Most people assume that since the Christian social views tend to be defended by conservatives that the automatic economic system to support is moving towards Laissez-faire Capitalism. However, this is not the Historical economic view of those whom are part of The Reformed Faith within politics. Instead, Kuyper and his fellow Calvinistic politicians were supporters of a third way between free markets and Socialism.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/24709930"It was in the days when European society was in the throes of expanding industrial capitalism that Abraham Kuyper formulated his basic ideas about the pitfalls of the free enterprise system and the need for a structural make-over of society. Already two decades before his mature address of 1891 on the social question, he urged the church to concern herself seriously with the plight of the working classes. In 1874 he railed against "fictitious trade" and mere "paper assets." In an extensive commentary on his political party's program (1878/79) he repeated his fundamental objection to the "fictitious expansion of capital", calling for legislation to curb such excesses and to create a better balance in incomes between the different classes making up society. He argued for equity and justice rather than charity and philanthropy, and for wages and salaries proportional to effort, skill and education. Yet while the gap between rich and poor cried out to heaven, the first step toward solving the social question, according to the youthful Kuyper, was not to focus on the poor but to provide employment opportunities so that the able and willing workingman could earn a living wage. He proposed raising import duties and protective tariffs, replacing taxes on necessaries with taxes on luxuries, abolishing government-run lotteries, and lifting the ban on organizing trade-unions. To achieve these reforms, it was essential that the lower classes be given greater representation in parliament and that selfish greed make way for neighbourly love and mutual solidarity."
https://j-etr.org/2021/06/15/the-amateur-economist-abraham-kuyper-and-economics/ "One of the earliest attempts at formulating a systematic religious approach to economics was undertaken by neo-Calvinists, first in the Netherlands, and later in the twentieth century also in the Anglo-Saxon world. While their approach to and achievements in economics have received due attention, the economic views of neo-Calvinism’s inspiring founder, Dutch theologian, statesman, and journalist Abraham Kuyper (1837-1920), have been largely neglected. This article seeks to fill this gap by discussing Kuyper’s take on the science of economics in light of his neo-Calvinist ideals. It shows that he thought highly of the German historical school, but in the end deemed a further reformation of the field necessary. What the social question of poverty and unemployment required was a truly Christian (and hence Calvinist) approach to economics."
"Repeatedly, Kuyper presented the economic distress of his times as an effect of the French Revolution. Although he had to admit that the revolution of 1789 was not the only cause, it was, he asserted, the main cause. Kuyper envisioned a close relationship between prevailing world views or ideologies and the way that societies are organized and governed. World views come with different conceptions of society, which in turn give rise to corresponding economic theories and policies. The French Revolution he viewed as an atheistic world view that glorified individual man. It showed itself to be thoroughly individualistic, conceiving of society as a sum of egoistic, self-seeking individuals. Having dispensed with the supernatural dimension of life, revolutionaries elevated money as man’s highest good.
The revolutionary ideology was provided with a political-economic vindication by classical economics, a school that Kuyper fought all his life (Smeenk 1937, 15-6). He denoted it interchangeably as Adam Smith’s “old-orthodox school,” “Manchester school,” or “liberal school” of economics. This school, he once explained to his colleagues in parliament, “found in Stuart Mill its strongest representative, and can be characterized as the school of the individualistic principle, which takes selfishness as its lever, and sets utility as the supreme goal” (1890, 193). When it came to economic policy, it preached a “mercantile gospel of laissez faire, laissez passer” that resulted in a struggle for money and, eventually, a struggle for life in society (1891, 21). The laisser-fairepolitics of the liberals reduced the laborer to a “sort of appendix of the machine” (1889, 19).[2] This led to the birth of the problems addressed by the social question. Whereas the classical school promised the greatest happiness of the greatest number, Kuyper cited theologian Rawson Birks, “the greatest discontent of the greatest number, seems almost to be the result” (1890, 194)."
"Kuyper, it is clear, was well aware of the different currents of economic thought. To the same extent as theological departments, he observed, faculties of law where political economy is studied are characterized by discord (1908, 234, referring to Treub’s critique of Pierson). In his address on the social question (1891, 28-30), he summarized all the varieties of nineteenth-century socialism, from nihilism and anarchism to state socialism, and the historical school in economics more specifically. He also realized that the classical school was far from extinct. In a series of newspaper articles, Kuyper (1880b) classified Minister of Finance (and former professor of political economy) Vissering as “leader and spokesman of the egoist school of political economy,” the dehumanizing theories of which reduced man to a labor force.[3] As an alternative, Kuyper mentions the “ethical school”—unfortunately without providing details. Thirty years later, he pointed out in parliament (1908, 122-3) that liberal economics was represented in Utrecht by d’Aulnis and in Amsterdam by Treub.[4] Thanks to the German economist Albert Schäffle, however, the “old school of Bastiat and Cobden” was abandoned by younger economists (Handelingen 1910, 488). It was with the younger and older German historical schools that his own sympathies lay.
