Abraham Kuyper

Chronological biography

1837 - October 29th: Abraham Kuyper was born with Maassluis in Holland-Southerner
1855 - 1862: With the University of Leyde, it makes studies of Théologie and traditional letters.
1862 - Kuyper is promoted Doctor of Divinity.
1863 - July 1st: Marriage with Johanna Hendrika Schaaij.
1863 - It is named Pasteur with Beesd (Gueldre).
1867 - He becomes Pasteur with Utrecht.
1870 - He becomes Pasteur with Amsterdam.
1872 - It founds the daily newspaper De Standaard, of which there remained editor association until in 1920.
1874 - He is elected appointed Lower House for the anti-revolutionists.
1877 - It leaves the Lower House.
1878 - He plays a big role in the protests against the law on the schools of Jan Kappeyne van of Coppello and like support of private education.
1879 - It founds the Anti-Revolutionist Partij ( Parti anti-revolutionist ).
1880 - It founds the free Université of Amsterdam.
1886 - It is with the head of a movement (the Doleantie ) which is detached from the Nederlands Hervormde Kerk . This movement is at the origin of the creation of the Gereformeerde Kerken in Nederland .
1894 - He is again elected appointed in the Lower House.
1901 - With the elections, the ARP beats the catholics and the liberals. Kuyper becomes President of the Council and form the Cabinet-Kuyper.
1903 - Its cabinet must face the massive strikes of the railroads.
1905 - the line loses the elections; Kuyper will not turn over any more in the Parliament.
1920 - November 8th: Died of Kuyper; it is buried in $the Hague.

Kuyper and the Church

Kuyper, wire of Pasteur, was born in Maassluis. He studied the traditional theology and languages at the university of Leyde, where he passed his doctorate in his twenty-fourth year. In its come-fifth year, it Maria and was named in Beesd (Betuwe).

During its studies, Abraham Kuyper is formed, according to the use in the middle of the nineteenth century, to be liberal Pasteur .

However, during its pastorate with Beesd, Kuyper came into contact with the orthodoxe religious community. Under the influence of his wife, it was their guide and their representative, and it remained it after its nomination in Amsterdam. It devoted the remainder of its life to the emancipation of these people and their design of the faith via the creation of a Church, a newspaper, a university, of a political party, because it realized that the orthodoxe convictions were not in agreement with the reformed Church Dutchwoman ( Nederlandse Hervormde Kerk ), whose confession and doctrines were modern and liberal.

Its dissension with the liberal designs of the Nederlandse Hervormde Kerk caused a schism in 1886 when Kuyper, after it was suspended because of its ideas on the administration of the Church, founded with few tens of partisans the Gereformeerde Kerk . A great number of people joined this Church well quickly. The foundation of the Church is known under the name of Doleantie , according to Latin dolere : “to complain, sadden themselves”. The goal of this new Church was to return to the rules of the Dordtse Kerkorde of 1619 when the organization connected with the church and the confession of faith are again decided by the autonomous parochial communities and then by the whole of the believers and either by a regular central authority and, according to it, too liberal. (...) The kleine luyden are tradesmen, farmers and civils servant, bases traditional today still HALF-VALUE LAYER, in which the ARP was absorbed with the CHU and the KVP in 1980.

Kuyper and the woman

In Antirevolutionair ook in uw Huisgezin ( Anti-revolutionist, until in your household ), Kuyper launches a call of awakening with the Christian families : “ the households (...), where the woman took the first place, and where her husband plays a subordinate part, are inclined with the sin ”. Kuyper leaves a margin of exception for the cases where nature itself posed fuzzy and not very clear borders “ ”, where “ the woman was masculinisée and the man feminized ”.

However, the general rule according to Kuyper is that the man, “ that it is strong or weak ”, is “ King in his house ”. And: “ a man who leaves the role of the household head to the woman is a loose and unworthy man to be a man. ” Once and for all and without any doubt, Kuyper affirms that “ the will the woman must be submitted to the man” and that “the authority of the household falls to the man. ”

And Kuyper to conclude: “ Even if the woman is rather happy to have a man, who is higher to him in all the aspects, and which, moreover, is nice with it, it owes him any obedience nevertheless. ”

However, contrary to much of its contemporaries, Kuyper granted a touching Right to vote with the women in the businesses with the religion, and it was of opinion that the unmarried widows and women should also obtain the political right to vote.

