A Reformed Theology of Politics:
Welfare Reform in the Thought of Abraham Kuyper
Welfare Reform and government reinvention are preoccupations of politicians and citizen advocates in the modern age. This paper explores the views of the late Abraham Kuyper with respect to how we look at political institutions and how those institutions serve its citizens, especially the poor. Though writing fully a century ago, I believe that Kuyper's convictions, analyses, and solutions regarding the problem of poverty and the constitution of political authority to be relevant today.
Abraham Kuyper (1837-1920) was a Dutch theologian, politician, philosopher, churchman and journalist. A noted church leader, Kuyper won access to the Dutch Parliament where, as Prime Minister, he sought sweeping changes for labor relations and education. Born in Maassluis, the Netherlands, Kuyper was reared in a Reformed (Calvinist) environment. He graduated from the University of Leiden, earning a bachelor's degree in 1858, and a doctorate in theology in 1863. He was ordained in 1863 and assumed a pastorate in Beesd (1863), Utrecht (1867) and finally Amsterdam (1870). His pastorate of a conservative but populist congregation in Amsterdam led him to reconsider his previously-held liberal theological views.
Kuyper questioned the secularism of the state, the rampant individualism that followed the French Revolution, and the rationalism of theological liberalism. He was a leader of a new movement called "Neo-Calvinism," an approach that combined the classical perspective of Reformed theology with political activism and vibrant inward piety. Kuyper's views on the relationship of church and state were influenced negatively by the Enlightenment and by Romanticism, and positively by the Protestant Reveil (religious revival)in the Netherlands and by the social gospel movement, including Christian Socialism, that was prominent in England and in the United States.
The combination of orthodox Calvinism and evangelical pietism provided a creative rebirth of Reformed thought and practice. Kuyper admired leaders of revivalism in the Netherlands, including Willem Bilderdijk. Bilderdijk was nationalistic and wanted to return to the era of the Dutch Republic, a constitutional government opposed to the doctrine of popular sovereignty. Also, Bilderdijk held that the government had a role in the provision and maintenance of social welfare. It should oversee the population and make sure that no one lacked in the basic necessities of life. It would guarantee that all those who wanted work would have it. These principles greatly influenced Kuyper's thought and the platform of the "Anti Revolutionary Party," a political party that he led for forty-five years. The Anti Revolutionary Party was reformist, but held to a gradualist, evolutionary process of reform, and rejected the violent revolutionary views of Marxism.
In 1872, the young pastor became the editor of a new daily paper, De Standaard, which advocated the views of the Anti Revolutionary political movement founded by Groen van Prinsterer. In 1873, he entered the Dutch Parliament, only to withdraw because of an excessive workload. Meanwhile, he helped to establish three organizations as political and religious power bases. These were the Anti Revolutionary Party (ARP) (1877); the Christian Day School Association (1878) and the Free University of Amsterdam (1880).
The ARP was the political arm of the Neo Calvinist movement, and challenged both political radicalism and the liberalism and secularism stemming from the French Revolution. By 1887, Kuyper was the leader of this movement and the ARP (Anti Revolutionary Party) worked against labor radicalism by organizing Protestant and Catholic constituencies in coalition governments. In modern times, the ARP merged with the Roman Catholic Party in the 1970s.
In addition to the Standaard, the political organ of the ARP, Kuyper was also the editor of a church-related newspaper, De Heraut (The Herald). Through his writing and editing skills, he was able to educate and inspire church members and citizens of the state for almost 45 years. In 1880, he founded the Free University of Amsterdam and served as a professor and university administrator. In the 1880s, Europe, like the rest of the world, was in the throes of an industrial revolution. Labor groups were organizing, and issues of employment, wages, working conditions, and compensation for injuries were in political debate. Kuyper believed that the state and the church had a role to play in addressing these issues. However, his democratic views created enemies among conservatives, even as labor radicals were impatient with his political gradualism. He would not tolerate labor strikes as a legitimate tactic, for example. In 1886 he withdrew from the National Reformed Church and helped form the Gereformeerde Kerken (Reformed Church) in 1892, uniting moderates and free church proponents. Kuyper was trying to divorce the church from state control.
In 1891, he worked to organize a Christian Social Congress to address what was then called the "social problem." On November 9, Kuyper gave an opening address to the First Christian Social Congress. The address was Het Sociale Vraagstuk en de Christelijke Religie (The Social Problem and the Christian Religion). This address was translated and reissued by James Skillen of the Center for Public Justice in 1991 as The Problem of Poverty. However, his most important work was published at the end of the decade. In 1898, Kuyper gave the Stone Lectures at Princeton University in the United States. These were published later as Lectures on Calvinism. Although there were many other publications that issued from the pen of Kuyper, these two works are the most enduring and most relevant for our discussion today.
Kuyper ran for the office of Prime Minister in 1901, similar to the Presidency in the United States. He won by uniting Catholics and Protestants in the Anti Revolutionary Party, but alienated conservatives on the one hand, and labor and radical socialists on the other. Conservatives did not think the state, or the church, should try to resolve labor and unemployment issues. Radicals felt that the only solution was in the overthrow of the state. Because of these intense societal divisions, Kuyper was Prime Minister but for one term, from 1901 to 1905. His administration witnessed unfortunately some major challenges, including a national railroad strike, and his inability to unite the Netherlands politically forced his ouster in 1905. Thereafter, Kuyper emerged as a statesman and wrote much on the plight of the West, which he thought could not be remedied unless the nation embraced a political and social renewal based on Evangelical Calvinist foundations.
