A blog post by Steve Macias on Kuyper’s debt to Tractarianism’s anti-Whiggery led me to James Bratt’s book Abraham Kuyper: Modern Calvinist, Christian Democrat (Eerdmans, 2013). He says,
Perhaps, I am putting too much weight on Kuyper’s conversion story and its connection to the Tractarians, but they both spring from the same revolt against modernity. Both Neo-Calvinism and Anglican Traditionalism are born to combat the tides of what they saw as liberalism. It is impossible to understand the Anglo-Catholics as a liturgical movement alone, they also represented an anti-modernist political philosophy for the Church against the encroachments of ‘whiggery’. In a similar way, Kuyper would develop a political theology as a result of his high view of the church, as a defence against modernism, not as a tool for power or mere social engagement.
I myself have no confidence in Christian democracy, certainly as it has become in the late 20th century and early 21st, and I’m pretty sure Kuyper was wrong about many things, but I probably should read Kuyper and read about Kuyper.
Cogito, Credo, Petam 