Journal: Westminster Theological Journal
Volume: WTJ 87:2 (Fall 2025)
Article: Strings Attached: The Church, The Seminary, And Abraham Kuyper’s Animating Ecclesiology
Author: David B. Garner

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Strings Attached: The Church, The Seminary, And Abraham Kuyper’s Animating Ecclesiology

David B. Garner

David B. Garner is the Charles Krahe Professor of Systematic Theology at Westminster Theological Seminary. This article is an adaptation of the Krahe Lecture presented by him at Westminster Theological Seminary on April 23, 2025.

This article considers the critical interface of theological labor with the visible church of Jesus Christ. Specifically, this study probes select insights of Abraham Kuyper’s ecclesiology, which suggest the work of theology must occur transparently, accountably, and organically within an ecclesial orbit. Kuyper’s concerns for the vital church-theologian connection warrant renewed attention to ensure fidelity and advance fruitfulness in the theological work at Westminster Theological Seminary for the twenty-first century and beyond.

I. Charles W. Krahe Jr., Pastor-Scholar

Son of Charles William Krahe Sr. and Caroline S. Deutschmann, the Rev. Dr. Charles William Krahe Jr. was born in Long Island, New York, on June 19, 1924. In June 1948, he and Edith Rabassa were united in marriage; together they had two children, a son, Martin, who died at age 18 in 1969, and daughter, Carrie. Krahe’s wife Edith passed to glory in 2004.1 One year later, on April 18, 2005, Charles Krahe joined her in the church triumphant to dwell forever with the Savior they both adored.

Krahe served five decades as a minister, pastoring three congregations, two in New Jersey and one in Michigan. Though he had served devotedly in the Reformed Church of America (RCA), in 1995, towards the conclusion of his formal ministry in Grand Rapids at Seventh Reformed Church, he and the church were forcibly removed from the RCA, due to their refusal to fund unorthodox denominational positions on matters of sexuality. Despite the bitter rebuff, Krahe resisted the swells of denominational politics and held fast to

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scriptural fidelity. No tempests on the ecclesial seas could dislodge his firmly rooted anchor.

Academically precocious, Charles Krahe graduated valedictorian of his high school class, after which he continued to excel, earning among others awards, prizes in Greek and Latin as a Hamilton College student.2 Immediately upon college graduation in 1944, Krahe responded to the burning sense of ministerial call ignited in his teen years. He matriculated into the RCA’s New Brunswick Theological Seminary in New Jersey. Not to delay, upon graduation in 1947, he was ordained and began his first pastoral call. Uniquely skill...