The Development of the Kuyperian Worldview in the Life and Thought of Abraham Kuyper

This is a paper I wrote recently for my history of Christianity class on Abraham Kuyper. Enjoy.
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Mark Noll, in his acclaimed book The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind, bemoans the fact that most evangelical Christians today are unprepared for serious intellectual en­gagement with postmodern culture. In casting about for any example of such intellectual engagement among Christians, Noll points to the Dutch Reformed tradition[1], and more particularly, to the man who played such a decisive role in shaping that tradition: Abraham Kuyper.[2] The feature of this Dutch Reformed�also called Kuyperian or neo-Calvinist�tradition which is invariably invoked in its engagements with contemporary culture is the concept of worldview.[3] The term became a part of the Dutch Reformed tradi­tion through a series of lectures delivered at Princeton University in 1898[4] in which Abraham Kuyper presented Calvinism not simply as a denomination or collection of doctrines, but as a worldview or, to use Al Wolters� definition of the term, �[a] compre­hensive framework of one�s basic belief about things.�[5] In this essay, we shall briefly examine how the worldview concept worked its way into the discourse of nineteenth cen­tury intellectuals and how it came to be applied to Christianity in particular. Then we shall turn to Kuyper himself and examine how the Calvinistic worldview, as he referred to it, developed in his thought and action in the years leading up to 1898.

The term worldview[6] is something of a new term in the English language. The term first appeared in English in a letter by J. Martineau in 1858 as a translation of the slightly older German term Weltanschauung. Weltanschauung first appeared in a work by Immanuel Kant entitled Critique of Judgement published in 1790. The term was used only once by Kant himself, somewhat incidentally and without the connotations and ro­bust meaning it would come to have. However, his disciples, most notably Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762-1814), seized on the term and used it extensively. For Kant�s fol­lowers the term came to mean, according to David Naugle, �an intellectual conception of the universe from the perspective of a human knower.�[7] Weltanschauung soon became a favourite word among German philosophers and within twenty years was used in the writings of Friedrich Schleiermacher, Novalis, G. W. F. Hegel and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. By the middle of the nineteenth century the term had spread into the discourse of a number of other disciplines including history, music, linguistics, and even physics. At the same time the term began to spread into other European languages. By 1898, the year of Kuyper�s Stone Lectures, Weltanschauung or worldview had become embedded in the intellectual discourse of Europe and North America and occupied a place on the same conceptual plane as philosophy.[8]

Worldview was first used to refer to Christianity in a series of lectures by the Scottish Presbyterian theologian James Orr (1844-1913). Orr delivered these lectures to the United Presbyterian Theological College of Edinburgh in 1891. They were published two years later under the title The Christian View of God and the World. Their purpose was to defend the Christian faith to a European culture which was in the midst of a mas­sive and, in Orr�s mind at least, catastrophic shift. C. S. Lewis referred to this shift as the �un-christening of Europe�[9]: the move from a Christian age to a �post-Christian� age through the modernist revolution. The strategy which Orr used to make his defence was to speak of Christianity as a comprehensive Weltanschauung. Orr recognised the futility of trying to defend specific doctrines to a European audience which was growing in­creasingly suspicious of Christianity and saw the need to deal with Christianity more comprehensively as a worldview:

The opposition which Christianity has to encounter is no longer confined to special doctrines or to points of supposed conflict with the natural sci­ences,�but extends to the whole manner of conceiving of the world, and of man�s place in it�. It is no longer an opposition of detail, but of princi­ple.[10]

This worldview had implications for all thought, not just the religious. Orr�s Christian worldview was based on the firm conviction that belief in Christ �committed [the be­liever] to much else beside.�[11] The believer is committed to certain views of God, man, sin, salvation, and human destiny which are unique to Christianity and which stand in stark contrast to the purely scientific or philosophical worldviews. Thus Orr paved the way for and inspired Kuyper who, five years after the publishing of The Christian View, would seize on this idea of worldview and make it the centre of his thought. Before delving into how that came about, a brief biographical note is in order.

Abraham Kuyper (1837-1920) possessed, among other things, a very big head. In fact, when he was child, his parents feared that he suffered from water on the brain.[12] Whether or not he also possessed a big head in the egotistic sense is open to de­bate. But if anyone could ever be justified in having such a disposition, Abraham Kuyper was certainly such a one. The list of accomplishments of this man are quite consider­able.[13] After receiving a doctorate in sacred theology from the University of Leiden, he served ten years (1864-1874) as a minister in the Dutch Reformed Church. He founded two newspapers, De Heraut (The Herald) in 1871 and De Standaard (The Standard) in 1872, and was editor of both for more than forty-five years. In 1874 he was elected to the Dutch Parliament. In 1879 he founded the Anti-Revolutionary Party, the first modern, organised, and popular political party in the Netherlands. He served as its leader for more than forty years including four years (1901-1905) as Prime Minister. He was an academic theologian and in 1880 founded the Free University of Amsterdam. In the early 1880s he led a protest movement in the Nederlandse Hervormde Kerk (Dutch Reformed Church) which result in a schism in 1886 and the formation of the confederation of Gereformeerde Kerken (Reformed Churches). He wrote more than two hundred books and over a thousand articles on a broad range of subjects. He spoke several languages and travelled extensively throughout Europe. He was also married and had a number of chil­dren.[14] Perhaps unsurprisingly he suffered three nervous breakdowns during his lifetime. All the while, he managed to maintain the love and loyalty of the Dutch people, almost to the point of hero-worship.[15]

