This post is part of a series walking through the third volume of Abraham Kuyper’s Common Grace The distinction between the religious feeling that God should be involved in marriage and marriage between believers (the difference between “religious” marriage and “ecclesiastical” marriage) that Kuyper highlighted in the previous chapter has been largely overlooked, possibly because of the rejection of “marriage as sacrament.” (411) The overlooking is also somewhat related to the separation of the marriage ceremony from the church service,... Read more

Kuyper on marriage and the state Read more

This post is part of a series walking through the third volume of Abraham Kuyper’s Common Grace Narrowing from the broader discussion of “the family” to the narrower concept of “the Christian family,” and the even narrower concept of “Christian marriage,” Kuyper notes that here there is also a broad and a narrow approach. In one sense, “Christian marriage” just means “a marriage based on the foundations established for marriage in Christian Europe by law and by custom.” That is,... Read more

This post is part of a series walking through the third volume of Abraham Kuyper’s Common Grace Having surveyed the history of marriage in the previous chapter, Kuyper notes that the competing perspectives (modern and Christian) agree on how marriage has changed over time. The point of disagreement comes when we ask what marriage should look like now. The anthropology of marriage doesn’t prove whether marriage is just animal instinct as refined by civilization. the fact that marriage is in the... Read more

Kuyper on the history of modern marriage Read more