A REFORMATIONAL NEWSLETTER !

WINTER 2013 VOLUME 3

Neema Crafts Centre and the Signicance of Kingdom Structures

The Story The Neema Crafts Centre was set up by Yorkshire woman Susie Hart in 2003 in Tanzania. 10% of the population have severe disabilities and a survey found that the majority of disabled people lived in extreme poverty and due to the stigma of their disability suffered a lot of prejudice and discrimination. The project began with three deaf men being taught in one room by Susie Hart who is also partially disabled. The deaf men were trained to turn elephant poo into paper. And they were also taught the skills of making handicrafts. Today the centre employs 123 deaf and disabled people. They even have a football team made up of deaf people. Consider the following vignette of redemption, healing and restoration. Hezron was a young man in his mid twenties with everything to live for - a lovely wife, two beautiful children when the minibus taxi he was travelling in hit an oncoming car. All thirty people in the vehicle died, except for Hezron and a new born baby. Hezron lost the use of both legs and found himself wheelchair bound at home, unable to support himself or his family. After two years of watching his wife and young children have to fend for themselves, he felt utterly worthless and was on the brink of suicide. When he was first pushed to the Neema Craft centre to ask for work his voice was barely audible, his self-esteem had sunk so low. He was taken on as a trainee weaver and today - one year on - he is full of life and enthusiasm. He has become a highly skilled weaver, enjoying the therapeutic activity involved and taking great pride in the beautiful items he produces. He peddles himself to work each day on the hand-pedal 3 wheeler provided by the centre, and feels proud of himself and his ability to support his young family. The joy he had found is plain for all to see by the broad smile he wears as he races his fellow weavers up the hill to work each morning. Isnt this wonderful? The Significance of the Story This story is very significant when we think about the kingdom of God and the Body of Christ. Neema Crafts is not a church! It is a redeemed business. Of course it is inspired and nurtured by Christian teaching, faith and wisdom but a business has a different calling from a local church. This redeemed kingdom structure was able to transform Hezrons life in a way that a local church cannot! When Christians gather together as a (local) church they are not expected to make and produce handicrafts. They gather in order to hear Gods Word and to take communion etc. We must distinguish between different manifestations of the Body of Christ. Christians are busy at Neema serving disabled people in a way that is not possible for a local church. Consider this in a slightly different way. There are many churches in Tanzania which do a great job. We affirm the vibrant worship and witness that these churches bring but Neema is serving another purpose. Another calling. We should not attack the Neema craft business by pointing out that it isnt a church! We should rejoice that a non-ecclesiastical kingdom structure is complimenting the work of the local church. At the same time we should not attack a vibrant local church for failing to provide redemptive work opportunities for deaf and disabled people. Exactly the same can be said with respect to George Cadburys chocolate factory, Bob Lavelles Christian bank and the Salvation Army model match factory. (Incidentally both Neema and the Model match factory attract and attracted huge interest from MPs, journalists etc; interest that is rarely garnered by local churches.) When we reduce Gods kingdom to the institutional church we will inevitably condemn culture to the tensions and miseries of secularization. Why is it so easy to be a secular person today? Surely the answer must refer to the constant drip-feed factor of popular culture and education. Marinade too much in Eastenders and Coronation Street and your imagination will become increasingly secular and godless!

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Hidden worldview stories indoctrinate us as Christians retreat into the church sphere.

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Consider the issue from the point of view of the great missionary William Carey. Carey set up many Christian schools that educated girls and untouchables. This was unheard of in 19th century India! He introduced the idea of low interest savings banks to India, to fight the all-pervasive evil of usury and he campaigned for the humane treatment of lepers. He struggled against human sacrifice and prevented the murder of many innocent children. Carey founded Indias Agri-Horticultural Society in the 1820s, thirty years before the Royal Agricultural Society was established in England. He wrote some of the earliest essays on forest management and conservation. He wrote concerning this If the Gospel flourishes in India, the wilderness will, in every respect, become a fruitful field. And Carey was also a great preacher and evangelist! Carey affirmed and encouraged church activity and church attendance but he realised that the kingdom of God goes way beyond local church activity. He set up appropriate kingdom structures in different spheres of life and culture. Vibrant local churches must work with appropriate (non-ecclesiastical) kingdom structures in order to transform culture and communities. Mark Roques RealityBites, WYSOCS

IDEAS HAVE LEGS: radical philosophy transforming God's world

Mark Roques

An introduction to Christian thinking in the light of Scripture 16 Jan: What them Greeks done! 30 Jan: What the Church Fathers done! 13 Feb: What the Reformers done! 27 Feb: What them Italians and French done! 13 Mar: What them Scots and the Germans done! 27 Mar: What the Darwinists done! 10 Apr: What them Dutch done! Time: Thursday evenings, 7.309.30pm Venue: OUTWOOD HOUSE Admission: 30 for the whole course, or 10 per person for students and accompanying teachers. Download the FLYER and BOOK to reserve your place.

