Kuyper's opening address at the First Christian Social Congress in the Netherlands (see the excerps in my previous entry) had a profound effect on one of my heroes: Aritius Talma.



Talma had earlier been awakened to the pressing problem of poverty in 19th century Holland through the challenge of a young friend:

During a short stay in the Hague in my first year of service as a preacher, I came through extraordinary circumstances in repeated contact with a young apprentice painter, a fierce socialist, who took me to task with all sorts of facts and theories, which in that time (1888) were given much currency in socialist circles. I could hardly defend myself.


During my university years I took the advice of some law students and attended the lectures of Professor d’Aulnis [de Bourouill], where I was easily persuaded that socialism was mistaken. But what I encountered in this young working man was something else altogether from what I had heard contradicted in those lectures. So I had little better reply to offer the young man than, ‘I don’t know, I am a pastor, I have no knowledge of these things.’


On one of our walks he all of a sudden stopped, and took hold of me, and said, ‘Do you imagine you can be a shepherd to your congregation if you have no clue of those things that turn the lives of the people so bitter, of the cares that fill their week and that they carry with them on Sunday when they come and sit in your church?’ I realised with feeling that this young man, this freethinker and anarchist, when compared with myself, had it right.

From 1888, when he heard the call of God in the words of this young anarchist painter, until his “farewell speech” at the Second Christian Social Congress in 1905, Talma provided significant historical leadership to the emerging Christian labour unions in the Netherlands. Without his leadership it is doubtful that more than a very few of these unions would have emerged, or that any of them would have survived. In the opinion of his biographers Smeenk and Van Vliet, “the development of the Christian labour organization in our country, in our Protestant circles, is for the greater part his work."



Talma concluded the Second Christian Social Congress with these words—words that lay bare his heart and the motivation of his efforts:

Truly, when we see how humanity shudders with effort in the struggle for daily bread and nonetheless fails so often to give her children what they need, and see them wither and wilt, then it is torture to believe that we live under the reign of God.


And yet it is so.


And yet it is our only hope for the world. We must do justice, even if we run our head against the wall. We must serve one another, in all sincerity and troth.

Last night in our seminar meeting we watched the (often harrowing) Daens. It portrays social conditions in Belgium circa 1900, and the efforts of the Catholic Priest Adolf Daens, inspired by the papal encyclical Rerum Novarum to address those conditions.



One reason why we watched this film was because it portrays Christian social thought seriously engaging the consequences of industrialization and urbanization in the late 19th and early 20th centuries -- exactly the setting in which Abraham Kuyperworked when gave the lecture and speeches ("Common Grace" and "Sphere Sovereignty," available in Abraham Kuyper: A Centennial Reader) that we will be reading in the coming week.



Kuyper presented his own response to "the social problem" most strikingly in his opening address at the First Christian Social Congress in the Netherlands (November 9, 1891). Here are three short excerpts from that address:

Whenever one uses the phrase "social question," one recognizes, in the most general sense, that serious doubt has arisen about the soundness of the social structure in which we live. One thereby acknowledges that public opinion is at war over the foundation on which a more appropriate - and therefore more liveable - social order may be built. Merely to pose the question in no way implies that it has to be answered in a socialistic manner. The solution one reaches can be of a totally different kind. Only one thing is necessary if the social question is to exist for you: you must realize the untenability of the present state of affairs, and you must account for this untenability not by incidental causes but by a fault in the very foundation of our society's organization. If you do not acknowledge this and think that social evil can be exorcised through an increase in piety, or through friendlier treatment or more generous charity, then you may believe that we face a religious question or possibly a philanthropic question, but you will not recognize the social question. This question does not exist for you until you exercise an architectonic critique of human society, which leads to the desire for a different arrangement of the social order [My emphasis - GS].

It is so profoundly false that God's Word lets us hear only calls for the salvation of our souls. No, God's Word gives us firm ordinances - even for our national existence and our common social life. It marks out clearly visible lines. We are unfaithful to God's Word if we fail to take notice of this fact and, for convenience sake, impiously permit our theory and practice to be determined by prevailing opinion or current law.

There cannot be two different faiths - one for you and one for the poor. The question on which the whole social problem really pivots is whether you recognize in the least fortunate, even in the poorest, not merely a creature [of God], a person in wretched circumstances, but one of your own flesh and blood: for the sake of Christ, your brother. It is exactly this noble sentiment that, sad to say, has been weakened and dulled in such a provoking manner by the materialism of this century. There are men of wealth, as you know, who have become alarmed at the threat of social democracy and now, from fear of this threat, grasp for relief measures none of them thought about before. But at least in this circle of those who confess the Lord, I pray that you will allow a more perfect love to drive out all such fear. For those who are diverted by fear for their money box have no place marching in the ranks with us. This is holy ground, and he who would walk on it must first loosen the sandals of his egotism. The only sound permitted here is the stirring and eloquent voice of the merciful Samaritan whispering in our ears. There is suffering round about you, and those who suffer are your brothers, sharers of your nature, your won flesh and blood.

Reading choices

Heslam: everyone; Common Grace: Amy, Mark, Meiko; Sphere Sovereignty: Laurence, Shin, Will.
Wolters: Laurence, Shin, Will; Marshall: Amy, Mark, Meiko.
Colson & Pearcey: Amy, Laurence, Meiko; Middleton & Walsh: Mark, Shin, Will.
Being Human: everyone.
Freston: Mark, Will; Jenkins: Amy, Laurence; Martin: Meiko, Shin.
Garber B: everyone.

Thinking about John Calvin’s worldview.

For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.