James Bratt has aptly commented that Kuyper�s life is characterized by �a work ethic gone gargantuan out of a conviction that, though the world theoretically lay in God�s hands, the project of proving that fact in detail had fallen to him on every front.�[16] Kuyper himself put it this way in the twenty-fifth anniversary edition of De Standaard:

One desire has been the ruling passion of my life�. It is this: That in spite of all worldly opposition, God�s holy ordinances shall be established again in the home, in the school and in the State for the good of the people; to carve as it were into the conscience of the nation the ordinances of the Lord, to which Bible and Creation bear witness, until the nation pays homage again to God.[17]

The �worldly opposition� which Kuyper is referring to here is modernism, which he saw as being represented in the ideals of the French Revolution, German pantheism, and Darwinian evolutionism.[18] The tool, or weapon, which Kuyper used to defend against such opposition was worldview. It was his conviction that, if modernism, which was based on idolatry, could be �stretched out� to apply to all facets of life, could have such wide implications, then Christianity, which was based on obedience to God and faith in Christ, must be similarly �stretched out� into an equally comprehensive view of reality. This is what Kuyper�s Stone Lectures were meant to show. We have seen how this con­cept developed generally in the philosophical discourse of the nineteenth century and how it came to be �Christianized� through the work of James Orr. What about Kuyper himself? How did his concept of the Calvinistic worldview develop in his own thought in the years leading up to the Stone Lectures?

While Kuyper gave his idea of worldview its fullest expression in the Stone Lec­tures and indeed did not use the term �worldview� or Weltanschauung in its full sense in any of his discourse up until that time, a number of its key features appeared much ear­lier. First, he discovered the impact of worldview on his own personal thought and action. In his reflections upon his 1863 �conversion� from liberalism to orthodox Calvinism, he acknowledged that his former life was based upon a foundational, unifying principle or �spiritual orientation of the�heart�[19] which directed all his thought and action. Through conversion that principle changed and thus his thought and action were redirected ac­cordingly. Thus the realisation that one�s life is inherently guided by one�s worldview. Second, he discovered how worldview, particularly the Calvinist worldview, can shape the life of a community. This development came during his first ministerial assignment in the village of Beesd (1863-1867). Here he was struck by the villagers coherent Calvinist way of life and way of looking at the world. Kuyper describes his discovery rather poign­antly:

There was not only knowledge of the Bible but also knowledge of a well-ordered world-view, though of old-Reformed style. It was sometimes as though I was sitting on the lecture-room benches hearing my talented mentor [at the University of Leiden, J. H.] Scholten lecturing on the �doc­trine of the Reformed Church,� but with inverted sympathy. And what, for me at least, was the most attractive, was that here spoke a heart that not only possessed but also understood a history and experience of life�. Those ordinary working people, hidden away in a corner, told me in their rough regional dialect the same thing Calvin had given me to read in beautiful Latin. Calvin could be found, however misinformed, among those simple country-folk, who had hardly heard of his name. He had taught in such a way that he could be understood, even centuries after his death, in a foreign country, in a forgotten village, in a room floored with tiles, with the mind of an ordinary labourer.�[20]

Thus Kuyper discovered that a specific worldview could be lived out by a group of sim­ple country-folk, i.e. it was not simply an intellectual category relegated to the ivory tower of philosophy. But perhaps more importantly, for the first time he experienced a specifically Calvinistic way of life, a Calvinistic worldview. Third, he discovered the im­portance of worldview for scholarship. This discovery was spelled out in Kuyper�s 1871 lecture Modernism: The Fata Morgana in the Christian Domain. In this polemical speech against theological liberalism, Kuyper describes a change in worldview of his former pro­fessor, J. H. Scholten. In 1858, when Kuyper was studying under Scholten at Leiden, the professor upheld the Johannine authorship of the Gospel of John. Six years later however, Scholten changed his mind on the issue, which he himself acknowledged to be the result of a shift in his own thinking from a Platonic to a more Aristotelian worldview. While Kuyper did not hold this shift against Scholten and still held him in high esteem, he used this shift to illustrate that every scholar�s conclusions are dependent upon their world­view.[21]

Despite these elements of worldview thinking in Kuyper�s thought, Peter Heslam has argued that before the Stone Lectures Kuyper made no attempt at articulating the Calvinistic worldview in a deliberate and specific way.[22] While this may be true and while it is important not to read his later ideas back onto his earlier ones, greater nuance would perhaps be more helpful. For while the terms Weltanschauung or �worldview� might not have appeared in Kuyper�s writings, key elements of what would come to known as the Calvinistic[23] worldview were developed in the period between 1871 and 1898. These cannot simply be passed over. Kuyper�s activity in both press and politics as well as the formulation of the ideas of �sphere sovereignty� and �antithesis� during this period must be seen as being in continuity with what he discovered early on and what he articulated in the Stone Lectures.

In 1874 Kuyper was voted into the Dutch Parliament. In order to be sworn in, Kuyper first had to give up his clerical office. This change in careers did not mean a for­saking of his religious concerns but rather was an opportunity for Kuyper to increase his influence in pushing for the reformation of Dutch society. Already at this time, Kuyper conceived of Calvinism as being much more than simply a collection of doctrines, but as having real implications for the right ordering of society and politics (over against the real implications of the Enlightenment and the French Revolution).[24] As such, �Kuyper saw it as incontestable that the Calvinistic�movement had to be active not only in the religious domain but also in society and political life.�[25] It is this vision of Calvinism which motivated Kuyper in all his various roles. He worked tirelessly in his political ca­reer not only to work in Parliament for the reformation of society, but also to raise public support and sway public opinion through his daily editorials in De Standaard, often by appealing to the Calvinist national heritage of the Netherlands. This vision of the social and political implications of Calvinism would become a hallmark of the Kuyperian worldview. Thus the idea that Calvinism could be used as a comprehensive framework for the ordering of society was beginning to crystallize in Kuyper�s thought well before 1898.

