Former winner explains how the seminary honor that once brought the Reformed community together is now splitting it.
(By Richard J. Mouw, Christianity Today). A large number of the 300 who attended the 1998 Stone Lectures at Princeton Theological Seminary were “Kuyperians.”
On the 100th anniversary of Abraham Kuyper’s delivering those lectures in 1898, the seminary chose to commemorate the occasion by inviting Yale University’s Nicholas Wolterstorff— a longtime advocate for Kuyper’s thought—to offer that year’s Stone lecture.
It was also the occasion for presenting the inaugural Kuyper Prize—funded by the philanthropists Rimmer and Ruth DeVries, themselves avid Kuyperians—to the Dutch historian and Kuyper biographer George Puchinger.
The Kuyper Prize is much in the news right now. Having designated Tim Keller as this year’s recipient, Princeton leaders announced last week that they are reversing that decision. Princeton’s president acted in response to protests from students regarding Keller’s lack of support for both the ordination of women and LGBTQ causes.
Modeling a marvelous graciousness, Keller has agreed to keep the commitment to give the lead-off lecture for this year’s Kuyper conference, even though there will be no award ceremony.
When those yearly Kuyper events began at Princeton in 1998, many of us in the Kuyperian movement—both in the United States and abroad—were thrilled that this great seminary was not only honoring our hero but also acknowledging that the stream of Calvinist thought he represented continues to be a vital presence within the broad Reformed community.
The news about reversing the decision to honor Keller has spread rapidly within our movement in the past few days, typically with expressions of consternation and feelings of betrayal.
Related links:
Princeton Seminary Reforms Its Views on Honoring Tim Keller, by Kate Shellnut, Christianity Today
The Curious Case Of The Kuyper Prize, by the GA Junkie
3 Comments. Leave new
Their is a greater irony hear, that a lot of people are missing.
Though the issues most likely did not come up in his lifetime, Abraham Kuyper was undoubtedly opposed to the ordination of women and homosexuals. He was, after all, a conservative Calvinist.
By denying this prize to Keller, the seminary also testifies that it would also disqualify Kuyper himself from eing eligible to receive the prize named after him.
This in an actuality a watershed event in the history of religious free speech and expression in America. In essence the actions of PTS and its supporters in essence mainlines or mainstreams religious thought suppression and public shaming based upon ideology and politics, fed and informed by social media. In the abject surrender of the President and Board to the mob and the cult of correctness, the green light is now given to other overt and public campaigns, witch hunts, and accusations all in effort to chill, suppress and control the flow and exchange of free ideas and thought. No one is safe and no one is immune from the tools of character assignations to threats and intimations to violence, as was expressed in the social media campaign against Rev. Keller. Give him “a rough time”, rough him up. Was the common refrain.
Either Craig and the Board were either collectively naive or had the backbone of the common jelly fish not to know who his denomination was, who he was, and what their policy on matters of sexual ethics was. It was like they were for the prize, now they are against it. As one who has some degree of contact to the Seminary and its students, I personally fear for those who choose to question the sexual orthodoxy and authoritarianism of the Seminary and denomination. Or if they will be given fare treatment by the staff and administration. Enter at your own risk I suppose is the new ethic of the institution.
Reformed theology is constantly being reformed. Ours is a living, growing, expanding faith. Perhaps the basic tenets of the gospel never change, but hopefully new insights lead us forward. No doubt, Abraham Kuyper held different views from many people today. It doesn’t mean he was less faithful, it means things have changed. Christians once believed the earth was flat. The Bible in a few places accepts slavery as a “fact of life.” Most of us see things differently now. The same goes for patriarchy, once considered “normal” to have now given way for more healthy and egalitarian male-female relationships. In this new world, the joy of preaching the good news and serving the sacraments is no longer limited to those with male anatomy, but is given to all who feel called and led to serve God’s people and witness to God’s grace in the world. This is the good news. Thanks be to God for enabling human beings to continue to grow in faith and love so they can break out of the darkness of a fundamental rigidity and into the light the Lord’s new world!