abstract: The key lesson that emerges from the life of Abraham Kuyper is the futility of even the most effective political reforms apart from covenantal commitment.

Skip Navigation

by Oliver Woods

In the realm of political action, the principle of "coalition" is fraught with a difficulty and nuance of application that challenges the most astute theologian, not to mention the political practitioner. The work of Abraham Kuyper in Holland between 1870 and 1920 is perhaps our best modern example of the cultural application of the biblical principles of war, including the principle of coalition.

In this article, we examine the man and his strategy for cultural reformation and its practical outworking in terms of political tactics and outcomes. Kuyper is often lauded as a showcase model of the application of biblical principles to the political arena in Holland. However, even the work of Abraham Kuyper may have been compromised by abuse of the principle of coalition.

The Cultural Strategy of Abraham Kuyper

1. Who was Abraham Kuyper? Abraham Kuyper was a Dutch theologian, journalist, and statesman. For 50 years he edited De Standaard, a journal of political and cultural commentary in Holland. He founded the Free University in Amsterdam and organized a Christian political party, The Anti-Revolutionary Party. He served in the Dutch Parliament and as prime minister from 1901 to 1905.
2. Historical Context. Kuyper stepped onto the world stage in the late 1800s into the trail of philosophical destruction left by the Enlightenment era. The industrial revolution was well underway. The rationalism of the Enlightenment had transformed the socio-political outlook of the European states. God and His revealed Word were no longer revered as the sovereign source of governing authority. In His place had arisen the sovereign individual and, more ominously, the sovereign state--the state accountable to nothing other than its own autonomous will. Even in Holland, this humanistic spirit had overtaken a plurality of the electorate, forcing Kuyper's coalition with the Catholics, especially on issues dealing with educational freedom.

   Darwin's Origin of Species (1859) and Descent of Man (1871) had revolutionized not only man's understanding of science, but nearly every other discipline as well. All of life was now seen through evolutionary glasses. Men sought the reins of government to direct the evolutionary process via social engineering. The 19^th Century also saw the rise of the Pantheistic romantics protesting the impersonal transcendence of the god of the rationalists.

3. Summary of Kuyper's strategy. In the teeth of this secular whirlwind, Abraham Kuyper championed historic Calvinism, the application of the Word of God to every sphere of life. He developed the theory of "sphere-sovereignty" in which every aspect of earthly activity--church, education, business, law, art, etc.--is independent of the others and directly accountable to God for its functioning. The state is limited in scope and likewise accountable to God. The state functions primarily as an "umpire," deciding disputes between the spheres, but not interfering in their internal affairs.

   Thus, Kuyper spoke of "a free church in a free state." The university he founded was named the Amsterdam Free University, signifying its independence of both church and state. His call to the civil government to submit to God was captured in the name of the political party he founded, The Anti-Revolutionary Party. This party was anti-revolutionary in the sense that it stood against the tenets of the French Revolution and its radical rebellion from the God of the Bible. He was an ardent defender of the sovereignty (authority) of God in the civil sphere, as opposed to both popular sovereignty and state sovereignty. However, he failed to recognize the stark violations of this principle in the Dutch, English, and American revolutions. All of these abandoned the civil covenant under the authority of God for a secular republic based on popular sovereignty.

   Kuyper's desire for a Christianized state is capsulized in his famous poetic testimony at the celebration of the 25^th anniversary of De Standaard:

   One desire has been the ruling passion of my life. One high motive has acted like a spur upon my mind that I should seek escape from the sacred necessity that is laid upon me, let the breath of life fail me. It is this: That in spite of all worldly opposition, God's holy ordinances shall be established again in the home, in the school, and in the State for the good of the people; to carve as it were into the conscience of the nation the ordinances of the Lord, to which the Bible and Creation bear witness, until the nation pays homage again to God.