In Dutch parliament, Kuyper once openly sided with the Germans (cf. Zijlstra 1987, 155). Commenting on the new liberal Pierson cabinet formed in 1897, he publicly questioned whether it was sufficiently homogenous in its principles and plans. After all, Prime Minister and former professor of political economy Pierson and Minister of Foreign Affairs W.H. de Beaufort were, in his eyes, followers of the classical school of economics, while Minister of Justice and former professor of political economy P. W. A. Cort van der Linden had armchair-socialist sympathies. This led Kuyper to call into question whether the social reforms promised by the Pierson cabinet would be sufficiently consistent. He lectured on this topic for about 15 minutes"
"When it comes to social reforms, there is not a single road. Many people still believe this, and most organs of the liberal press write as if there is only one school in economics. But anyone who crosses the border and takes note of academic studies abroad knows better. Indeed, there is not one but two schools, which oppose each other like water and fire, namely the old-orthodox school of Smith, Say, and Ricardo and the younger one of Carey, Friedrich List, and Roscher. Now it of course interests me to know whether the cabinet when it is ready for its social reforms, these will be dominated by the spirit of the old or the new school. … I insist [on this question] since the Christian parties in this country have followed the dispute between both economic schools with particular interest. (…)
Precisely because these [parties] fight for the Christian and historical (I do not say Christian-historical) philosophy of life [levensbeschouwing], they could not but oppose the older-orthodox school of economics. Burke had already blown the anti-revolutionary trumpet against the false individualism, and after him all opponents of revolutionary principles (all those, whether Protestant or Roman-[Catholic], who have stood up to fight the pernicious principle of the French Revolution) have increasingly committed themselves to the historical school. And, when they got involved in economics, they felt ever deeper and have pronounced with increasing clarity that also to them the old school in economics went against the grain, since it shared with the French Revolution the same deductive method, the same one-sided individualism, the same magic with a certain view of man [menschentype], the same indifference towards the national and the ethical interest.
So when, gradually, in economics altogether different historical-social ideas were proclaimed by men like Carey in America, by Friedrich List and others, men of Christian conviction in almost countries have expressed their sympathy. (…)
But, incidentally, by virtue of their social principle Christian parties had to take side against the individualistic school of economics and could not but applaud the interference of the ethical, historical-social school. It must have their sympathy that men like List, Schäffle, Roscher, Knies, Schm[o]ller and others again put forward the national element against the cosmopolitan, the social and organic against the individualistic, and no less the ethical against the Mammonist.[5] (…)
Isn’t it natural that Christian parties, which do not put the material but spiritual aspect first and, not of recent origin, historically have a genealogy of centuries behind them,—isn’t it natural, I ask, that Christian parties, which thus represent the social and organic aspect, in full appreciation of the many good and excellent things with which the orthodox-economic school has enriched us materially, had anyway to be grateful that finally the time came that liberated us from its spell, and a youthful and fresh economic school arose that, by again valuing the social and ethical aspect of man, can now be said to be the economic school of the future in Germany?
This is not to say that Christian parties should follow this school uncritically. By no means. We applaud its combat against those things which, in our eyes, deserve to be combatted, just like we have applauded the often effective hammer blows inflicted on the false individualism of the old school by Sismondi and later by Marx, Rodbertus, Lasalle, and other social-democrats. But in a positive sense—as the nature of the question requires—we also differentiate ourselves from the new school and go our own ways. After all, the younger economic school does want to connect moral and material interest through the link of law, and in that sense we too say that “social justice” must be done by a revision of the law, but if we ask those men what law is, then we hear about a panta reì kai ouden meneê and the evolutionary principle finally leads to define law as that what adapts itself to the existing circumstances in the best way. And this is where we go our separate ways. We are not allowed to follow them on those pantheistic, evolutionary paths. For we, from our side, do recognize that much in the legal order of society today requires change, but in judging this we apply the standard of God’s Word (1908, 210-5)."
