols, narratives, and myths - to accomplish this goal. He did not, in the first place, mobilize a people by positing reasonable, abstract ‘Reformed principles’ (Gereformeerde beginselen), therewith intellectually besting the principles and setting aside the arguments of Enlightenment philosophes. Rather - as journalist, churchman, political leader of the Antirevolutionary Party, and public speaker extraordinaire - he effectively captured the political imagination of the Dutch Gereformeerde volk with powerful rhetoric, well-chosen biblical images, and national mythology, and in this way moved them to action (43).
Bolt sees Kuyper’s relevance for an evangelical American public theology, as in influence, not of logos and wetenschap, but of rhetoric and mythos (43).
The introductory section, then, argues for the poetic influence of Kuyper on evangelical America.
In Part One, Bolt offers unique and fascinating comparisons. In writing this book, a book which had a change of direction in process, Bolt “became captivated by the intriguing historical comparisons between Kuyper and other key thinkers about America and public theology (Alexis de Tocqueville, Lord John Acton, Jonathan Edwards, Walter Rauschenbusch and Pope Leo XIII)” (xviii). He attempts, then, in Part One, to show, first, the perspective of “pilgrims’ on the democracy of America, taking his cue from a comparison of Kuyper to Tocqueville and Acton. Next, he compares Kuyper’s kingdom vision to that of another “neo-Calvinist,” Jonathan Edwards. Finally, he looks at the “social question” comparing Kuyper to Walter Rauschenbusch and Pope Leo XIII.
Of central interest in Part One is Bolt’s assessment of the notion of the kingdom of God as it plays out in, of course, Kuyper’s thought, but also in Edwards, Rauschenbusch and Leo XIII. With respect to his discussion of Kuyper and Edwards, Bolt notes,
The purpose of public theology is to provide a theological framework within which Christian citizens can conscientiously fashion their political vocation and interpret, evaluate, and transform the civic communities of which they are members. The criteria by which such interpretation and evaluation are made must be carefully chosen and even more carefully applied. The kingdom of God is the biblical reality by which all the kingdoms and republics of this world must be measured. Yet, as we have seen, applying the biblical givens of the kingdom metaphor to any earthly political reality is risky. While indifference to the concrete justice demands of God’s kingly rule results in political quietism that leaves civic community to the “prince of this world,” linking national destiny too closely to divine providential purpose - even when invoking covenantal judgment - encourages idolatry (224, emphasis mine).
There are a number of packed notions here that deserve significant and careful discussion. Is it really the case that all kingdoms and republics of this world must be measured by the kingdom of God? Perhaps it is, but just how that measurement is done will make a tremendous difference in one’s public theology, or lack thereof. Few Christians could disagree with Kuyper’s powerful statement at the opening of the Free University of Amsterdam, “There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign of all, does not cry: ‘Mine!,’” but the sovereignty of Christ as Lord of all still leaves open questions of application that are important for Christians to understand. Surely, the sovereignty of Christ over His church is, and is meant to be, different than His sovereignty over the governments of the world. Much of this difference will be determined by our understanding of the kingdom of God. Much of it will be determined by the redemptive-historical difference the coming and finished work of Christ has made in history, including in the history of government.
The kingdom of God plays a central role in Bolt’s discussion of Rauschenbusch and Pope Leo XIII as well. Note Bolt’s critique of Rauschenbusch:
While it is true, as H. Richard Niebuhr’s interpretation of Rauschenbusch and the Social Gospel portrays it, that the emphasis on the kingdom of God is an important - perhaps the important - theme of continuity in American Christianity, that by itself is not enough to warrant claiming American distinctiveness for the Social Gospel. This is the case, quite apart from the awkward fact that Rauschenbusch’s interpretation of the kingdom comes straight from the German liberal theologian Albert Ritschl (254).
Thus, it would seem the theological notion of the kingdom of God plays a central role in Bolt’s analysis. That notion, it would seem, could do with more precision and theological reflection and exegesis than it has received thus far. Perhaps that notion, even more than antithesis, sphere sovereignty, and common grace is the central determining notion for an evangelical public theology.
Part Two addresses particular issues in American evangelical public theology today. Specifically, Bolt looks at Kuyper’s relevance to and influence on the notion both of liberation and of libertarianism, of theocracy and of pluralism, and finally of cobelligerency between evangelicals and Roman Catholics. Most interesting in this section is Bolt’s discussion of theocracy and liberty. Bolt addresses the fact that Calvinists seem especially prone to the “theocratic temptation” given their view of God’s sovereignty (and kingdom). Given such a temptation, what’s a poor political Calvinist to do? Kuyper’s answer, according to Bolt, is to see the Calvinistic notion of liberty as qualifying any notion of sovereignty with respect to a public theology.
Kuyper’s case for linking civil liberty with Calvinism and its key doctrine of divine and cosmic Lordship is thus both an historical argument as well as a theologically based social-metaphysical one. Historically, as he saw it, it is the lands where Calvinism flourished that developed polities honoring and protecting liberty. But from the theological root principle of Calvinism - “cosmologically, the Sovereignty of the Triune God over the whole Cosmos, in all its spheres and kingdoms, visible and invisible” - Kuyper also...derived a structurally pluralistic social ontology with a clearly defined and derived sovereignty in the state, society, and church (313-314).
So the answer to theocracy is the prepotence of liberty over sovereignty (kingdom).