   At least this was his stated goal early in his career. Later he argued that such a goal was quixotic and impossible in a pluralistic society, and that civil government must rule according to God's will revealed in nature; i.e., natural law (Creating a Christian Worldview, p. 164). Moreover, he argued specifically against theocracy, confusing the rule of God's law in civil government (theocracy) with the rule of the church over the state (ecclesiocracy). In addition, his doctrine of sphere sovereignty precluded any single sphere, including the Christian community, presuming to speak for the entire society. This position coincided with his amillennial eschatology, an eschatology that failed to fully press the crown rights of King Jesus, in spite of Kuyper's famous slogan, Pro Rege, "For the King."

4. Implications for subsequent history. In the short run, the work of Abraham Kuyper was a great boon to Dutch society. But after his death, it was quickly overrun by the juggernaut of modernity. The model of the autonomous nation-state was adopted by Holland, as by virtually every modern nation. It is the vainglorious image of Daniel 2 writ large, and with the beastly characteristics of Daniel 7.

   The absence of a biblical civil covenant and an explicitly Bible-based social philosophy in Holland led to a humanist takeover of Dutch society after Kuyper's death. It was as if the monumental effort of the one man Kuyper--like the proverbial finger in the dyke--was holding back the deluge. When that finger was removed the flood surged in. The humanistic culture of death became firmly entrenched within two generations of Kuyper's demise in 1920; for example, the Netherlands became the world leader in the "assisted suicide" movement. It was Kuyper's foundation of pluralism that created an attitude of tolerance for such atrocities. The stage had been set for disaster at least 200 year's prior to Kuyper by William & Mary, joint rulers of Britain and Holland, who rejected Scotland's Solemn League & Covenant in the "Bloodless Revolution" of 1688. Under the Solemn League & Covenant the nation had covenanted with God to govern according to His law.

The Cultural Tactics of Abraham Kuyper

1. Biblical analysis. Kuyper's doctrine of sphere sovereignty was not tempered or conditioned by the biblical doctrine of civil covenant and biblical law. Consequently, he has been rightly accused of being a pluralist. Kuyper himself admitted to being an advocate of "principled pluralism"; it was in fact his answer to the humanist drive for cultural hegemony.

   The doctrine of sphere sovereignty, together with his teaching on common grace and antithesis, provided the rationale for his coalition with the Catholics against the humanists. In the antithesis, Kuyper recognized the stark contrast of the struggle between the state sovereignty of the humanists and the sovereignty of God championed by the Christians. On the other hand, the doctrine of common grace permitted him to unite with Catholics as co-belligerents against the humanist juggernaut. This was remarkable, given the bloody struggle between Catholic Spain and Protestant Holland during the days of William the Silent some 300 years before. However, the doctrine of common grace taught that God held the total depravity of man in check so that even the unregenerate might exercise their natural gifts in pursuit of social stability.

   Kuyper's commitment to pluralism betrayed his poetic dedication to affirm God's holy statutes in church and state, in home and school. The third article of the Anti-Revolutionary Party platform, Ons Program, exposes the frailty of the tactics Kuyper employed for achieving this end: "...the authority of the state is bound by God's ordinances, not directly...but only via the consciences of persons in positions of authority." It should be self-evident that such a tactic explicitly removes civil authority from the Word of God and posits it in the vacillating conscience of the civil magistrate.

   Kuyper's coalition government was able to assume control from 1888 to 1938 because he had earlier pressed for expansion of the electorate (12% in 1870 to 49% in 1896). This extension of the franchise based merely on the qualification of paying taxes, produced short-term dividends, but paved the way, in the long-term, for an even more secularized state.

   Following in the footsteps of William & Mary, Kuyper made the mistake of equating political participation (e.g., the right to vote) with freedom. Perfect liberty under the law of God may exist apart from the right to vote. It is not the right to vote, per se, that guarantees freedom, but rather the commitment of a nation to rule in terms of submission to the law of God. A pirate crew might exercise the right to vote within their society of evil, as when Long John Silver's band of cutthroats presented him with the "black dot" in Treasure Island. This does not at all preclude the doctrine of sphere-sovereignty rightly understood. Kuyper's conclusions relative to sphere-sovereignty were not consistent with the doctrine itself, which he ably expounded. Apart from the civil covenant, Kuyper's doctrine of sphere-sovereignty gave birth to his vision of a pluralistic society. No covenantal limitations were to be placed on any faction within Dutch society.

