Dr. Herman Bavinck, The Kinist

Thanks to the girlish hyperventilating of people like Joe Boot, James White, Andrew Sandlin, and Doug Wilson the idea of Kinism has become a “set your hair on fire” controversial position. However, it is simply the case that prior to 1945 or so Kinism was merely one doctrinal petal in the whole Reformed flower. Kinism was part and parcel of “Reformed Christian” just as “total depravity” was.

There are now two different anthologies out that demonstrate that in spades. If you haven’t read them you should.

Who Is My Neighbor — Achdow & Ord
A Survey of Racialism in Christian Sacred Tradition — Alexander Soren

Given that Kinism was merely one doctrine that comprised the Christian faith for pretty much all Christians with the exception of Anabaptists we should not be surprised to find that the great Dutch Reformed Theologian
Herman Bavinck was Kinist.

Bavinck is clear that grace does not eliminate creational differences among men:

“God does that by establishing the structures of family, society, and state among human beings. He awakens in the human heart a natural love between men and women, parents and children. He nurtures a variety of social virtues among people: a pull toward social relationships and longing for affection and friendship. He also scatters humanity into different people groups and languages to protect them from total decline. Among those nations, he creates the national virtues of affection for and love of fatherland. He permits these different people groups to organize themselves into states to whom is given the calling to regulate the relationships among the many diverse spheres of society and maintain justice.”

Herman Bavinck

“Reformed Social Ethics”
(GBP, 440-41)

Author: jetbrane

I am a Pastor of a small Church in Mid-Michigan who delights in my family, my congregation and my calling. I am postmillennial in my eschatology. Paedo-Calvinist Covenantal in my Christianity Reformed in my Soteriology Presuppositional in my apologetics Familialist in my family theology Agrarian in my regional community social order belief Christianity creates culture and so Christendom in my national social order belief Mythic-Poetic / Grammatical Historical in my Hermeneutic Pre-modern, Medieval, & Feudal before Enlightenment, modernity, & postmodern Reconstructionist / Theonomic in my Worldview One part paleo-conservative / one part micro Libertarian in my politics Systematic and Biblical theology need one another but Systematics has pride of place Some of my favorite authors, Augustine, Turretin, Calvin, Tolkien, Chesterton, Nock, Tozer, Dabney, Bavinck, Wodehouse, Rushdoony, Bahnsen, Schaeffer, C. Van Til, H. Van Til, G. H. Clark, C. Dawson, H. Berman, R. Nash, C. G. Singer, R. Kipling, G. North, J. Edwards, S. Foote, F. Hayek, O. Guiness, J. Witte, M. Rothbard, Clyde Wilson, Mencken, Lasch, Postman, Gatto, T. Boston, Thomas Brooks, Terry Brooks, C. Hodge, J. Calhoun, Llyod-Jones, T. Sowell, A. McClaren, M. Muggeridge, C. F. H. Henry, F. Swarz, M. Henry, G. Marten, P. Schaff, T. S. Elliott, K. Van Hoozer, K. Gentry, etc. My passion is to write in such a way that the Lord Christ might be pleased. It is my hope that people will be challenged to reconsider what are considered the givens of the current culture. Your biggest help to me dear reader will be to often remind me that God is Sovereign and that all that is, is because it pleases him.

3 thoughts on “Dr. Herman Bavinck, The Kinist”

  1. You will not find more zealous practitioners of kinism than the Dutch Reformed.

    You also will not find more ardent denouncers of kinism than the Dutch Reformed.

    It’s the old “it’s OK for me but not for thee” routine.

    Reply

  2. By Bavinck’s [correct] logic, John the Baptist was the consummate kinist because his ministry was to “turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers”.

    Reply

  3. Amen.

    And Kinism was also endorsed by the founder of the Dutch Reformed Church, Johannes Althusius:

    “There are two kinds of private and natural domestic association. The first is conjugal (conjugalis) and the second is kinship (propinqua). p. 29. Rights communicated among persons who are united in this natural association are called rights of blood (jura sanguinis) bringing together and sustaining advantages mutually among the kinsmen. Such advantages are, first, the affection, love, and goodwill of the blood relative and kinsman. Advantages and responsibilities are intensified as the degree of relationship among the kinsmen increases. Certain political writers eliminate, wrongly in my judgment, the doctrine of conjugal and kinship private association from the field of politics. These associations are the seedbed of all private and public associational life. The knowledge of other associations is therefore incomplete and defective without this doctrine of conjugal and kinship associations, and cannot be rightly understood without it.” pp. 30-1.

    Johannes Althusius, ‘Politica’

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