To this day, Abraham Kuyper stands as a shining example of responsible and effective Christian action in all areas of life. A leading journalist, theologian, churchman, and politician in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Kuyper effectuated, during a career spanning 50 years, an astonishing metamorphosis of the Dutch political and ecclesiastical landscape. Lifting high the banner of the universal lordship of Christ, he managed to revitalize a moribund political party and mobilize the so-called kleyne luyden, the “little guys,” into a social, ecclesiastical, educational, and political force to be reckoned with. And he did all of this while proclaiming, “There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry, Mine!” What is less well understood is the degree to which Kuyper spoke out of two sides of his mouth. In fact, Kuyper shortchanged his trumpeted Christocratic agenda in the interest of political expediency. From early on he redefined theological categories in order to implement a dualism between church and state that could allow him to harness the church as a political action committee in the secularized democratic environment, all the while posturing as a champion of historic Christian theopolitical civilization. The epicenter of this revaluation of Christian values was Article 36 of the Belgic Confession, which mandated that the civil magistrate “remove and prevent all idolatry and false worship; that the kingdom of anti-christ may be thus destroyed, and the kingdom of Christ promoted.” This, in the view of Kuyper and his movement, was a denial of true Calvinism, which championed freedom of conscience and religion. Hoedemaker disputed this, arguing that Kuyper had set up a straw man. Did Article 36 really entail violation of conscience and the elimination of religious freedom? No – this was a smokescreen. In fact, Kuyper’s solution was the problem, as it did not take the Bible seriously. Hoedemaker returned to the Reformed fathers to recover a sound Reformed political theology, capable of being defended and advanced in the modern world. Hoedemaker had once stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Kuyper to advance the very same agenda of Christ’s lordship over every area of life. But he came to realize that Kuyper’s practical agenda deviated fundamentally from this proclaimed agenda, starting with the separation from the national church and culminating in Kuyper’s “mutilation” (A. A. van Ruler) of Article 36. This book presents Hoedemaker’s argument, involving a detailed analysis of Kuyper’s published statements on the subject, mainly his extended discussion included in vol. 3 of Common Grace. It is the translation of Artikel XXXVI onzer Nederduitsche Geloofsbelijdenis tegenover Dr. A. Kuyper gehandhaafd: beoordelingen van de opstellen in de “Heraut” over kerk en staat (Amsterdam: Van Dam, 1901).

This compilation explores the significance of religion for the controversies stirred up by populist politics in European and American contexts, engaging Jewish, Christian, and Islamic political thought. Moving beyond essentialist definitions of religion, the contributions offer critical interpretations and constructive interventions for political theology today.

Once upon a time, the state shared the public square with the church. The central location of the church building in every European town is mute testimony to this state of affairs. But those days are long gone. Nowadays there is an implicit or explicit consensus regarding the proper place of the church: out of sight and out of mind. How has this sea change come about? Through a complete metanoia (“change of mind”) regarding the public square. Church and state used to be in agreement about ultimate reality, but then came the wars of religion and the desire for a neutral state. This gave us the agnostic state, incapable of making any judgement regarding truth or falsehood regarding religion. Freedom of religion has been the result. But this freedom has come with a price – the loss of a grip on ultimate reality, on transcendent standards and values. It is every person for him- or herself, the triumph of congeries of opinion over truth. Under these conditions, the church has itself experienced a transformation. It has been fragmented into myriad churches, none of which may claim ultimacy, all of which claim to proclaim the truth. We no longer have the body of Christ visibly expressed; instead we have denominations, private-legal constructs expressive of various consumer-oriented flavors of faith orientation. Has unity then been abandoned? No; for it is not a question of unity or no unity, it is a question of what kind of unity. In the modern world, the churches have exchanged unity in terms of confession, with unity in terms of politics. Political parties are the vehicles through which Christians express a joint conviction. And this has brought the church down to the level of the interest group and the lobbyist, the inevitable result of an age of denominationalism. Over 100 years ago, P. J. Hoedemaker already delineated and analyzed this state of affairs. The abysmal condition of the Dutch Reformed church formed the historical backdrop for his analysis, but the principles he developed during the course of his critique of the national church are applicable across the board in the modern world. Hoedemaker excavates the biblical and Reformational foundations of ecclesiology, the basics apart from which the church cannot escape from its current abasement.

