Neo-Calvinism: A Theological Introduction

[alexanderjames]

Book by Cory C. Brock and N. Gray Sutanto, 2022. Lexham Press (Lexham Academic).

This was released a few months ago, and has featured on podcasts like the Reformed Forum.
Seemingly centered around the Dutchmen Herman Bavinck and Abraham Kuyper, as well as some others, Neo-Calvinism is painted in a very positive light by the authors of the book and its reviewers.

There has however been a great deal of criticism about Neo-Calvinism in the past, as well as a difficulty to precisely define the movement (perhaps similar to "Puritanism"). It is agreed that Neo-Calvinism is different from "New-Calvinism" (which this thread is not focused on).

Everyone seems to love Bavinck, and there's been a great surge of new translations in recent years of both his works as well as those of Kuyper.
So my questions:
1. Has anyone read the book or planning to? Please share your thoughts.
2. What are the dangers of Neo-Calvinism (if any), as you see it?
3. Who would benefit from spending time learning from this tradition/movement, as opposed to more classical reformed theology from the Reformers and Puritans?

 

[davejonescue]

Book by Cory C. Brock and N. Gray Sutanto, 2022. Lexham Press (Lexham Academic).

This was released a few months ago, and has featured on podcasts like the Reformed Forum.
Seemingly centered around the Dutchmen Herman Bavinck and Abraham Kuyper, as well as some others, Neo-Calvinism is painted in a very positive light by the authors of the book and its reviewers.

There has however been a great deal of criticism about Neo-Calvinism in the past, as well as a difficulty to precisely define the movement (perhaps similar to "Puritanism"). It is agreed that Neo-Calvinism is different from "New-Calvinism" (which this thread is not focused on).

Everyone seems to love Bavinck, and there's been a great surge of new translations in recent years of both his works as well as those of Kuyper.
So my questions:
1. Has anyone read the book or planning to? Please share your thoughts.
2. What are the dangers of Neo-Calvinism (if any), as you see it?
3. Who would benefit from spending time learning from this tradition/movement, as opposed to more classical reformed theology from the Reformers and Puritans?

Of what I understand, but am not sure; I believe with Bavinck and Kuyper, especially Kuyper; Neo-Calvinism is basically Calvinism in every facet of life. From education, to government, to civil affairs, to society, etc. Both Kuyper and Bavinck, their general works are relatively easy to read and access with our current OCR/Auto-Translation capabilities because they are all in the public domain. But both, especially their Dogmatics, are very heavy in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew; so, for a laymen like myself, they are out of reach without scholarly translations. Bavincks Dogmatics have been translated, Kuypers have not. I believe the neocalvinism website is working to slowly transcribe both authors works and host for free on the website, but both authors wrote quite a bit. This has been a project I have been debating whether to fully pursue, that is translate first Kuypers "non-technical" works for free distribution, and I will most likely do it once I am done with some of my Puritan projects. I think I did Pro-Rege Vol.1 in like two days, so it isnt much trouble; and DeepL does a wonderful job with Dutch. https://archive.org/details/pro-rege-kuyper-english-vol.-1-pdt/mode/2up

I would prefer to get the Lexham translations of Kuyper, but $500 for I think 12 or 14 volumes....ouch. And the thing that pushes me to translate them, even if with DeepL, is if so few volumes cost so much, yet they are of significant importance; that puts them out of reach for most of the world.

 

[RamistThomist]

Book by Cory C. Brock and N. Gray Sutanto, 2022. Lexham Press (Lexham Academic).

This was released a few months ago, and has featured on podcasts like the Reformed Forum.
Seemingly centered around the Dutchmen Herman Bavinck and Abraham Kuyper, as well as some others, Neo-Calvinism is painted in a very positive light by the authors of the book and its reviewers.

There has however been a great deal of criticism about Neo-Calvinism in the past, as well as a difficulty to precisely define the movement (perhaps similar to "Puritanism"). It is agreed that Neo-Calvinism is different from "New-Calvinism" (which this thread is not focused on).

