Dutch neo-Calvinism has had a major, though understudied, impact on American thinking about church and state.  And one can see the influence of one of neo-Calvinism’s greatest minds, Abraham Kuyper, in the “Souvereiniteit in Eigen Kring,” or “sphere sovereignty,” legal pluralist scholarship of writers like Nicholas Wolterstorff, Paul Horwitz, Richard Garnett, and, at perhaps a somewhat greater distance, Frederick Schauer.  This full-scale biography, Abraham Kuyper: Modern Calvinist, Christian Democrat (Eerdmans 2013), by James D. Bratt (Calvin College), will be of special interest to students of neo-Calvinist influence in contemporary political thought.  The publisher’s description follows.

In this first full-scale English biography of Abraham Kuyper, the highly influential religious and political leader of Dutch Calvinists in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, historian James D. Bratt draws connections between the life and thought of Kuyper and current debates in America today. Bratt’s study covers Kuyper’s early years, his development as a person, his various leadership roles and spheres of influence, and the considerable ongoing impact of his ideas.

A convinced Calvinist and a distinctly modern public figure, Kuyper held a wide variety of roles over the course of his life — minister, newspaper editor, educational innovator, politician, religious reformer, and prime minister of the Netherlands (1901-1905). Kuyper’s life demonstrates how devotees of any faith can carry on a responsible public life in contention — and concert — with people of other convictions.