Rooted & Grounded: The Church as Organism and Institution
Digital Logos Edition
Overview
In Rooted & Grounded, Abraham Kuyper describes the dual calling of the Christian Church. The Church needs to be rooted—a living organism that grows freely. And the Church needs to be grounded—an institution with strong foundations to keep it from collapsing. This message is the first sermon Kuyper gave to his congregation in Amsterdam.
Top Highlights
“From the organism the institution is born, but also through the institution the organism is fed.” (source)
“A church cannot be manufactured; a polity, no matter how tidy, and a confession, no matter how spotless, are powerless to form a church if the living organism is absent.” (source)
“The church is an organism because she bears a unique life within herself and self-consciously upholds the independence of that life over against the old life. The church is an organism because she lives according to her own rule and must follow her own vital law. The church is an organism, finally, because what will later unfold from her buds is fully supplied already within her seed.” (source)
“The purpose of the church is not to make people pious but Christian. One can be pious and still not Christian. A true Christian knows nothing of his own piety.” (source)
“This makes orthodoxy conservative. But this is the question: Is orthodoxy fighting for a life principle, or merely for a few incidental consequences deduced from this principle?” (source)
- Title: Rooted & Grounded: The Church as Organism and Institution
- Author: Abraham Kuyper
- Publisher: Lexham Press
- Print Publication Date: 2015
- Logos Release Date: 2015
- Language: English
- Resources: 1
- Format: Digital › Logos Research Edition
- Subjects: Kuyper, Abraham, 1837-1920; Christian life › Conduct of life; Christian life › Reformed authors
- Resource ID: LLS:TEASELEXKUYPROOT
- Resource Type: Monograph
- Metadata Last Updated: 2022-02-12T06:15:18Z
Abraham Kuyper (1837–1920) was the Prime Minister of the Netherlands between 1901 and 1905. He founded the Free University in Amsterdam and served as a professor of theology. At the invitation of B. B. Warfield, Kuyper traveled to the United States to deliver the Stone Lectures at Princeton and address Reformed congregations in Michigan and Iowa.
Kuyper studied at the University of Leiden, and received his doctorate there in 1863. He became a minister in the Dutch Reformed Church in 1863, and consistently called for the separation of church and state. He also led a secession from the Dutch Reformed Church and united several disparate Reformed churches in the Netherlands.
Kuyper also led an active political life. He served as a member of Parliament in the Netherlands beginning in 1874 and served as prime minister from 1901–1905.
Abraham Kuyper was instrumental in the development of Neocalvinism, and is remembered for his articulation of common grace and for popularizing the notion of a Reformed worldview. He has influenced such notable figures as Francis Schaeffer, Cornelius Van Til, Alvin Plantinga, Nicholas Wolterstorff, and Chuck Colson.
Some of Kuyper’s publications, which are available in Logos, include Wisdom & Wonder: Common Grace in Science & Art, The Antithesis between Symbolism and Revelation, and Encyclopedia of Sacred Theology: Its Principles.