The Kuyperian vision for culture: what is it, and how is it doing? Part II

Posted on August 18, 2009 by dsnoke |2 Comments

Having laid out the general tenets of the Kuyperian vision and its contrast to the Puritan vision, I now want to cast a critical eye on it. We have now had over 100 years of Kuyperian theory and practice. How is it doing? How has it worked out? I will break this into two parts, theory and practice.

Theoretical criticisms

My first criticism is the Kuyperian notion of the kingdom of God. Biblically, the kingdom of God is God’s people. God will save his people and take them to heaven. He will not lead truths and beauties to heaven. It is correct to say that all things true and beautiful glorify God, and God gives gifts to all people, Christian and non-Christian, to find truth and make beautiful things, but one just cannot miss in the Bible the strong theme that all the things of this world will “burn up,” that this world is “passing away” and is “vanity,” that we should set our minds on the “things above,” that we are “strangers and foreigners in this world,” etc., etc. The Kuyperian has to do backflips to downplay this strong theme in Scripture. Paul and the Apostles were filled with burning desire to see people come to faith. Jesus spent his time working with people, not painting and doing science.  The Old Testament focuses on the building of a community of people, namely, the nation of Israel.

Fundamentalists, and the Puritans before them to some degree, have typically reacted the other way, in seeming to deny the validity of any work for the sake of truth and beauty, or pleasure and fun. Kuyperians and evangelicals are correct in saying that there is a place for finding “satisfaction in one’s work” (Ecclesiastes 2:24) and doing “whatever your hand finds to do, with all your might” (Ecclesiastes 9:10, Colossians 3:23).  The error of the fundamentalists is to fail to realize that there are many aspects of what it means to be fully human, which include curiosity (science), art, building, relaxation and fun. To deny these things any validity is to make us feel less human, and this has historically been a problem for fundamentalists who lose their children who see real value in such things.

But the Kuyperian error is to see such things as ends in and of themselves. In Kuyper’s definition of the kingdom of God, a person is building the kingdom of God by being a good scientist, even if he never speaks to another person about his faith or adds a person to the community of the church. The Bible simply never talks this way. Such things are good, but are “vanity.” To focus on such things to exclusion is to empty.  The whole message of the book of Ecclesiastes is that such things, pursued as ends in themselves, fail to satisfy. Only God himself satisfies. Ecclesiastes says that such things are good, and we should do them and rejoice, but they are nothing by themselves. This is not just the message of Ecclesiastes; there is a whole “vanity theme” running through the Bible. We are fundamentally a people made for heaven, and a people who want to bring others to heaven, and all heaven rejoices, not when a person makes a good Ming vase, but when one sinner repents and is fit for heaven.

I recently read a very Kuyperian book that tried to argue from the Bible that our cultural artifacts will actually accompany us to heaven (D.B. Hegeman, Plowing in Hope; C. Wright also appears to embrace the same view: http://www.christianitytoday.com/bc/columns/bookoftheweek/itainttheshack.html). In my opinion, the argument is contorted. Ecclesiastes says they won’t even be remembered after a few years in this world!

My second theoretical criticism is of the general Kuyperian acceptance of all that lies below the line in the above tables. Kuyper himself seems to have been quite enamored with the successes of science and did not question the validity of many of the claims being made [note-- J. Hommes notes that Kuyper did oppose evolution; see his essay]. My own experience in science, by contrast, tells me that people make mistakes at all three levels, not just at the top level. Sometimes these are honest mistakes, and sometimes they are errors due to pushing our world view at all costs onto the data and theories.  I believe that a Christian ought to be skeptical and critical of every truth claim made by the world, and made by other Christians. We ought not to adopt anything wholesale from the world without careful examination of every facet.

One obvious example is evolution. Most Kuyperians I have met are theistic evolutionists and hate the intelligent design movement. To them, rejecting any the data of evolutionists or their theories is to make the mistake of thinking that we cannot bring in God at the highest level.  But my own experience is that non-Christian world view influences not just the high levels, but everything all the way down, from data collection to theory making to broad categories of language. In general, my experience is not that strong Kuyperians cravenly capitulate to the world. Rather, my experience is that they simply do not question much of what the world teaches, because they have a very high view of the giftedness of secular scientists (common grace) and a predisposition to accept their views.

