Talk:Abraham Kuyper

Trivia

If someone sees fit to revert the delete of the "Trivia" entry, please cite a verifiable and reputable source for it. --David3565 6:33, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

Clearly some had already restored it, but I have just changed the section heading to Honorific, instead of Trivia. I wouldn't count it as being trivial, but rather it is sufficiently notable for mention in this article. DFH 11:58, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Redlinks

Several Dutch politicians are redlinks in the article. It would be worthwhile searching the Dutch Wikipedia to see if any of these can be made into interwiki links. DFH 12:50, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

There are two red links, Alexander de Savorin Lohman, founder of the CHU and Johannes Tak van Poortvliet, minister of justice, that are really relevant all the others are politicians who ran against Kuyper unsuccesfully. Lohman has got multiple links to it. I was already planning to write it -some day-. C mon 16:33, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Common grace

I have restored the see also link to common grace, because Kuyper's work on the subject was seminal to the development of the idea by later Calvinistic theologians in the 20th century. See (for example) McGoldrick chapter 12, Antithesis and common grace (p.126). DFH 18:57, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

The link is now in the section on theological views. DFH 19:07, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

External link

An external link to "Kuyper resources" has been deleted thrice by User:Betacommand, who believes it to be spam (and who received considerable debate on similar automated deletions, cf. [1]), and by User:Nick, who said it is an "extraneous external link covering nothing not already in the article." Since this apparently controversial, I'll start a discussion here.

I have no connection whatsoever to the website in question, but I believe this link should stay because it provides a collection of links to primary and secondary sources and an extended bibliography that are not in the article (and probably shouldn't be). Thoughts? --Flex (talk|contribs) 15:29, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Other than on blogs and and the freeweb page the author Steve Bishop is not tied to the subject of the article, and is not referenced as a known as a expert on this person. thus is not verifiable and should not be linked to. prove that the freeweb site is a verifiable source and that Steve Bishop is a reliable source. Betacommand ^{(talk • contribs • Bot)} 15:47, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

First of all, there's very little original information on that page. It is, as I said, more of an extended bibliography of primary and secondary sources, not an "article" at all, so there seems to be little to be proven about this page in the first place -- it's reliable in that it cites its sources (and indeed, it does little else than cite sources!). Second, the author is a lecturer at City of Bristol College, and he has published a number of a papers, reviews, and a book on philosophy, religion, and science, in which he applies the ideas of Kuyper and reformed epistemology, particularly to math and science. His name appears repeatedly in reference to these topics in many places, as your google evidenced. In short, the content of this page is non-controversial and consists basically of a bibliography, and since it is helpful and augments the (ideal) article contents, it is not a violation of WP:SPAM or WP:EL. --Flex (talk|contribs) 17:44, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

The deleted link connects to nothing more controversial than an incomplete bibliographical list of works by and about Kuyper, which furthermore provides further links to different recent essays and lectures available online that can't be easily found elsewhere. The status of Steve Bishop as an "expert" is irrelevant, since he is providing nothing more than references (otherwise absent) to the expertise of others. If it's a question of expertise, you can have my expert opinion (as the author of a History of the Low Countries) that the link should be reinstated.--Paularblaster 09:18, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

name

What about the spelling "Kuÿper", would that be OK? -- NIC1138 (talk) 21:42, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Not really - it isn't (for example) how his name appears on any of his books in English. He appears in catalogues and indexes as "Kuyper", plain and simple. --Paularblaster (talk) 21:53, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

I think you mean Kuijper, which is a Dutch name, but this guys name was Kuyper. C mon (talk) 07:40, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Kuyper's Racism

Let's get over it people -- even a sympathetic Reformed/Calvinist and African American scholar like Vince Bacote openly refers to Kuyper as a racist. It is not "original research" or spurious in any way to see Kuyper's racism in the primary sources. It is not a consistent or elaborated race ideology; it is sometimes contradictory, ranging from a paternalistic view of even the most primitive africans (in Kuyper's view) benefiting and "developing" from mixture with whites to a straight-up racist view of "miscegenation" (any perceived interracial mixing) as a bad thing when it comes to the white Boers and black South Africans.