Kuyper's legacy is noteworthy. He sought to propel the church into cultural, societal and political spheres of life. He fought against theological liberalism on the one hand, and the revolutionary secularism of the French Revolution on the other hand. As James D. Bratt summarizes:
Lectures on Calvinism
Kuyper believed that Calvinism was more than just a theology, it was a "life-system" or Weltanschauung (world view) that was able to embrace all of life. As a life system, he argued, Calvinism was able to give specific insight about the three primary relationships of human life: the relation to God, to fellow human beings and to the world. "Kuyperianism" is the religio-philosphical perspective that held that "there is not a square inch in the whole domain of human life of which Christ, the Sovereign of all, does not call out 'Mine!'"
For Kuyper, the implications of the Christian Doctrine of Creation are manifold. While he did not address ecological or environmental issues as we might today, it is clear that, for Kuyper, we are called to be stewards of the earth, protectors of the natural order and of each species God has created. This has profound ecological consequences. Since nature was held to be God's handiwork, Kuyper argued that Calvinism had given permission for scientists to engage in scientific discovery as a way to "replenish the earth, subdue it and have dominion over everything that lives upon it." For critics of Calvinism, such dominion has resulted in environmental problems and the exploitation of nature, but that was not Kuyper's intent. What he meant was that scientific inquiry for agriculture and industry legitimized these efforts as important. Scientific inquiry would also give an understanding of the earth, of the seas and of nature. The intent was not to exploit the earth--but to honor, replenish and protect it as God's created order. We are called to be stewards of the earth, not its exploiters.
The implications of the Doctrine of Creation for human welfare are profound. For Kuyper, all human beings were created in the image of God, and all are sinners without exception. The implications for political administration and human relationships include strong convictions regarding the equality of human beings, regardless of race, class, gender or creed; and that the political process must be democratic and participatory, not hierarchical.
If Calvinism places our entire human life immediately before God, then it follows that all men or women, rich or poor, weak or strong, dull or talented, as creatures of God, and as lost sinners, have no claim whatsoever to lord over one another, and that we stand as equals before God, and consequently equal as man to man. Hence we cannot recognize any distinction among men, save such as has been imposed by God Himself, in that He gave one authority over the other, or enriched one with more talents than the other, in order that the man of more talents should serve the man with less, and in him serve his God. Hence Calvinism condemns not merely all open slavery and systems of caste, but also all covert slavery of woman and of the poor; it is opposed to all hierarchy among men ; it tolerates no aristocracy save such as is able, either in person or in family, by the grace of God, to exhibit superiority of character or of talent, and to show that it does not claim this superiority for self-aggrandizement or ambitious pride, but for the sake of spending it in the service of God. So Calvinism was bound to find its utterance in the democratic interpretation of life; to proclaim the liberty of nations; and not to rest until both politically and socially every man, simply because he is man, should be recognized, respected and dealt with as a creature created after the Divine likeness.
For Kuyper, political and social interaction with the diversity of the human population was based on a corollary of the doctrine of creation, common grace. In a strict sense, common grace was a redemptive concept. It was a restraining action by which "God, maintaining the life of the world, relaxes the curse which rests upon it, arrests its process of corruption, and thus allows the untrammelled development of our life in which to glorify Himself as Creator." However, common grace also had a positive role as it signified that God had given gifts, talents and creative capacities to all human beings, regardless of their religious state. It is this common grace that, in addition to restraining human evil, allows even "unregenerate" persons to contribute in the areas of philosophical thought, science, art and social justice. For Kuyper, "the liberal arts are gifts which God imparts . . . to believers and to unbelievers...." The arts of rhetoric, political discourse, painting, and sculpture are all gifts from the Creator "as testimony of the divine bounty" even to those who do not believe.
In Kuyper's work, De Gemeene Gratie (Common Grace) (Leyden, 1901, 3 Vols.), the author's Neo-Calvinism is stated in full force. In it Kuyper argues that grace is extended to all human beings, not just to the elect. This grace urges all people to practice "good works" which on the surface is indistinguishable from the "good works" that believers do. As van der Kroef summarizes:
All blessings come from God, and hence both specific gifts and the general welfare are contingent upon God's common grace. Nor does the Christian possess special privileges because of his faith. Rather, a "heathen" may be better able to govern, and far more competent. Kuyper shied away from the notion of a "Christian" state, preferring rather to foster coalitions with people who shared similar values and commitments. "Christian and heathen, like all men, await God's grace. In the interim, common grace suffices."
Neither did Kuyper espouse views that could be conceived in any way as either racist or ethnocentric. To the contrary, he wrote that the advanced democracies of the Netherlands and the United States (writing in 1890s) benefitted from racial and ethnic pluralism. Intercultural relations have made for a better "race" of people, and a higher form of democratic society and cultural richness. Kuyper argued that "the history of our race does not aim at the improvement of any single tribe, but at the development of mankind taken as a whole, and therefore needs this commingling of blood in order to attain its end." Like the contemporary African American band, Kuyper would agree that we are all members of the human race, but there is no place for "racism."
Hence, for Kuyper, Calvinism as a religious world view was instrumental in challenging theories of racial superiority, precisely because it holds that all human beings derive from a common Creator, and all arts and cultures contribute to a better and higher civilization. Politically and socially, Kuyper argued that Calvinism was instrumental in creating a more peaceful and just society through its all-embracing theological vision. Oppression and injustice were blasphemous rejections of the gifts of God.