The concluding section asks, “Do Evangelicals Really Need a Public Theology?” and Bolt wants to argue for an affirmative answer to that question. Here there is a fascinating and penetrating criticism of the book, Blinded by Might: Can the Religious Right Save America? by Cal Thomas and Ed Dobson. In the face of the Thomas/Dobson appeal to evangelicals to withdraw from the political scene, Bolt offers a balanced and thoughtful critique of that appeal, affirming many of the warnings that Thomas/Dobson offer, but, in the end, regretting the overall trajectory of the appeal. After affirming his respect for the authors, Bolt goes on,
Now must come the reluctant “however.” Notwithstanding the deep respect I have for both authors and their lives of service to God, our Lord’s church, and the broader communities they influence with their Christian testimony, I do regret the publication of this particular volume and fear it may do a great deal of unintended harm. Blinded by Might troubles and saddens me because I believe the authors have unwittingly provided the enemies of the Christian church and the enemies of liberty...with high-powered ammunition that will be used against fellow brothers and sisters in the faith. There is a tragic irony about this book; its sometimes harsh and angry tone and its more frequent unfairness and lack of balance in reaction to some of the excesses of the Religious Right symptomatically reflect the very sins it excoriates. What is right about the authors’ concerns - and there is much that is right - gets lost in the overkill (413).
So why the pessimism of Thomas/Dobson? Again, there is a misunderstanding of the kingdom of God (these are my words, not Bolt’s). Bolt notes that Thomas, Dobson, Paul Weyrich and others have concluded, particularly after the failure to remove President Clinton from office, that, “We have failed” (433). Why this conclusion?
Classical Christian eschatology is neither optimistically utopian nor given to dark despair. Christians who believe in the reality of Easter and Pentecost affirm in hope the victory of our Lord and the reality of his kingdom as a present as well as future given. Failure to maintain such an “already/not yet” eschatological tension leads to the “all or nothing” thinking reflected in some of the comments we have considered in this chapter (434).
At the end of Bolt’s analysis are three very helpful and interesting Appendices: “A. The Debate about Dutch Neo-Calvinism,” “B. Itinerary of Abraham Kuyper’s Visit to America in 1898,” and “C. Abraham Kuyper’s Grand Rapids Address,” the latter of which is interesting as various journalists, after the speech, wrote to claim Kuyper as a political ally.
There are a number of issues and arguments that one could mention as central to Bolt’s book and to Kuyper’s public theology; all of those issues, as far as I can tell, relate to the issue that forms the backdrop for this entire work, i.e., Dutch neo-Calvinism. Bolt does a fine job of explaining the roots and fruits of Dutch neo-Calvinism. He notes the objections of the German theologian Ernst Troeltsch, the modernist theologian B. D. Eerdmans and the conservative Christian Reformed minister F. M. Ten Hoor. Troeltsch’s concern is that Kuyper has so twisted primitive Calvinism that the original Calvinistic view of a state church has now been substituted by Kuyper for a neo-Calvinistic notion of a free church. Troeltsch attributes the notion of religious toleration to Congregationalism and the Free Church movement.
Kuyper, however, saw religious toleration and liberty at the heart of Calvinism. “Essential to Calvinism, according to Kuyper, is ‘a liberty of conscience, which enables every man to serve God according to his own conviction and the dictates of his own heart’” (450-451). Ten Hoor and Eerdmans both agreed that Kuyper was a ‘modernist, rather than a Calvinist or traditional Reformed thinker (Oud Gereformeerd) (452).
Much of the discussion of Dutch neo-Calvinism is so inextricably linked to Dutch church history that it is difficult, at times, to get an objective analysis from within the Dutch context. Kuyper’s own Doleantie, later to merge and become the Gereformeerde Kerken in Nederland, was itself wrapped up in Kuyperian neo-Calvinism to the extent that those who opposed the ecclesiastical merger would likewise oppose Kuyper’s Calvinism.
It is important, however, and necessary to see, that whatever one thinks of neo-Calvinism (though Kuyper himself did not see his own view as being new in any significant way), there can be no question that in Kuyper significant shifts of emphases have occurred such that a legitimate question to ask is just how Calvinistic is Kuyper’s Calvinism. This is not to say that Kuyper was not Calvinistic; it is only to realize that, to the extent that one accepts or rejects Kuyper’s views in these areas, to that extent one is moving beyond (legitimately or illegitimately) Calvin himself.
Specifically, at least three legitimate questions can be posed with regard to Kuyper’s neo-Calvinism as Bolt presents it: (1) Is Kuyper’s view of God’s kingdom a good and necessary consequence of Calvin’s view? (2) Is Kuyper’s view of liberty, and liberty of conscience, in line with Calvin’s own emphasis? and (3) How would Kuyper reconcile Calvin’s Geneva with his own public theology?
These questions are not easily answered. Even if answered they still leave open the more important question of the relationship of Scripture and its teaching to public theology. They do, however, it seems to me, reflect at least some of the major contours of neo-Calvinism and would be topics worthy of another volume (or two or three).
Because Bolt gives us Kuyper the political poet, those looking specifically for propositions and principles of statecraft might be disappointed. On the other hand, it is refreshing to see the development of a Christian public theology that has at its core the necessity of persuasion over coercion. That message itself could be the most valuable of the book.
Bolt’s book is an informative, scholarly, insightful and provocative study. He has served the Reformed community, and the Christian church generally, well in offering such substantial and thorough suggestions for an evangelical public theology. Debates and discussions of the relationship of church and state will now need to include Bolt’s analysis and commendation of Kuyper to the American experiment.
K. Scott Oliphint
Westminster Theological Seminary
Philadelphia, PA