The Sacrifice Of Praise, by Herman Bavinck

[Note:  This book was provided free of charge by Hendrickson Press.  All thoughts and opinions are my own.]

Although he may not be familiar to many potential readers, Herman Bavinck was one of the leading lights of late 19th and early 20th century Dutch Reformed thinking, along with his sometime rival Abraham Kuyper, who is perhaps more familiar to contemporary readers.  This book is an English translation of one of the author’s works that is particularly focused on Reformed catechetical theology, and is of particular interest to readers who either share the author’s Calvinist perspective or who are at least curious about the implications of Calvinist thinking when it comes to the aspects of praise that are involved in the life of a Christian.  Admittedly, as an Arminian myself I have very different views than that of the author regarding the aspects of praise, but even so I must admit that I found this book to be a very forceful discussion of praise from the point of view of a thinker who was very focused on maintaining the full strength of Calvinism, and if that view is not personally appealing there are likely many people who will appreciate a good deal more than I did.

This short book of a bit more than 100 pages begins with a foreword that places Bavinck’s writing in this book in the context of his writings in general (which I am largely unfamiliar with) as well as the time in which they were written by the author after having seceded from the mainstream and compromising Dutch state church of the author’s time.  After the author’s foreword and preface to various earlier Dutch editions of the book, the author covers various aspects of praise in a dozen chapters.  There are discussions of the foundation of confession (not only of sins but of faith) (1), how one brings up a child for confession of faith (2), the rule of confession (3), the essence of confession (4), the contents of confession (5), the diversity of confession (6), the unity/universality of confession (7), the obligation of confession (8), the opposition to confession on the part of our sinful nature, the world, and Satan (9), the strength of confession (10), the reward of confession (11), and the triumph of confession (12).  After this there is a fair-minded review of the book from W.H. Gispen along with a bibliography, notes, subject, and some information about the editors of this particular volume.

In reading this book, I could not help but feel as if perhaps there was a bit of problem with the title of the book, at least what it implies.  The Dutch title of this book could be translated as “The Offering Of Praise” as well as “The Sacrifice Of Praise,” and viewing confession as a matter of offering perhaps hits closer to what the author (and the Bible) mean when it comes to the living sacrifices that readers offer through their prayers and through their confession of faith and of sin.  The author struggles, as one might expect, with his Calvinist beliefs concerning the actions of believers, viewing the offering of praise to God as something that comes from God, and stating at one point that even to confess one’s sins in the first place requires divine involvement.  Much of this book consists of the author’s application of human reasoning from Calvinist premises with regards to different aspects of confession, some types of which are devoted to God (like confession of our sins and faults) and some of which are focused on the world at large (like our public confession of faith), and the extent to which one appreciates this will depend in large part on the author’s fondness for Calvinist thinking in general.