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A REFORMATIONAL NEWSLETTER !
INTERVIEW WITH HARRY VAN DYKE
was being sought for the book Ons program. I volunteered and was ac! cepted on condition that I submit a time schedule. I estimated it would take me 18 months and after 20 months the job was done. I could not have done without the Internet. What is the background to Ons program? The Dutch historian and statesman G. Groen van Prinsterer battled his whole life against the repercussions of the French Revolution in his country and the ramications of secular humanism in Dutch politics. Pastor Abraham Kuyper inherited his position of leadership and looked for ways of making the "anti! revolutionary" movement a more e"ective ghting machine. He and others gave formal organization to it by means of a national political party for which Kuyper single!handedly composed a "Program of Principles." He wrote a systematic commentary on it in weekly instalments in his daily newspaper. These articles were published in a popular edition in 1880. They helped galvanize his fol! lowers and for years was an oft con! sulted manual for determining what political line to follow.

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course with the concrete situation in which one nds oneself. Meanwhile it is fascinating to see how Our Pro! gram in places immediately tries to apply those principles to concrete issues of the day. Kuyper's ideas about politics are best mirrored, I think, in the careers of Gladstone in the UK and Woodrow Wilson in the USA. It opens one's mind to a rich heritage that remains inspiring.

As is to be expected after a century and a half, quite a few, if not many, of Kuypers notions, suggestions and Harry Van Dyke, Professor Emeritus concrete proposals, even if attrac! in History at Redeemer University tive, would be unworkable today. College in Ancaster, Ontario, and Despite his originality and his cour! Director of the Dooyeweerd Centre age to row against the current of his for Christian Philosophy, has re! time, he too was very much a child cently completed the translation of of his time. Ideas that were common Abraham Kuyper's Ons program. It is coin in his day#such as a romantic now available from Christian's Li! view of national genius, an apprecia! brary Press as Guidance for Christian tion of the wholesome e"ects of war, Engagement in Government. I caught a fathers exclusive headship of the up with Harry and he was kind family, an approach to colonial pol! enough to answer some of my ques! icy as the White Mans Bur! tions. den#have long since been moder! ated or abandoned. Equally open to Harry, could you please tell us a question may be the apparent ease little about yourself ? with which Kuyper detects divine I was born in Rotterdam and moved ordinances in specic empirical pat! with my parent to Canada at the age terns and historical growths. I would of 12. Translating has been my hobby say, therefore, that the enduring ever since. In what ways is a nineteenth! value of his musings, dreams and century political programme alternatives lies, rather, in the back! Your translation of Kuyper's relevant for today? drop against which he approaches Ons program has recently been The book Our Program is less a po! the whole area of practical politics: published. What prompted the litical platform and more a commen! his biblically honed common sense, translation and publication of tary on fundamental principles for fair!mindedness, indignation at pat! the book? engaging in politics from a biblical ent injustices, zeal for genuine lib! While attending the annual Kuyper standpoint. These do not change, erty, and freshness of ideas. Conference at Princeton Theological although their formulation varies of Seminary I heard that a translator

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HARRY VAN DYKE INTERVIEW $CONTD% You have mentioned before that North Americans sometimes confuse pluralism with sphere sovereignty. Could you expand on what you mean by this? Why is it important to distinguish the two? There is sociological pluralism and worldview pluralism. The rst distin! guishes the plurality of unique struc! tures and relationships $spheres% that compose human society and that are each subject to distinct laws and norms which must be respected $their sovereignty honored% if society is not to become unhinged. The sec! ond recognizes that humanity is di! vided over a plurality of religiously dened worldviews that cannot be treated with coercion but only per! suasion, hence demand parity treat! ment or a level playing eld so that each can speak up for its convictions and try to shape society in accor! dance with them without disadvan! tage or penalty. To confuse these two pluralisms is to commit a category mistake, which in this case can lead to misconstruing Kuyper's career and goals at several points. What would you say is the es! sence of neo!Calvinism? That Christ came to redeem the world, of which humanity is a crucial part, but only a part. There seems to be a resurgence in Kuyper studies ! several ma! jor books have been published this year on or by Kuyper. What do you think has sparked o" this resurgence? Ever since the Chicago Declaration of 1993, American evangelicals have been searching for a full!bodied "public theology," a system of thought that helps analyse the chal! lenges posed by a secularizing public arena. One source that has now been $re%discovered is the work of Abra! ham Kuyper, especially his elabora! tion of the doctrines of common grace and the antithesis ! common grace creating the possibility and the obligation to engage in the world's a"airs, and the antithesis dening the manner in which to do so as a

