Sparking off new developments

In a recent interview Peter Heslam has discussed his Cambridge multidisciplinary project, “Transforming Business," the value of entrepreneurship, thinking about enterprise solutions to poverty, and the wisdom of Abraham Kuyper and John Wesley when helping us think about the current economic crisis and recovery in light of the value of thrift, magnanimity and magnificence. The interview can be read at http://www.epsociety.org/userfiles/Interview%20with%20Peter%20Heslam%204.pdf.

In it he gives an interesting summary of the significance of Abraham Kuyper:

"Kuyper dominated the religious and political life of the Netherlands for nearly half a century, and during his career he achieved positions of eminence in a number of different fields. As a scholar he established himself early in his career as an academic theologian and provided the chief impetus towards the founding of the Free University, a university in Amsterdam with a Christian constitution. As a journalist he founded a daily newspaper, and remained its chief editor for almost fifty years. As a politician he organized the Anti-Revolutionary Party, a Christian-based popular people‟s party, and remained its leader for some forty years, during which time he served a four-year term as Prime Minister. As a writer of devotional and religious literature he launched a weekly religious journal, and published scores of meditations and works of applied and pastoral theology. As a church reformer he led a revival of orthodox faith within the national church and later established a new confederation of Reformed Churches, which has vast numbers of sister churches all over the world.

Taken together, his achievements indicate that he enjoyed a distinguished and multi-faceted career. But what is most striking about his career is that in virtually every area of his activity he sparked off new developments. His establishment, for instance, of the Anti-Revolutionary Party in 1879 along modern, democratic lines, signalled the end of liberal domination in Dutch politics and helped to make way for the rise of a more democratic and representative form of government based on modern party organization. Likewise, his founding of the Free University the following year, stimulated the proliferation of a great number of social and educational institutions founded on Christian principles."

For more on Kuyper, read Heslam's book Creating a Christian Worldview:Abraham Kuyper’s Lectures on Calvinism, published by Eerdmans.

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Paul Weller - Man Of Great Promise.