The theory of �sphere sovereignty� must also be considered in the development of Kuyper�s thought between 1871 and 1898. �Sphere Sovereignty� was the title of Kuyper�s address at the opening of the Free University in Amsterdam in 1880. In it, he put forth the idea that all of human life is divided into separate spheres.

Just as we speak of a �moral world,� a �scientific world,� a �business world,� the �world of art,� so we can more properly speak of a �sphere� of morality, of the family, of social life, each with its own domain. And be­cause each comprises its own domain, each has its own Sovereign within its bounds�. The cogwheels of all these spheres engage each other, and precisely through that interaction emerges the rich, multifaceted multi­formity of human life.[26]

Towards the end of his address Kuyper, in perhaps his most famous utterance, cried, �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!��[27] This theory would play a tre­mendous role in the formation of Kuyper�s Calvinistic worldview. Precisely because Christ is sovereign over all spheres of life, there is no sphere in which Christian activity is illegitimate, and it is therefore possible to construct a Christian worldview which com­prehends all spheres.

Also present in the �Sphere Sovereignty� address, Kuyper makes mention of two different �credos [which] stand squarely against each other�[28]: one is derived from the confession that all sovereignty rests in God; the other denies this confession and cannot think of a higher sovereign than the state. Again, while it would be presumptuous to read the worldview concept into this, this mention of two �credos��or �life convictions� as he also referred to them�is of particular significance as an early expression of the idea of antithesis. A key aspect of Kuyper�s thoughts on worldview had to do with there being essentially two different kinds of people: the regenerate and the unregenerate. As Kuyper later expresses it in his Encyclopaedia of Sacred Theology (1893-1898): �Both are hu­man, but one is inwardly different from the other, and consequently feels a different con­tent rising from his consciousness; thus they face the cosmos from different points of view, and are impelled by different impulses.�[29] In the Stone Lectures Kuyper would ap­ply this concept to the two different and opposing worldviews fighting for the soul of Europe: the Modernistic one and the Calvinistic one.[30]

Thus in the period between 1871 and 1898 three key features of the Kuyperian worldview made their appearance in Kuyper�s thought: first, the idea that Calvinism is much more than a collection of doctrines and has implications for politics and society; second, that human life is divided into multiple spheres over which Christ has claimed supreme sovereignty; and third, the concept of antithesis between the regenerate and the unregenerate.

In an 1896 address to the general synod of the Gereformeerde Kerken, Kuyper bemoaned the fact that there was no Calvinistic worldview which could oppose the mod­ern pagan worldview. Here for the first time Kuyper intentionally and decisively�and, in a way, finally�adopts the concept of worldview into his thinking. Here the influence of James Orr must be considered. The Christian View of God and the World was published in 1893 and while Kuyper makes only passing mention of it in a footnote of his Lectures on Calvinism, his concept of worldview bears striking resemblance to that of Orr�s.[31] It is apparent that Kuyper was familiar with Orr and had read his work before 1898. Perhaps it was his reading of Orr which motivated Kuyper�s complaint. Whatever the source of Kuyper�s angst, he seems to have taken the matter into his own hands for, when a letter arrived in October 1896 from the faculty of Princeton University inviting him deliver the prestigious Stone Lectures, Kuyper seized on the opportunity to articulate the worldview which he saw as so necessary for the fight against modernism: �Calvinism, as the only decisive, lawful, and consistent defence for Protestant nations against encroaching, and overwhelming Modernism,�this of itself was bound to be my theme.�[32]

In formulating the content of this Calvinistic worldview, Kuyper did not have to do a whole lot of original thinking. Key elements of that worldview had been developing in his mind in the decades leading up to the Stone Lectures. Since his conversion he had at least pondered the significance of a guiding principle for the life of an individual. In the village folk of Beesd, he had discovered how such a principle could guide the lives a group of people. Through his work in politics and the press he not only embodied the practical implications of worldview for the life of a society but also realized the compre­hensive nature of worldview. In his theories of sphere sovereignty and antithesis he had a coherent framework within which to construct his worldview. And it had a foundation on the historical, practical Calvinism which he had discovered in the village folk of Beesd. Thus Kuyper�s adoption of the concept of worldview did not indicate a major shift in his thought but as something into which his life and thought up to that point could become more clearly and coherently defined and defended against the overwhelming �storm of Modernism.�[33]

Thus we see, not only the historical development of the concept of worldview, but how this concept developed in Abraham Kuyper�s thought and life. In setting up Cal­vinism as a comprehensive worldview with implications for all �spheres� of human life, Kuyper not only found a way in which to define and defend his vision for Dutch society, he provided his followers with a conceptual framework which continues to be a resource for guiding Christian intellectual engagement with contemporary culture.[34]