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Christian alternative or "third way." As well, when Princeton celebrated the centennial of Kuyper's famous Stone Lectures on Calvinism, it ex! pected 40 people to attend, but 400 came! Soon after, a retired banker endowed a Kuyper Chair at Prince! ton Seminary, where for the past ten years a student can choose an ethics course, besides Dietrich Bonhoe"er and Karl Barth, in Abraham Kuyper. A Kuyper Study Center there is now equipped with many materials to which researchers are drawn for months on end. What advice would you give to someone who wants to study more about Kuyper? Learn Dutch! Hah, fond hope. No, start with Abraham Kuyper: A Cen! tennial Reader that came out with Eerdmans and the Paternoster Press in 1998. Then read some recent pub! lications by Richard Mouw and the well!researched biography of Kuyper by James D. Bratt. Other good books about Kuyper are by Vincent Bacote and James E. McGoldrick. Get your library to subscribe to the Kuyper Center Review that comes out of Princeton. Are there any other projects in the pipeline that you are work! ing on? Four of us are doing pieces for an anthology of Kuyper's writings on education. What do you do for fun? Translate, play the harmonium, read historical novels, do crossword puz! zles. What music are you listening to at the moment? Bach's trio sonatas played by blind organist Helmut Walcha. What books are you reading now? The Lemon Tree by Sandy Tolan and a novel about the War of 1812 by David Nevin. If you were on a desert island and were allowed two luxuries what would you take? Oh sure, a pipe organ and a New King James Version of the Bible in gilded leather.

What started your interest in Kuyper? It's all providential, really. I attended a Reformed day school in Holland, followed by a public high school in Ontario where I experienced the "antithesis" in outlook and learning. I then enrolled in Calvin College in Michigan where Evan Runner be! came my mentor. My graduate work was done in the Free University of Amsterdam, where I ended up as an instructor in the theory and philoso! phy of history under the guidance of Meyer Smit. Returning to Canada, our family settled in Hamilton, On! tario, and I taught history for a quar! ter century at Redeemer University College, an undergraduate school based on Reformed Christianity. Since my retirement I have been in! volved as a co!editor of the Collected Works of Herman Dooyeweerd. Translating Kuyper texts is more or less a sideline. You should know that my published dissertation was dedi! cated to the memory of my grandfa! thers "in whose home I rst saw the portraits of some of the leading anti! revolutionaries who appear on the following pages." That book, my only one, dealt with Groen van Prin! sterer's lectures in 1845/46 on Unbe! lief and Revolution, a work that marks the birth!cry of the anti! revolutionary movement in the Netherlands. I guess you could say about me that neo!Calvinism was bred in the bone.

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at Birmingham. His Lecture had a profound and striking e"ect upon me. For clarity, precision and co! Colin Wright is the editor and trans! gency it was light years from any! lator of two new important books thing I had ever heard $and still is%. by Pierrre Marcel on Herman As a result I began investigating. Dooyeweerd. He graciously agreed From somewhere I obtained an early to be interviewed here. typewritten copy of what was later published as Dooyeweerd's Roots of Western Culture and by the early seventies I was poring over the New Critique. I would regard my own thought as in some respects quite distinct from Dooyeweerd. I also have a profound respect for Rousas Rushdoony $who is vastly underestimated in reforma! tionalist circles in my opinion% and Cornelius van Til. If I slavishly fol! low Dooyeweerd in anything it is in his insistence that no one follow him, that we all think out our own solutions within a broad community, listening to and learning from each other. I should add that career!wise I be! came a maths teacher, then a book! Colin could you please tell use seller and ended up with my own something about yourself ? computer software company. I took my degree in Mechanical En! I am now retired and looking for gineering $Birmingham, 1966%, about moments of quiet study in between as far from philosophical studies as the demanding attention of three you can get! wonderful grandsons. When I became a Christian just before my nal year at university I Who was Pierre Marcel and why began the life!long task the Scrip! your interest in him? tures refer to as metanoia or chang! Marcel spent most of his career as ing one's mindset $wrongly and dis! pastor of the Reformed church in astrously translated in English ver! Saint Germain en Laye, north!west sions as repentance%. After working of Paris. He wrote and published in industry $making grinding ma! mainly practical theological works, a chines% for a couple of years I de! number of which have been trans! cided to go to Bible college where I lated into English. I knew of these discovered two recent additions in works, especially his book on Infant the library that opened up a whole baptism, long before I discovered new avenue of thought. They were his Dooyeweerd studies. A serious Francis Schae"er's Escape from biography is sadly lacking but there Reason and Hebden Taylor's Chris! appears to be no interest; maybe I tian Philosophy of Politics, Law, and should try it myself! the State. But the atmosphere there was not How did you rst become inter! conducive to such thought and I ested in him? could carry it no further. Sometime My good friend Jean!Marc Berthoud shortly after $the details after all this of Lausanne not only told me about time are now very hazy% I found my! Marcel's Dooyeweerd studies but self listening to Arthur Jones, who kindly obtained copies for me. had recently been awarded his PhD When I told him of my plans he was AN INTERVIEW WITH COLIN WRIGHT

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extremely encouraging and suppor! tive, and put me in touch with a number of people who were able to help in various ways. How did the translation project come about? Really quite by accident. Originally my sole intention was to produce a translation in Word document form for my own use. But to do this I needed a reliable French text. All that was available was a poor photo! copy of Marcel's original typed the! ses. So I set about creating an edited French text. I got it into my head somehow that it might be a good idea to share this with others, espe! cially as Marcel had so much to o"er to French Christians, who were un! likely ever to get a translation of the WdW or NC in their own language. What were the highlights and low lights of the project? This was an exhilarating project in every way. !The translation itself forced me to think much more carefully and deeply about Dooyeweerd because there was no way to translate Marcel without fully understanding what every phrase, let alone sentence, meant. I had to make constant ref! erence to the New Critique and the WdW, comparing them with each other and with Marcel. I made some interesting if not intriguing discov! eries and my own grasp of Dooyeweerd's thought was deep! ened signicantly. !I have been told I should feel proud of the achievement but what I really feel is an intense satisfaction, espe! cially at having been involved in completing Marcel's project for him. I hope he would have been pleased with it. It is a pity he did not live to see it.