Here is the last edited state I find perfectly valid but User:StAnselm keeps reverting for the small changes at the end. Note this is after several uncontested paragraphs detailing Kuyper's central role in South African white nationalism and apartheid:

Kuyper's legacy includes a granddaughter, Johtje Vos, who is noted for having sheltered many Jews in her home in the Netherlands from the Nazis. After World War II she moved to New York. Conversely, Kuyper's son Professor H. H. Kuyper, a supporter of Afrikaner Nationalism and colour racism was a wartime Nazi collaborator, and his grandson joined the Waffen SS and died on the Russian front. There is no basis for associating Abraham Kuyper himself with Nazism or Nazi racial ideology per se, but his own position was that there are inferior (non-white) races. The question of whether it was good or bad for whites to mix with them was one he answered differently, at different times. As Saul Dubow notes, Kuyper praises "the commingling of blood" as "the physical basis for all higher development" in the Stone Lectures, a paternalistic view at best, albeit one that can be used to oppose racist ideas of miscegenation. Elsewhere Dubow notes Kuyper is decidedly racist, as in The South African Crisis where he describes "the Hottentots and the Bantus" as "an inferior race" and speaks in favor of the Boers avoiding "mixed liaisons."

This ending simply corrects the previous ending which disassociates Kuyper from Nazi racism, which is not relevant and nowhere suggested. I've made that clearer now, while also indicating the more pertinent question of Kuyper's own type of racism is one of contradiction, or that it covers a range from paternalistic "soft" racism -- where he could approve whites mixing with black Africans ("Hottentotts"/Bushmen and Bantus) that he considered deeply inferior (as this benefits the blacks and thus everyone, in Kuyper's view) -- to outright rejection of this same idea. On this particular issue of interracial sex (marriage really was *not* the issue) greater context could be added by noting that widespread international criticism of the Boers at that time had a lot to say about rape and abuse that had produced a substantial "mixed-race" population. Stephen Crane wrote a piece about it that can be found in Wheaton's Christian Classics library online. Just search for "Hottentot" in the CCEL and you will find a great deal of material from Kuyper and others reflecting 19th century Christian (but not especially Christlike) thoughts about this group of people maligned as the lowest on the planet. 67.22.194.101 (talk) 05:58, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

Please do not edit war. It's great that you've started a discussion here, but you have added the contentious material back into the article, even though consensus has not yet been achieved. StAnselm (talk) 06:29, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

You have said "Elsewhere Dubow notes Kuyper is decidedly racist, as in The South African Crisis", but you haven't cited Dubow - you cited Kuyper. We would need support the statement that Dubow says Kuyper is racist. StAnselm (talk) 06:32, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

That sentence starting "Elsewhere..." quotes and refers to the same Dubow citation in the previous sentence. I'll clarify this and add more supporting academic sources, but you have deleted primary source references where Kuyper is plainly racist. There is no issue of this being "contentious." He said and wrote flatly racist things. The only "edit war" is resulting from your attempts to omit this. 67.22.194.101 (talk) 20:34, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Here you go:

Dubow notes Kuyper is decidedly racist in other writings, such as The South African Crisis where he describes "the Hottentots and the Bantus" as "an inferior race" and speaks in favor of the Boers avoiding "mixed liaisons."

And primary material from the Stone Lectures where Kuyper is describing his Fichtean Calvinism as an alternative to Darwinism where national election replaces natural selection:

“To put it concretely, if you were a plant, you would rather be rose than mushroom; if insect, butterfly rather than spider;…and, again, being man,…of the Aryan race rather than Hottentot or Kaffir.” -Calvinism: Six Stone Foundation Lectures (Grand Rapids, MI, 1943), 96–97.