Kuyper and Political Theory and Practice
The basis of Kuyper's political theory is his belief in the unlimited sovereignty of God in the world: present and future. Kuyper rejected both monarchical and popular doctrines of sovereignty. He opposed dictatorship and the total state in all forms, on the one hand, and rejected what he perceived to be an individualistic understanding of popular sovereignty. For Kuyper, God alone was sovereign, and this impacted his political views. Instead of totalitarianism or the anarchism of the Paris Commune, Kuyper held that more limited sovereignties of groups exist, including commonwealths and institutions--each directly subject to God. Kuyper held to an essentially pluralistic view of political institutions with three spheres that operated autonomously from each other: the state, the church, and the social sphere.
Much like the conception of Kingship in First Samuel, God granted Israel a King in King Saul, because of Israel's sin and her desire to be like other nations. In Kuyper, there are no good grounds for a monarchy or a total state. Yet, because of the sin of human beings and the potential of sin in society, God ordained the institution of the state and civil magistrates to rule in God's stead. Put simply, Kuyper argued that "without sin there would have been neither magistrate nor state-order; but political life in its entirety . . . would have evolved itself, after a patriarchal fashion, from the life of the family." For Kuyper, the mere existence of a police force, a Navy, or a military suggests that evil must be controlled. Second, "every State-formation, every assertion of power from the magistrate, every mechanical means of compelling order and of guaranteeing a safe course of life is therefore always something unnatural..."
God created the powers, including the states and the magistrates, to do his will. Only God is sovereign, and the rest are mere servants and instruments of God's power. The powers are ordained of God, and the magistrates are instruments of "common grace, to thwart all license and outrage and to shield the good against evil." "Therefore, all powers that be, whether in empires or republics, in cities or in states, rule 'by the grace of God.'" It is pretty clear that Kuyper prefers something akin to a loose federation, a cooperation among equal but competing entities, or spheres of power, none of which is absolute. With the return to state power and the rhetorical demise of central government in the modern world, Kuyper's ideas are worthy of consideration. Kuyper agreed with John Calvin that a "Republic" is the best form of government, even as a democracy, though a poor and inefficient political system, is still the best form of political expression considering the options available. In summary:
God's own direct government is absolutely monarchical; no monotheist will deny it. But Calvin considered a co-operation of many persons under mutual control, i.e., a republic, desirable, now that a mechanical institution of government is necessitated by sin.
For Kuyper, it did not matter which form of government one had, although he preferred one in which the people had more direct control in the ordering of one's life or in the development of one's institutions. Hence, if one adds the theological dimension, it appears that Kuyper would be more favorable to populism than to monarchy, but he wanted a populism that acknowleged God's reign. For Kuyper, no one person had the right to have the power over another person, for no authority existed except it be given of God.
The next separate sphere defended by Kuyper is the social sphere, or society. This sphere, he argued, existed separately from the state, and while the state protects it, the state could not violate it or meddle in its affairs. The social sector included the arts, churches, business, labor, science and above all, the family. The state had no authority in the "private" domain. It could not and should not intrude in the affairs of society, but should rather protect the independence and relative autonomy of each separate sphere.
As one can imagine, there is considerable ambiguity and contradiction in Kuyper's doctrine of the spheres. In his radically decentralized vision of society, institutions such as the university, the guild, and the trades-union each exercise "power of exclusive independent judgement and authoritative action, within its proper sphere of operation." Each has a natural, inherent authority--given of God. Further, "the social life of cities and villages forms a [separate] sphere of existence, which arises from the very necessities of life, and which therefore must be autonomous." While there is the problem of what forms the social glue for Kuyper, that is, what holds the separate spheres together; there is, nonetheless, the opportunity to celebrate the freedom and responsibilities of individual associations and community-based organizations as vital institutions in society. The government's role, then, is how to support the activity of local organizations, while not allowing for threats to the social fabric, such as today's militia movement.
It appears that, to Kuyper, there is no end to autonomous spheres in society. Kuyper allows for a social sphere, a corporate sphere and a domestic or communal sphere. The problem is that none of the spheres posed by Kuyper exists in isolation from another. Kuyper's program of government decentralization and his conception of distinct institutions formed as a radical pluralistic construct precludes any unity that might link the spheres together. This raises some interesting questions with regard to the composition of society today. How much pluralism and how much autonomy is allowable? How much plures in the unum can we tolerate? Kuyper followed Calvin in his portrayal of the spheres.
Knighthood, the rights of the city, the rights of guilds, and much more, led then to the self-assertion of social "States," with their own civil authority; and so Calvin wished the law to be made by the cooperation of these with the High magistrates.
While there appears to be no end to Kuyper's spheres, he seems clear enough with regard to the role of government. For Kuyper, the government had a clear mandate to compel a respect for the boundaries of each sphere; to defend weak and vulnerable members from the abuse of power; and to coerce each to bear some responsibility "to bear the personal and financial burdens for the maintenance of the natural unity of the state." Note, on the latter point, he viewed that the responsibility for the public welfare was not the responsibility of one sphere at the exclusion of others, whether government, charity or religious, but was the responsibility of all areas of society.
Kuyper defended the autonomy of free associations, including the schools, the family, churches, the press and businesses against the encroachment of the state or the state church. "A free church, a free school, and a free state, within a free society--this principle of public policy captures Kuyper's vision of a just social order." His founding of the Free University of Amsterdam was based on his goal of developing an institution of higher learning free from the dictates of state or (state) church.