But there are other examples. One is evangelical Christian music, known as CCM (“contemporary Christian music”). Many modern Kuyperians shudder at the previous generation’s CCM, because it fails the “excellence” test and is derivative. But the people who started CCM went in with a fully Kuyperian model: learn the techniques and styles of the world, and do just as good or better. They simply “Christianized” it at the top level, with Christian words. Fundamentally, this is the same approach as a theistic evolutionist who adopts the entire materialist evolution story without question, not questioning whether all of the details are really proven, but then puts on top of it with a Christian story line. Both accept the lower levels (data/technique, style/theories) but then add words giving glory to God. The Kuyperian theistic evolutionist will say “but evolution is true!” and the 80’s CCM lover will say “but Barry Manilow’s style is good!” but to outsiders both seem to be taking something wholesale and adding a Christian veneer. They might ask, “Don’t you see anything in it that might be questioned?”

More recently, the younger generation of Kuyperian evangelicals has gone one step further, to remove the Christianness of the lyrics also, while still keeping a Christian identity (U2 being the best and earliest example of this.) They see this as a way of being more excellent in their craft by not being constrained to only one type of lyric. Along the same lines there are Christian metal bands with mosh pits. Some of this music is indeed well done. But it is no less derivative; in fact, it is quite a bit more sucking-up to the world; more imitation, not less. The analogy in evolutionist terms would be a scientist who says we should simply do Darwinian evolution, and dispense with the God-talk altogether, instead of having conferences and books on how God is glorified by evolution.

In the same way, many in the present generation of evangelicals is embarrassed about the politics of the older generation, the so-called Christian Right. Yet the Christian Right was begun largely by Kuyperians influenced strongly by Francis Schaeffer.  I personally met Paul Weyrich, the founder of the Moral Majority, a few years back, and he was quite conversant with Schaeffer’s and Guiness’s version of Kuyperianism, and Francis Schaffer met and encouraged Jerry Falwell to start his movement (see Schaeffer’s The Christian Manifesto). The approach was the same as the above: adopt the techniques and styles of secular politics and use it for Christian ends. Many in the younger generation now want to go one step further by rejecting distinctively Christian goals, and adopt only goals which the world applauds, such as feeding the hungry and helping the environment. More imitation, not less.

It might be that aspects of the evolutionary story are true, and it might be that some Christian emo music is excellent, and it might be that Christian lobby groups are productive on some issues. But I think we ought to question each effort at every level, not only at the top level. We ought to march to beat of our own drummer.

Practical criticisms

Now let me turn to how Kuyperianism has worked out in practice. Much of this cannot be laid at the feet of Kuyper himself, who might shudder what what some of his followers have done. But let’s look at specific ways in which Kuyperianism has worked out.

1) It has led to a focus on worldly success at the cost of Christian witness. 

The pursuit of excellence has thousands of young Dutch-descent Christian students pursuing Ph.D.’s or business success. In the broader evangelical world, Christians want to be the next Christian supermodel (a jarring Kuyperian vision: Carrie Prejean of California walking in a thong bikini in a beauty contest, talking of her Christian world view), the next Christian rock star, the next Christian sports star, etc.

To get that kind of success, you simply must play by the world’s rules. You cannot be Eric Liddell and refuse to play sports on Sunday. You cannot refuse to wear a thong bikini. You cannot be an actor who refuses to say the f-word. You cannot be a biologist who questions any aspect of evolution. You cannot say the emperor has no clothes in the modern art world when a man sells canned excrement and calls it art. You can’t openly question the morality of homosexual acts or abortion.

