The Christian Family, Herman Bavinck, trans. from Dutch by Nelson D. Koosterman
Grand Rapids: Christian’s Library Press, 2012, pgs. 168.
Summary: Herman Bavinck (1854-1921) was the preeminent Reformed theologian of the last century. The book was originally published in 1912 as Het Christelijk Huisgezin.
Bavinck develops a brilliant biblical theology of the family, which he then applies to the threats to the family caused by sin in general, social Darwinism, socialism, Marxism, materialistic capitalism, and first wave feminism. He presupposes the historical accuracy of the entire Bible, that God created the two sexes, the institution of marriage and family, and that God did so to display his glory through his creation. The relationship between God and humanity and husband and wife were disordered by the Fall, but through the plan of salvation God is restoring all things. The family plays a pivotal role through the church in the reformation of all things until the return of Christ. He provides guidelines for men and women in singleness, marriage, and the nurture of children in response to sin and modernity.
Exemplar Quotes:
It is God himself who subdues the earth under his feet through the human race, and it is God himself who desires to display his own glory in the discovery of all of creation’s treasures. (7)
God made two out of one, so that he could then make the two into one, one soul and one flesh. (7)
Shame is a sense of discomfort, a feeling of uneasiness, which consists particularly in fear of loss, something that overtakes us when we have done, something immodest. . . .Yet, that shame is also a blessing. An animal knowns no shame, and the devil even less. (10-11)
Rather than concluding from the limited number or complete absence of laws that people live in a situation without rights, in many cases we can with more warrant argue just the reverse and say: the more laws we need, the more it becomes evident that rational and moral understanding, that natural love and natural bonds, are losing their influence and power. If in the present day the rights of the wife, of the child, of the servant, and of the labor must be established by law, then surely this can be explained as due largely to self-interest undermining the moral character of society. (32-33)
But all those immoral ideas are entirely foreign to Holy Scripture; the Hebrew language does not even have a word for female deity. (35).
Many of these women also performed significant ministries in the church; they received [the apostles] in their homes (Acts 12:12; 1 Core. 16:19; Col. 4:15), helped the apostles in the work of the ministry (Rom. 16:3, 6-15), occasionally led in the gathering of believers, though not to teach (1 Cor. 14:34; 1 Tim. 2:12; 1 Peter 3:1), but certainly to pray and prophesy (1 Cor. 11:5), and were perhaps occasionally tasked with one or another project in the midst of the congregation, without holding a particular office (Rom. 16:1; 1 Tim. 3:11; 5:3-16). (49)
All good, enduring reformation begins with ourselves and takes its starting point in one’s own heart and life. (63)
Scripture speaks in a very human way about the essence of God, but it never transfers the sexual differentiation to him. God is never portrayed or presented as being feminine. But if the woman is said to be created along with man in the image of God, then that includes the fact that the uniqueness and richness of feminine qualities no less than those of the masculine capacities find their origin and example in the divine Being. God is a Father who takes pity on his children, but he also comforts like a mother comforts her son. (66)
Each [sex] has quite glorious virtues and each has rather serious defects. There is room for neither disparagement nor deification with respect to either of them. (70)
Moreover, preaching the absolute necessity of marriage robs a person in advance of the weapons he needs to fight against his passion. It weakens rather than strengthen him; it induces him to give up in the struggle before he begins; it surrenders the fort before the enemy even launches the attack. (72)
No Christian says that the person is corrupted by marriage, but he confesses that marriage is corrupted by the person; the modern realist blames the circumstances, the institutions, the laws and ordinances, ultimately, God himself, while the Christian finds within his own heart the source of all impurity. (79)
The family is a school for the children, but in the first place it is a school for the parents. (94)
But science can never replace living, it can fortify living, guide and improve living, but never take its place. Just as agriculture owes many improvements to science, but nevertheless remains dependent on nature, on soil and climate, rain and sunshine, on sowing and harvesting, so child-rearing can be assisted and supported by science but can never be appropriated by science or assigned to science. (104)
By means of science and technology, a person expands his own capacity for work. Science expands the human spirit, technology expands the human body. . . .In a word, a person invents tools with his own souls, his own thought, his own life; in technology man copies himself, but at the same time elevates, energizes, and extends his work capacity; even the rhythm of his work displays the poetry of his own soul. (121)
Not only that, but money falsifies values; it supplies someone who otherwise would have deserved and received the disregard of everyone an immediate social position honored by everyone, making him rise suddenly in rank and stature, in honor and renown. The proverb contains all too much truth that says: the coin that is round makes straight was is crooked and wise what is stupid. Money justifies everything. (156)
For Christians, the future is portrayed entirely differently than for those without faith in any revelation. For a apart from revelation, the origin, essence, purpose, and destiny of the human race are entirely unknown to us. Because without this knowledge we cannot live and cannot die, cannot think and cannot labor, the Christian faith is replaced by arbitrary guesses and the Christian hope by vain expectations. (160)
Benefits/Detriments:
The Christian Family can be divided up into that which is universal for this age and specific applications to Bavinck’s time and place. His advice to young wives about how to govern household staff had to be dated when he wrote the book. He also vastly underestimated women’s interest in voting and is not committed to universal suffrage for the sexes. Regardless, he provides a deep and thoughtful exposition of Scripture in the development and maintenance of the Christian family.
Recommended for all.