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AN INTERVIEW WITH COLIN WRIGHT $CONTD% !I would have liked to include a short biography in the rst volume, with something of the history and devel! opment of Marcel's project. I did approach someone eminently suit! able to do this for me but he was unfortunately far too busy to even contemplate it and, as I have said, I had neither the time nor the re! sources to do it myself. How was Marcel's work received originally? Marcel appears to have made no ef! fort to get these theses published. He gave copies to a few friends, but his pre!occupation was more theo! logical than philosophical, more ec! clesiastical than academic. He wrote and published a great deal on practi! cal theological issues. Those who did look into his Dooyeweerd theses, such as Pierre Courthial, remarked on how brilliant they were. How do Marcel and Dooyeweerd di"er?

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Why should we read Marcel? To the French I would say, this is about as near as you will get for a long time to Dooyeweerd's authentic voice in French. It is not complete, Marcel never got around to the sec! tions on epistemology and individu! ality structures. To the English I would say, don't ex! pect anything novel here, but you will nd a much better written book than the New Critique on the topics it does discuss $the transcendental critique and modal theory%. If Marcel had been Dooyeweerd's editor, I be! lieve the WdW would have been a much better book. Marcel not only carefully selected all the truly salient features; at times he quietly rear! ranged them and presented a much better argument. Are there anymore projects in the pipeline? Yes, for sure. Marcel wrote a prize winning 'essay' when he was only 26. It has never been published either, and the only copy I can nd is in the VU library. I am trying to get a copy to edit and translate. I have also had an ongoing project in the back! ground for some years translating Pierre Duhem's ten volume Systeme du Monde that I would like to com! plete. And if God spares me, and I can get my German up to scratch, I would like to tackle Anneliese Maier's brilliant works on medieval science $also 10 vols!%. Why this work has never appeared in English is one of the great mysteries ! and scandals ! of our time.

! On such a huge undertaking, even someone of Marcel's stature has to take shortcuts, and he did it where it was, seemingly, least likely to matter...in the footnotes. Unfortu! nately his reliance on Dooyeweerd's footnotes was a trust badly placed. In this area at least, Dooyeweerd seems to have taken little care to be accu! rate. Sometimes he even quotes his own work wrongly! I had to spend an inordinate amount of time checking references and expanding them; sometimes spending as much as a couple of days on a single footnote.

In his theses Marcel went out of his way to present a truly faithful exposi! tion of Dooyewerd's thought, doing so in Dooyeweerd's own words as much as possible. He o"ers no cri! tique or criticism of the Master. His intention was to bring Dooyeweerd !The project kept opening up new to the attention of his fellow vistas and it has been frustrating hav! Frenchmen, not to teach his own ing to limit what I could do. I think slant on it. His only remark was to it would have been a much better the e"ect that in so far as he under! work, in English and French, if I had stood Dooyeweerd he was in full had the time and resources to re! agreement with him. search archives in Amsterdam, Aix! en!Provence and elsewhere. I do not doubt that there is a substantial cor! If Marcel were alive today what respondence that took place in the would he say to the church? writing of the theses. Marcel's aim was to give the French the WdW in I haven't a clue. This is one if the their own language. Lecerf had put many questions that could have been him up to it and secured grants to answered if research into the ar! enable him to go to the Netherlands chives had been possible. There is an to study with this as the sole aim. untold story here that opens up pos! His interest in Marcel's progress sibilities for research by postgraduate surely did not stop there. Also, Mar! students of French church history. cel must have consulted Dooyeweerd on such a major undertaking.

