God's Renaissance Man: Abraham Kuyper

Rating:
Summary: My Heart for Thy Cause
Review: McGoldrick has given the church a valuable introduction for what one may hope to be a Kuyper revival. *God's Renaissance Man* may be a fitting title for the life and work of a politician, preacher, theologian, and journalist--areas where Kuyper could have easily set the standard. The book begins by giving his early life, his internal struggles with liberalism at college, his conversion to the Reformed Faith in his first pastorate, and the public battles in which he was the center for the rest of his life.

The Parts that I found most interesting were the ones on his life at college (including his temporary loss of rational control, only to be regained by reading classic literature), his wars with liberalism, and his founding of a new denomination. McGoldrick either loses me, or attempts to cover too much too fast at the end of the book. Nevertheless, that did not mar the book at all, it just pointed the need for more work on Kuyper. Other interesting parts of the book show Kuyper's foundational thoughts concerning the presuppositionalist mode of apologetics. An example, there are no neutral men, for faith is the foundation of all thought, especially scientific thought; Faith precedes the examination of evidence. Granted, there are more and possibly better examples of his apologetic. McGoldrick also doesn't hide the reader from Kuyper's faults, and those of his immediate followers. Many have taken his cultural mandate to the extreme that evangelism is neglected, although this was not true of Kuyper. His supralapsarianism, if I am correct, will cause some in the Reformed camp to stop and question (even I am not so sure). Although I am not a paedo-baptist, I can understand where my Presbyterian and paedobaptistic friends depart company with Kuyper here, as his view of Baptism was not in the mainstream of Reformed thought. Nevertheless, the admission of these faults show the humanity of Kuyper and the honesty of McGoldrick--both of which we may imitate.

Kuyper was a man for his time and provided us many examples: on how to leave a denomination, over how to make Christ lord over all, and on how to combat liberals. His theology may be summed up in: "There is not one square inch where God does not cry, 'Mine!'" May this book be a springboard for a Kuyperian revolution.
One last item: this book has an excellent bibliography for further study, a biblio of say, 5 pages.

Rating:
Summary: My Heart for Thy Cause
Review: McGoldrick has given the church a valuable introduction for what one may hope to be a Kuyper revival. *God's Renaissance Man* may be a fitting title for the life and work of a politician, preacher, theologian, and journalist--areas where Kuyper could have easily set the standard. The book begins by giving his early life, his internal struggles with liberalism at college, his conversion to the Reformed Faith in his first pastorate, and the public battles in which he was the center for the rest of his life.

The Parts that I found most interesting were the ones on his life at college (including his temporary loss of rational control, only to be regained by reading classic literature), his wars with liberalism, and his founding of a new denomination. McGoldrick either loses me, or attempts to cover too much too fast at the end of the book. Nevertheless, that did not mar the book at all, it just pointed the need for more work on Kuyper. Other interesting parts of the book show Kuyper's foundational thoughts concerning the presuppositionalist mode of apologetics. An example, there are no neutral men, for faith is the foundation of all thought, especially scientific thought; Faith precedes the examination of evidence. Granted, there are more and possibly better examples of his apologetic. McGoldrick also doesn't hide the reader from Kuyper's faults, and those of his immediate followers. Many have taken his cultural mandate to the extreme that evangelism is neglected, although this was not true of Kuyper. His supralapsarianism, if I am correct, will cause some in the Reformed camp to stop and question (even I am not so sure). Although I am not a paedo-baptist, I can understand where my Presbyterian and paedobaptistic friends depart company with Kuyper here, as his view of Baptism was not in the mainstream of Reformed thought. Nevertheless, the admission of these faults show the humanity of Kuyper and the honesty of McGoldrick--both of which we may imitate.

Kuyper was a man for his time and provided us many examples: on how to leave a denomination, over how to make Christ lord over all, and on how to combat liberals. His theology may be summed up in: "There is not one square inch where God does not cry, 'Mine!'" May this book be a springboard for a Kuyperian revolution.
One last item: this book has an excellent bibliography for further study, a biblio of say, 5 pages.