Kuyper and the policy

Kuyper had been Pasteur in Amsterdam for 4 years, when he was elected appointed Lower House in 1874. It was close to the ideas of Groen van Prinsterer and Keuchenius. In 1877, it left the Room, to return only 7 years there later, in 1894.

Until the medium of second half of the 19th century, the Netherlands did not know any Political party with an national organization. Each Circonscription counted associations of voters of liberal signature , preserving, catholic or anti-revolutionist. In 1879, Kuyper founded the first political party: the Anti-Revolutionist Partij ( ARP ). This party adapted and organized the Protestant thought , present in the Dutch company in a latent way since the beginning of the XIXe century. By the name of its party and its political program, Kuyper explicitly distancié of the French revolution, born from the Age of Enlightenment and which stressed the sovereignty of the people. For this reason, politicians as Kuyper were called the Anti-revolutionists . The partisans of the ARP strongly supported the Monarchie and defended the colonies and the territories of the the Eastern Indies Dutchwomen, under the pretext of be the Serviteurs of God . The newspaper De Standaard, been based by Kuyper at the same time, was closely related to the ARP.

The position of Kuyper as for the social life

Its point of view on the social life, it again gives it to us in Antirevolutionair óók in uw huisgezin , that it made appear in 1880 in weekly articles of the Standard , the body of the Gereformeerde Kerk . It affirms there the importance to consider the domestic family life for the social life.

In an achieved family, which developed normally, five type of relations would be necessary always and everywhere : that between the parents and the children; that between the man and the woman; that between the brothers and the sisters; that between that which are been useful and that which is useful and finally that between (oneself and others?).

Relation with the father would come: the respect for the authority and the will of justice; relation with the mother: the desire of a more tender life; marital bond between the man and the woman: mutual confidence, the consideration and comprehension mutual insurance companies; relation between brothers and sisters: freedom, equality and fraternity; relation between those which are been useful and those which are useful: domesticity.

Kuyper and workmen

In 1889, it made appear Handenarbeid (“manual work”). It affirms there that the dissatisfaction with the workmen is a danger to be taken into account for the safety of the social life. It invites the workmen there to learn how to be satisfied with little.

In 1891, it made the opening speech of the congress of the Christian trade-union organistion Patrimonium. It invited the workmen present there to give up the improvement of their fate and the place, to put at before plan the eternal life.

Kuyper broke in 1903 the strike of the dockers and the railwaymen with its worgwetten (“Laws of throttling” (?)). It made political conflict a question of authority. He condemned the strike like a politically revolutionary, anarchistic action and like a “criminal movement”; he returned any pressure on the " breakers of grève" liable to criminal prosecutions. There were then indeed strikers who went in prison for a certain time. It is only in 1980 that the prohibition of strike for the civils servant and the employees of the rail was raised.

With the government

In 1901, the elections are gained by the coalition of the antirévolutionnaires and the catholics of Schaepman. Kuyper trained a cabinet of eight ministers and allotted the ministry for the interior.

The social legislation, which had developed under the government Pierson, more or less stopped after 1901. It was not especially because of the ministers, but of the conservative De Savornin Lohman, whose support for the government was necessary.

The dissension par excellence of the denominational parties, the equality of particular teaching, was also not proposed. Kuyper, of which all this depended on its wallet, was called ironically in the press “the Minister for the voyages abroad”. And indeed the Prime Minister eclipsed his weak Foreign Minister. Kuyper, become even more hostile in the United Kingdom at the time of the second War of Boers, was suspected of preparing an alliance with Germany. It however never was until there because of the strict neutrality of the queen Wilhelmine.

In 1905, the coalition lost the elections vis-a-vis the liberals. The Kuyper government is at the origin of an important innovation: the “ethical policy” in the the Eastern Indies Dutchwomen.

External bonds

Abraham Kuyper (1837-1920)

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