" Three years later in parliament, he presented the anti-revolutionary economic policy he advocated as an alternative to state socialism and “Manchester egoism” (Handelingen 1911, 1038-9). The dangers of the former he illustrated with some quotations from the leading armchair-socialist Adolph Wagner, the latter term he borrowed from Die Katheder-Socialisten und die Manchester-Egoisten, oder der Socialismus und Communismus im Frack (1873) by Nicolaus Schüren. This time, Kuyper’s verdict of the classical school was not entirely negative. One of its most prominent representatives after all was Bastiat, who conceived of society as an organism created by God and governed by divine laws, which thanks to its perfect harmony could be left alone. The degeneration of nineteenth-century capitalism nevertheless proved Bastiat and his fellows wrong."
https://www.cardus.ca/comment/article/the-point-of-kuyperian-pluralism/ "Parity, not privilege. Hardly a barnstorming election campaign slogan, but, in a nutshell, the strategic goal of Abraham Kuyper's vision of "pluralism." Christians should not seek a position of political or legal privilege in the public squares of their religiously and culturally diverse nations, but one of parity. The aim is to enjoy equal rights alongside other "confessional communities" within a constitutional democracy marked by wide freedom of expression, fair representation, and a diversity of voices. Thus, at the height of the Dutch nineteenth-century struggle for equal treatment for Christian schools, Kuyper asserted that "our unremitting goal should be to demand justice for all, justice for every life-expression.
Christians, and not only those in the Reformed tradition, owe a great debt to Kuyper for laying out what was probably the most compelling defence of pluralism in the nineteenth-century, anywhere. Other Christians, then and later, offered parallel defences, of course. What Kuyper uniquely offered, however, was a rare lesson in how to realize three goals simultaneously: the nesting of a commitment to pluralism within a comprehensive social and political theory grounded in biblical Christianity; the launching of a successful political movement to implement that commitment in the teeth of a powerful secularizing Liberal establishment; and the utilizing of the platform thereby created to establish common ground with his opponents and to contribute to the common good of his nation. However harshly we assess Kuyper's failings—and Bratt shows they were many—that was a stunning achievement.
One of Kuyper's key instruments was a Calvinist-inspired political party, organized in 1879. This was the "Anti-Revolutionary Party," the name conveying opposition to the atheistic spirit of the French Revolution rather than resistance to political reform. Kuyper was an early advocate for universal adult (male) suffrage. The party was formed in a breach with the aristocratic conservative movement with which the "anti-revolutionaries" had initially been allied. It was not only the first Christian Democratic party to be established in Europe, but the first mass political party, period. Just as original Calvinism inspired democratizing movements in the seventeenth century, so Dutch neo-Calvinism under Kuyper's leadership did in the nineteenth.
Among the many achievements of this multi-pronged movement, one of its most distinctive was the establishment in Dutch society of genuinely pluralistic arrangements in education, healthcare, labour, broadcasting, and elsewhere. In such systems, a diversity of service providers, representing the main "confessional communities" (religious and secular) in the nation, were integrated into a public system supervised, and eventually funded, by the state. Catholic-inspired Christian Democratic movements promoted parallel systems elsewhere in Europe. Such arrangements afforded not only negative liberties for individual adherents to diverse worldviews (the classical liberal version of religious freedom) but also positive liberties for diverse worldview-based associations. The objective was to work for the sort of public space within constitutional democracies that facilitated rather than frustrated the representation of what Charles Taylor has in our times called "deep diversity."
James Skillen has given the name "principled pluralism" to such a space. His account proves useful in bringing to the fore the contemporary pertinence of Kuyper's pluralist legacy. Skillen identifies two senses, both of which find their origins in Kuyper even though he did not distinguish them clearly. The first, "structural pluralism," embraces the plural institutions and associations of what we today call "civil society": schools, universities, churches, trade unions, NGOs, businesses, arts associations, charitable groups, and so forth. Skillen also includes families and states in this first sense. Structural pluralism takes its cue from one of Kuyper's best-known social principles, "sphere sovereignty." This principle asserts that every distinct type of institution or association—and not just the familiar threefold "orders" of church, household, and government dating back to the Middle Ages—is an "ordinance of God." As such, each social body possesses a distinctive nature and purpose, and a corresponding inherent authority to govern itself free from illicit intrusion by the state or any other body. Bratt observes that this notion did not stand alone in Kuyper's thought but worked in tandem with a series of others, such as an organicist sociology, a voluntarist ecclesiology, and a localist politics.
As all social theorists do with all their innovative insights, Kuyper formulated the principle within a specific context that called it forth. He pitted sphere sovereignty both against the "popular sovereignty" of liberal individualism, which reduced social and political authority to aggregated individual wills, and the "state sovereignty" of conservative authoritarianism and centralist socialism, which made all social authority a concession of the state. His targets were not abstract theories: the former was the creed of the dominant Dutch elites of his day, perfectly correlated to the individualistic capitalism which they represented, and the latter, the doctrine of the centralizing and domineering states in neighbouring France and Germany. As Kuyper addressed this context, the principle of sphere sovereignty did not leap into his mind straight from either Scripture or Calvinism but reflected the "organic" model of society of the German Historical School influential in his day, a shifty theory that could be put to both progressive and reactionary uses. Kuyper's innovation was to render that model serviceable for an egalitarian and pluralistic Christian social theory, one that could deliver powerful critiques of both those doctrines.