How would you like to work in this material regarding the desirability of being an Aryan rather than a black African? 67.22.194.101 (talk) 20:42, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for getting back with a revised statement. We have to be very careful about our use of primary sources - see WP:PRIMARY. I looked up Debow, and he doesn't say what you're saying - he doesn't use the phrase "decidedly racist". In fact, quite the opposite - he notes that "Kuyper's views are themselves contradictory and can be used to sustain opposing viewpoints." One, of the tensions, I think, is that often Kuyper is talking about the superiority of Christian culture, rather than a particular race - that is, the Dutch are superior to the Bantu because they have received the benefits of Christianity. Anyway, I will insert the South African Crisis reference into the article. Anselm (talk) 21:31, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Are you saying that this idea -- that Christianity confers a cultural superiority -- is not a form of deep nationalistic, theo-political bigotry and tantamount to racism in a context where white overwhelmingly are defined as "Christian" and blacks are not? 67.22.206.238 (talk) 14:32, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

I did not put quotation marks around "decidedly racist." What do you think Dubow is saying when he quotes Kuyper opposing sex between blacks and whites in one book and making a general endorsement of "mixing of the blood" in another? Yes they are contradictory, because one statement is decidedly racist and the other eugenicist from a white supremacist perspective. It is good for groups to mix because it uplifts the "inferior" ones --- still a racist set of foundational assumptions.

Here is Mark Noll on this issue, which makes some good points but dodges the outright white supremacist remarks in Kuyper's own writings that I've quoted above:

"For Kuyperians, principialism became dangerous when it was exported to Africa and entangled with race. During his Stone Lectures, Kuyper himself spoke about the desirability, as he put it, "of the mingling of blood," (14) but also during his American trip, as Peter Heslam has shown, Kuyper spoke a great deal about essential affinities between Calvinism and Dutch national character, about how in 1898 the United States was joining a long, Dutch tradition of battling the Spanish, about his pride that "two men of Dutch blood" were contending for governorship of New York in that fall's election, and about the essential Calvinist leaven that had made both Holland and the United States singularly blessed. (15) Such archly romantic organicism was relatively harmless in Kuyper's Dutch context, but I follow the writings of Irving Hexham and Andre du Toit in concluding that it became malignant when transported to South Africa. (16) According to these scholars, there was no Calvinist ideology of Afrikaner nationalism before the Dopper minister (Reformed Church or Gereformeerde Kerk) S. J. du Toit imported Kuyper's principal reasoning and his notions of sphere sovereignty in the 1870s and 1880s. Kuyper should not be blamed for applications of his thought for which he did not approve. But his great stress on principle--his ferocious determination always to reason, as he put it in 1891, by first taking up "the general ideas that give shape and color to our entire conception of life" (64)--bore evil fruit when certain Kuyperians concluded that a verzuiling (or pillarization) of race could be built upon Kuyper's principial reasoning about the sovereignty of spheres. The point that Kuyper, as a believer in the Incarnation, unduly neglected was that context sometimes should be allowed to sway principle." -A century of Christian social teaching: the legacy of Leo XIII and Abraham Kuyper. Journal of Markets & Morality (2002) 5:1. http://www.freepatentsonline.com/article/Journal-Markets-Morality/186436738.html