For more details on the books: http://wordbridge.net/wordpress/?pa ge_id=444

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Calvinism: A History D. G. Hart Yale: Yale University Press, 2013 xii + 339 pp, hbk, 25 ISBN 9780300148794 It was Bishop John Aylmer in his 1559 book An Harborowe for Faithfu! and Trewe Subjects who identied the Eng! lish roots of the Reformation he wrote: Wycli"e begat Hus, who begat Luther. Sadly, this Englishness of the Reformation is neglected in Hart. Hart looks at how Calvinism has be! come a global faith $xii%. He identies three phases: 1. Calvinism took root in settings where church reform was tethered to e"orts to establish political autonomy. 2. Calvinists adopted new models for extending their beliefs; and 3. Adjusted to the rise of secular political orders prompted by the 18th century. Calvinism was most dominant in Switzerland, the German!speaking Palatinate, the Dutch Republic and Scotland. So, inevitably these geographical areas then have the most words. However, only a few pages are de! voted to the English scene $primarily pp 35!41, 83!90%. At least McNeill in his History and Character of Calvinism had a chapter on England and Ireland. David Creamanss Reception of Calvinism in England ! surprisingly absent from Harts bibliography ! would ll in some of the gaps. Sadly, though, we still wait for the denitive history of Calvinism in England. Harts take on the English Puritans is interesting and worth further investigation. Their emphasis on personal holiness and pursuit of a vein of introspective piety replaced the zeal for a thoroughly reformed church $p 84%. He claims that it was then responsible for the unin! tended consequence of a high!church sacramental An! glican reaction $p 85%. This may well explain why Jim Packer wasn't asked to write a Foreword! Here perhaps in Puritainism are the roots of a privatisation of the gos! pel.

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Despite the title this book is more a history of Presbyterianism than Calvin! ism. Perhaps Hart thinks that Presbyte! rianism is Calvinism? Which would ex! plain the lack of Anglican or Baptist em! phases in the book. The gaps are easy to identify ! Carl Trueman has already men! tioned the lack of Baptists&and Steven Wedgworth has highlighted the injustice done to Anglicans. There is no mention of Henry Atherton and the Sovereign Grace Union or D. Martyn Lloyd Jones his Calvinistic Methodist roots. Despite concentrating on Presbyterianism there is no mention of the formation of the URC in 1972 from the Presbyterian Church of England and the Congrega! tional Church in England and Wales or even Thomas Cartwright, one of the rst English Presbyterians. Or if we go more up to date there is no mention of the &aberration of Cal! vinism that is New Calvinism $perhaps justly so%. Of course, to include all of these $and more% would probably mean that a separate volume would be needed for each country and that is not Harts aim. This is intended to be global and an overview ! and as such it works. Rather that the Diet of Worms it seems the Reforma! tion started with another diet: sausage eating $in 15522%! And this is where Hart begins his narrative. He is correct that Reformed Christianity existed before Calvin be! came a Protestant, and so calling the churches to which he belonged Calvinistic is anachronistic $p 20%. The story then nishes with a look at the geography of global Calvinism in the 21st century. Sadly, there is a lack of footnotes ! and the notes are few $8 pages% ! so we are left to guess where some of the in! formation has come from. There is however, a useful Further reading section. Hart concludes with: If it is not responsible for the blessings of democracy, liberty, and prosperity, in its own way Calvinisms history qualies as remarkable $p 304%. This book too qualies as being remarkable in that Hart has been able to survey the complicated global history of Calvinism in less than 350 pages.

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Why Study History? Reecting on the Importance of the Past John Fea Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2013 ISBN 9780801039652 What is history? Why bother studying it? John Fea has written this accessible and jargon!free book to address these questions. He helpfully focuses on the pursuit of history as a vocation $ix%. His aim is to provide a primer on the study of the past. Its intended audience is Christian college students who are studying history $ix%, but it would be a shame if those were the only ones who read it. Fea writes with wisdom and insight and provides a helpful introduction of history undergraduates and for those who would like to study history. Fea is a Professor of American history at Messiah College, he is also the author of Was America Founded as a Christian Nation?, and so it is inevitable that his illustrations draw from that country. This has the down!side of making it less acces! sible for those who study non!American history. Particularly helpful was the discussion on providence and history. How are we to interpret history from a Christian perspective? Can we have a God!perspective on history? Some would claim to, Fea is more sceptical. God obviously intervenes in history, but can the histo! rian be true to her calling and interpret events as God interventions? Fea believes in providence $p 67% but contra Steven Keillor, is sceptical about providential history. He looks at one contemporary popular provi! dential history book, that of The Light and the Glory by Marshall and Manuel. These authors write a Christian history focused on the sovereignty of God $p 74%. Fea maintains that An appeal to providence in a historical narrative like that of the East River fog of 1776 fails to help us better understand what happened on that day, and one of the historians primary tasks is to aid our understanding of the past $p 78%. My concern is that this could lead to the historian practicing methodologi! cal naturalism but on the other hand the danger is that providence can become what is benecial to the one describing it. $p 81% Fea is right though when he states that we need to approach history with a sense of Gods transcendent mystery, a health does of humility, and a hope that one day soon, but not now, we will all under!