Skillen's second sense is "confessional pluralism," referring to the leading spiritual orientation of an institution or association—the basic framework of convictions by which it is guided. Obvious examples today might be a Christian trade union, a Buddhist environmental group, a Jewish school, an Islamic bank, a Catholic family. Less obviously, many institutions or associations considered confessionally "neutral" also reveal a definite, if unstated, commitment to secular liberal convictions: a corporation run as a "nexus of contracts" (as one textbook definition has it), a public hospital where medical practice is governed by faith in science and technology and distribution of resources determined by a purely utilitarian calculus; a university department covertly or overtly privileging naturalistic or rationalistic or deconstructionist paradigms.
The key political implication of confessional pluralism is that the state must treat all these various "faith-based" bodies, and not only "religious" ones like churches or mosques, justly. In concrete terms this means distributing public resources such as funding or certification to each on an equitable basis, not (dis)favouring any one merely on account of its confessional standpoint. Confessional pluralism champions the religious liberty claims of structurally plural institutions and the duty of states to respect those claims. Kuyper was a redoubtable spokesman and campaigner for it.
Principled pluralism in this second sense stands opposed to, well, unprincipled pluralism—either a purely managerial pluralism in which the term "justice" is used (if it is used at all) to apply to whatever happens to issue from a mere process of interest-brokerage; or, worse, a relativistic abandonment of anyone's right to assert public truth-claims. Unprincipled pluralism (either version) effectively throws in the towel on the struggle for justice and leaves its outcomes in the hands of the loudest and the strongest—which today often means the flushest.
But principled pluralism seeks space for diversity precisely in order to allow universal claims regarding justice—the full weight of a community's convictions—to be projected into public debate. It is because of its commitment to the search for universal truth that it resists monopolistic claims on the part of the gatekeepers of the public realm to determine what is to count as public truth. Such pre-emptive claims delegitimize and marginalize the kind of dissenting minority voices from which, as followers of an outlaw Galilean rabbi are bound to affirm, the truth does indeed sometimes emerge.
In the modern West, principled pluralism stands against two rival, monistic alternatives of which Kuyper early on offered searching critical diagnoses. The older one is "Christendom," understood as the legal granting of public primacy, even exclusivity, to Christian faith. Kuyper had to face down traditionalists in his own Calvinist constituency who wanted to clings onto such primacy. He himself frequently spoke of the Netherland as a "Christian nation," but by this he meant the deep historical imprint of Calvinism on its culture and constitution. He gave thanks for that legacy but did not appeal to it to mount a contemporary claim for a confessional state. He sought to remind his followers that orthodox Calvinism, however decisive it had been to the historical formation of the nation's "core," now represented only a tenth of the population. Defending the Christian character of the nation could now only work democratically from the bottom up and no longer rely on inherited constitutional advantage. As Bratt puts it, for Kuyper, "Calvinism was not an erstwhile establishment, but a philosophy of diversity."
The newer monistic alternative is "Secularism," understood as the legal granting of public primacy, even exclusivity, to secularist worldviews. This is the principal challenge western Christians face today, and not only in France where it is official state policy—or in the USA and Canada, where many secularists, including many judges, think it is. As Bratt recounts, it was the attempt by elitist Dutch secularists (some of them liberal Protestants) to force orthodox Calvinist schools out of business that most energized the counter-movement of which Kuyper quickly rose in the 1870s to be the formidable helmsman. Secularism is again on the move in many western democracies, not necessarily conspiratorially or malevolently, but often vexatiously. It is manifesting itself in two major political tendencies, both of which find support from voices on the left, right, and centre of politics. Kuyper's example reminds us that it is necessary for Christians today to take the measure of both.
One tendency is the attempt to resist (or undo) confessional pluralism in education, health, labour relations, and elsewhere, either by straightforward legislative or bureaucratic exclusion of confessional diversity, or by the deployment of anti-discrimination codes in such a way as to restrict the rights of individual believers or faith-based associations to act according to their deepest convictions. Regrettably, the most visible flashpoint of this campaign is the growing clash between the (proper) rights of sexual minorities not to be discriminated against and the (proper) rights of religious individuals or associations not to be compelled to act against their sexual ethics in matters of employment or service-provision. In the UK, for example, this has led to the patently illiberal outcome that Catholic adoption agencies, with a fine track record of reaching out to hardest-to-place children, have been forced either to abandon a longstanding principle of Catholic moral theology or shut down.