Also instructive, Theo Plantinga's reflections on the shift from sympathy for Afrikaner reformational philosophers/neocalvinists to rejection of their development and defense of apartheid based on Kuyper and his followers: http://www.plantinga.ca/m/MDL.HTM#pinnock33 I think the upshot from Noll and Plantinga is that they don't want to say Kuyper was a racist and prefer to circumlocute about his remarks on blood and nationality (but not "hottentotts" and "kaffirs") while still admitting that these ideas centrally enabled the most thoroughgoing racist regime and most successful theo-political racism in the modern era. Noll and Plantinga are of course biased sources, since they identify intellectually (and by upbringing, family and culture in Plantinga's case) with Kuyper and the ensuing Kuyperian tradition, which is integral to their own identities and careers. So when they wrestle with Kuyper's racism, it's understandable (but dishonest and not excusable) that they soft-pedal it and evade issues of culpability and harm, but you cannot look at what Kuyper literally says in the Stone Lectures and The South African Crisis re. "higher development," "inferior race," and Bantus, Hottentots, Kaffirs and conclude he did not espouse a racist and eugenicist theory as central to his Calvinist worldview, which is what the Stone Lectures are all about. (The terms Hottentott and Kaffir are racist appellations, by the way. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaffir_(racial_term) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khoikhoi) If Noll used his cancer metaphor properly, he would say Kuyper had malignant ideas that metastasized in South Africa. It is actually a bigger issue than that however, since Barth attacked racism and the broader European Protestant volksnationalist theo-politics with its enshrining of race and blood as a creational structure that could be used to authorize "God is on our side" nationalistic warfare, racial separatist and supremacist ideas. This is part of the history of Barth being rejected by Kuyperians, Neo Calvinists, Van Til and the broader segments of American Protestantism they influenced.

67.22.194.101 (talk) 21:52, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Kuyper's Anti-Semitism

Also well-represented in academic literature, this topic deserves inclusion so I offer the following notes in the hope that honest and fair-minded people will see a way to work it in without an edit war.

Kuyper openly opposed (especially violent) anti-semitism while still expressing a position that Jewish and non-Jewish people regarded as deeply anti-semitic in Kuyper's time and after. As with his remarks on other races and nations, he offers praise and makes compliments, but he also adds a lot of qualification, broad-brush criticism, and mitigating speech that fits in with a troubling tendency at that time to suggest Jews didn’t deserve persecution that they nevertheless brought upon themselves. This type of “anti-anti-semitism” is deeply paternalistic bigotry that cowardly condemns persecution while also rationalizing and thus enabling it. It is far from defending and standing with the victim.

Kuyper’s Anti-Semitism in the Context of Dutch Calvinist Theo-Political Ideology

Dutch Calvinist factions differed on their understanding of the Jews, but all were theo-political in their assumptions and reasoning. There was no idea of “conversion” as such in Calvinism, but the Jews were essential to eschatological beliefs. The end times approached as the gospel was preached to all people, so it had to be preached to all people, even if it was quite certain they would not convert or could not convert as in the case of the Jews. St. Paul spoke of a spiritual remnant of Israel that would finally repent in the end, but for now God had hardened their hearts. For this reason only the Afgescheidenen Calvinist faction who believed the end of history was near (or wanted to hasten it) were focused on missions to the Jews. Kuyper and the other faction, the Dolerenden, were focused instead on triumphing over unbelief in the political realm.

Since Kuyper’s faction was opposed to the secularization of society, they had a problem with the fact that all Dutch Jews from the orthodox to secular

“rejected the idea that the Dutch nation was intrinsically Christian. As a result, the Dolerenden’s attack on the Jews formed an integral part of their campaign against secularization. The Jews, Kuyper declared, were not Dutchmen at all. Their blood-line was quite different and so was their way of thinking. In accordance with the wish of ultra-orthodox Jews, Kuyper proposed [in De Joden onder de Christen-natien] to deprive them of their full citizenship rights. The Jews would be relegated to the ‘guest’ status of resident strangers.” -Gert J. van Klinken, ”Jewish Conversion as an Aim of the Reformed Churches” p. 85 in Cultures of Conversions. Bremmer, Jan N, Wout Jac van Bekkum, and Arie L Molendijk, eds. Peeters Pub & Booksellers, 2006.

Kuyper’s threat to take away Dutch Jews’ citizenship was not something he pursued later as prime minister, but leading up to that time he fought a political culture war against them.

