President of Fuller Theological Seminary to Receive Annual Kuyper Prize at Princeton Seminary

Princeton, NJ, March 12, 2007–Dr.Richard J. Mouw, president of Fuller Theological Seminary, is the recipient of Princeton Theological Seminary’s 2007 Abraham Kuyper Prize for Excellence in Reformed Theology and Public Life. He will receive the award when he delivers the Seminary’s Kuyper Lecture on Thursday, March 29 at 7:30 p.m. His lecture is titled “Church, Pluralism, and Civil Society: Kuyper for a New Century.”

Abraham Kuyper (1837–1920) was probably the greatest and most controversial figure in the Calvinist renaissance that took place at the conclusion of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century in the Netherlands. Trained as a theologian at the modernist University of Leiden, he converted to orthodox Calvinism during his first pastorate. In 1872 he founded a Christian newspaper, De Standard, and was elected a Member of Parliament in 1874. He was instrumental in the organization of the Anti-Revolutionary Party, a Christian political party and helped in 1880 to found the Vrije Universiteit (the Free University of Amsterdam), where he regularly served as a professor of theology. In 1901, Kuyper became minister-president of the Netherlands. His worldview, as presented in his hundreds of articles, pamphlets, and books, profoundly affected the development of Reformed theology in the Netherlands, the United States, Canada, South Africa, and Korea, among other countries.

Richard Mouw has been president of Fuller Seminary, a multidenominational seminary in Pasadena, California, since 1993, having previously been provost and senior vice president. A philosopher, scholar, and author, he joined the faculty as professor of Christian philosophy and ethics in September 1985. Before coming to Fuller he served for seventeen years as professor of philosophy at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan. He has also served as a visiting professor at the Free University in Amsterdam.

A graduate of Houghton College, Mouw studied at Western Theological Seminary and earned a master’s degree in philosophy at the University of Alberta and a doctorate in philosophy from the University of Chicago.

He has been an editor of the Reformed Journal and has served on many editorial boards, including currently Books and Culture and Laity Exchange. He is the author of fifteen books, including Consulting the Faithful, The Smell of Sawdust: What Evangelicals Can Learn from Their Fundamentalist Heritage, and most recently, Calvinism in the Las Vegas Airport. He is a regular columnist on Beliefnet, a web magazine. He serves on advisory boards for Religion and Ethics Newsweekly, the International Justice Mission, and the International Center for Religion and Diplomacy.

The Abraham Kuyper Prize is awarded each year through the generous gift of Dr. Rimmer and Mrs. Ruth de Vries to a scholar or community leader who has contributed to the further development of Reformed theology, particularly as it bears on matters of public life, historical or contemporary, in one or several of the spheres of society. The de Vries’ gift also established an endowed faculty chair and a grant fund for graduate students at Princeton Seminary.

The lecture will take place in Miller Chapel on the Seminary campus. A public reception will immediately follow the lecture in the Private Dining Room of the Mackay Campus Center. For more information regarding the Kuyper Prize and Lecture, contact the Communications/Publications Office at 609.497.7760, or visit www.ptsem.edu.

In connection with the Kuyper Prize and Lecture event, the Seminary’s Abraham Kuyper Center for Public Theology will hold a consultation “Neo-Calvinism, Pluralism, and Civil Society” on Friday, March 30 from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. in the Auditorium of the Mackay Campus Center. Presentations will be offered by Jonathan Chaplin (Cambridge University), George Harinck (Vrije Universiteit), Ronald J. Sider (Evangelicals for Social Action), Max L. Stackhouse, (Princeton Theological Seminary), Gideon Strauss (Christian Labour Association of Canada), Henk E.S. Woldring (Vrije Universiteit), and Albert M. Wolters (Redeemer University College).

The Manna Fellowship at Princeton University is sponsoring an event titled “Faith beyond Sunday” on Saturday, March 31. For more information, visit www.princeton.edu/manna.

 The consultation is cosponsored by the Christian Labour Association of Canada, Redeemer University College, and the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. For more information, contact Clifford Anderson at 609.497.3642.

Princeton Theological Seminary was founded in 1812 as the first seminary established by the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church. It is the largest Presbyterian seminary in the country, with more than 700 students in seven graduate degree programs.