BIBLIOGRAPHY
Bolt, John. �Editorial.� Calvin Theological Journal 31 no. 1 (1996): 9-10.
Bratt, James D. �Abraham Kuyper: Puritan, Victorian, Modern.� In Religion, Pluralism and Public Life: Abraham Kuyper�s Legacy for the Twenty-First Century, ed. Luis E. Lugo, 3-21. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000.
De Bruijn, Jan. �Calvinism and Romanticism: Abraham Kuyper as a Calvinist Politician.� In Religion, Pluralism and Public Life: Abraham Kuyper�s Legacy for the Twenty-First Century, ed. Luis E. Lugo, 45-58. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000.
Henderson, R. D. �How Abraham Kuyper Became a Kuyperian.� Christian Scholars Review 22, no. 1 (1992): 22-35.
Heslam, Peter S. Creating a Christian Worldview. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans; Carlisle: Paternoster, 1998.
________. �The Meeting of the Wellsprings: Kuyper and Warfield at Princeton.� In Religion, Pluralism and Public Life: Abraham Kuyper�s Legacy for the Twenty-First Century, ed. Luis E. Lugo, 22-44. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000
Kossmann, E. H. The Low Countries, 1780-1940. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978.
Kuyper, Abraham. Abraham Kuyper: A Centennial Reader. Edited by James D. Bratt. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans; Carlisle: Paternoster, 1998.
________. Lectures on Calvinism. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1931.
McGoldrick, James E. Abraham Kuyper: God�s Renaissance Man. Auburn: Evangelical Press, 2000.
Naugle, David K. Worldview: The History of a Concept. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002.
Noll, Mark A. The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1994.
Olthius, James H. �On Worldviews.� In Stained Glass: Worldviews and Social Science, ed. Paul A. Marshall, Sander Griffioen, and Richard J. Mouw, 26-40. Lanham: University Press of America, 1989.
Wolters, Albert. Creation Regained: Biblical Basics for a Reformational Worldview. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1985.
________. �Dutch Neo-Calvinism: Worldview, Philosophy and Rationality.� In Rationality in the Calvinian Tradition, ed. Hendrik Hart, Johan van der Hoeven, and Nicholas Wolterstorff, 113-131. Lanham: University Press of America, 1983.
________. �On the Idea of Worldview and Its Relation to Philosophy.� In Stained Glass: Worldviews and Social Science, ed. Paul A. Marshall, Sander Griffioen, and Richard J. Mouw, 14-25. Lanham: University Press of America, 1989.
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[1] �The Dutch Reformed tradition has been the single strongest intellectual resource for the renewal of Christian philosophy� (Mark Noll, The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1994], 237).
[2] John Bolt, �Editorial,� Calvin Theological Journal 31 no. 1 (1996): 9-10.
[3] For recent examples of such engagements see Appendix A in David K. Naugle, Worldview: The History of a Concept (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans 2002), 349-356.
[4] These lectures, endowed by the Stone foundation and known as the Stone Lectures, were also published in book form: Abraham Kuyper, Lectures on Calvinism: Six Lectures Delivered at Princeton University Under the Auspices of the L. P. Stone Foundation (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1931).
[5] Albert M. Wolters, Creation Regained: Biblical Basics for a Reformational Worldview (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1985), 2. A more comprehensive (and more lengthy) and perhaps more satisfactory definition of the term can be found in James Olthius, �On Worldviews,� in Stained Glass: Worldviews and Social Science, ed. Paul A. Marshall, Sander Griffioen, and Richard J. Mouw (Lanham: University Press of America, 1989), 26-40.
[6] The terms �world- and life-view�, �life perspective�, or �confessional vision� all mean roughly the same thing, as does �life-system� which was used by Kuyper in the Stone Lectures.
[7] Naugle, Worldview, 59.
[8] Ibid., 58-67.
[9] C. S. Lewis, �De Descriptione Temporum,� in Selected Literary Essay, ed. Walter Hooper (Cambridge: At the University Press, 1969), 4-5, 12; quoted in Naugle, Worldview, 6.
[10] James Orr, The Christian View of God and the World as Centering in the Incarnation (Edinburgh: Andrew Eliot, 1893), 4; quoted in Naugle, Worldview, 8.
[11] Ibid.
[12] James E. McGoldrick, Abraham Kuyper: God�s Renaissance Man (Auburn: Evangelical Press, 2000), 11.
[13] It was once remarked of him that it was as if he had �ten heads and a hundred hands� (John Hendrick de Vries, biographical note to Kuyper, Lectures on Calvinism, iii).
[14] The fact that none of the biographies of him consulted for this paper made mention of how many children he had perhaps indicates the level of importance which Kuyper ascribed them.
[15] For example, de Vries, Lectures on Calvinism, ii: �It was by his almost superhuman labors, no less than by his strength and nobility of character, that he left �footprints on the sands of time� with such indelible clearness, that in 1907, when his seventieth birthday was made the occasion of a national celebration, it was said: �The history of The Netherlands, in Church, in State, in Society, in Press, in School, and in the Sciences of the last forty years, cannot be written without the mention of his name on almost every page, during this period the biography of Dr. Kuyper is to a considerable extent the history of the Netherlands.��
[16] James D. Bratt, �Abraham Kuyper: Puritan, Victorian, Modern,� in Religion, Pluralism and Public Life: Abraham Kuyper�s Legacy for the Twenty-First Century, ed. Luis E. Lugo (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000), 6.
[17] Kuyper quoted in de Vries, Lectures on Calvinism, iii.
[18] See Peter S. Heslam, Creating a Christian Worldview: Abraham Kuyper�s Lectures on Calvinism (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans; Carlisle: Paternoster, 1998), 96-111.
[19] Abraham Kuyper quoted in R. D. Henderson, �How Abraham Kuyper Became a Kuyperian,� Christian Scholars Review 22, no. 1 (1992): 31.
[20] Abraham Kuyper, Confidentie: schrijven aan den weled. Heer J. H. van der Linden (Amsterdam: H�veker, 1873); quoted in Heslam, Christian Worldview, 33-34 (Kuyper�s emphasis).
[21] Henderson, �How Kuyper Became Kuyperian,� 34.
[22] Heslam, Christian Worldview, 92.
[23] It should be noted at this point that Kuyper defined Calvinism rather broadly, tracing it back to Augustine and Paul�s letter to the Romans, thinking of it as the highest expression of Christianity. See Lectures on Calvinism, 33-34.
[24] See Abraham Kuyper, �Calvinism: Source and Stronghold of Our Constitutional Liberties (1874),� trans. Reinder Bruinsma, in Abraham Kuyper: A Centennial Reader, ed. James D. Bratt (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans; Carlisle: Paternoster, 1998), 279-317. Kuyper would echo this in Lectures on Calvinism, 14-15.
[25] Jan De Bruijn, �Calvinism and Romanticism: Abraham Kuyper as a Calvinist Politician,� in Religion, Pluralism and Public Life, 52.
[26] Abraham Kuyper, �Sphere Sovereignty (1880),� trans. George Kamp in Centennial Reader, 467-8.
[27] Ibid, 488.
[28] Ibid, 468.
[29] Abraham Kuyper, Principles of Sacred Theology, trans. J. Hendrik de Vries, introduction by Benjamin B. Warfield (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1980), 154; quoted in Naugle, Worldview, 21-22.
[30] �Two life systems are wrestling with one another, in mortal combat� (Kuyper, Lectures on Calvinism, 11).
[31] For full discussion of the similarities between Orr and Kuyper see Heslam, Christian Worldview, 92-95.
[32] Kuyper, Lectures on Calvinism, 12.
[33] Ibid., 10.
[34] For a listing of thinkers and institutions influenced by Kuyperian thought see Heslam, Christian Worldview, 5-8.