On August 1st, 1901, a new government was installed in the Netherlands, formed by Antirevolutionary Party (ARP) leader Abraham Kuyper. The culmination of decades of relentless effort, it represented a new departure in Dutch politics: a government explicitly invoking the Christian revelation as the basis for its policy. “Revelation over Reason!” had been the battle cry of the campaign, and the majority-Christian Dutch electorate had answered the call. But would the policy results of this Christian coalition government answer to such a high ideal? This was the question posed by P. J. Hoedemaker shortly after the coalition’s accession to power. In a series of lectures entitled A State with the Bible, he began to weigh the coalition in the balance, setting forth criteria to determine whether the result would answer to the promise. A second series of articles published just prior to the election campaign of 1905 had Hoedemaker drawing up the balance sheet. The conclusion was not encouraging: The coalition had fallen short precisely in the areas where a “state with the Bible” should have stood strong. For Hoedemaker, it had become clear that the question was not one of right or left in terms of party politics. No, it was Neither Right nor Left but the Royal Road, the way of a Christian public policy that transcends party politics. This conclusion was hammered home in a third publication promulgated after the election defeat for Kuyper in 1905. The title speaks volumes: The Birthright for a Mess of Pottage, an allusion to Esau’s contemptible bargain with Jacob. This was what came of a Christian coalition pursuing the “politics of antithesis,” and Hoedemaker’s assessment hits the mark not only with regard to the politics of Abraham Kuyper but with the politics of today. For it is the same set of issues with which we still struggle, revolving as they do around the presupposition of the neutral state. The three titles translated here are set in their proper context and as such are allowed to disgorge the wealth of vision contained in them to a generation far downstream from these events, but still feeling their effects. The bottom line: electoral politics in their current configuration are a failure and cannot help but be a failure. The approach needs to be rethought from top to bottom. Hoedemaker offers us a place to start.

God's Gifts for a Fallen World Common Grace is often considered Abraham Kuyper's crowning work, an exploration of how God expresses grace even to the unsaved. Kuyper firmly believed that though many people in the world will remain unconverted, God's grace is still shown to the world as a whole. In this third and final volume of Common Grace, Kuyper brings his argument to its logical completion by turning to practical implications. With detailed explorations on matters of church and state, family, upbringing, and society, Kuyper provides practical guidance for all who desire to flourish within the created order, a world in which God's grace is generously given to all.

This first volume of A Global Sourcebook in Protestant Political Thought provides a window into the early Protestant world, and the ways in which Protestants wrestled with politics and religion in the wake of the Reformation. This period saw political authorities and church hierarchies challenged and defended by scholars, clerics, and laypeople alike. The volume engages the full spectrum of Protestants, with reference to theology, geography, ethnicity, historical importance, socio-economic background, and gender. This diversity highlights how Protestants felt pulled towards differing political positions and used several maps to chart their course – conscience, custom, history, ecclesiastical tradition, and the laws of God, nature, nation, or community. On most important issues, Protestants lined up on opposing sides. Additionally, Catholic and Eastern Orthodox political thought, as well as interactions with Jewish and Muslim texts and thinkers, profoundly influenced different directions taken in the history of Protestant political thought. Even as our own time is fraught with deep disagreement and political polarisation, so too was early modern Europe, and we might read it in the anxieties, uncertainties, hopes, and expectations that the sources vividly express. This sourcebook will enrich both research and classroom teaching in politics, theology, and history, whether geared towards general political or religious history, or towards more specialised courses on colonialism, warfare, gender, race or religious diversity.

The idea of Christian America is a disputed one. Those who affirm it marshal a vast body of evidence in support, while those who dispute it have at their command an equally formidable arsenal of facts and documentation. How is the truth of the matter to be settled? Indubitably, the United States was founded in continuity with the Christian, common-law heritage from the mother country. This stands in shrill contrast with the Revolutionary regime in France, the leading idea of which was the overthrow of received institutions. America at its founding represented, in the pregnant characterization of R. J. Rushdoony, “a Protestant feudal restoration,” for “its origins are Christian and Augustinian, deeply rooted in Reformation, medieval and patristic history” (This Independent Republic, p. vii.). But in saying this, has all been said? Obviously there is also discontinuity with the Christian past. In the founding documents, whether the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution, there is no provision for an established church. Neither is there any recognition of the Christian religion. There is no acknowledgement of divine right. There is the Constitution’s “We the People” as a self-referencing authority, and a provision (Art. VI, §. 3) that “no religious test” would be required for “any Office or public Trust”; there is the Declaration’s passing acknowledgement of “Nature’s God,” of “their Creator,” an appeal to “the Supreme Judge of the world” in the dispute, in which “a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence” is expressed. Any good monotheist, Unitarian, Deist could affirm as much. Was this an oversight? Was it deference to those states the constitutions and institutions of which did include specifically Christian acknowledgements and arrangements? Or was it deliberate? To answer that question, this book delves deeply into the legal-philosophical underpinnings of the new nation and exposes those underpinnings to a thorough analysis and critique. It then shows how this set of understandings has run right through the various institutions of the American order. And it shows how it is that precisely these philosophical, and ultimately religious, foundations are the Trojan Horse which has wreaked havoc on our country.