What is the relationship between the church and the state?

Dutch politician and Christian activist Abraham Kuyper was deeply invested in debates over the influence Christianity should have on his nation. As a pastor and theologian, he was just as concerned about the ailing Dutch church. On the Church contains seven of Kuyper's essential works on the church as it relates to its surrounding culture.

Kuyper believed that Christians must neither hide from the world behind the walls of physical church buildings nor engage the world solely through earthly institutions. The introductory essay by Ad de Bruijne discusses how Kuyper's incisive view of the church still can--and must--apply today, just as it did at the turn of the twentieth century.