This unedifying contest has been thrust upon Christian citizens against their will; they didn't start this particular fight. However, it is a revealing question to ask why equivalent clashes are not evident in other terrains upon which a Christian worldview collides with the dominant secular ones. Why, for instance, are Christian schools in the UK not coming under legal pressure to bring their economics curricula into line with a state-imposed national curriculum reflecting the governing utilitarian neo-classical paradigm? The depressing answer is because they have not yet discerned that a Christian view of economics diverges from that paradigm "at its roots," as Kuyper was wont to say. Or why have Christian hospitals not come into conflict with secular law following resistance to the mechanistic worldview that feeds excessive resort to big pharma-sponsored medication, and campaigns for space and funding for more holistic forms of care? Where Christians are really serious about confessional pluralism, they will bring "the full weight of their convictions" to bear upon public policy across the board.
The second secularist political tendency today is the emergence of what Philip Bobbitt has dubbed the "market state." This is bringing about even more damaging manifestations of individualism and statism than those Kuyper had to contend with. On the one hand there is a rampant marketization of society—the progressive subservience of complex and delicate social and ecological relationships to the ends of commercial exchange and consumerist gratification. On the other there is a steadily encroaching bureaucratic state, cramping the institutions of civil society and hollowing out the structures of democracy. The two operate hand-in-hand.
Bratt's detailed account of Kuyper's sustained campaigning for social and economic reforms to the exploitative industrial capitalism of his day, yet without embracing an overweening state, shows how his vision can be an inspiration for Christians today facing that double threat. But it is essential that Christians also recognize these as deeply secularizing forces requiring as much searching critical analysis and committed opposition as the first one.
Kuyper's struggle for a "principled pluralism" was in practice messier than my précis has suggested. But reading Bratt's candid portrait reminds us that big political ideas like this are always formulated inconsistently, grasped partially, implemented fitfully, and productive of unforeseen consequences—their fate inevitably in the hands of deeply fallible individuals and groups. Yet that struggle has bequeathed to us powerfully compelling insights that merit critical reappropriation today as we face the challenges of a world ever more bewilderingly plural, fractured, and insecure."
https://www.cardus.ca/comment/article/an-eclectic-inheritance-kuypers-politics-today/ "More specifically, I'm addressing the question "are Abraham Kuyper's contributions in the political arena still relevant today?" Although they may continue to excite Reformed political theorists, are they able to resonate with non-Calvinists, women, young people, and non-Europeans? What about Kuyper's contributions to a newer field, namely, international development? Can Kuyper add to our understanding of globalization, poverty, and ethnic relations?
My short answer to these questions is "yes." I believe that Kuyper's prodigious body of work still contains valuable lessons and ideas that are relevant in the 21st century for many groups of people, and not just Kuyperians. There are, of course, Kuyperian ideas and beliefs whose time has come and gone and that need to be let go. I'll provide specific examples along the way, on both sides, but it seems to me political theorists (and others) will continue to wrestle with the significance of Kuyper's writing because he provides an excellent example of an orthodox yet contemporary Reformed approach to life that we can build on (or discard) today.
Kuyper and Politics
Let me begin with Kuyper's political contributions. In Mark Noll's words, we know that "Kuyper believed that the creation in its fullest extent was a gift of God beyond imagining and that Christ's redemption extended to the uttermost reaches of that creation." This, then, included the political realm. Bratt's biography whets our appetite regarding Kuyper's philosophical, theological, and practical contributions to politics. On the philosophical and theological side, we get introduced to, for example, Kuyper's enunciation of sphere sovereignty, his view of the state and its role in politics, and his promotion of a political culture that sought to encourage everyone, especially Christians, to engage in politics.
Some might argue that Kuyper's philosophical and theological contributions to our understanding of politics are esoteric or outdated. Some of them are questionable (for example, his borrowing liberally from organicist philosophy to undergird sphere sovereignty), but much of his work extends a Reformed understanding of politics that, to my mind, contributes positively to discussions about the role of politics in society.
Retrieving Calvin's emphasis, Kuyper stands in the tradition of placing attention on creation and God's sovereignty. A Reformed understanding of politics—as opposed to Anabaptist, Lutheran or secular perspectives—has traditionally recognized God's sovereignty in the political realm and suggests that our political activities ought to mirror and glorify God as they rectify God's creational purposes (in that arena). Kuyper's brilliant political organizing and national public positions put teeth on these ideas. He often encouraged the average Dutch citizen to be engaged in politics year round, not just on election day. He even argued politics could be viewed as an "elevated pursuit." We don't hear that sentiment anymore.