The state may never become an octopus which stifles the whole of life. It must occupy its own place, on its own root, among the other trees of the forest; and thus it must honor and maintain every form of life which grows independently in its own sacred autonomy.
Each sphere has its own unique, inviolable, yet delegated authority, subject not to a total state, but to the sovereignty of God. It appears that Kuyper read Calvin rather literally at this point. The doctrine of the spheres reflected the decentralized state of Switzerland, including a provision for "free cities." Free cities were also prominent in the ancient Roman Empire, as cities such as Thessalonica operated virtually autonomously of the state. Free cities functioned independently of state control.
In the third sphere, the church, Kuyper held to a strict doctrine of "separation of church and state." Actually, Kuyper wanted a highly decentralized society that would allow for the autonomy of local institutions, while maintaining an interactive connection with the state. He wrote: "The sovereignty of the State and the sovereignty of the Church exist side by side." Kuyper rejected the state-church system. Instead, he argued that the Church should operate as a free standing institution based not on state support but on the voluntary principle. He also rejected a Church that looked like the awful intolerance of the Spanish Inquisition. He defended the liberty of conscience, but also the authority of a church to expel any person detrimental to the institution.
The government has to respect the claims on protection of every citizen. The Church may not be forced to tolerate as a member one whom she feels obliged to expel from her circle; but on the other hand no citizen of the State must be compelled to remain in a church which his conscience forces him to leave.
The key word in this formula for Kuyper is "freedom." For Kuyper, liberty "in the French Revolution [meant] a civil liberty for every Christian to agree with the unbelieving majority; in Calvinism, a liberty of conscience . . . enables every man to serve God according to his own conviction and the dictates of his own heart." Kuyper was against a "freedom" that was unrestrained.
But the Church for Kuyper is anything but a sectarian institution removed or untouched by the larger society. Furthermore, religion is connected to all of life, and "no sphere of human life is conceivable in which religion does not maintain its demands that God shall be praised, that God's ordinances shall be observed, and that every labora shall be permeated with its ora in fervent and ceaseless prayer." "To be sure," he wrote, "there is a concentration of religious light and life in the Church, but then in the walls of this church there are wide open windows, and through these spacious windows the light of the Eternal has to radiate over the whole world." In other words, the Church exists as the windows to and from the world, not in isolation. The Church should be a beacon in the world, a prophetic light that exposes every darkness. Kuyper accepts a biblical, urban metaphor to describe the church's relationship with the world.
Here is a city, set upon a hill, which every man can see afar off. Here is a holy salt that penetrates in every direction, checking all corruption. And even he who does not yet imbibe the higher light, or maybe shuts his eyes to it, is nevertheless admonished, with equal emphasis, and in all things, to give glory to the name of the Lord.
For Kuyper, the governmental system of the Church should emphasize its congregational autonomy. Kuyper defended a "thoroughly Presbyterian form of government," yet his views seem to be even more radically democratic. For Kuyper, "all believers and all congregations" are of equal standing. No Church could exercise dominion over any other, for all local churches were of equal rank. He argued that these congregations could be united synodically as a confederation, a structure that favored congregational autonomy from any Church or State. However, he rejected any form of governmental structure that posed a hierarchical authority, except under God and the rule of Christ. His resistance to a state church system is thorough, for he regarded "a national church" as a heathen conception. "The Church of Christ is not national but ecumenical. Not one single state, but the whole world is its domain."
With respect to a theology of social welfare, Kuyper believed that it was the responsibility of each and every societal institution to care for the common good. While the government exists to protect autonomy, it also exists to encourage that all spheres of society take responsibility for the common welfare. It could not be done by the church or the government, or any other sphere, in isolation.
Kuyper and the "Social Problem"
Kuyper lived in an age where social questions were burning, even for the church. In England, "Christian Socialists" such as Charles Kingsley and Frederick Denison Maurice wrestled with such issues. In London, William Booth (1829-1912) founded the Salvation Army. His book, In Darkest England and the Way Out was an analysis of wealth and vice in England. The problems facing the poor were viewed by Booth as structural in nature. Poverty could not be addressed unless the structures of society were changed and wealth was distributed more justly. However, the Salvation Army, founded in 1865, sought to give individual poor people "soup, soap and salvation." This tension between structural change and personal salvation and renewal was never quite resolved.
In the United States, the social gospel movement led by Walter Rauschenbusch and Washington Gladden were working on many of the same issues. For Rauschenbusch, poverty was the result of a lack of controls on monopoly capital, even as institutions such as the church, the school and the political process (democratization) were helping to "Christianize the social order." For Rauschenbusch and other social gospelers, poverty was the result of social structures which allowed wealth to accumulate without restraint. Also, like the biblical prophets, the social gospelers decried a lack of adequate protections to protect the most vulnerable of society. Poverty, therefore, was the result of failed social institutions and their policies, not the result of individual moral choices among the poor. Kuyper's analysis of the nature of poverty was quite similar.