In 1896 Kuyper changed the stance of his church on Jewish missions, making it a priority in order to combat Judaism. With a supersessionist theology now, the church was to be seen as the new Israel and the only one to be restored in the future. The Jewish mission was a “spiritual war” “to hit Judaism in the heart.” Converts were few but were regarded as no longer being Jews. The point was simply to assert Christian superiority and put Jews in their place, meanwhile Kuyper sought allies in the Catholics, formerly the main enemy of the ARP. Anti-semitism went up, anti-catholicism went down. The Messiasbode (Herald of the Messiah) newspaper of the Jewish Mission denounced Jews for blasphemy (rejecting Jesus) and warned of divine vengeance, specifically in the form of Hitler who would act as Assyria had in the Old Testament--as a scourge of God against Israel. Van Klinken says this led to or helped rationalize passive and supportive Dutch responses to the Nazis. Once the Nazis began rounding Jews up in thee occupation, van Klinken argues the Dutch Calvinists who resisted this tended to be the milleniallists who thought Hitler's "final solution" must be a Satanic plan to thwart God’s plan/Christian eschatology regarding the remnant of Israel.

Key Primary Sources

In Liberalisten en Joden / Liberals and Jews (a series of newspaper articles from 1878) Kuyper attacks Jews for subverting Christian Europe under the cover of liberalism. Kuyper compliments Jews for cultural traits and achievements he approves of, but he is critical of them for things he dislikes about them. He compared Reform Jews to modernist, liberal theologians he opposed in theology, calling them all apostates. He saw secular Jews as powerful but dangerous thinkers (e.g., Spinoza, Marx, Heine) -- dangerous not because they are Jewish but because as secularized Jews they absorbed radical aspects of European thought. Orthodox Jews he respected but saw as a problem to be solved with conversion and assimilation. Kuyper disliked what he claimed was an undue influence from Jews in journalism and finance. He was against the Russian pogroms and violent anti-semitism, but he claimed that Zionism and Jews serving as agents of the Russian government precipitated violent reactions. He suggested a solution to “the Jewish problem” in the establishment of a Jewish state, possibly in eastern Russia.

In Antirevolutionaire Staatkunde (1917) / Anti-Revolutionary Politics) Kuyper actually said anti-semitism did not exist in the Netherlands (as in Germany) because Calvinists loved the Old Testament more than Lutherans.

Secondary Sources

Antisemitism: A Historical Encyclopedia Of Prejudice And Persecution, Volume 1 Richard S. Lev, ed. ABC-CLIO (May 24, 2005)

Gert J. van Klinken, ”Jewish Conversion as an Aim of the Reformed Churches” in Cultures of Conversions. Bremmer, Jan N, Wout Jac van Bekkum, and Arie L Molendijk, eds. Peeters Pub & Booksellers, 2006.

Louis Praamsma, Let Christ Be King: Reflections on the Life and Times of Abraham Kuyper (Ontario: Paideia Press, 1985) - This book from a neocalvinist press takes a very uncritical, hagiographical approach to Kuyper’s sources and “worldview” based in German romanticism and historicism, which it fully acknowledges and explains at the beginning without discussing anything problematic about these lines of thought. In discussion of Liberalism and the Jews Praamsma says Kuyper “exposed the undue influence of the Jews in the financial world and the press” as if he believes it to be a true and unproblematic statement.

67.22.194.101 (talk) 07:26, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

There are some really interesting and worthwhile things here - I hadn't actually realised that Kuyper had suggested what in fact became the Jewish Autonomous Oblast. But the above text is simply not in a viable form for inclusion into the article. There is far too much original synthesis. The only quotation from a secondary source is van Klinken, and this raises more questions than it answers - Why did the ultra-orthodox Jews wish this? Was Kuyper responding to their expressed wish? Why didn't Kuyper pursue this as Prime Minister? Was it expediency, or did he change his mind. In any case, a lot more work would need to go into a paragraph that I could agree with. StAnselm (talk) 07:50, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

As a rule of thumb, for something as controversial as anti-semitism, I would expect every sentence to be footnoted. StAnselm (talk) 07:51, 27 July 2012 (UTC)