Post-Exam Fragment

Twenty minutes ago I put a final period at the end of the final exam of my first year at Regent College. Hard to believe that a year can go by so quickly, how time seems to dance by so effortlessly. And how in contrast to this, I seem to plod my way through, sometimes I can put a skip in a step, sometimes the next step demands great effort. It has been a great year and it has been a difficult year. I've never been challenged so much before: intellectually, emotionally, spiritually, relationally. As I sit here and catch my breath, I wonder at how far I've come and at whether I've even really moved at all, whether my struggles this year have really amounted to anything....

He is Coming!

Last night the Regent Gospel Choir, of which I am a part, had their final performance. For those who don't know, the Regent Gospel Choir was formed by this fellow named Ben Keyes who came to Regent to do an arts thesis on gospel music. Because you can't just write gospel music, but must perform it, Ben formed the Regent Gospel Choir to perform his songs. Last night was the final presentation of his thesis and let me tell you the Spirit was in the house. In a way I don't know why I'm blogging about this because the experience really can't be put into words. You really have to hear the CD (yes, the night was recorded). Ben is perhaps one of the most talented people I have ever been close to. When he sits at the piano, its like the piano becomes a part of him. And his songs, lyrically and musically, are astoundingly good. All his songs are full of this tension between suffering and hope, between this life and the life to come, between sin and grace. Hopefully I can share the recording of the evening with some of you some time.
I thought I would try to describe one of my favourite parts of one of my favourite songs. The song is called "I will wait on the Lord". After singing verse and chorus a few times we come to this vamp (if you don't know what a vamp is, I don't know how to describe it, so you'll have to look it up). It begins with the bass section singing this deep consistent "I will wait, I will wait, I will wait on the Lord." They repeat this and continue to repeat it when the tenors come with this high, urgent proclamation "He is Coming! He is Coming!". They repeat this and continue repeating when the alto come in with "Help me to wait on the Lord." And they repeat this and continue repeating when the sopranos come in with this beautiful melodic line "He is here. He has always been by your side." And every one keeps repeating and building. So you get this juxtaposition of these different seemingly contractory but true phrases repeated on top of eachother and building.
"I will wait, I will wait, I will wait on the Lord."
"......He is....Coming!......He is....Coming!"
"......Help me to wait on the Lord......"
"He is here! He has always been by your side."
After repeating this a few times, the band cuts out and it just voices and clapping....
You really have to hear it. But it just brings tears to the eyes. Really. That vamp actually sums up my year pretty nicely. I feel like I've done a lot of waiting this year. Not by choice and certainly not patiently. But have been forced to wait on the Lord. Waiting for him to reveal himself. Waiting for a lot of things in my life which don't make sense right now to make sense. And then to hear that He is here, He has always been by my side....

Just in case you're concerned that I have become too high-brow with the last post...

I had a thought on the bus this morning: if something is both brown and round, we should call it bround. But then I thought: is there anything else in the world that this word describes other than cow pies?

Dostoevsky

There's this class I'm taking right now called Christian Thought and Culture (often shorted to CTC, but acronyms make me uncomfortable). As is typical with courses here at Regent College, there is a large amount of reading to do. But the great part about this class is that every student is allowed to read 400 pages of basically anything they like (as related to the course, of course). So as part of this 400 pages I decided to pick up and read The Brothers Karamazov by everyone's favourite Russian, Fyodor Dostoevsky. I read book five of the Book, which is entitled "Pro and Contra" and is perhaps the most brilliant chapter of any book ever written. Perhaps. It contains the infamous episode in which Alyosha meets with his older, philosophically bent brother Ivan at a restaurant and over a bowl of fish soup Ivan tells a poem he made up about "The Grand Inquisitor." I won't get into all the details of the conversation (you can and probably should read it for yourself), but there is one statement by Ivan which hit me and got me thinking and which may or may not get you thinking. If nothing else this is a beautiful, if tragic, bit of, well, I don't know the word for it. Just listen.

