The Influence of Abraham Kuyper
Abraham Kuyper (1837-1920). Journalist, pastor, statesman, and theologian.
Editor's note: While we celebrate that our church has developed into a congregation of people from many countries and cultures, we wanted to take a moment to acknowledge the roots of Ladner CRC and the Christian Reformed Church in Canada.
The years following WWII brought a flood of Dutch immigrants to many parts of Canada, including British Columbia, reaching into the Fraser Valley, Okanagan Valley, Bulkley Valley, and Vancouver Island. Many of them Christians, they immediately organized churches wherever numbers warranted. Spiritual sustenance was their highest priority. To collect far-flung families in the late 1940s, Vancouver First Christian Reformed Church ran a school bus to the Ladner area one week and to Pitt Meadows the following week. Joan van Tol’s father, Ted Vander Horst, remembers the fun riding that bus. In 1950, Ladner, Langley, and Abbotsford CRC congregations were organized.
The next priority was Christian day schools, established to equip children to be discerning Kingdom citizens. But the influence of these newcomers to Canada did not stop there. These immigrants founded the Christian Labour Association of Canada, the Institute for Christian Studies (a Christian graduate school in Toronto), Citizens for Public Justice (which actively promotes justice in Canadian public policy), Redeemer University, and the King’s University, plus additional public organizations that strive to bring a Christian worldview to society. What was the impetus behind all this effort to influence modern Canadian society Christianly?
It helps to understand why the Protestant Dutch immigrants did not join existing Canadian denominations. Ethnicity no doubt played a role. They also brought with them a particular understanding of the Christian religion—salvation means the redemption of the creation, not an escape from it. Christ redeems culture. Sin and redemption both touch every part of the creation.
Many immigrants from the Netherlands prioritized a more activist faith, which was social justice-oriented, recognizing Jesus as Lord and King. The early members of Canadian Christian Reformed churches confessed the resurrection of the body and to “… reign with Christ over all creation for all eternity” (Heidelberg Catechism Q&A 32).
This theological understanding is directly associated with Abraham Kuyper (1837-1920), a prominent Dutch theologian and statesman who had a tremendous influence on Dutch society and the Reformed churches in the Netherlands. A journalist and pastor, he founded the Free University in Amsterdam in 1880 and was Premier of the Netherlands from 1901-1905. He famously said, “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!”
Kuyper did not say that Christ wants our worship, our prayers, our Sundays, our left-over pocket money. No, Christ demands everything. Service to God takes place every day in all we do. That worldview also pertains to participation in social structures, politics, economics, media, and the arts. There are no limits because all things are created by Christ, find their purpose in Christ, and are reconciled to God in Christ (Col. 1:15-20). And in all of this, pluralism in a democratic society is recognized, and common grace among non-Christians acknowledged.
We are certainly indebted to Abraham Kuyper, whose centenary of his death we mark this year, and these Dutch immigrants with their robust perspective on Christian life. Many Christians in Canada have come to deeply appreciate this worldview and have taken on this broad vision of God’s Kingdom.