This weekend we approach the twentieth century with the eighth event in our Geloof in Mokum series. Dr Johan Snel will hep us focus on Abraham Kuyper’s profound influence on both Amsterdam and the Netherlands starting in the nineteenth century and climaxing in the twentieth.
Kuyper, who began his career as a liberal churchman, experienced several conversion moments leading him to understand that God was sovereign not just over the spiritual areas of life, but over every sphere of creation. With this understanding, he set out to reform Dutch society under the lordship of Christ specifically in the spheres of church, government, education and journalism.
Although Kuyper is a somewhat neglected figure in Dutch society today, Snel believes he remains the most influential statesman in the Netherlands whose legacy still can be clearly seen. Snel ‘discovered’ Kuyper just a few years ago when working on his doctorate on journalism. He found he just could not avoid this ‘giant’. Not only was he the leading Dutch journalist, he was the leader of a new church denomination, founder of the Free University in Amsterdam, and leader of the first modern political party in the Netherlands, becoming prime minister in 1901.
Snel’s own church tradition had held Kuyper in disdain as the man who had split the national church in the nineteenth century. Yet Snel soon realised – as he began researching some of the 20,000 articles and 200 books Kuyper produced in his career – that few had done justice to the rich legacy he had left.
Standing on the shoulders of John Calvin, the Genevan Reformer, and Groen van Prinsterer, a key figure in the Réveil movement, Kuyper had astutely analysed the political malaise in the late nineteenth century. After the Enlightenment, the sacred basis of society had been abandoned in a humanistic pursuit of liberté, egalité et fraternité. Yet without the Father as the starting point, how could one talk of brotherhood? If humans were the chance product of time plus matter, how could one talk of equality? If freedom meant simply doing what you wanted, rather than what you ought to do, how could the common good be achieved?
Idolatry
Kuyper realised that the various ‘-isms’ emerging on the political scene – capitalism, socialism, nationalism, conservatism and liberalism – were expressions of idolatry, Different streams sought ‘salvation’ by absolutising some part of God’s good creation: money, the state, national identity, an idealised past, freedom… . Humans were worshipping creatures and having rejected God compulsively tried to fill the vacuum with a false deity.
This explosion of ideological options rushing in to fill the void has left us today confused and disorientated, spiritually and intellectually uneasy. While concerned about universal freedom, equality and justice, we have no basis to justify these values. Political discourse has been degraded to shouting matches.
Kuyper thus helps us understand our current social and political malaise – whether in a polarised America, a populist Europe or a besieged Ukraine seeking it own transformation. He also offers a vision for a way out in social pluralism. Government’s responsibility was to promote justice for all, not just for the political stream that happened to be in power.
Diversity and pluralism was to be seen in all aspects of God’s creation and should not be feared or squelched by uniformity. Kuyper resisted liberal individualism, the idea that society is simply a collection of free individuals with the state as referee. He saw individuals as embedded in communities with unique responsibilities.
Kuyper opposed statism, the centralising tendency of modern states to take over education, welfare, or religion. He also resisted theocracy or ecclesiocracy, the notion that the church should control all of public life, as not respecting freedom of conscience and belief.
Pillarisation
Human society was made up of different ‘spheres’ or domains of life—such as family, church, school, business, science, and the state. Each sphere had its own God-given purpose, authority, and norms, independent from other spheres. No single sphere, not even the state, has the right to dominate or absorb the functions of another. This principle protected pluralism in society—a recognition of diverse institutions, communities, and ways of life.
Kuyper carved out space for a plural society, where various communities (including religious ones) could coexist with integrity. He championed religious pluralism in public institutions. For instance, he advocated for equal state support for both public and confessional schools in the Netherlands – government policy still today. He defended the right of communities—Catholic, Protestant, secular, socialist—to organize their own schools, newspapers, unions, political parties, etc. This became known in Dutch politics as “pillarisation” (verzuiling), where each worldview (Protestant, Catholic, socialist, liberal) developed its own institutions within society.
Kuyper’s pluralism influenced the Dutch political system of pillarisation (lasting into the late twentieth century), modern Christian democratic politics in Europe and the concept of pluralism in other democratic societies. His model remains relevant in debates about religious freedom, multiculturalism, and the limits of state power.
Kuyper is a figure deserving much more attention not only to understand Amsterdam’s past – but to guide us through the challenges of our current turbulent times.
Note: the walk and the talk are both only in Dutch.
Till next week,