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stand the Almightys plan for the nations" $p 81%. Again to quote Fea: historians are not in the business of studying God; they are in the business of studying humans $p 85%. Providence, may not then be a useful tool for the historian but there are others that Fea reveals; these include: the idea that humans are created in the image of God; the reality of human sin; an incarnational approach to the past; the role of moral reection in historical work. There is a good emphasis on the need for the histo! rian not to preach or moralise. As Fea states the Christian church is in need of a history lesson. He obviously has a passion for history, and this passion comes through. He also has a very high regard for his! tory for him history is: a discipline the art of recon! structing the past .. the exciting task of interpretation $p 3%; more about competing perceptions of the past event or life than it is about nailing down a denitive account of a specic event of life $p 16%; a discipline that requires interpretation, imagination, and even lit! erary or artistic style $p 29%; the glue that holds com! munities and nations together $p 37%; like being swal! lowed up in an immense ocean or eld and losing one! self in its midst $p 60%; essential for producing the kind of informed citizen, with the necessary virtues and skills, needed for our society to thrive $p 116%. Doing history is not unlike the kind of disciplines we employ in our spiritual lives#disciplines that take the focus o" of us and put it on God or others $p 132%. History has the power to civilise us and to transform. Sometimes I think he overstates the case, but nevertheless he makes some excellent points. The nal chapter takes a look at what those with his! tory degrees are doing now $adapted from here%. His! tory degrees obviously prepares people for a wide range of vocations. The epilogue is a heart!felt appeal for his! torians who are willing to go into churches and listen to people to the benet of the historian and the church. To this end, in an appendix, he makes an appeal for a Center for American history and a civil society. I hope it comes to fruition. This book will help all budding historians be better historians.

http://www2.redeemer.ca/dooyeweerd/

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The Wonder of the Universe: Hints of God in Our Fine-Tuned World Karl W. Giberson Downers Grove IL: IVP Books, 2012, 216 pp. pb. 10.72 ISBN 978-0-8308-3819-6

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ship between the two, but he some! times doesnt quite go far enough. There is little discussion of the theory!dependent nature of observa! tion $we see what we want to see% and the role of worldviews in our under! standing. Giberson has an optimistic view of science, though he does acknowledge that it is a nite human enterprise with all the limitations that entails $125%. He sees the progress of science as one that extends, encompasses and absorbs rather than refutes old under! standings $128%. For him science works by consensus, but there is no way to draw a clean boundary between science and nonscience $137% and yet he does draw boundaries when he asserts that astrology and dowsing are not science, though he is more circumspect where multiple universes are con! cerned. He sees science, then, in terms of a spec! trum: presumably, the demarcation is by consensus; and we are encouraged to trust the generally ac! cepted picture of science $140%. Is democracy a way of deciding truth or even science? The book is well illustrated with black and white photographs and line drawings scattered through the text and with eight colour plates. There is a short bibliographic essay, but, surprisingly, there is no men! tion of Polkinghornes work in the bibliography ' and that despite Giberson having previously written a book about him $which is mentioned; for a review see S&CB $2012%24 $1%: 87; for my less e"usive review see PSCF $2012% 64$4%: 271%. Despite some of my reservations this is a helpful well!written introduction to the complex area of sci! ence and faith. Giberson succeeds in showing that science can be embraced as an encouragement rather than a threat to the Christian faith.

This book is, in part, a sequel to Giber! son and Francis Collins book The Lan! guage of Science. It aims to be a faith! friendly science and religion book $202%, and it largely succeeds in that it treats both science and faith with re! spect. However, it sometimes fails to deal explicitly with the faith commit! ments implicit within science. It is an accessible, easy read with a lightness of touch as one would expect from Giberson who has written or co!written eight books dealing with the interac! tion between science and faith. As always, Giberson writes with the conviction that science is the handi! work of the Creator $13%. He seeks to show that, on the one hand, Christians need not fear science as a challenge to faith and, on the other, that science does not necessarily lead to, or promote, atheism. His main theme for this book is that our expanding view of the world around provides us with a constant new source of wonder that motivates reection on the Creator of this world $25%. The rst part of the book tells the story of science from the Greeks to the big bang and quantum theory. Giberson focuses on the cosmic coincidences that make the Earth is such a great place to live. In the second part he looks more at the design arguments. He avoids the inductive approach of moving from design to a designer and rightly suggests that design arguments are all!too!often based on gaps in our knowledge. But if we believe in a designer then we should see marks of design in the creation. At times there is almost a tacit acceptance of the belief in the progress of science and in the scientic method. We are provided with an oversimplied view of the scientic method: observation and theory are the two legs of science. Much of the discussion of observation and theory is very good and he does ac! knowledge the complex and idiosyncratic relation!

This review rst appeared in Science & Christian Belief $2013%25$1%.

