Kuyperians take their work outside the theology department and the Sunday School class. The elders at our church read Empires of Dirt a while ago, and here is a helpful summary of our options when we go out in public:
When a Christian says that Christians ought not to insist that Jesus be recognized as Lord in the public square, he is either saying that we shouldn’t do this because Jesus doesn’t want us to, or we shouldn’t do this because Jesus doesn’t care, making it OK for us to go along with the secular flow.
Douglas Wilson, Empires of Dirt, 37-38
But if Jesus wants the public square to be secular, how did we learn this? From the Bible? And if we arrange the public square in this way because of what Jesus said, isn’t this just a form of theocracy? And if we go the other way and say that Jesus doesn’t care what goes on in the public square, and we can therefore make a treaty with the secularists out there, two questions arise. One, how do we know Jesus doesn’t care? Did He say? If He didn’t, how do we know? If He did, then isn’t this just another theocracy variation?
Jesus definitely never says that He does not care. Even if He didn’t say He cared, did He say we should not? But we don’t actually need to guess.
Ascribe to the LORD the glory due his name;
1 Chronicles 16:29–31
bring an offering and come before him!
Worship the LORD in the splendor of holiness;
tremble before him, all the earth;
yes, the world is established; it shall never be moved.
Let the heavens be glad, and let the earth rejoice,
and let them say among the nations,
“The LORD reigns!”
The Obedience of Faith
Paul wrote to the Romans about the apostleship given to him “to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of [Christ’s] name among all the nations” (Romans 1:5). The final chapter of Romans includes the same phrase with the purpose of God included: the gospel “has been made known to all nations, according to the command of the eternal God, to bring about the obedience of faith” (Romans 16:26).
What does this “obedience of faith” look like? What does it do? What does it care about? In other words, what is our salvation unto? And how does it affect the “nations”?
Ask it still another way? What is a light for? It is not to hide under a bushel basket. Jesus said, “You are the light of the world” (Matthew 5:14). Light shines; it can’t help it. “Let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven” (Matthew 5:16).
So due to Christ’s sovereignty over and interest in the cosmos, apart from sin, what exists that cannot be consecrated in the obedience of faith for His name’s sake? Consider how many things are dealt a death blow by a Kuyperian understanding.
A Kuyperian cannot be a Darwinian. We believe that Christ created all things, that He chose what they would be, what they could become, and what they could not become.
A Kuyperian cannot be a Deist. We believe that Christ sustains all things, that they all hold together in Him moment by moment. He did not create the world and then leave us to our own devices like a watch-maker.
A Kuyperian cannot be a Dualist. We believe that Christ created and sustains what He cares about, which includes invisible and visible things. As a subset of this, a Kuyperian cannot be an asceticist, one who gives up all things. This is not even of true spiritual value, and it defines spirituality in worldly terms (see Colossians 2:20-23). It goes against the positive that Paul described to Timothy (see 1 Timothy 4:1-5).
A Kuyperian cannot be indifferent. Our apathy, our boredom, our unthankfulness for creation as creatures for is a failure to honor Christ.
Whether you use the adjective “Kuyperian” or not, it is intended to give us some common language about the sort of Calvinists we are. We believe that “our help is in the name of the LORD, who made heaven and earth” (Psalm 124:8). He calls the nations to worship Him. The gospel is the power of God to salvation for the Jew first, and also for the Gentiles. Saved men are commissioned to use their thumbs for Christ, and for more than flipping the pages of their Bibles.
Theology Out of Church Doors
This is public theology, not because it is decided by the people, but because it is for the people.
In Christ the cosmos has order and meaning everywhere. It’s all for His glory, including anthropology, sociology, science and technology, medicine, agriculture, gender and marriage and sex and parenting, education, economics, government, art, and hygiene. Among other things, Kuyper himself helped to start a daily newspaper, a university, and a political party. You can even get the Abraham Kuyper Collected Works in Public Theology (12 vols). So he said,
[N]ot only the church, but also the world belongs to God and in both has to be investigated the masterpiece of the supreme Architect and Artificer. A Calvinist who seeks God, does not for a moment think of limiting himself to theology and contemplation, leaving the other sciences, as of a lower character, in the hands of unbelievers; but on the contrary, looking upon it as his task to know God in all his works, he is conscious of having been called to fathom with all the energy of his intellect, things terrestrial as well as things celestial.
Lectures on Calvinism, 125
A Kuyperian is a Christian who worships with the church and then works outside the church. The church is not the boss, but Christians can be. Kuyperianism is concerned for everything outside of the institutional church. The ends of the theology department are hard to see from here, but some of us have never even noticed the door.