Serious, sustained conversations about the importance of cultural, and especially political, engagement are still needed today. Evangelicalism has come a long way in the last twenty years, moving beyond the single-issue, instrumentalist view of political involvement that was prevalent a few years ago. And maybe the "square inch" quote has lost its "revolutionary appeal." Still, it's an uphill battle for Christians to see that political institutions might be touched by God's grace or that political life is part of our humanity that God is redeeming through Christ.
.... they were pointing to a serious flaw within modern institutions, namely that the free market hegemony found within contemporary political institutions often benefits the economically privileged. It's precisely here, in the thick of conversations like this, that Kuyper, and others in his tradition, can revitalize a Reformed understanding about the role that politics, in all its complexity, at all its levels, can play in our society. If it's true that the power of unregulated markets often dictates the actions of powerful political actors, a blurring of two spheres if you will, what is a wise response on the part of Christians—to dismiss macro political institutions as unredeemable, or to look for opportunities of reform or at least opportunities to diminish the power of markets? Can't the power of unbridled capitalism and/or hegemonic interests find its way into local, political arenas as well—and if so, what does a discerning Christian response look like in such situations? These are just a few of the questions that can be explored given Kuyper's political theorizing.
I'd like to highlight two other contributions that Kuyper makes to our understanding of politics that have had more of a practical impact, although given who Kuyper was, they also had deep theological and philosophical foundations.
The first is Kuyper's understanding of church-state relations and the role that religion plays in public life. This is probably the best merging of Kuyper's structural and confessional pluralism, and like Bratt, I would argue that there's still a lot of relevant take-aways for our modern world regarding "confessionally-based public policy."
One of my favourite sections of Bratt's biography is where Kuyper gives a "political education" to Dutch parliamentarians after becoming Prime Minister of the Netherlands in 1901. Clearly the secular-oriented parliamentarians were scared of Kuyper's religiously-defined coalition running a modern state, led by a polemical, demanding Calvinist no less. So during one of the parliament's question hours, Kuyper succinctly described again how his coalition's policies wouldn't harm the country, only strengthen it. Separation of church and state? Of course, Kuyper would uphold this; he was a structural pluralist. Would the latter mean the elimination of religion from politics? Of course not. Eliminating religion from public life would entail discrimination against religious worldviews. Why, the train of thinking went, should socialism or liberalism be allowed in the public sphere and not Calvinism or Catholicism? Nor, Kuyper argued, would allowing religiously-based worldviews to gain traction in the public sphere lead to a privileging of religious worldviews or a theocracy. The coalition's commitment to constitutional democracy, and the exceptionally diverse commitments within each religious tradition regarding views of civil policy, would prevent that from ever happening. The Netherlands, Kuyper argued, would be in a better place in the end if it allowed all worldviews, not just the secular ones, to flourish in public life.
Kuyper's ideas about religious pluralism were, in many ways, ahead of their time. We continue to wrestle with the appropriate response regarding religion in public life today. Resistance to the idea of religious pluralism comes from the same ..
secularists, for lack of a better word, who are very suspicious of religion (witness Quebec's recent call to ban government workers from wearing "overt and conspicuous" religious symbols.)....
The final political contribution I'd like to mention is Kuyper's work in building the foundations of Christian democracy. Christian democracy, far from being an oxymoron, offers a legitimate third way politically for many, and Kuyper can be regarded as one of its founding fathers.
The Anti-Revolutionary Party, which eventually merged with other parties to form the Christian Democratic Appeal Party, was founded on Christian principles, rather than materialist ones. It promoted policies that were both left (e.g. promotion of social welfare) and right (rejection of socialism). It operated autonomously from ecclesiastical organizations and was willing to form coalitions with like-minded parties, more often Catholic and other Protestant parties. This simultaneous commitment to principle and compromise is a difficult terrain to walk, but I think Kuyper, as a politician, not necessarily as a person, walked it admirably, and our political leadership around the world could learn from this.
In sum, Abraham Kuyper still offers plenty of insight regarding the political arena particularly for people who identify as Reformed, evangelical Christians. Some of Kuyper's political ideas strike me as sketchy—for example, his over-reliance on the antithesis or the pluralistic epistemology of sphere sovereignty—but it appears as though Reformed thinkers and even Kuyperian scholars are less willing to take these ideas at face value anymore. And that's probably a good thing. I look forward to more critiques of these Kuyperian ideas from scholars within the Reformed tradition. Many of Kuyper's perspectives on globalization and labour still resonate in the Global South today. Kuyper was not a fan of unbridled capitalism. He argued it threatened both the material and spiritual well-being of humanity. It replaced "Christian compassion" with individual selfishness and the need for material possessions. Kuyper also denounced the commodification of labour, the idolization of the free market, and covetous consumerism. Although Kuyper found little to celebrate in laissez-faire capitalism, he was equally critical of socialist alternatives. In the latter, the state reigned supreme over other societal spheres, the strong were still allowed to overpower the weak, and, of course, like the liberals, socialists failed to acknowledge that economic foundations lay under God's sovereignty.
