Challenging the Spirit of Modernity
A Study of Groen van Prinsterer’s Unbelief and Revolution
HARRY VAN DYKE
Challenging the Spirit of Modernity
Studies in Historical and Systematic Theology
Copyright 2019 Harry Van Dyke
Lexham Press, 1313 Commercial St., Bellingham, WA 98225
All rights reserved. You may use brief quotations from this resource in presentations, articles, and books. For all other uses, please write Lexham Press for permission. Email us at permissions@lexhampress.com.
This book is a revised edition of Groen van Prinsterer’s Lectures on Unbelief and Revolution (Jordan Station, ON: Wedge Publishing Foundation, 1989).
Print ISBN 978-1-68-359320-1
Digital ISBN 978-1-68-359321-8
Lexham Editorial Team: Todd Hains, Eric Bosell, Danielle Thevenaz
Cover Design: Bryan Hintz
We do not want a theocracy, but recognition of the connection
between religion, authority, and freedom.
11. The First and Second Editions Compared
Nearly three decades have passed since this book was first published. It appeared simultaneously in a trade edition as well as an academic edition in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of D.Litt. at the Free University of Amsterdam. The second half of my book contained an English translation of Groen van Prinsterer’s lectures on Unbelief and Revolution; the first half was a commentary on that classic text, describing its content and its context. The translation has been published separately as Unbelief and Revolution in Lexham Classics. The commentary is reprinted in the present work.
The dissertation was soon out of print, but demand for it never died out. Thus I welcomed the offer by Lexham Press to republish both the translation and the commentary. Below, I have used the occasion to correct a few stylistic details and to expand some footnotes with more recent information. Apart from that, the text remains unchanged.
Groen van Prinsterer (1801–1876) was a trailblazer in the struggle for the preservation of the Christian roots of Western culture against the encroachment of secularism since the eighteenth-century Enlightenment. His lectures traced the origin and nature of this intellectual and spiritual revolution and articulated the principles by which to respond to it. In his native country, the Netherlands, his book and his career inspired an “anti-revolutionary” movement that engaged society and politics from a distinctively “Christian-historical” orientation. This movement would eventually have a significant impact on Dutch society in the areas of education, industrial relations, social justice and democratic ...
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About Challenging the Spirit of Modernity: A Study of Groen van Prinsterer’s Unbelief and RevolutionGod’s word illumines the darkness of society. Dutch politician and historian Groen van Prinsterer’s Unbelief and Revolution is a foundational work addressing the inherent tension between the church and secular society. Writing at the onset of modernity in Western culture, Groen saw with amazing clarity the dire implications of abandoning God’s created order for human life in society. Groen’s work served as an inspiration for many contemporary theologians, and he had a profound impact on Abraham Kuyper’s famous public theology. In Challenging the Spirit of Modernity, Harry Van Dyke places this seminal work into historical context, revealing how this vital contribution still speaks into the fractured relationship between religion and society. A deeper understanding of the roots of modern secularism and Groen’s strong, faithful response to it gives us a better grasp of the same conflict today. |
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