Everyone seems to love Bavinck, and there's been a great surge of new translations in recent years of both his works as well as those of Kuyper.
So my questions:
1. Has anyone read the book or planning to? Please share your thoughts.
2. What are the dangers of Neo-Calvinism (if any), as you see it?
3. Who would benefit from spending time learning from this tradition/movement, as opposed to more classical reformed theology from the Reformers and Puritans?

Lexham Publishing typically produces high quality, outstanding material (judgment on the scholarship, not the conclusions).

I'm somewhat hostile to Neo-Calvinism, though I do like Bavinck and Schilder. The following are my notes on it.

Calming down on Neo-Calvinism, to all

The evangelical/Calvinist resurgence in American life is properly termed “New Calvinism.” The Dutch intellectual tradition from 1880 to sort of today is Neo-Calvinism. Admittedly, new…

tentsofshem.wordpress.com

You Should Know Klaas Schilder - The Laymen's Lounge

Imagine if Abraham Kuyper didn’t hold to his famous doctrine of common grace, yet still believed in Christ’s lordship over all spheres. Imagine if one believed that the church would be persecuted in the future, but nevertheless believed that the church will be on the front lines. That gives one...

thelaymenslounge.com

 

[Semper Fidelis]

This question is such a complex one that I hesitate to answer it as I'm likely to make some sort of broad characterization that some will find is not quite accurate.

I don't think ideas that came from Kuyper and other Dutch Reformed are necessarily bad in themselves but that the dispciles of these ideas often go in very strange directions.

One thread that is interesting in the Contiental Reformed tradtion that affects the Dutch tradition is the Covenant ideas that find themselves baked into the center of Westminster theology where they are only generally alluded to in the 3FU. I'm working my way through this amazing tome on Covenant Theology right now: https://www.crossway.org/books/covenant-theology-case/

Bruce Baugus as a chapter on the history of the Covenantal ideas in Geneva, Zurich, and in to the Dutch tradition. He, along with other authors, dispels some of he Calvin vs the Cavlinists ideas that were popularized by the Torrances and others last Century. In fact, his Chapter traces some of this thought as Barth upends certain Covenant ideas that are adobted by the Torrances. He even ha a treatment of Schilder in that Chapter.

So, on the issue of the nature of the Covenant itself (including ideas like the Pactum Salutis or even a developed sense of the Covenant of Works) you can get a sense as to why there are points of friction between Presbyterianism and the Dutch trddition. It's not that they are "necessary" because certain people in that tradition develop some of the same ideas but the Westminister Confession "bounds" some ideas where the 3FU may leave some to develop ideas in directions that are not necessary but still lead to major points of conflict.

I would also say that I've sort of grown to appreciate why certain ideas about shere sovereignty and the whole issue of how the Crhsitian or the Church engages the culture were much more pressing in modernity than in the centuries prior to the modern era. The Westminster Confession assumes an Establishmentarian context with a Christian magistrate. It's amazing even to think about the weath of Puritan works at a time when major universities and the govrnment were all developing what it looked like to live out the Christian life or govern as Christians.

I don't really want to go into all the twists and turns as to how the experience of America and the non-conformists that fled to America affected how our own adoption of the Stadards took shape but even that happened in the context of a general consensus around Protestant Christianity.

I think the modern era, with completely sexular states, and the erosion of mediating institutions has placed Christians in a place where they hadn't existed for centuries and it is always tough to agreee upon what it looks like as Christians in the world. Kuyper had a vision that many today find attractive but that has a lot of variants in modern times. Not everyone is following Kuyper exactly, but you can see the ideas of cultrual transfromation or "redeeming the City" not only form conservative directions but progressive ones. Keller's movement is a varation on the theme but many of his disciples are leaving behind Reformed orthodoxy in favor of increasing desire to "contextualize" in an aim to redeem the culture in their pocets of the world.

I guess what I'm saying is that there are a lot of good things to learn from this tradition, but it's also helpful to watch and be warned as certain threads become the center of concern for some Christians and they tend to peel away from the heart of Reformed orthodoxy as they pursue some cultural aims.