New Book from President Mouw Looks at Christianity in the Public Square

“Short and personal” work applies theologian Abraham Kuyper’s ideas to contemporary challenges :: 09/08/11

Readers looking for a succinct, accessible discussion of what it means to be a Christian involved in public life will find it in Fuller President Richard J. Mouw’s new book, Abraham Kuyper: A Short and Personal Introduction, released this summer by Eerdmans Publishing Company.

“Almost a century after his passing, [Kuyper] still has some vital insights to offer about Christian cultural and political discipleship,” writes Mouw of the influential Dutch Reformed theologian and statesman. Mouw—who struggled in the 1960s to discern an appropriate Christian response to such issues as the civil rights movement and the Vietnam War—discovered in Abraham Kuyper’s writings a robust vision of active Christian involvement in public life that has guided him ever since, enabling him to “steer my way between a privatized evangelicalism on the one hand and the liberal Protestant or Catholic approaches to public discipleship on the other hand,” he writes.

In this 136-page “short and personal introduction,” Mouw sets forth Kuyper’s main ideas on Christian cultural discipleship, including his views on the sovereignty of different sectors of life, secular versus religious politics, common grace, and other topics. Mouw looks at ways to update—and, in some places, even suggest alternatives to—Kuyper’s thought as he applies it to such twenty-first-century issues as religious and cultural pluralism, technology, and the complexities of Islam.

“Richard Mouw's book does just what it is supposed to do: stimulate our thinking on subjects of consequence, quicken our interest in a mind many of us ought to know better, and improve already great concepts into ideas even better suited to our circumstances,” writes John Stackhouse of Regent College. Agrees Princeton Theological Seminary’s John Bowlin: “[The book’s] engagement with Kuyper's work is thoughtful and sympathetic, but also questioning and critical, a combination that makes this book a perfect entryway into Kuyper's social thought."

“Mouw, with typical wit and warmth, introduces us to Kuyper in all his multifaceted richness,” affirms James K. A. Smith of Calvin College. “A gift for the next generation.”

Abraham Kuyper: A Short and Personal Introduction is available at online booksellers such as the Fuller/Cokesbury site, at the Fuller Bookstore, and at other bookstores nationally.