Journal: Westminster Theological Journal
Volume: WTJ 66:1 (Spring 2004)
Article: Southern-Fried Kuyper? Robert Lewis Dabney, Abraham Kuyper, And The Limitations Of Public Theology
Author: Sean Michael Lucas

WTJ 66:1 (Spring 2004) p. 179

Southern-Fried Kuyper?
Robert Lewis Dabney, Abraham Kuyper, And
The Limitations Of Public Theology

Sean Michael Lucas

[Sean Michael Lucas is assistant pastor at Community Presbyterian Church (PCA), Louisville, Ky.]

In 1998, in light of the grand celebrations accorded to the one hundredth anniversary of Abraham Kuyper’s Princeton Seminary Stone Lectures, Kuyper seemed more relevant than ever. Princeton Seminary, Free University of Amsterdam, and Calvin Seminary each hosted conferences proclaiming Kuyper’s historical and continuing importance, and several publications about Kuyper and his work were published, including a centennial Kuyper reader edited expertly by James Bratt, a fine study of Kuyper’s Stone Lectures by Peter Heslam, and an entire issue of the Calvin Theological Journal dedicated to Kuyper’s continuing legacy. All of this attention that Kuyper received in 1998 has not abated, for the three sets of conference papers were published shortly afterward, an important biography on Kuyper appeared in 2000, and John Bolt’s massive study of Kuyper’s public theology finally appeared in 2001. Most recently, in 2002, Princeton Seminary inaugurated the Abraham Kuyper Institute for Public Theology, headed by noted theological ethicist, Max Stackhouse. All of this “Kuyperiana” made James Skillen’s question at the end of one conference collection appear incredibly rhetorical: the question “Why Kuyper Now?” did not need to be answered, for most Reformed and even non-Reformed academics confessed that Kuyper’s thought provided “Christian insight and motive for action in today’s world.”1

With all the attention showered on the Dutch Reformed Kuyper, perhaps it is little surprise that another centennial anniversary passed barely noticed in 1998—the death of southern Presbyterian theologian, Robert Lewis Dabney, who passed away at age seventy-seven on January 3, 1898. To mark the centennial of Dabney’s death, no major seminary or university held a conference in

WTJ 66:1 (Spring 2004) p. 180

Dabney’s honor; no publications were issued to mark the occasion; not even the Westminster Theological Journal bothered to remember or assess Dabney’s importance and lasting legacy. While Dabney’s books remain in print, it is due primarily to the services of Banner of Truth Trust, the Scottish reprinter, and Sprinkle Publications, a tiny Virginia publisher that specializes in Calvinistic and Confederate books. If a major scholar had bothered to ask, “Why Dabney now?” he would have been hooted off the stage before he even got a chance to answer. While the official academic position on Dabney remains that he was “a...