In a recent episode of the Civitas Podcast , James Wood, Assistant Professor of Ministry at Redeemer University in Canada, introduces us to Philippus Jacobus Hoedemaker, a minister of the Dutch Reformed church and contemporary of Abraham Kuyper. Wood’s i...

Originally published 2019; this version revised 2023 Once upon a time, the state shared the public square with the church. The central location of the church building in every European town is mute testimony to this state of affairs. But those days...

Denominationalism defines the modern church. By denominationalism we mean the social existence of the church as a congeries of groupings (congregations) invested by private law with a certain degree of collective or “moral” personality, grouped together vol...

Baptism is a function of the doctrine of sin. That is the point the Dutch Reformed theologian Oepke Noordmans makes in his book, Liturgy in the Reformed Tradition . Interestingly, he makes this point in the context of a discussion of liturgy. To wit, ...

And their office is, not only to have regard unto and watch for the welfare of the civil state, but also that they protect the sacred ministry, and thus may remove and prevent all idolatry and false worship; that the kingdom of antichrist may be thus...

Kuyper’s Concept of the Church in the Context of Strategic Christian Action Ruben Alvarado Original version 2015 ; this version 2021 Abraham Kuyper, the giant of Calvinistic philosophy, theology, politics, and indeed pretty much every area of life, c...

Book Review: Stephen C. Perks, The Politics of God and the Politics of Man: Essays on Politics, Religion and Social Order (Taunton: Kuyper Foundation, 2016) This is an incisive, timely, needed book, because it addresses the two fundamental issues...

Equity makes its appearance in theological and confessional treatments as a way of understanding the place of Old Testament law in the New Testament era. It is invoked e.g. in the Westminster Confession of Faith as such an interpretive principle. A good...

Fountainhead of Liberalism Ruben Alvarado Copyright © 1994 Ruben C. Alvarado this edition published 2013 on commonlawreview.com Originally Published in Contra Mundum, No. 10, Winter 1994, Symposium on Fountainhead of Federalism: ...

This article developed out of my reading of, in particular, Aristotle. I noticed that the word used in the New Testament, ekklesia, had a particularly charged political meaning in Greek. That led me to look for other words pertaining to the church and ...

This book review discusses one of the most misunderstood institutions in history. But what one needs to understand is that inquisition in one form or another is inescapable, and forms part of every society. Even today, in our oh-so-tolerant and liberal...

This article dates from 1991. It was one of my original forays into the area of church and state. As such, it is somewhat lacking in the nuance or balance of my later work. The basic principles nevertheless merit the deepest consideration, especially...

This is the text of a talk I gave back in early 1992 to various interested groups. The issue it raises is one that has only gotten more urgent; in fact, today it is a question of spiritual life and death. When will the church wake up to the dangers she...