Kuyper, Abraham

(1837–1920)

   Theologian, Denomination Founder and Politician.

   Kuyper was educated at the University of Leyden in the Netherlands and became a minister in the Dutch Reformed Church. A committed Calvinist and opponent of all forms of liberalism, he joined Groen Van Prinsterer’s Anti- Revolutionary Party and was elected to the Dutch Parliament in 1874. Central to his platform was the demand for State aid for Church schools and a revitalisation of national life. Among many other activities, he started a Calvinist University in Amsterdam; he formed a new denomination known as the Gereformeerde Kirk and in 1901 he became Minister for the Interior. During the four years he was in office, he was prepared to use legislation to break a railway strike and he campaigned for the Dutch to mediate in the South African war between the British and the Boers. He was also a prolific writer and is perhaps best known for his Calvinism, which was originally produced as a series of lectures delivered in the United States of America. His Anti-Revolutionary Party still exists and he was an important figure in the revival of traditional Calvinism in the Netherlands.

   F. Vandenberg, Abraham Kuyper (1960).