Kuyper was also an advocate of labour and supported policies like strengthened labour codes, collective organization, and strengthened voting rights for workers. On these and similar issues, Kuyper's work can be read alongside other religious leaders and developmental theorists, past and present, like Pope Leo XIII or Jagdish Bhagwati, who comment on globalization as well as its impact on the working class."
In the above quotes take note of the term Christian Democracy. This is not just another name for a Christian member of the US Democratic party. It is a completely different position that comes from Reformed Roots going back to Kuyper and other Christians following him in politics. It is the third way I mentioned.
https://calvinistinternational.com/2014/02/03/kuyperian-politics/ "One of the biggest surprises (though not to students of neo-Calvinism) awaiting the reader of Dr. Bratt’s biography is the section on Kuyper’s politics. We have noted while interacting with Dr. Alan Carlson’s works here and here that Kuyper’s politics constitute something of a “Third Way” beyond Capitalism and Socialism. The historical name, however, is that represented in the title of Dr. Bratt’s biography: Christian Democracy. Kuyper, along with the Roman Catholic social and political theory of Leo XIII’s Rerum Novarum, advocated for a social-democratic politics which defended the rights of workers and sought to protect the family from the advances of the industrial revolution. This specific theory, however, was grounded in a more basic understanding of politics and statecraft, one which Kuyper attempted to expound at some length.
…a linking of the old antirevolutionary critique to the emerging industrial economy in defense of worker’s rights; in program, a leftward track that turned the Antirevolutionary Party into a thoroughgoing Christian Democratic organization, purged of the old elite who had tried to keep it safe for conservatism. When these “aristocrats” saw Kuyper in this decade, they saw red—in both senses. (215)
For economic conservatives (that is, neoliberals) and American evangelicals, who assume an automatic affinity between their respective positions, Kuyper’s deliverances will be bewildering at best, outrageous at worst. With intense and often heated rhetoric “Christianity and the Social Question” denounced laissez-faire capitalism as inimical to human well-being, material or spiritual; as out of tune with Scripture and contrary to the will of God; as the very spawn of “Revolution.” The “Revolution” Kuyper named here was the French, but he could just as well have used “Industrial,” for the principles behind and the attitudes stemming from both constituted the deeper revolution in consciousness that Antirevolutionary thinking had always faulted most. Wherein did this revolution lie for economics? In replacing the spirit of “Christian compassion” with “the egoism of a passionate struggle for possessions,” Kuyper said. In the abrogation of the claims of community for the sake of the sovereign individual. In the commodification of labor, which denied the image of God and the rightful claims of a brother. In the idolization of the supposedly free market, which deprived the weak of their necessary protections, licensed the strong in their manipulations, and proclaimed the consequences to be the inevitable workings of natural law. In the advertising that inculcated a covetous consumerism as the norm of human happiness. The French Revolution, but as Kuyper repeated throughout his work, also the “utilitarian,” the “laissez-faire,” and the “Manchester” schools, which were the philosophical apologists for industrial capitalism,
made the possession of money the highest good, and then, in the struggle for money… set every man against every other…. As soon as that evil demon was unchained at the turn of the [nineteenth] century, no consideration was shrewd enough, no strategy crafty enough, no deception outrageous enough among those who, through superiority of knowledge, position, and capital, took money—and ever more money—from the socially weaker.
And since “it cannot be said often enough,” as Kuyper intoned in “Sphere Sovereignty,” that “money creates power,” the new bourgeoisie soon took command of the state, overriding its divine mandate to protect the weak and turning it into an engine of their own interests.