   In ancient Israel, "strangers in the land" were excluded from participation in the civil government. They were, however, treated as equals under the law of God and thus enjoyed true liberty. Under biblical law, Israel's citizens were commanded to give them special consideration. They were grouped with "widows and orphans" as part of the vulnerable class in society that was worthy of special treatment, such as receiving a portion of the tithe. Divine sanctions of the severest nature were placed on the Israelite who would dare to mistreat the stranger.

2. Corrective or prescriptive actions. The key lesson that emerges from the life of Abraham Kuyper is the futility of even the most effective political reforms apart from covenantal commitment. As we have noted above, the battle had been conceded over two centuries earlier in the Dutch rejection of the Solemn League and Covenant. At the heart of this issue lie some penetrating questions. Should the covenant-breaking humanist be granted the right to political participation in a biblically covenanted society? Should the captain of a ship grant the right to vote to a mutinous crew? The covenant-breaking humanist is usually not so overtly mutinous; typically he pleads for tolerance--until he is in control. After that, the suppression of biblical liberty proceeds relentlessly, as 20^th century Holland and America bear witness.

   Nor did Kuyper's immediate use of his newly won political liberty contribute to freedom in the long-term. Rather than pressing for the abolition of government support of education, Kuyper fought for and won public funding for private schools. Although the goal was to secure equality for private education, this law ensured the inevitable subordination of private education to the government. According to professor of history, James McGoldrick, "When the party obtained public funds for private schools it agreed to accept universal suffrage, a democratic goal of the socialists." He went on to assert that, "Whatever immediate gain public funding of private schools had produced, one eventual effect was to strengthen the socialists" (God's Renaissance Man, p. 225).

   Is the civil covenant merely an anachronism of the Old Testament era? Does God take the biblical covenant seriously? The answer would have to be an unqualified, "yes." Judging from the incident in Genesis, in which Moses' son was very nearly executed for his father's failure to apply the sign of the covenant, God takes it very seriously. The individual or the nation that treats God's civil covenant as irrelevant or inconsequential can expect to suffer the consequences--and the consequences are deadly. Thus, as we attempt to apply biblical principles to our culture, we must simultaneously press for renewal of the biblical civil covenant, recognizing that its acceptance is impossible apart from widespread personal regeneration in conjunction with and preparatory to, cultural reformation.

   Abraham Kuyper has been called by some "God's Renaissance Man." Tragically, this appellation is distressingly accurate. While he spoke and wrote the language of "God's Reformation Man," in too many cases--government education, natural law, pluralism, national autonomy-- Kuyper reverted to the Renaissance.

   Abraham Kuyper inherited an admittedly difficult situation from his forbears, and persevered remarkably over a lifetime of service to his Lord. His life posed a considerable roadblock to the humanist onslaught that had arisen in his day. However, the life of Abraham Kuyper is a stark reminder that the Christian activist must carefully examine his practice to ensure that it lines up with his belief. It is all too easy to deviate, not recognizing that the consequences for the next generation may be devastating.

Oliver Woods is Headmaster of Classical Free Virtual Academy, "The World's Only Real-time Classical Christian Academy." Serving grades 7 to 12, 40% of the courses at Classical Free are tuition-free, mostly online. In addition to traditional classes such as math and science, the Academy offers courses unique to the classical perspective such as logic, Latin, rhetoric, debate and the Great Books evaluated from a theonomic perspective. Free courses may be taken at any time, but students may register for instructor taught courses starting May 1 at http://www.ClassicalFree.org.

Bibliography

Peter S. Heslam, Creating a Christian Worldview (Eerdman's: Grand Rapids, MI, 1998).

James I. McGoldrick, God's Renaissance Man (Evangelical Press: Auburn, MA, 2000).

John Bolt, A Free Church, A Holy Nation (Eerdman's: Grand Rapids, MI, 2001).

Cornelis van der Kooi & Jan de Bruijn, Kuyper Reconsidered (VU Uitgeverij: Amsterdam, 1999).

Luis E. Lugo, Religion, Pluralism, & Public Life (Eerdman's: Grand Rapids, MI, 2000).

back to top