Neo-Calvinism

A metal embossing of Abraham Kuyper
Abraham Kuyper

Neo-Calvinism, a form of Dutch Calvinism, is a theological movement initiated by the theologian and former Dutch prime minister Abraham Kuyper in the first years of the twentieth century. James Bratt has identified a number of different types of Dutch Calvinism: The Seceders, split into the Reformed Church "West" and the Confessionalists; the neo-Calvinists; and the Positives and the Antithetical Calvinists. The Seceders were largely infralapsarian and the neo-Calvinists usually supralapsarian.[1][page needed]

Kuyper wanted to awaken the church from what he viewed as its pietistic slumber. He declared:

No single piece of our mental world is to be sealed off from the rest and there is not a square inch in the whole domain of human existence over which Christ, who is sovereign over all, does not cry: 'Mine!'[2][page needed][3]

This refrain has become something of a rallying call for neo-Calvinists.

  1. ^ Bratt 2002.
  2. ^ McGoldrick 2000.
  3. ^ Inaugural Lecture. Free University of Amsterdam. 1880.