Rookmaaker's impact on artists can be summed up in the words of Peter Smith. Remembering the Dutchman's first visit to Birmingham College of Art in 1967, he confided that, "I was considering leaving Fine Art for pietist reasons but a late night discussion with Rookmaaker kept me painting." A single evening of...

Abraham Kuyper and Herman Bavinck were the main instigators of the movement that became known as neo-Calvinism, however, they stood on the shoulders of others. One of these was Guillaume Groen van Prinsterer (1801–1876). Harry van Dyke describes him as a “godfather” to both Kuyper and Bavinck; and Bratt describes...

Herman Dooyeweerd (1894-1977) and his brother-in-law Dirk Vollenhoven (1892-1978) developed a neo-Calvinist philosophymore commonly known as Reformational philosophy. Dooyeweerd’s philosophy stresses the sovereignty of God over all reality. God is sovereign as Creator and Sustainer, revealed in the creation, and sovereign as Redeemer in Christ, revealed in Scripture. Dooyeweerd’s philosophy...

To commemorate the executionary death of Jesus on what is called Good Friday, it is appropriate to contemplate a truth apart from which every person would be damned. This doctrine is perhaps more synonymous with the Christian faith than any other doctrine. However, it is also a tenet that has...

Imagine if Abraham Kuyper didn’t hold to his famous doctrine of common grace, yet still believed in Christ’s lordship over all spheres. Imagine if one believed that the church would be persecuted in the future, but nevertheless believed that the church will be on the front lines. That gives one...

D. H. Th. Vollenhoven (1892-1978) was the brother -in-law of Herman Dooyeweerd (1894-1977) and together they developed a neo-Calvinist philosophy... The starting point of this philosophy was in the creator rather than in the creation. It starts from the sovereignty of God rather than reason, thought, logic, observation, common sense...

Albert Wolters was my Greek professor, a columnist for The Christian Courier, an expert on the Dead Sea Scrolls’ Copper Scroll, and a careful exegetical preacher; but he is best known internationally as the author of Creation Regained: Biblical Basics for a Reformational Worldview—what philosopher Nicholas Wolterstorff called “The best...

Wow, really?! That phrase sounds super complicated. You may have heard that sphere sovereignty was made famous by the great theologian and stateman Abraham Kuyper, that it also served as the basis for that obscure, but brilliant, Dutch philosopher Herman Dooyeweerd. Well, you should know about them too! But whereas...

Neo-Calvinism is the view that God’s sovereignty extends over all things – and that includes scholarship, politics, art, science, mathematics, business, geography, economics, media, law, literature … as well as family, ethics, church and theology. The term neo-Calvinism was coined in 1897 by one of the first lecturers at the...

Up till his day, there was no internally consistent system of Reformed apologetics. In other words, the apologetics that was taught and practiced up to that point was more consistent with Arminianism and Roman Catholicism than with Reformed theology. Van Til took the best insights of previous Reformed theologians including...