Now, it may be that you are convinced the Fourth Commandment is not for today, and you may be convinced that there is nothing wrong with showing your body nearly nude, and you may be convinced that saying the f-word is authentic representation, and you may be convinced life originated through random processes.  But what I have seen is many people who aren’t really thinking these things through at all.  Having been in evangelical circles for three decades, I have heard the phrase “You can be a Christian and still ___” over and over. There is a mindset in evangelicalism that doesn’t think carefully about issues and ethics, but takes for granted that what is celebrated by the world must be good.  Any opposition is regarded as “legalistic.” There is, in fact, a celebration of how much freedom we have as evangelicals to do this or that thing which would have shocked an earlier generation.

Part of that is healthy. We should not blindly accept traditions of conservative Christians any more than we should blindly accept the world’s values. We do not want to be reactionary against everything new that the world presents, whether a scientific theory, a new music form, or a new type of communication technology. But what I see as an intrinsic problem in the Kuyperian vision is the general concept of accepting all the tools of the trade, and only at the end blessing the whole structure with Christian presuppositions and language.

I am not saying that no one should go into high-profile fields. Far from it: I would like to see even more there. But I reject the idea that just by being there, and being successful, you are building the kingdom of God. In general, the reaction of the world to Christian superstars is mild bemusement,  to accept the excellence of the person’s work, but not to ponder too much about their Christian beliefs.  It may be that Christians in these roles are, in fact, bringing others to faith. But if they are, it is because they are able to form good relationships at a personal level, and they have integrity in their work that is consistent with their message. The fact of their being a model, or scientist, or sports star, is not itself what brings people to the Christian world view. For many people, the blood, sweat, tears, and compromises necessary to get to that fifteen minutes of fame is not worth the fleeting impact of that fame. Their relationships actually suffer, they never tell anyone of their faith, and they do work they aren’t proud of, just to stay in the game.

Since first writing this essay, several people have written to me to say that modern fame-seeking evangelicals are not true followers of Kuyper. Clearly there are many different influences on the evangelical world. But I remember clearly in the 1970’s people like Os Guiness giving talks at major Christian conventions on Kuyper, telling us to see it as our calling to have success in every secular field. In general, there was a strong spirit that we don’t want to be like the fundamentalists and isolate ourselves in a “city on a hill”(Guiness’s term) and generally be outcasts; rather, we need to go out and do all the good things that the world does.  In intellectual circles this spirit jumped onto the vision of Kuyper.

2) It has led to playing catchup and derivative work rather than distinctively original Christian work. 

As mentioned above, today’s generation is embarrassed of yesterday’s CCM and right wing politics, even though these came out of a similar Kuyperian mindset, with less sophistication. It is a general rule: the more you play by the rules of one generation, the more dated you will appear to the next.  In my mind, anything that starts out with “You can be a Christian and still ___” is intrinsically derivative. (Don’t you think that the next generation will mock tattoos, the way ours mocks the styles of the 70’s and 80’s?)

What Christian music has had a lasting impact and is presently respected in the world? Folk Gospel music from the mid-American prairies, black Gospel, classical church organ music, and Scotch-Irish mountain music. All done by people who had no concept of Kuyperian success. They were simply doing what they liked. CCM, by contrast, is self-consciously adopting the best styles of the culture, and will mostly disappear. “Adopting the best styles of the culture” is code language for “derivative,” in art.

Before there was CCM, there was independent-label Christian music, in the 70’s and 80’s. If you listen to the best of these artists, such as Keith Green, Second Chapter of Acts, and Rich Mullins, they can’t be categorized. They had wildly confrontational words that couldn’t get played on Christian radio today, and they were artistically creative, not formulaic. It is not exactly rock, it is not exactly Gospel, it is just joyful and well done. In each case they were not even trying to get major label fame.

The same criticism comes to mind when I see Christians writing articles celebrating how junk DNA is part of God’s plan for evolution, and we should not reject the idea of junk left over from evolution, right around the time when the world is moving on to a view that everything in the human body actually is fine tuned for a purpose, and all that junk DNA is actually not junk, after all. It would be one thing if we just didn’t have enough brilliant Christian scientists who could really question the existing paradigms. But we do have lots of brilliant Christian scientists. However, the larger part of them disdain the idea of questioning paradigms, as misguided “fundamentalism.” In other words, Kuyperian Christians are actually less likely to question paradigms than non-Christians, because they are concerned about being labeled as a fundamentalist, while the talented non-Christian has no such fears.