Abraham Kuyper's thought must be understood in this context. For Kuyper, the problem in the Netherlands, as elsewhere, was plutocracy, the rule of money. Charity was viewed by Kuyper as an ineffective way to address the problem of poverty. Charity was not enough. What the poor needed was work, jobs, and employment. However, Kuyper did not think that socialism was the answer. Socialism was a mixture of truth and error. It analyzed the problem of economic disparity well, but advocated a state-run bureaucracy to solve it. Kuyper, in contrast, had more faith in the power of the people to make a difference for themselves, especially when motivated by Christian faith. For Kuyper, the central problem was "sin" which he defined as "greed and the lust for power [which] disturbed or checked the healthy growth of human society, sometimes cultivating a very cancerous development for centuries." Kuyper then recognized that greed and power "joined forces" to "enthrone false principles that violate . . . human nature [and] out of these false principles systems were built that varnished over injustice . . ." Kuyper's analysis of the problem of poverty was systemic, not moralistic.
For Kuyper, the government had an important role to play to protect the poor and the most vulnerable. He noted that "the ineradicable inequality between men produced a world in which the stronger devours the weaker, much as if we lived in an animal society rather than in a human society" . The stronger, he noted, "have always known how to bend every custom and magisterial ordinance so that the profit is theirs and the loss belongs to the weaker" . Even when a leadership emerged with an expressed interest in protecting the weak, Kuyper observed that the "more powerful class of society soon knew how to exercise such an overpowering influence that the government, which should have protected the weak, became an instrument against them." However, this is not just a political problem. For Kuyper, the weak were just as sinful as the strong (witness Rhuwanda or Somalia today), and if in power, the weak could just as easily become as oppressive as the powerful.
However, Kuyper believed that the rich were more capable of acting our their evil intentions than the poor. Oppression and injustice at any level was an evil to be named and resisted. This reminds me a bit of the conclusion of Martin Luther King, Jr., that "injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everyhwere." Like Dr. King, Kuyper believed that the fundamental problem facing human societies was more theological than political.
No, the cause of evil lay in this: that men regarded humanity as cut off from its eternal destiny, did not honor it as created in the image of God, and did not reckon with the majesty of the Lord, who alone by his grade is able to hold in check a human race mired in sin.
For Kuyper, Jesus of Nazareth addressed the "social problem" with timeless accuracy. "Then, just as now, the balance between the classes was lost: defiant luxury existed alongside of crying poverty, immense accumulations of capital alongside beggarly poverty concealed in the slums of Rome. Corruption in government followed inevitably from these conditions." Yet, Jesus was not a political revolutionary, for Kuyper, but a religious reformer. Perhaps Kuyper would have advocated something similar to the nonviolent resistance of a Mahatma Ghandi or a Martin Luther King, Jr., but certainly not the violence of labor radicalism. Jesus, nevertheless, critiqued the unbridled accumulation of wealth and the tyrannical use of power by both religious and political authorities. It was their role and responsibility to defend the weak, to protect the vulnerable, and to provide for the poor--especially the widows and the orphans of his society. Jesus and the ancient Israelite prophets unequivocally denounced such injustice.
For Kuyper, wealth in and of itself was not an evil, but only if it was accumulated at the expense of the poor (as always?). It was evil when it led to usury, exploitation and the manipulation of the poor. Yet, Kuyper practiced his own version of what we would today call the "bias for the poor." "When rich and poor stood opposed to one another, he [Jesus of Nazareth] never took his place with the wealthier but always with the poorer." Jesus in his own lifestyle had more in common with the homeless and those on the margins of society than with the wealthy and the powerful. Yet, his vision was essentially a religious and "eschatological" one, for it centered in the coming Kingdom of God. For Kuyper, rulers and authorities have their position only as gifts from the transcendent Creator and Lord of History. Political and social realities were at best only shadows of a deeper religious and theological reality.
Central to Jesus' program was the development of a new community that reflected the values of the Kingdom of God. These values included compassion for the poor, and the pursuit of peace with justice by those in power. Jesus was also in a sense, a community organizer. He set apart a group of followers and sent them out to influence society in a number of concrete ways. First was the ministry of the word, the proclamation of a new realm. "He [Jesus] constantly fights against lust for money, comforts the poor and the oppressed, and points to an endless glory that will be exchanged for the suffering of the present time." Second, the new community organized a ministry of charity, whereby goods were shared among the people so that no one suffered from want. Third, the new community in it proclamation and presence modeled out an equality of brotherhood "by abolishing all artificial demarcation between men and by joining rich and poor in one holy food at the Lord's Supper." Kuyper summarized Jesus' program as follows:
Yet, for Kuyper, the church could not do it alone. Governments have always had a role and responsibility to address social matters. In ancient Israel, the rules for gleaning, the tithe, the Sabbath and Jubilee years were designed to provide the poor, hired laborers, and sojourners (migrant workers) the essentials of life. The prophets of course were very concerned that rulers ruled justly, that the court system protected the poor from extortion, and that either a Temple or a Court system was in place to protect the social fabric. For the prophets, social justice and morality were religious values connected with the transcendent. Kuyper knew that the government plays a responsible role in insuring that people have the necessary social goods.
Actually, however, there has never been a government in any country of the world which did not in various ways govern the course of social life and its relationship to material wealth. Governments have done this directly through a variety of regulations in civil law and trade law, and indirectly through constitutional law and criminal law. More particularly, governments have acted through inheritance laws, systems of taxation, export and import regulations, codes for purchase and rent, agrarian regulations, colonial administration, control of coinage, and much more.