This week we are reading that section of John Calvin’s Institutes (Book 3, Chapters 6 to 10) also known as On the Christian Life. We are also reading excerpts from Susan Schreiner’s Theater of His Glory: Nature & Natural Order in the Thought of John Calvin. (Not directly related, but interesting, is Ms. Schreiner’s article on “Educating the Congregation.”)



The question we are asking ourselves – rather poorly stated, I am afraid – is “What can you tell from the reading of the broad contours of Calvin’s worldview?”



Reading this immensely influential passage from Calvin against the backdrop of Ms. Schreiner’s study, I was struck by what appeared to me to be an internal tension in Calvin’s view of the world.



Calvin has a clear view of the original (and enduring) purpose of creation. Schreiner (p. 5) quotes Calvin as writing: “For our salvation was a matter of concern to God in such a way that, not forgetful of himself, he kept his glory primarily in view, and therefore, created the whole world for this end, that it may be a theater of his glory.”

God’s involvement in this theater, according to Calvin, is close and intimate. Schreiner (p. 36) quotes Calvin as insisting that God is not a “momentary Creator who once and for all finished his work.” She argues in consequence that

References to God as First Cause or Prime Mover unnerved Calvin because such phrases seemed to make God distant and to deprive him of power. Therefore, in comparison to thinkers such as Augustine and Aquinas, Calvin strove to tie God’s ever-present hand to each secondary cause and created movement.

But Schreiner (p. 37) does point out that

Like Chrysostom, Calvin was acutely aware that God’s governance in history was often not as clear as his providence over creation. History does not usually present us with wonders as clear as the stars that revolve without colliding or an earth that rests upon the waters. Calvin reminded his readers that in the historical sphere we see only dimly and “in part.”

“Nonetheless,” continues Schreiner,

… in a very Irenaean sense Calvin argued that God was actively preserving and reclaiming his creation. The natural order belongs to God, is the work of his hands, and the arena of both human and divine activity. As such, creation is not to be shunned by the believer.

This belief – that creation is not to be shunned by the believer – lead to what Schreiner (p. 114) calls Calvin’s “activist piety,” a piety that

… must be seen in terms of his theology of creation as a whole. The renovation of creation renews all of life. Therefore, after submitting their knowledge and will to Christ, the elect are encouraged to turn outward for the common upbuilding of the church and the good of their neighbors. Such ordered outward activity, Calvin assumed, contributes to the sanctifying or reordering of the world. Instead of positing a church that stood in isolation from a threatening world, Calvin saw the church as the organ that led the renewal of both the cosmos and society.

This is how Schreiner (p. 120) finally summarizes Calvin’s worldview:

God created the world as a theater of his glory, and although the human being stands at the head of that creation, he is never the whole of creation itself. From the orderly course of the stars to the limited stability of governments, God’s nature and glory are displayed in every part of creation. The suggestion that “the world” has become a sphere of darkness alien to the church implied, for Calvin, that God’s purpose for his creation as a mirror or theatre has been overturned. To refuse participation in this earthly realm or to neglect to contemplate nature is a failure to understand God’s commitment, purpose, and governance of his created order. And, finally, to limit Calvin’s vision to the total depravity of human nature, justification by faith, and the condemning function of nature is to impose on him a mentality that he resisted throughout his writings. In Calvin’s view, the human race belongs to the order of creation which reveals or reflects the power, wisdom, and glory of God; and not surprisingly, the entire creation plays an important role in his understanding of God’s nature and purposes.

It is against this background that we must understand the “pattern for the conduct of life” that Calvin presents in On the Christian Life.

I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

Calvin presents his purpose with this little treatise as being “to show the godly man how he may be directed to a rightly ordered life, and briefly set down some universal rule with which to determine duties,” on the basis of Scriptural instruction, which according to Calvin has “two main aspects”:

The first is that the love of righteousness, to which we are otherwise not at all inclined by nature, may be instilled and established in our hearts; the second, that a rule be set forth for us that does not let us wander about in our zeal for righteousness.

Most basically, Calvin teaches, it is “Christ, [who] has been set before us as an example, whose pattern we ought to express in our life.”


With this in mind, Calvin subsequently teaches that the beginning of God’s plan to shape his people is this:

The duty of believers is “to present their bodies to God as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to him,” and in this consists the lawful worship of him. From this is derived the basis of the exhortation that “they be not conformed to the fashion of this world, but be transformed by the renewal of their minds, so that they may prove what is the will of God.”

Calvin continues by teaching that:


1. “We are the stewards of everything God has conferred on us by which we are able to help our neighbor, and are required to render account of our stewardship. Moreover, the only right stewardship is that which is tested by the rule of love.”

2. “Every means toward a prosperous and desirable outcome rests upon the blessing of God alone.”

3. “The use of God’s gifts is not wrongly directed when it is referred to that end to which the Author himself created and destined them for us, since he created them for our good, not for our ruin,” and “he meant not only to provide for necessity but also for delight and good cheer.” “Away, then, with that inhuman philosophy [Stoicism?] which, while conceding only a necessary use of creatures, not only malignantly deprives us of the lawful fruit of God’s beneficence but cannot be practiced unless it robs a man of all his senses and degrades him to a block.”

4. “The Lord’s calling is in everything the beginning and foundation of well-doing,” so that “no task will be so sordid and base, provided you obey your calling in it, that it will not shine and be reckoned very precious in God’s sight.”



But none of that displays that inner tension that I mentioned at the beginning of this summary. How do we make sense, given all this, of the following statements from Calvin in the same little treatise?



1. “There is no middle ground between these two: either the world must become worthless to us or hold us bound by intemperate love of it.”

2. “If heaven is our homeland, what else is the earth but our place of exile?”

3. “Through death we are recalled from exile to dwell in the fatherland, in the heavenly fatherland.”

What Kristen loves.