I'm convinced like a child that the wounds will heal and their traces will fade away, that all the offensive and comical spectacle of human contradictions will vanish like a pitiful mirage, like a horrible and odious invention of the feeble and infinitely puny Euclidean mind of man, and that in the world's finale, at the moment of eternal harmony, something so precious will happen and come to pass that it will suffice for all hearts, that it will allay all bitter resentments, that it will atone for all men's crimes, all the blood they have shed. It will suffice not only for the forgiveness but also for the justification of everything that has ever happened to men. Well, let it, let it all be and come to pass, but I don't accept it and I won't accept it! Let even the parallel lines meet and let me see them meet, myself - I shall see and I shall say that they've met, but I still won't accept it. That is the heart of the matter, so far as I'm concerned, Alyosha. That is where I stand.

What a hopeless statement. And yet some days I come to the same conclusion. I've had the education. I know all about God's creation of this wonderful universe. I know about Christ's death on the cross what that means. I know that he will come again in glory to judge and to fully renew the cosmos. This all I know. But some days I just don't feel like accepting it. It may all be true, in fact, I'm pretty sure it is, but sometimes I just feel like saying, "So what?" Intellectually it's all very real. Its all been explained and proved and whatnot else. But can I accept it? Perhaps I'm just too obstinate and rebellious, too proud to accept even the greatest of all gifts. Why? I don't know. Its just this sense, this mood which broods deep down inside me and which sometimes breaks the surface of my consciousness. Can I accept all that God has done and will do? Or do I refuse and proceed on my own.
Here I seem to have stumbled upon that which can finally separate us from God. Proud obstinacy which simply refuses all that is good in exchange for, well, me, I guess. This seems to be C. S. Lewis's conclusion in The Great Divorce. He describes Napolean living light years away from any hope for life, so obsessed with his own self to the exclusion of all others and to the Other. I guess this is why humility is so profoundly important in our ascent to God. That we open ourselves to the good which does not come from our own action. For it was humility which kept silent the twelve as the Son of God stooped to wash their feet. Some days we just need to sit silently and allow Christ to wash us. To accept his humble action in humility...

Whistler

Reading break. Whistler. Condo with a fireplace and views of the clouds which covered the mountains. Walking distance to the best skiing in the world. Hanging out with friends. Eating amazing food around a dinner table, like a real family. Not getting any work done. Does it get any better than that?
Yes, some of you may know that I went up to Whistler for a few days over Reading Break. It was a great week. I skied for the first time since a Grade 9 trip to Frostfire in North Dakota. Almost ten years ago! Makes me feel old. I really enjoyed skiing. For not having done it in so long I think I picked it up pretty quick and before long was carving up the slopes like I was born to do it. OK, that's an exageration, but that's what it felt like. There's something about skiing that just makes you feel, I don't know, like a superhero or something. The cold wind in the face. The mountain peaks gazing down on you. The speed. Maybe that's why I like skating so much. The cold wind in the face. The legs pumping. The speed in the cold. Maybe that's it. There's something inside me which becomes extremely alive when I'm moving quickly through cold air. That's why I'm tempted to get a season pass for Whistler come next winter.
I should also add that I did have a number of nice wipe outs, including one as I came to the bottom of the hill at the end of the day. Also had a couple yard sales.
I should get some pictures to post on here. Stay tuned maybe I'll put some up in the next day or so.

A Rainforest Holding On Resolutely To The Colour Green and A Secret Land With Very Comfortable Chairs

Hello gracious readership,
It has been some time since I actually wrote something that wasn't either a quote or an angst ridden blathering, so perhaps I should just talk about somethings which have been significant in this life o' mine.
Last week Thursday I walked to school for the first time. It takes about an hour, but it is a pleasant hour. The only thing separating my house from the Regent campus is a large west coast rainforest which, I was surprised to find out, holds on resolutely to the colour green, even on February 1st. So through the woods and forest glades I wandered, and heard the birds sing sweetly in the trees. There was no looking down from lofty mountain grandeur but my sentiment remained: "My God! How Great Thou Art." When I left the house that morning a thick fog hung just over the rooftops and slipped in and out of the tree tops. As the sun began to rise, the fog thinned and became shot through with sunlight. Why can't all days begin this way?
Also last week the new Regent Library opened. It is where I currently find myself and have often found myself lately. It is a wonderful place. Under the ground it is, so that we students feel like ants or rabbits scurrying about our work in a secret land as the rest of the world walks idly on. A secret land with very comfortable chairs. Chairs conducive to speed reading the Church Fathers. In the two hours before I plunked myself down here I rattled off 40 pages of the mystical writings of Gregory of Nyssa, the great Cappadocian Father, a giant in early Eastern Orthodox theology. What it was about? Haven't a clue. But I have to read 50 more pages of him and 50 more of some other dude and write responses for both before going to sleep tonight. So. Doesn't sound so impressive anymore. In fact, I should get out of here. Go home. Eat something. Then read, read, read, watch Seinfeld, and read some more. And then write. And then sleep.
And there you have it. Good night.

Where I've Been

I have been busy, sick, stressed out, happy, sad, depressed, overjoyed, hopelessly short on money, researching the eschatology of John Calvin, walking the beach, tired, eating and drinking and sometimes making merry, and most of all on the couch, in the coffee shop, at the library reading, reading, and humming hymns on the way to the bus stop. In short, I've been alive.
Thanks for your concern.

All is Calm, All is Bright

And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly hosts praising God, and saying:

Ere zij God in den hoge!
Vrede op aarde,
In de mensen
Een welbehagen.