However, the problem is that government is often manipulated by powerful rulers and dominions, so that they don't always fulfill their God-given responsibilities--especially to punish evil and protect those who cannot protect themselves. Also, governments are sometimes developed without reference to the transcendent. Kuyper worried that the ideals of the French Revolution and enlightenment rationality had overtaken political functions. For Kuyper, the model of rationality, utility, pragmatism, secularism, and moral relativism created more injustice and inequality in the world than a model more informed by a Christian worldview. "In the Christian religion, authority and freedom are bound together by the deeper principle that everything in creation is subject to God."
Kuyper feared that the ideals of the French Revolution (liberty, fraternity, equality) would be rendered unjust due to its utilitarian values, and in a worse-case scenario, the political process would be characterized less by reason, and more by the violence, terror and oppression of arbitrary rule. Kuyper did not have much hope in a government who's foundation was individual free will. He believed that the Enlightenment contributed to pride, license, egoism, and material consumption. "The French Revolution . . . left nothing but the monotonous, self-seeking individual asserting his own self-sufficiency." As a consequence the French Revolution was an ideology opposed to the gospel because the former was based on secularism, materialism, individualism, egoism, and a self-seeking lust after material goods. On the contrary, the gospel beckons all to submit to God and God's will for all creatures. It is this reign of God that could result in the peace and the justice that humans and the whole creation requires if we are to survive on the planet. Kuyper's critique of the French Revolution as a symbol of all secularized government is penetrating:
The consequences of secularism and the ascendancy of corporate capitalism is not quite a tyranny of aristocrats as in the eighteenth century--but a division of society along class lines--a powerful nouveau riche emerging as a new aristocracy based on money and power without the kinship relationships of the old aristocracy. "Thus, in all of Europe a well-to-do bourgeoisie rules over and impoverished working class, which exists to increase the wealth of the ruling class and is doomed, when it can no longer serve that purpose, to sink away into the morass of the proletariat." Further, illustrating that greed is a human condition that transcends social class, "the luxurious bourgeoisie makes a display of its luxury, exciting a false desire in the poorer classes." In the late nineteenth century the rich displayed their wealth in public, shaming the poor. Today, the rich display their opulence via market values and consumer goods over the media airwaves, shaming the poor in more subtle ways.
Kuyper's startling version of class analysis is tempered by his critique of revolutionary answers to the social problem. Politically, neither the individualism of the French Revolution nor the collectivism of state socialism was the answer to the problems caused by the industrial revolution. Socialism was very attractive in the 1890s, but it had some serious flaws. Kuyper assailed several kinds of socialists including nihilists, anarchists, social democrats and state socialists. He was closer to the social democrats than the others, yet with an odd theological grounding in evangelical Calvinism. Kuyper was very critical of socialism as the answer to the prevailing social questions.
First, its program would be established, not based on the free exercise of the people via a democratic political process but via a violent revolution. Kuyper believed that such a course would result in another form of tyranny. He also eschewed violence as a legitimate political tactic. Second, socialism was essentially humanistic. There was no reference to a transcendent other, but socialists sought to put together a political program based solely on human ingenuity and fabrication. For Kuyper, any humanistic program, due to sin, was doomed from the start.
Third, socialists were secular materialists. Materialism reduced humanity to the realm of nature, and hence robbed human beings of their dignity as beings created in the imago dei. It was impossible for Kuyper to conceive of a world in secular terms, as a world without God. Such a world could only have meaning because of a contingent relationship with a Sovereign Creator. The world cannot exist and does not exist sui generis (from its own origin). Finally, the socialist hope and utopia is always tomorrow, for there is no evidence or meaningful example of a successful socialist utopia in the present or past. It was better to leave a future hope in the hands of the Lord of History rather than in the fabrications of mere human beings. For Kuyper, the future of history is based on revealed truth, not mere human forecasting.
Yet, Kuyper agreed with the socialists on many points, particularly their analysis of the human situation in history. He wrote:
Similar to other social gospelers of the day, Kuyper believed that the problems facing human beings, especially labor and the poor, were connected not to their lack of virtue, but to "a fault in the very foundation of our society's organization;" that is, to its social structures, economic and political systems and failed policies that allowed monopoly capital to oppress the masses of people. It seemed obvious that a new "more livable social order" must be built. Yet, this is not to imply that "socialism" was the answer to this problem; nor did Kuyper believe that piety and charity would solve the problem either.
If you do not acknowledge this and think that social evil can be exorcised thorough an increase in piety, or through friendlier treatment or more generous charity, then you may believe that we face a religious question or possibly a philanthropic question, but you will not recognize the social question. This question does not exist for you until you exercise an architectonic critique of human society, which leads to the desire for a different arrangement of the social order.
Kuyper believed that the foundation of his society was the secularism and the individualism of the French Revolution. This had led to a wholesale acceptance of the idol of Mammon and the "relentless goad of the most brutal egoism." Neither can a solution be found in socialist dreams, "but rather in a God-willed community.... Against the individualism of the French Revolution, born from its denial of human community, the whole movement of society in our times is now turning." For Kuyper, the solution was the rediscovery of community with a transcendent, religious base. Not an individualized piety, nor a communal sectarianism, but the establishment of a community based on a theological foundation of peace with justice emanating from the gospel. For Kuyper, the social question was the question of the late nineteenth century, just as the welfare of society continues to challenge us today. But, solutions are hard to come by. For Kuyper, a social movement based on the foundation of Neo Calvinism gave hope and motivation for something quite different from what he called "head-in-the-sand-politics." Rather:
The common characteristic of this imposing movement is to be found in the swelling of community feeling--feeling for social justice and for the organic nature of society--over against the one-dimensional individualism of the French Revolution and its corresponding economic school of laissez faire.
