About the Abraham Kuyper Center
Abraham Kuyper (1837-1920) was the greatest and most controversial figure in the Calvinist renaissance that took place at the conclusion of the nineteenth century and the opening of the twentieth in The Netherlands. Trained as a theologian at the modernist
University of Leiden
, Kuyper was converted to orthodox Calvinism during his first years as a pastor at
Beesd
. After serving as a pastor in
Utrecht
and
Amsterdam
, he founded a 
Christian newspaper, De Standard, in 1872 and was elected Member of
Parliament
in 1874. A follower of political theorist, Groen van Prinsterer, Kuyper was instrumental in the organization of the Anti-Revolutionary Party, a Christian political party. Kuyper also helped in 1880 to found the
Vrije Universiteit
and regularly served as a professor of theology there. In 1886, after Kuyper and many of his orthodox Calvinist colleagues were expelled from the Nederlands Hervormde Kerk, he took the leading role in forming what subsequently became the Gereformeerde Kerken in Nederland. Kuyper visited
Princeton
in 1898 and delivered the Stone Lectures that year, his famous Lectures on Calvinism, in
Miller Chapel
. In 1901, Kuyper became Minister-President of The Netherlands. Kuyper's worldview, as presented in his hundreds of articles, pamphlets, and books, profoundly affected the development of Reformed theology in The Netherlands, the United States, Canada, South Africa, and Korea, among other countries.
The Abraham Kuyper Center for Public Theology was established at
Princeton Theological Seminary
in 2002. The Kuyper Center sponsors publications, lectures and consultations on the relation of theology to the other "spheres" of life. The activities of the Kuyper Center are coordinated by a faculty board.
The Abraham Kuyper Collection of Dutch Reformed Protestantism in
Special Collections
supports the
scholarly activities of the Abraham Kuyper Center for Public Theology. The research collection, ordinarily open by appointment to qualified researchers, focuses on the theology and history of Dutch Reformed Protestantism in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The collection features one of the most complete collections of literature by and about Abraham Kuyper. At the heart of the collection is the approximately thirty-thousand volume library of the late Dutch historian, Dr. George Puchinger, which was acquired for Special Collections in 1999 through the generosity of Mr. Henry Luce III.
Clifford Anderson is Curator of Reformed Research Collections. For inquiries concerning the Abraham Kuyper Center for Public Theology, please contact him at
kuyper.conference@ptsem.edu