NOTHING MATTERS BUT THE KINGDOM. BUT BECAUSE OF THE KINGDOM EVERYTHING MATTERS. GORDON SPYKMAN

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A REFORMATIONAL NEWSLETTER !
Church History: Volume Two: From PreReformation to the Present Day The rise and growth of the church in its cultural, intellectual, and political context John Woodbridge and Frank A. James III Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2013 ISBN 9780310515142; 864pp; hbk; This is a mammoth book: 2 authors, 22 Chapters covering 8 centuries, 16 pages of contents, 4 maps, 103 black and white illustrations in 843 pages. It covers the period from the Babylonian Captivity of the Church" in 1309 to January 2012 when Boko Haram, a violent Islamic terrorist group, committed 54 murders. The book has a number of goals: to provide an academically responsible engagement with the facts of history; to pro! vide a global perspective; to be contemporary and relevant to the church today; not to avoid controversial issues, but not make nal judgments; and to evaluate actions according to the cultural norms of the times but mindful that Chris! tians a(rm doctrinal and ethical standards that are cultur! ally transcendent; and nally to be respectful of all Chris! tian traditions. Far too often history has been written by white men about other $usually dead% white men. How then does this book fare? It is written by two white men, but women do get a share ! albeit a small one ! of mentions. So, for example in the rst chapter we have mentions of Birgitta of Sweden, Catherine of Sienna.The book aims to be global and it does avoid being too Euro and American!centric. Inevitably, there is more focus on Protestantism than Ro! man Catholicism and on Europe and North America than Africa or Asia. But that is perhaps more a statement about the nature of history and the available documents rather than the book; until the nineteenth recently most Protes! Shaping a Digital World Faith, Culture and Computer Technology Derek C. Schuurman Downers Grove: IVP Academic ISBN-13: 978-0-8308-2713-8 Pbk, 138pp, 12.99 Derek Shuurman, professor of Computer Science at Redeemer, Ontario, has done all Christian technophobes and technophiles a favour. He has written a superb book on how to view technology from a Christian perspective. This book could be described as Creation Regained upgraded for a com! puter age. Like Al Wolter's Creation Regained, Schuurman writes from an unashamedly neo!calvinist perspective. Kuyperian themes are embedded in the book. The rst chapter introduces tech! nology and exposes the myth that technology is neutral; oth! ers deal with Creation $ch 2%, Fall $ch 3% and Redemption $ch 4%; structure and direction, the antithesis, Dooyeweerd's mo! dal aspects and the norms associated with each are discussed in relation to computer technology $ch 4%. This might give the impression that this book is only for graduates ! this couldn't

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tants lived in Europe, in 1900 81) of Chris! tians were white ! it is estimated that by 2015 this will be 30) ! and in 1900 70) of all Christians lived in Europe and by 2025 this will be 20). This global shift from Europe to North America and now to the Global South is certainly reected in the later chapters of the book. Why dont Christians study more history? One problem has been a lack of good introductory resources. Woodbridge and James have ad! dressed the that problem, they have produced a good overview of the story of history. How! ever, as John Fea in his Why Study History? points out Historians are not mere storytell! ers. Not only do they have the responsibility of making sure that they get the story right; they are also charged with the task of analyzing and interpreting the past. Woodbridge and James are great story tellers, but at times I was wanting a little more analysis and interpretation. Having said that though there is a brief helpful analysis of Cal! vin. The accusations that Calvins emphasis on predestination led to a lack of evangelism and missionary emphasis are exam! ined and found wanting. They point out that Contemporary scholars generally agree that predestination was not the well! spring of Calvins theology. And they provide evidence of church growth that supports Phillip Hughes assertion that Calvins Geneva was nothing less than a school of missions and a dynamic centre of missionary concern and activity. $Churchman 78$4%% This is a great resource for those who want to know more about Church history. It provides enough detail in its overview to be also satisfying to undergraduates. At the end of each chapter is a For further study section which highlights several key books which will be helpful to those who want to take church history further.

be further from the truth. The book will be acces! sible to most with a good secondary education. Four pages of discussions questions ! a set for each chapter ! provide an excellent basis for small group discussions. Further resources to support the book can be found on the book's companion website. The book began as a series of notes to the ques! tion: "What does my faith have to do with my work as an electrical engineer?" In the book Schuurman seeks to answer the question: "What do *computer+ bytes have to do with Christian beliefs?" He ably shows us how a Christian world! view informed by the scriptures can help us see the lordship of Christ in the area of $computer% technology. This book is essential reading for all Christians who have contact with computers ! and that would include most Chris! tians! But even the Amish would nd much here to illuminate and edify. If you are pastor buy several and give one to each of your students who are leaving for university in September. It will give them an excellent model through which to think about not only technology but also their chosen subject.

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A REFORMATIONAL NEWSLETTER !
Imaging the Kingdom How Worship Works James K. A. Smith Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2013, pbk, 224 pp. ISBN 978-0-8010-3578-4 Imagining the kingdom is the second part of a proposed trilogy exploring "cultural liturgies". In the rst volume, Desiring the Kingdom $Baker Aca! demic, 2009%, Smith posed an exciting and outrageous question: "What if education wasn't rst and foremost what we know, but about what we love?" In this second volume he follows this up by suggesting that "our actions emerge from how we imagine the world: "What if we are actors before we are thinkers?" $p 32%. Smith's thesis is that we are dened more by what we worship than by what we think or believe. Thus we need to see more clearly how the a"ective a"ects the cognitive: to displace functional intellectualism, where what we do is the outcome of what we think. His aim is "to articulate a Christian philosophy of ac! tion that takes seriously the creational conditions of human action: our embodiment, our nitude, our so! ciality, and the complexity of our being !in!the! world#the di"erent ways that we intend our world." $p 33% He seeks to develop a liturgical anthropology, one that is dened but what we love $the a"ective%, rather than how what we think or what we know $the cogni! tive%. One that emphasises that we are not primarily theorisers. To examine this em!body!ment, in Part 1, he looks at the work of two French academics, the philosopher Merleau!Ponty, particularly his nation of bodily intelli! gence and the sociologist Bourdieu, with his critique of theoretical reason. Bourdieu argues that human forma! tion is not primarily cognitive. Part 2 "Sanctied Per!