For Kuyper, hope could not be found in the lair of big business-- the monopoly corporate capitalists who "by virtue of absolute ownership, [heap up] immeasurable fortunes . . ., producing an insurmountable obstacle that hinders society from doing justice to its own sociological character."
Yet, the question that most troubled Kuyper was the proper response to the social question, and to the popular answer to society's problems, socialism. He rhetorically asked: "What attitude should those who profess the Christian religion assume toward this socialist movement?" He agreed with Bilderdijk, the leader in the Dutch Reveil, that "God has not willed that one should drudge hard and yet have no bread for himself and his family. Still less has God willed that any man with hands to work and a will to work should perish from hunger or be reduced to the beggar's staff just because there is no work." In short, for Kuyper, the mere existence of hunger, poverty and unemployment is anathema and a revulsion to God himself! "The workman deserves his wages!" Kuyper would thus agree with contemporary "welfare to work" projects, but would argue also that real jobs with liveable wages must also be present. For Kuyper, the problem of poverty was structural and institutional, a moral problem of the rich, no less than the poor.
For Kuyper, the solution to these problems derived from an essentially biblical vision. The Old Testament commonwealth of Israel provided for the poorest of the poor, and were assailed by the prophets when they did not. In the New Testament, Jesus proclaimed that the gospel's primary recipients were the poor, and he suggested a social program in principle with his advocacy for social justice beyond charity. For Kuyper, charity by itself is less than what the gospel demands, even though it is easier for churches to give charity than to pursue social justice. Kuyper wrote:
For Kuyper, the social problem was essentially a theological or a religious problem. It could not be resolved by socialism or by laissez faire individualism. Rather, society must return to a religious center. "The first article of any social program" is therefore: "I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth." This means that one must first acknowledge that it is "God" who is the one who orders nature and that the human conscience is subservient to the divine will. This is a very important confession for Kuyper, foundational for a new social order.
We as Christians must place the strongest possible emphasis on the majesty of God's authority and on the absolute validity of his ordinances, so that, even as we condemn the rotting social structure of our day, we will never try to erect any structure except one that rests on foundations laid by God.
The big problem is how this works out in society. For Kuyper, there is a false dichotomy between the two social spheres of society and the state. The social democrats want a society (popular sovereignty) without a state; and the socialists want a state that would supplant the sovereignty of God. "Against both of these," Kuyper wrote, "we as Christians must hold that the state and society each has its own sphere, its own sovereignty, and that the social question cannot be resolved rightly unless we respect this duality and thus honor state authority as clearing the way for a free society." The common human condition begged the question of common grace, for "all [are] created in God's image," and "all [are] under sin" points to "an interconnected wholeness of our human society." "God's word teaches that we have all been created from one blood and joined in a single covenant through God" and this interconnectedness and solidarity of guilt and hope is totally incompatible with the individualism and materialism of secular culture.
Kuyper appealed to conservatives by eschewing violence and advocating for democratic, political solutions to social problems. He felt that it was the Christian duty to "warn against all violation of authority and to oppose bravely every act of force and lawlessness." Kuyper, like many Fabians or Bernsteinian socialists advocated change in a gradual, not revolutionary, manner. Similar to views of, for example, the Knights of Labor in the United States in the 1890s, Kuyper opposed labor violence, agitation, and the general strike. He supported rather the mechanism of the democratic process as a vehicle of change, as people acted on their faith and values. For Kuyper, social change could only occur gradually and incrementally in a lawful manner. Pivotal to this belief, for Kuyper, is the respect for authority as given of God, yet each of the social spheres is also subject to God's ordinances.
Yet, against conservatives, Kuyper challenged the notion of property and the ownership of property. For conservatives, the ownership of property is a right. For the socialist, all individual property should be turned over to the state and to collective ownership. Kuyper rejected both positions. Rather, he held that "absolute property belongs only to God; all of our property is on loan from him; our management is only stewardship." For Kuyper, only the Lord can grant the responsibility of managing the land. And further, rulers have no right to rule except as they recognize their organic connection with all human beings. Kuyper rejected the doctrine of the "community of goods" as outside of scripture. However, he argued that scripture likewise excluded the right to take or dispose of property absolutely, as though one were God, without due consideration of the needs of the poor and the landless.
Kuyper, noted that, in the Scotland of the 1890s, two-thirds of the land was owned by fourteen persons. This is similar to land ownership in the third world in the 1990s in countries such as El Salvador. Who owns the land? For Kuyper, "the fruitful field is given by God to all the people so that every tribe in Israel might dwell on it and live from it." It was a mistake to believe that God's ordinances applied only to the salvation of souls, and not for national existence and "our common social life." Although not specifically named, such a view goes to the heart of the Old Testament vision of shalom--a just peace that results in prosperity and harmony in society. Jeremiah the prophet was also "anti revolutionary," in that he counseled an exiled people to seek the shalom of pagan Babylon rather than a violent insurrection or timid flight (Jeremiah 29:7). Such ordinances are applicable to the way we order our social life in the present, not just for eternal rewards in the hereafter. Kuyper would agree with his contemporary, William Temple, in that Christian faith, because of its this-worldly concerns, "is the most materialistic of all religions."
