September 16 2017
FAITH OF OUR FATHERS, LIVING STILL?
I grew up in a deeply religious household, solidly anchored in the Reformed faith: everything Christian: school, daily opened with prayer and bible reading, radio programs, political parties, newspapers, magazines: everything Christian.
In grade school every Monday morning we had to recite in front of the class, a song taken from the Psalter Hymnal and memorized over the weekend: for six years every week! Once all kids had had a turn, we, as a class would sing it. Yes, even now, some 75-80 years later, these songs come back to mind and I sing them, my wife joining in.
My father or mother prayed aloud with every meal, which was followed by the reading of a Scripture passage: no wonder I have acquired some insight into the Bible during the extensive exposure to the Written Word.
All this was reinforced on Sundays when we walked to church – actually in the years from 1929-48 the sidewalks were crowded with folks on their way to their different worship places – in the morning at 10 a.m. – and again at 5.30 p.m. when the Heidelberg Catechism was expounded.
As a teenager, after sitting in church twice for at least 90 minutes – if we were lucky – we, some 20 male high school students, gathered every Sunday evening, to listen to and discuss an essay on some Bible subject introduced by one of us teenagers, taking turns to do so before the intermission, followed by a general discussion on some political aspect in the second half.
We took turns being president, secretary and treasurer. Of course we opened with prayer, again an excellent training ground for later chairing meetings and learning formal procedures. It certainly made it easier for me to be a public speaker, and provided good training for debating any subject.
In those days we were seen as COVENANT children. With each baptism – and there were lots of children born in our large city church – we always, always sang Psalm 105: “The covenant God made with Abraham is confirmed in every child.”
The earlier Covenant with Noah between God, the human race and creation – confirmed by the appearance of the RAINBOW (Genesis 9) – was never mentioned.
I think Christians should reclaim the Rainbow as the sign of the COVENANT: we have first title to this divine affirmation.
There was, in my youth, some real devotion, a genuine reliance on the Lord, perhaps because the Depression – 1929-40 – followed by the War – 1940-45 – gave always plenty of reason to pray.
Today the urge to pray seems to have lessened, even though it could well be argued that the present times when we experience the relentless war between Creation and Humanity, the dangers of being sucked into the Consumer Society, and the pseudo-Christianity prevalent today are much more anti-Christian than in the Great Depression and during the wartime.
Early memories.
In our house two wall hangings stood out: an etching in copper, featuring the head of Abraham Kuyper, and a portrait of Queen Wilhelmina. We were really Royalty minded. My father often said that “God, Netherlands and (the house of) Orange” formed an unbreakable three-strand cord.
ABRAHAM KUYPER
In 1998 I attended an event at Princeton University in New Jersey, celebrating the 100th Anniversary of the Stone Lectures given in 1898 by Abraham Kuyper.
In his lectures at Princeton in 1898 Kuyper argued that Calvinism was more than just theology—it provided a comprehensive worldview, encompassing all institutions and values of modern society.
Abraham Kuyper was a uniquely gifted man. Home schooled by his father who was a minister, he attended gymnasium and later graduated summa cum laude (with the highest possible marks) from university and obtained a doctorate in theology at the age of 25.
He had a varied career: not only as a journalist, statesman and theologian, but also as a real initiative taker: he was the founder of the Reformed Churches in the Netherlands. He started a newspaper, the Herald, was the driving force behind the founding of the Free University of Amsterdam, formed a political party, the Anti-Revolutionary Party, and served as Prime Minister of the Netherlands between 1901 and 1905. In politics, he dominated the Anti-Revolutionary Party from its founding in 1879 to his death in 1920.
He also promoted the existence of diversity in social life and in education whereby Protestant, Catholic and secular elements each had their own independent schools, universities and social organizations.
Kuyper’s most famous statement.
Kuyper famously said, “Oh, no single piece of our mental world is to be hermetically sealed off from the rest, and 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!’ God continually re-creates the universe through acts of grace. God’s acts are necessary to ensure the continued existence of creation. Without his direct activity creation would self-destruct.”
Our mental world!?
In his days – 1833-1920 – the world was still relatively pure. True, untold millions had died in the last decade of Kuyper’s life: World War I and the Spanish Flu, but the real dangers of our Carbon Age had not yet had an impact, while the population explosion was just beginning.
In other words, no real concern for the state of the planet was evident. Thus Abraham’s expression referring to “every square inch in the whole domain” had nothing to do with the physical state of the earth, and had everything to do with ‘our mental world”.
In that sense he truly was a child of his time.
Away with all symbols of the past?
There is a drive today to do away with statutes, inscriptions, symbols of the past because the names they represent had been associated with suppression of indigenous people, with advocating or tolerating slavery, and, in general ideas of male dominance that no longer are thought to be acceptable.
Abraham Kuyper, for instance, saw women exclusively as housewives, a helpmeet for the husband. In Grade 2 my teacher married: custom then required that she immediately quit her job and, presumably, get children. In grade 4 I was taught that black people were inferior and should be treated as such.