Merry Christmas everyone

Things observed from the back of a Winnipeg Transit bus

OK, I don't know what it is about Winnipeg Transit buses, but there just seems to be more interesting things happening on them compared to their Vancouver counterparts. Perhaps this is because in Winnipeg I get to sit in the back and observe; in Vancouver I always end up squished in the one square foot space left by the front door...or maybe its all because the good people of Winnipeg are just plain more interesting. Anyways....
------------
Two mornings in a row this otherwise normal seeming middle-aged man gets off the bus at the legislature with his right boot halfway on, halfway off. Like he left the house in a rush that morning and didn't have the time to put it on properly. He steps off, and proceeds with purpose in a straight line to his destination, through the snow, heedless of the beaten path just off to his side, with his right boot halfway on, halfway off and the cuff of his pantleg resting wrinkled upon the top. Two mornings, two new paths through the snow. Perhaps it will all be beaten down by the end of the winter. Beaten down by this man with his right boot halfway on, halfway off and the cuff of his pantleg resting wrinkled upon the top.

Christmas Reflection Courtesy of St. Augustine

In honour of the season, a wonderful, imagery-laden quote from our good friend St. Augustine. It's worth a few reads.

The Word of the Father,
by whom all the cycles of time was made,
when he was made flesh,
caused the day of his birth to take place in time,
and in this human genesis willed to have one day,
when no day opens without His divine command.

With the Father He precedes all the ages of the world,
by the Mother He set Himself on this day
in the courses of the years.

The Maker of man was made man,
that the Ruler of the stars might suck at the breast;
that the Bread might be hungered;
the Fountain, thirst;
the Light, sleep;
the Way be wearied by the journey;
the Truth be accused by false witnesses;
the Judge of the living and the dead be judged by a mortal judge;
the Chastener be chastised with whips;
the Vine be crowned with thorns;
the Foundation be hung upon the tree;
Strength be made weak;
Health be wounded;
Life die...

He who was before all the ages,
without any beginning of days, Son of God,
deigned in these days just past to be the Son of man;
and He who was begotten of the Father,
not made by the Father,
was 'made' in the mother whom He had made;
that here and now He might spring from Her,
who except through Him could no-when and no-where have been.

- St. Augustine
Sermon CXCI (on Christmas)

Connection

Paper writing: I love it and I hate it. I hate how it takes so long to take an idea you have fully intact and perfect in your head and shoehorn it into the limited vocabulary you have from staying up late reading the dictionary. Writing essays is like wrestling for me. I wrestle this idea into 10 pages of prose.
I just handed an essay on the relationship between Pope Gregory VII and King William the Conqueror of England. Don't worry, I can see you staring at your computer screen and tilting your head and saying "hm" in sympathetic interest. That's been the typical response. Its an odd topic I'll admit. I came attracted to it because in general I love historical connection. Sure it's nice to have all these random facts in your head, but when you can connect things together like Christmas cards on a string above the mantle, it's beautiful.
What comes to mind when you think of 11th century Europe? Probably not much. What about the year 1066? If you grew up in the Commonwealth you should know that this is the date of the Battle of Hastings, the Norman Conquest, King Harold getting shot in the eye, King William taking the throne in the last successful military invasion of the England. What else? Well, the Church had gone to shit, priests were getting married, holy things were being bought and sold like used cars, hardly the kingdom of God. But along comes a number of pious popes who wanted to change that and so we get the papal reforms. Their solution to the problems in the church? Stop people from doing bad things. How were going to do that? By having more authority. If only the word of the pope would be obeyed lickety-split, there'd be no problems. The problem was that this other group of fellows, let's call them 'kings', because that's what they were, weren't too quick to take orders from a pope and so there's this big controversy, all of a sudden you have three guys claiming to pope, yadda yadda yadda.
So my question: how did these two events converge? I basically threw them at each other and saw where the sparks flew and started writing. Turns out William helped the papal agenda along rather nicely. They got on relatively well. William helped the papacy bring about reform and the papacy helped William assert his rule over the English he didn't slaughter. That's about it.
Until you look further and you see that here we have England and the pope getting along nicely, but in 500 years with old Henk #8 things changed.
So that is when history gets fun for myself. When you begin to string the lines from one event to another across geography, across time.
If anyone actually wants to read my paper, let me know I'll send you a copy. (...crickets...tumbleweed...)
As for me, I have library books to return.

This Is My Father's World

If you've been watching the news lately you may have seen that Vancouver got a huge dump of snow the past couple days. It has really made the city quite beautiful the way the snow just hangs on every twig and leaf of every tree. A winter wonderland if there ever was one. This morning I went for a walk in my local rainforest and it was like Narnia, all enchanted and silent. It was one of those experiences you just want to bundle up and put in your pocket but at the same time something powerful and awesome you just want to leave free to prance and blow as it wills.
The power went out at my house around 8 o'clock this morning. Odd how that happens. One moment the lights are lighting, the fridge is refrigerating, the clocks are keeping time, the TV's entertaining, the computer's computing; the next: nothing. Silence. Peace. It's like God finally hit the snooze bar.
But after a few hours you start to get a bit uneasy. You hit light switches unconsciously and are shocked when nothing happens. I'm so used to pushing power buttons and having devices respond accordingly and instantly. The temperature starts going down. Will the power ever be restored?
So KC and I spent the afternoon at a crowded Starbucks with power. But night descended and begged the question: Has the power been restored? The whole neighbourhood was dark. As we walked from the bus stop to our house it was one of the most eerie feelings. Houses and streets and no lights. In a few houses you could see candlelight or firelight. There's something very welcoming and homey about that light. But it was like the apocalypse had just come down. It was a strange world. Quiet. A wonderful and terrifying quiet. We lit our gloomy basement with tea lights and had a cigarette outside. It all caused me to reflect on whether I could live without electricity and if perhaps one day we will have to. Would I be able to survive?
The power came back on around 8 o'clock in the evening and the buzzes and the whirls resumed their monotone song as if nothing had happened. But those twelve hours of perfect, whole silence made me wonder and look forward to a new world, covered in silent white, where the only noises are the crunch of snow, the muffled voice of a friend and the warm crackle of fire.

