R.B. Kuiper Collection (#028)

Rienke Bouke Kuiper was born on January 31, 1886 in Garrelsweer, Groningen, the Netherlands. He studied in the United States, being graduated A.B. in 1907 from the University of Chicago, and A.M. in 1908 from the University of Indiana, Bloomington. He studied at Calvin Theological Seminary (CTS) from 1908 to 1911, and received a diploma in 1911, but would not receive a formal theological degree until he received the Th.B. from Princeton Theological Seminary in 1912. Kuiper married Marie Janssen in 1911, and the two of them would eventually have three children: Marietta (Heerema), Klaudius, and Kathryn. Kuiper was ordained a minister in the Christian Reformed Church (CRC) in 1912 and served in three CRC churches in Michigan before transferring his credentials to the Reformed Church of America (RCA) in 1923. He returned to the CRC in 1925, and served in Michigan until 1929 when he joined the faculty of the newly founded Westminster Theological Seminary (WTS) in Philadelphia as a professor of Systematic Theology. He would not stay long, however. He left in 1930 for Calvin College, where he served as president for three years.

At the request of J. Gresham Machen, Kuiper returned to WTS in 1933 as a professor of Practical Theology, and joined the nascent Presbyterian Church of America (later the Orthodox Presbyterian Church) in 1936. Kuiper’s second tenure at Westminster was much longer, lasting until 1952. He returned to Michigan as the President of CTS and transferred his ministerial credentials back to the CRC. He retired in 1956, but continued to write and correspond with some frequency until his death on April 22, 1966.

The contents of the R.B. Kuiper Collection shed considerable light on Kuiper’s involvement in the founding and establishment of WTS and the PCA/OPC. As a professor of Practical Theology at WTS, Kuiper was tasked with training his seminarians, many of whom came from dispensational and fundamentalist backgrounds, in Reformed ministry and worship. His lecture outlines contained in the collection’s notebooks reveal the effort he expended in that task. Kuiper was also given the responsibility of being the public voice for WTS when he succeeded J. Gresham Machen in delivering radio addresses for the Westminster Radio Hour. As a minister in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church (OPC), Kuiper was involved in many of the young denomination’s controversies. There is considerable material in the collection pertaining to the Gordon H. Clark case, in which Kuiper was a member of the committee who registered a complaint with the Presbytery of Philadelphia. Kuiper was also involved in what are now lesser-known controversies in the OPC, including: questions over the denomination’s involvement in the International Council of Christian Churches, debates concerning the influence of the Peniel Bible Conference among OPC ministers, and concerns over the propriety of Christian membership in secret societies (e.g. Masonic orders). Kuiper served as a member of several committees that contributed to OPC positions on these questions, and presented reports of his own authorship on two occasions.

The contents of the collection indicate that Kuiper was a respected figure at WTS and within the PCA/OPC. Correspondence shows that his contemporaries viewed him as a steady leader and a competent administrator, qualities of significant utility at a time when the institutions of which he was a part were young and lacking in stability. His letters also reveal him to have been sensitive to public criticism and, as he viewed it, misrepresentation. A cursory glance at the frequency with which Kuiper wrote to Carl McIntire over what the former viewed as a slanderous editorial shows the lengths to which Kuiper was willing to go to guard his reputation. An unsent letter to Edwin Rian shows how sensitive Kuiper could be about criticism of his department at WTS as well.

If one were to summarize the career of R.B. Kuiper as reflected in the collection, perhaps the best term would be “Churchman.” Whether it was his instruction in Reformed worship and practice at WTS, or serving on committees for the PCA/OPC, what seems to have animated him was the desire to see Reformed churches continue to be faithful. It is fitting, then, that WTS established the R.B. Kuiper Memorial Fund after his death to foster preaching.