On the other hand, Kuyper would appeal to conservative values today with his emphasis on "family values." He held that the family structure and marriage were divine orders, and essential to the preservation of a just social order. Kuyper attacked both "free love" practice that would undermine the family, and an unjust economy that made it difficult for a family to survive. We must critique both the lifestyle and values of those who would compromise "family values." And, just as fervently, we must critique any social structure that cannot provide the opportunity for the family to provide for itself the essentials of life: food, shelter and meaningful work. For Kuyper, the family is portrayed in scripture as "the wonderful creation though which the rich fabric of our organic human life must spin itself out." Kuyper urged the protection and the provision for workers; to be able to find work, and to be able to survive economically if sick, injured or aged. "To mistreat the workman as a 'piece of machinery' is and remains a violation of his human dignity" and, we might add, an insidious attack on the divine institution of the family!
For Kuyper, the government had an important role in the execution of justice, but not in the invasion of other spheres of life--such as the family, business, church or the arts. In this delicate balance, "government should help labor obtain justice. Labor must be allowed to organize itself independently in order to defend is rights." Yet, Kuyper rejected what we might call today the welfare state. He believed that the financial contribution of the state should be confined to an absolute minimum. In a highly decentralized government envisioned, the welfare of the poor would be addressed best by local associations such as unions, churches, and other voluntary organizations.
For Kuyper, it was the duty of all "Children of the Kingdom" to seize every moment to impress upon all those rich and poor that the peace of God is the ultimate hope, even as it has concrete social consequences. The practice of charity by Christian congregations and households is an imperative, even as we also organize ourselves in a political way to address the causes, not just the results, of social injustice. Ultimately, for Kuyper, it is the question of community, of Christian community. Are we able, like Mother Theresa, John Wesley, or even like Abraham Kuyper, to see in the poor not only the face of Christ, but the face of our brothers and sisters?
The question on which the whole social problem really pivots is whether you recognize in the less fortunate, even in the poorest, not merely a creature, a person in wretched circumstances, but one of your own flesh and blood: for the sake of Christ, your brother [and sister].
For Kuyper, the suffering of the poor is not just an ideological concern, but a practical and international one. It really exists, and those who suffer "are your brothers, sharers of your nature, your own flesh and blood." The great example of divine compassion for the poor was of course to be found in the life of Christ. Christ, "although he was rich, became poor for your sake so he might make you rich." The God who was in Christ-- born in a manger, wrapped in swaddling clothes--was more at home with the poor, homeless, prostitutes, and outcasts (the sinners of his society) than with the rich and powerful. For he had "not a place to lay his head." Jesus went through wealthy Judea and the despised region of Galilee, "the circle of the nations," addressing the needs--spiritual and material--of the wretched of the earth.
In story after story, such as the story of Lazarus and the rich man, "crumbs" from the table were not enough. Mere charity was an insult to the dignity of the poor man. Rather, true compassion would invite and welcome the poor man to the communion table and to the community as a true brother or sister, as a friend to the family of God. For Kuyper, "divine compassion, sympathy, a suffering with and for us--was the mystery of Golgotha."
Obviously, the poor man cannot wait until the restoration of our social structure has been completed. Almost certainly he will not live long enough to see that happy day. Nevertheless, he still has to live; he must feed his hungry mouth and the mouths of his hungry family.
Charity is, of course, essential to address the temporary needs of the poor, but it is obviously not enough. While we may take great comfort in the great eschatological hope of the coming Kingdom of God to be established one day--"on earth as it is in heaven"-- the Christian community has a full plate of things to do in the interim. We are yet called to witness to the reality of the coming Kingdom in our daily lives and in the practice of community in the present. In the interim, it is clear that the Christian community has an important work to do--both in the service of charity and in the pursuit of a social justice that might render charity unnecessary.
Conclusion
The theology of Abraham Kuyper has great relevance for the development of a Christian view of welfare reform. For Kuyper, all institutions of society have a role in ridding the world of injustice. All spheres of society have a responsibility to pursue, not just charity, but justice for the poor. Kuyper recognized that poverty was not the cause of the poor as a class, but was the direct result of structural inequalities. Hence systemic and structural solutions that look at public policy options, and the implications of the political economy are necessary if poverty is to be adequately dealt with. To insist that the poor do their part in taking responsibility to improve their situation is justifiable, but to assume that the reasons for poverty are solely the result of the behavior and morality of the poor is unjust and frankly, mean-spirited.
For Kuyper, community-based organizations have an important role to play in eradicating poverty. However, the best way to achieve welfare reform is not "to end welfare as we know it," but to end poverty as a condition that requires welfare. Kuyper knew that the poor, with skills and opportunity, would no longer be poor. He knew that the overwhelming majority of poor people did not choose to be poor, but found themselves in poverty through no fault of their own. He also knew, that the overwhelming majority of the "able-bodied" poor do in fact want to work. Society thus has a role to assume, that is, all spheres of society, to insure that jobs with liveable wages exist for all who need them.
Tragically, many welfare reformers today also assume that the majority of the poor-- children, women, elderly, and those with infirmities--can fend for themselves. In these cases, compassion and charity are required from all sectors of our society. For welfare reform to really take hold, the practice of compassion and the responsibility of the social spheres--including business, labor, the churches as well as all levels of government--must be mandated. Our own peace and welfare is tied up to and interconnected with the welfare and peace of everyone in society, especially the poor. For Kuyper, the welfare of society was the great question of his day, as it is in ours. A structural analysis of the causes and resolutions to poverty must be advocated, even as the moral responsibility of all of us, including the rulers and the powerful, cannot be ignored.