This is my Father’s world, and to my listening ears
All nature sings, and round me rings the music of the spheres.
This is my Father’s world: I rest me in the thought
Of rocks and trees, of skies and seas;
His hand the wonders wrought.

This is my Father’s world, the birds their carols raise,
The morning light, the lily white, declare their Maker’s praise.
This is my Father’s world: He shines in all that’s fair;
In the rustling grass I hear Him pass;
He speaks to me everywhere.

This is my Father’s world, should my heart be ever sad?
The lord is King—let the heavens ring. God reigns—let the earth be glad.
This is my Father’s world. Now closer to Heaven bound,
For dear to God is the earth Christ trod.
No place but is holy ground.

This is my Father’s world. I walk a desert lone.
In a bush ablaze to my wondering gaze God makes His glory known.
This is my Father’s world, a wanderer I may roam
Whate’er my lot, it matters not,
My heart is still at home.

Maltie D. Babcock, 1901

Paper Done....Let's Go Drinking!!

It has been some time since I last just posted something about life. I just finished my first significant research paper of my Regent career. The last two days I have been locked in my room in front of my laptop, wrestling my topic into 1500 words. It's not very good but at least its out of the way and now I know for later how not to go about writing a paper. Its been a while since I've written one and I'm afraid to say I'm somewhat rusty. The paper was only five pages. Apparently I wrote it on the Iona monastery and its place in history of Christianity. My problem is that I'm so used to writing history papers that even when I'm not supposed to write a history paper I end up writing a history paper. As a result of this I feel that I get too hung up on details of events and then explaining these details soon take up my alloted amount of words. Well how do you say anything of substance in five pages anyways. Hopefully whoever's marking my paper is in a good mood and doesn't know much about Iona. That always helps, I find.

Dried Glue in the Mouth

If you sleep the entire night with your mouth open, then when you wake up it feels like your mouth is filled with dried white glue. I found that out this morning.

Quote of the Week

(Yes, I know two in one day. Chesterton. Enough said.)
The simplest truth about man is that he is a very strange being; almost in the sense of being a stranger on the earth. In all sobriety, he has much more of the external appearance of one bringing alien habits from another land than of a mere growth of this one. He has an unfair advantage and an unfair disadvantage. he cannot sleep in his own skin; he cannot trust his own instincts. He is at once a creator moving miraculous hands and fingers and a kind of cripple. He is wrapped in artificial bandages called clothes; he is propped on artificial crutches called furniture. His mind has the same doubtful liberties and the same wild limitations. Alone among the animals, he is shaken with the beautiful madness called laughter; as if he had caught sight of some secret in the very shape of the universe hidden from the universe itself. Alone among the animals he feels the need of averting his thought from the root realities of his own bodily being; of hiding them as in the presence of some higher possibility which creates the mystery of shame. Whether we praise these things as natural to man or abuse them as artificial in nature, they remain in the same sense unique. This is realised by the whole popular instinct called religion.

G. K. Chesterton
from The Everlasting Man

Quote of the Week

There are two ways of getting home; and one of them is to stay there. The other is to walk round the whole world till we come back to the same place.

G. K. Chesterton
the opening line of The Everlasting Man

CRC

Yesterday for the first time since I moved to Vancouver I attended a CRC church. My buddy Brian and his wife Candice invited me. Its way on the other side of the city. We got there late. But the way that people looked at us when we marched down the aisle escorted by an usher to the seat usually occupied by some old matriarch of the church who happened to be away made me feel at home. There is just something about the CRC--the way the worship team leads, the way people modestly put their offering envelopes into the plate, the way that the kid who read Scripture read Scripture, the way that everyone exited the sanctuary afterwards and, after shaking hands with the domine, filed into the fellowship hall--which is just like a good pair of socks on a cold damp morning. I felt refreshingly at home and comfortable.

Quote of the Week

I turned to Alypius and cried out: 'What is wrong with us? What is this that you have heard? Uneducated people are rising up and capturing heaven, and we with our high culture without any heart--see where we roll in the mud of flesh and blood. Is it because they are ahead of us that we are ashamed to follow? Do we feel no shame at making not even an attempt to follow?'

- Augustine of Hippo
from Confessions (where else?)

Elevators

The other night I got stuck in an elevator.
Why was I in the elevator when I was only going down 4 floors? Should have taken the stairs.
Stuck for half an hour. Along with KC, Arthur, Julie, Richard, Jan, Lesslie-Ann, some lady from the UK, and Johnny, the 125 pound Great Perenese dog--the hugest dog I've ever met.
We glided to a stop a foot and a half below the second floor.
Pushed that little telephone button. Figured we would get put through to the elevator technician who should have lived on the second floor. Instead we get this call centre who knows where. Toronto probably. Hope the elevator didn't get charged the long distance.
Tried my best MacGyver resourcefulness. Couldn't unstuck. I honestly don't think MacGyver would have been able to bust out of that elevator. It was shut solid. There wasn't even that panel on the ceiling which is always so easy to punch out. No secret lever anywhere.
Annoying how impossible it was to get out of that thing. Seems to be symptomatic of Western society, can't fix anything yourself, can't trust anyone with potentially useful things.
We were in there for a long time. Got so stuffy. The four halogen lights in the impenetrable ceiling didn't help things.
In the meantime Richard told us a story of how he got hit by a 3/4 tonne pickup and walked away with only a concussion.
In the end we tricked the elevator into letting us out. Afterwards we ate dessert and talked theology.