To ground Christian Democracy’s emphasis on labor in a more basic philosophy, Kuyper gave what he believed to be the controlling principles of “Calvinism”:
First and foremost, he asserted a preferential option for the poor. Jesus, “just as his prophets before him and his apostles after him, invariably took sides against those who were powerful and living in luxury, and for the poor and oppressed.” Granted that the poor are no better than the rich, Christ and Scripture always reproved their sins more gently than those of the wealthy. So did Kuyper’s Utrecht sermon of 1869 with regard to “worker and master.” Second, the merit of any economic system, both as to its theory and practice, had to be measured by the respect it exercised for human beings as bearers of the image of God and by the basic security it provided for human existence. Reducing laborers to a factor of production violate their dignity and the divinely mandated use of their God-given creative powers, which properly make work an opportunity and a blessing. Third, solidarity was both the biblical ideal for human society and the pragmatic grounds for its true flourishing. God created human beings to live relationally with each other and the natural order under the canopy of transcendent norms… Kuyper’s economics, like his politics, was first to last a communal theory with a communal ethic. In particular, it assigned property rights not a primary but a derivative standing that brought them “hobbling up at the rear of the unavoidably righteous demand” for a genuine social life. And to that end it assumed that people, together, could both understand and competently modify market operations. (225-226)
Kuyper’s economics thus resonated with his political theory and with some perennial notes of Calvinist social thinking. He was again more concerned with whole integrated systems than with individual parts. He showed a typical Calvinist ambivalence toward wealth—it was more a proving ground for than any proof of salvation. Greed now joined aggression as the worst expression of collective depravity, and a balance of powers was again arrayed to control them. Kuyper’s distinctive contribution to this tradition was the constellation of vigorous localism, praise of diversity, and principled pluralism that he asserted in the face of industrial consolidation and labeled “sphere sovereignty.” In his own movement, his speech, like Leo’s encyclical, launched a tradition of social critique that was purposefully Christian, critical of the political economy of Left and Right, and aimed at keeping intellectuals engaged with their blue-collar brethren. (228)
David Koyzis, professor of political science at Redeemer University College, writes:
Of course government is itself limited by the divine calling to do justice, which means that it cannot, in totalitarian fashion, do everything people might wish it to do. It cannot by itself employ all those lacking work. It cannot eradicate poverty. It cannot in general create the good life for its citizens. It cannot play father or mother to its citizens. But given these limits, justice does require that the government (1) care for those things held in common by the body politic, (2) play at least a minimal redistributive role to temper the potential injustices engendered by the market or to compensate for other deficiencies in its operation, and (3) assume some responsibility for the economically disadvantaged. (Koyzis, Political Visions and Illusions, 179)
John Frame, professor of systematic theology at Reformed Theological Seminary in Orlando, similarly argues:
I do not believe, however, that we should oppose government welfare in all circumstances. The state is the government of the family of Adam, just as the institutional church is the government of the family of Christ…. Families take care of their own. In general, I think that capitalism is the best system of economic organization for both rich and poor. But capitalism does not guarantee that all will succeed. People ‘fall through the cracks.’ Some cannot make it on their own, and churches often turn a blind eye. For such, often the poorest of the poor, there is a place for government support. But that support should be light-handed. It should, when possible, prepare recipients and their children to earn their own living. It should encourage them to find work when they are able. It should turn their care over to families and religious bodies whenever possible. It should not seek to monopolize or dominate the nation’s care-giving system, or place barriers in the way of others who have resources to help. (Frame, The Doctrine of the Christian Life, 825)
In 1891, Kuyper began a series of attacks upon capitalism in which he pleaded for a form of Christian socialism. The Christian Democracy movement which began with Kuyper was and still is strictly Biblically based. However, it's economics is in favor of a social market economy that combines a lack of command economics (markets) with a strong social safety net and regulations. This included helping to implement National health Care and Government funded assistance programs.
https://solidarity-party.org/2017/10/26/christian-democracy/ "In Christian Democratic political theory, the concepts of Solidarity, Subsidiarity, Sphere Sovereignty, and Stewardship are relevant. The teaching of Solidarity emphasizes the interdependence of human beings with one another . It emphasizes our responsibility to care for one another without regard to race, ethnicity, or nationality. Subsidiarity and Sphere Sovereignty are two other related concepts that are emphasized within Christian Democracy. The belief that that family, local communities, and voluntary associations are the first guarantors of human dignity and cultivate mutual care gives rise to the principle of Subsidiarity, which holds that higher order institutions, such as federal government, should support and serve, not supplant or unduly control, these institutions that are closer to the people they serve. Sphere Sovereignty likewise emphasizes the fact that each major area of human activity – family, faith community, workplace, state, etc. – is a distinct sphere with its own responsibilities, competencies and authority, and each sphere of life is separately balanced, both independent and interdependent, with the others. Stewardship, or Creation Care, emphasizes the responsibility of humanity to look after the environment that offers us the resources that we use in everyday life.
In order to prevent the monopolization of power, as well as to encourage ingenuity, while still pursuing the common good and social welfare, Christian democrats have historically advocated a social market economy in contrast to a government-controlled command economy. This social market approach represents a third way between socialism and a laissez faire economy, combining free enterprise with government regulation."
I also would recommend the following article on the matter.
https://isi.org/modern-age/the-birth-of-an-american-christian-democratic-party/