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ception" develops and applies these "toolbox" ideas to look at how worship works. Particularly helpful and insightful is the narrative function and role of worship. This is something that "secular" liturgies understand and utilise to shape and form us. We live in a storied world. In essence what Smith is doing is con! necting worship and worldview, he desires to make education more about formation not information, and sees liturgy ! the rituals and routines that shape what we love ! as playing an important part in this formation. He deftly bridges the academy and the church ! the full footnotes provide the aca! demic support for the arguments and the vignettes provide a more concrete view. Thus, the main text is interspersed with helpful examples utilising lms such as Rise of the Planet of the Apes, Jane Campion's Bright Star, The King's Speech and novels like David Foster Wallace's Innite Jest and Nicholson Baker's The Mezzanine. His nal chapter deals with the importance of ritual and liturgy in formation. Interestingly he identies repetition in liturgy as being important. Smith is not afraid of plundering Egypt ! or in his case French theorists ! he identies what that have learnt because of common grace. His is a transformative ap! proach. This liturgical anthropology Smith develops is impor! tant not only for academics but for all Christian educa! tors, from infant through to postgraduate level, as well as for pastors and church worship leaders. We are litur! gical creatures, "sacramental animals"; we love what we worship. Worship, then is an encounter and a forma! tion. I look forward to the third part of this so!far ex!

RECENT & FORTHCOMING PUBLICATIONS

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A REFORMATIONAL NEWSLETTER !

WINTER 2013 VOLUME 3

UPDATES New pages added for: Gerald Vanderzande Arthur Jones with the following papers: "Christian education part 1: which story, whose story?" &slides "Christian education part 2: culture of death"&slides "Christian education part 3: life or death"&slides "Christian professional training for practitioners" $ver! sion 14% "An introduction to intelligent design"& "Islam: a strategic overview" John Choi 2013.&Reformed Worldview and Korean Society With many other articles in Korean. Abraham Kuyper ! all translated by Harry van Dyke 1890. "Lecture on missions." Given at the mission con! ference, Amsterdam, Jan. 28'30, 1890. 1901. "Catholic Voters of District VIII" # Source: Kuyper!archief, Historisch Documentatiecentrum VU, nr.6460. 1909. "Kuyper on political cartooning." From the Fore! word to&Dr. Kuyper in de Caricatuur. $ $Amsterdam: Van Holkema & Warendorf, 1909%& 1909. $ "Kuyper on coalitions and antithesis." $ From $ Wij, Calvinisten . . . $ $Kok, Kampen, 1909%, 11'18. Selection from an address to the 17th&National Assembly of Anti! Revolutionary Party delegates, convened in Utrecht on 22 April 1909, in preparation for the coming general elections 1909. "Kuyper on Calvin"&From $ Wij, Calvinisten . . . $ $ Kok, Kampen, 1909 % . & Extract from Abraham Kuypers address to the 17th&National Assembly of Delegates of the Antirevolutionary Party, gathered at Utrecht, 24 April 1909, in preparation for the upcoming general election campaign.&This translation of pp. 149' 52. On Kuyper ! translated by Harry van Dyke 1937!8. "Some third!hand information about Kuypers conversion." Letter from&P. H. A. van Krieken to&H. Colijn. Herman Dooyeweerd 1942. "The essence of Christianity."&A talk given at a meeting of the Comit Levensvragen $Committee for Studying the Questions of Life% sponsored by the Gere! formeerde Kerk of Amsterdam South, Sunday, March 1, 1942. Translated by Harry Van Dyke in 2013. Renato Coletto 2012. The re!appreciation of the humanities in contem! porary philosophy of science: from recognition to exag! geration? Koers. 2013. The re!appreciation of the humanities in contem! porary philosophy of science: from recognition to exag! geration? Koers 78$2%. & 2013.&Transdisciplinarity: two preliminary issues.&TD The Journal for Transdisciplinary Research in Southern Af" rica, 9$1% July: 1!16.

New articles added: Finding an Alternative to Over " Development & by Bob Goudzwaard. Edited by Bruce C. Wearne. $Bristol & Asia: All of life Redeemed, 2013% Janse articles ! translated by Chris Gousmett A. Janse 1936!37. "The truly human and Greek philoso! phy"&De Reformatie&17 $1936!37% 44 $30 July 1937%: 357! 358. A. Janse 1939. "Psalm 2 at Christmastime 1939."&Pro Ecclesia & 5 $ 12/13 % $ 23 December % : 46. Reprinted in&Gereformeerd Schoolblad3$2% $1983%:2!7. A . Ja n s e 1 9 4 6 . G o d 's Wo r d i s m o r e t h a n gold.&Kerkblad van de Gereformeerde Kerk van Breda #13 April % . Translation from: & Christian Renewal & 3 $ 2 % . &$January 21, 1985%.&

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