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Cody Zulder

Cody
Zuiderveen

PhD Student, Theological Studies

Faculty Mentor

About Cody

Cody is an ordained minister in the Christian Reformed Church serving as the pastor of Westview Christian Reformed Church in Grand Rapids, MI. His research explores where and how discipleship ought to be situated within Kuyperian theology while developing key doctrines for formation in the life of a follower of Christ, from conversion (or Palengensis, to use Kuyper’s language) to a well-formed imitator of Christ in each unique sphere of life.

Education

Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary; Calvin Theological Seminary

2016

MDiv; ThM

Grand Valley State University

Bachelor of Business Administration (BBA)

Research Interests

Abraham Kuyper, Public Theology, Neo-Calvinism, Discipleship

Publications

“Abraham Kuyper’s Approach to Scripture for Laborers: Considerations for Public Theologians.”

September 2025. Presentation at the Global Network of Public Theologians, Fuller Theological Seminary.

Few scholars have been as active in the public realm as Abraham Kuyper, offering an unparalleled application of Scripture to public life and work. Kuyper held that “at almost every point in the social question” – that is, the social and economic issues arising from rapid industrialization – “God’s Word provides the most specific directives.” Drawing from select texts in Abraham Kuyper Collected Works in Public Theology, this paper investigates the nature of human work and offers a synthesis of Kuyper’s biblical understanding of labor. The Bible’s notion of human work, for Kuyper, is (1) by nature good, (2) enabled through the gift of common grace, (3) one of the mediated ways God works in the world, (4) done willfully by humanity, (5) for the good of humanity and creation more broadly, and (6) ultimately for the glory of God. Each of these six aspects of Kuyper’s expositions of biblical labor will be explored to see the ways in which Kuyper understood the nature of work and offer areas of further inquiry for future scholarship.

“Kuyper, Bonhoeffer, and the ‘Creation’ of Christian Ethics: An Ethical Exposition of Genesis 1-3.”

May 2025. Sao Paulo, Brazil. Presentation at A Public Gospel: Evangelicals, Neo-Calvinists, and Society Conference.

Abraham Kuyper (1837-1920) and Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945) are two of the most enduring Christian voices from the late nineteenth and early twentieth century and have had a profound impact on contemporary Christian life and practice. To get at the heart of theological ethics and the foundation of moral value for these two scholars, this study examines the way they exposit Genesis 1-3 in their writing. This paper draws primarily from Bonhoeffer’s Ethics and Creation and Fall in dialogue with selected texts from Abraham Kuyper Collected Works in Public Theology to establish shared themes that are essential in developing their ethical and theological frameworks. In light of their work, the themes of community, obedience, grace or preservation, and freedom are explored as integrative paradigms to understand, evaluate, and apply theological ethics.

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