November 2007 - Protestant Reformed Churches in America

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Book Reviews Mey defended the public zines within the Christian Reformed Church: the Reformed schools. He did so, intriguingly, on the ground of common grace. Journal and the Torch and De Jong summarizes Vander Trumpet. Kuiper’s joining the Mey’s argument: “By God’s editorial committee of the Torch common grace, many fine and Trumpet in 1957, immediately after retiring from the things happen in many public schools” (101). Kuiper, himself Banner, was clear evidence that a defender of common grace, he saw danger threatening the was forced to ward off Vander Christian Reformed Church, Mey’s argument by accusing unmistakable indication where Vander Mey of “an unbalanced in his judgment the danger lay, overemphasis on common and a strong signal that he intended to fight. grace” (99). Ironically, Vander Mey was the Christian Reformed minister who had been Christian Reformed Church re- What the danger to the a thorn in the side of Hoeksema ally was, and still is (although at Eastern Avenue Christian Kuiper would not have acknowledged it, any more than Reformed Church in the common grace controversy. does author De Jong), James De Those who live in the vicinity of Chicago will read with significant footnote: “Denomi- Jong nevertheless suggests in a special interest the history of national dynamics from 1880 Kuiper’s pastorate of Second through 1980 [in the Christian Englewood, Chicago from 1913 Reformed Church] can be understood essentially in terms of to 1919 and the account of Kuiper’s editorial involvement the interplay and application of in the “Wezeman Case” in 1936. these two ideas.” “These two Henry J. Kuiper was a “conservative” in the Christian Re- common grace (230). De Jong ideas” are the antithesis and formed Church. Especially toward the end of his ministry, he monious and that the threat to thinks that the two ideas are har- did battle with the up-and-coming “progressives/liberals” in is a failure to “balance” them. the Christian Reformed Church the beloved denomination he But he acknowledges that from had long led. The battle was the later years of Kuiper’s ministry to the present the antith- definitely pitched in 1951 by the creation of two, opposing magaesis has been losing out in the November 2007 97
Protestant Reformed Theological Journal Christian Reformed Church. world’” (250; emphasis added The scales of the balance are by the reviewer). tilting steadily to the side of This well-written and wellresearched common grace. “Religious study of one of the leaders continued to remind it Christian Reformed Church’s [the Christian Reformed leading ministers is a worthy addition Church], though with increasingly to “The Historical Series less force and clarity, that of the Reformed Church in the religious antithesis placed it America.” ■ fundamentally at odds with ‘the Sweet Communion: Trajectories of Spirituality from the Middle Ages through the Further Reformation, by Arie de Reuver, translated by James A. De Jong. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2007. 303 pp. $29.99. Softcover. [Reviewed by Douglas J. Kuiper.] It is good to read the original writings of men of centuries past who, in God’s providence and grace, had a great impact on His church. But the task is often made difficult for the English-speaking reader by the great number of such writings, and by the fact that they are not always available in English. Books in which the writings of such men are studied and evaluated make the task easier. However, the drawback then becomes the fact that the reader, not having studied the original 98 sources, is less able to critique the author’s judgment regarding them. Arie de Reuver’s book studies and evaluates the lives and works of seven men: Bernard of Clairvaux, Thomas à Kempis, Willem Teellinck, Theodorus à Brakel, Guiljelmus Saldenus, Wilhelmus à Brakel, and Herman Witsius. Specifically, de Reuver selects one or more works of each man that set forth his teachings regarding Christian piety—Clairvaux’s tract On God’s Love and his sermons on the Song of Solomon; à Kempis’ The Imitation of Christ; Teellinck’s The Key to True Devotion, Soliloquy, and The New Jerusalem; Theodorus à Brakel’s The Stages of the Spiritual Life; Saldenus’ The Road of Life; Wilhelmus à Brakel’s Reasonable Service; and sev- Vol. 41, No. 1
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November 2007 - Protestant Reformed Churches in America

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