Abraham Kuyper Petition (DRAFT)
The VU was established with a clear mission, a clear added value to the academia and to society. This University was meant to be free of state influence, because modernist society only tolerates a theistic worldviews. It was also meant to be free of the church, since a greater part of the Christendom in Kuyper’s days was also under the influence modernism and dualism. Today, there is an additional external threat from corporate organizations, which provide resources for research, but also acquire a strong voice over the research agenda.
The VU was a counter-cultural and moral institution. A bulwark of Christian Science. Unfortunately, all advantages in terms of cultural, religious, political, moral and scientific mission of the VU have ebbed away over the last sixty years.
The Abraham Kuyper Society aims at helping the VU regain its former status, its former servitude to Jesus Christ and through Jesus Christ to the academia and broader societal spheres. If the VU fails to seek His Lordship and distinguish itself as a Christian university, merger with pronounced ‘neutral’ (secular) education and research institutions e.g. the University of Amsterdam (UvA) must be considered, for reasons of cost-effectiveness.
The Abraham Kuyper Society, however, prefers that the VU reframes itself as the Christian university as it was meant to be. This would mean a substantial policy shift. Some concrete policy changes the Abraham Kuyper Society insists on are the following.
- A new or reintroduced logo that expresses the Christian identity of the VU.
- Facilities (rooms, offices, multi-media) availability for Christian organizations (such as International Praise and
- Worship service on Tuesdays)
- Facilitating a vibrant Christian civic society.
- A Christian prayer room.
- The re-inauguration of the chapel on the 15th floor as a Church.
- Seminars on applied Christian worldviews for all first year bachelor students.
- Inclusion of readings on and by VU reformists Kuyper and Dooyeweerd in Master’s programme.
- A broad debate on the moral implications of certain understandings of evolution and Christian ideas of creation.
- Christian ethics applied in the VU Medical Centre and the VU laboratories
posted by Sander Chan at 8:28 AM
2 Comments:
I actually do have questions!
you are talking about compulsory courses on a particular religion!
sounds rather opressive to me...
They are not "compulsory" because you don't have to attend the university if you don't want to take those classes.
Kuyper was the man who enabled the dutch underground during WWII. How, you ask? He formed the anti-revolutionary party, for the purpose of stopping men like hitler from becoming dutch dictators, later, many of the anti-revolutionary's became underground workers, who saved jews by getting them out of the country. Even though Kuyper wasn't a jew, he respected other people jew or non-jew. He also was the man who made the protestants and catholics get along, and live with each other in the same country.
Despite all of this, I do not think that he would want athiests in his university, because that was his private training grounds to teach other men to act as he did, like Jesus. If you don't want to learn to act like Jesus, and have so much influence on history as Kuyper had, than don't go to Kuyper's university.
Unfortuanatly for Gregory, I don't think that we will be able to get it back, but I am praying for this to be done, and with God it can be done.
J. VanGelder
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