Andy Crouch has written about the different stages of Christian interaction with the secular world, from rejection/conflict, to criticism but lack of participation, to wholehearted embracement. This latter stage is no better or more original than the earlier stages. What we need is creativity of our own, on our own terms. To do that, we need to question not only the world view at the top level, but every element of what the world presents us.

3) It has led to less evangelism and less conversion.

While many justly criticize the fundamentalist churches for various errors, let us not forget some of their accomplishments. They sent out armies of missionaries around the world and brought large parts of Africa and Asia to faith in Christ. It was not Kuyperians, by and large, who were leading that charge. (A case can even be made that Japan was adversely affected by Kuyperians who brought teaching of evolution to the first university in Japan, in the 1800’s, though J. Hommes argues that their influence in bringing evolution to Japan was minimal.) Millions of people in the US and around the world were affected by evangelists like Billy Graham operating fully within an evangelism-first mentality.  On the other hand, when the evangelical church in the 1980’s turned to an agenda of transforming the culture first and foremost, through politics, science, music, etc., they did not transform the culture (though it could be argued that a worse slide was held back) and fewer people came into the church. There is no question that evangelicals have done much less evangelism than previous generations, and most church growth has come from shuffling Christians from one church to another. Instead, we are told that watching TV, surfing the internet, and entertaining ourselves all the time is “getting in tune with the culture.” We are constantly preparing ourselves to talk the language of the non-Christian, and hardly ever actually talking to them.

4) It doesn’t take the blessing of persecution seriously.

The Bible is absolutely full of statements about being willing to be persecuted rather than compromise. That is not the language of modern Kuyperian evangelicals. They generalize those statements to apply to sickness, relational distress, or perhaps to persecuted Christians overseas. To actually be mocked for being a Christian is to be avoided.

At the most recent Jubilee conference in Pittsburgh, Gabe Lyons, a marketing expert, presented a plenary talk on focus group studies he had done on the Christian “brand.” One finding was that non-Christians felt that Christians were concerned too much about heaven. His recommendation: we should talk less about heaven, and more about the world. Another finding was that Christians were viewed as too confrontational about abortion and homosexuality. His recommendation: we should engage less in confrontation on moral issues and work more on popular issues like feeding the hungry and the environment. If we do these things, then our marketing image will improve, all men will speak well of us, and there will be revival. How far from Jesus’s words: “woe to you when all men speak well of you!”

We should not have a goal to get people to speak badly about us, a so-called “martyr complex.” But if we honestly think that the way of revival is to have all men speak well of us, we are seriously misguided.  Think of times in the past when Christians made a deep impact on society. They were confrontational (e.g., Luther, Knox, Wilberforce, M.L. King), and mocked by many people as idiots. Yet like the Pharisees, we honor these prophets of the past but reject them in our own generation. We seem to think that the only proper type of persecution is when the persecutors openly admit to being evil. But that never happens. Persecution happens when Christians lose the public relations war, when they have bad “brand identity,” and are seen as fools.  Our view of them only changes after the battle is over.

In the early 1800’s, Charles Simeon preached so strongly at Cambridge University in England that students threw tomatoes at him while he was in the pulpit. Yet he led a movement that sent out thousands of missionaries and brought revival to hundreds of parishes in the United Kingdom. God uses persecution very often. People need to see that there is a difference. When we play exactly by the world’s rules, we don’t come across as presenting anything different.

It is striking that the impact of Carrie Prejean, the thong-wearing Christian Miss California contestant, came not from her winning the beauty contest, but from her losing it, when she was pressed to the wall to affirm homosexual marriage, and she refused. It was her fundamentalist roots that came out and led her to be “anti.” Had she not been asked that question, or had she waffled on it, she would have been just another body in the daily parade of women’s bodies in the media.

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