“O tempora, O mores”, exclaimed Cicero, Oh, the times, Oh, the morals.
Abraham Kuyper and his time.
In his days – he died in 1920 – the world had less than 2 billion people, and the atmosphere was still pure by today’s standards. I also believe that people then were smarter, more open to new ideas. There is increasing evidence that those who live close to nature have a greater maturity, have intelligence that sees matters more comprehensively.
Today everything is saturated with plastic particles. In the 19th and 20th Centuries the average intelligence increased but in the last 30 years this has been totally changed, especially in the developed countries, judging by international studies. Prof. Crabtree of Stanford University poses in his “Trends of Genetics” (2012) that the maximum of the human brain was reached several thousands of years ago and that now there have been unfavorable mutations.
Other scientists emphasize that intelligence must constantly be maintained, especially today in a time of automation and the preference of young adults for playing computer games rather than trying to fathom why reading certain classics deserve that label.
Professor Barbara Demeneix of the ” Musée national d’histoire naturelle”, an authority with a world-wide reputation is convinced that the main cause lies in the 300 percent increase of chemical products between 1970 and today. Last year she showed how these chemical molecules disturbed the function of the thyroid gland in pregnant women in such a way that there was a measurable negative effect on the IQ of children.
My point is that our capacity to understand what’s going on right now in church and society suffers from the stupefying influence of TV combined with a degeneration of the brain resulting from the thousands of chemicals in increasing measure invading our bodies and lowering our capacity to grasp what really is happening in our world. Now even our tap water is contaminated with plastic particles and so is the fish we eat: all carbon residues. We are simply mesmerized by our technical advances and unable to see the real state of the world out there.
The phrase “There are none so blind as those who will not see” applies not only to Religion but also to Climate Change and Economics.
Yes, Abraham Kuyper was a prominent pioneer in pursuing insight in matters Christian. We must honor him as such, but today we must advance beyond him. He also was a product of his time, building in the past: without Calvin there would not have been a Kuyper. Kuyper saw the kingdom in terms of human endeavors, such as Christian education from kindergarten through postgraduate.
But also, without Kuyper there would not have been a J.H. Bavinck who wrote that “the redemption of Creation and the redemption of a man or woman are two sides of the same coin. Personal salvation and the salvation of the planet go hand in hand.” Both Bavinck and Bonhoeffer see the Kingdom in eschatological terms: The New Creation to come!
“Personal salvation and planetary redemption go together!” That is revolutionary: it turns the message of the church upside down!
Our danger is that we see the Kingdom as a human initiative, regarding building Christian institutions as an end in itself, and so are tempted to see them as the final product.
Revelation 21, referring to the perfect conditions in the New Creation, explicitly mentions that there is no TEMPLE there, no special place for worship as the LAW of the LORD is written on the hearts of the redeemed. Ministers must think beyond the Scriptures.
The real problem is that most gospel preachers do not recognize God’s Primary Word. True, Abraham Kuyper stated that there is not a square inch in its whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry: ‘Mine!’ But Dr. Kuyper here does not refer to a speck of earth, with its trillions of microbes. He does not have in mind that the earth in its entirety, its animals, soil, trees, rivers, seas, oceans, belongs to God, and must be seen as divine, as holy.
The Calvinistic-Kuyperian Christian still sees Society at large, its human institutions, its churches and its educational system as the place to be God’s domain. That is still the faith of our fathers, a faith that was a necessary step, but now must progress to take the Coming of the Kingdom in mind, the imminent arrival of the New Creation.
Had Abraham the Mighty – as he was known in his days – lived today, he, due to his superior grasp of the intricacies of the total aspects of life, no doubt would have been an ardent environmentalist.
Today we must go beyond the Scriptures and see Creation as God’s PRIMARY WORD. All Christians must start to preach and practice the GOSPEL OF THE EARTH. THE BELGIC CONFESSION points to that.
Here’s what this all- important confession says about us knowing God:
“We know God FIRST by the creation, preservation, and government of the universe, since that universe is before our eyes like a beautiful book…. As the Apostle Paul says in Romans 1:20: “(the creation of) all these things are enough to convict men and to leave them without excuse.”
Creation is God’s PRIMARY WORD. We must go beyond the Written Word and beyond church walls and implement a way of life that seamlessly fits into the New Creation to come.
We must remember that in that New Creation the Bible – God’s Indirect, Secondary Word – also will disappear.
Then, in eternity, we will be fully engaged in living and studying and integrating with God’s Primary Word, in the new Garden of Eden, so beautifully described in Revelation 22: “On each side of the river stood the Tree of Life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month (thus never a worry about daily bread). And the leaves of the trees are for the healing of the nations.
The environmental crisis is there for a purpose: it makes us recognize the HOLINESS OF GOD’S CREATION.