Bavinck on the Church’s Political Task

Introduction

How did Herman Bavinck view the church’s political task?^[1] In his Reformed Ethics manuscript, now becoming available in English (Bavinck 2019, 2021),^[2] Bavinck indicated a planned chapter on the state but left no hints about the intended content. As a result, his view of the state must for the most part be drawn from essays on related subjects such as “The Problem of War” (Bavinck 1914),^[3] “The Imitation of Christ and Life in the Modern World” (Bavinck 2013), “Ethics and Politics” (Bavinck 2008b), and “The League of Nations” (Bavinck 1919).

Another crucial source comes from the report of deputies to the 1905 Synod of the Gereformeerde Kerken in Nederland (GKN) giving advice concerning an important clause in Article 36 of the Belgic Confession (Bavinck et al. 1905).^[4] Bavinck himself, along with seven other delegates to the 1896 GKN Synod at Middelburg had declared a gravamen (objection) to the clause in Article 36 that called for the government to “uphold the sacred ministry, with a view to removing and destroying all idolatry and false worship of the Antichrist.” Bavinck was appointed to the committee of deputies commissioned to study the matter and was one of the authors of its final report. After studying the issue carefully, the deputies concluded that the gravamen against the clause in Article 36 was valid: “On these grounds, your deputies advise you to declare that the gravamen of the aggrieved brothers against the specified clause in the Confession is grounded and to take such measures as are necessary to assuage their consciences” (Bavinck et al. 1905, 46). In response, the deputies considered the options of amending the article or adding an explanatory footnote to it but ruled these out and recommended that the clause be deleted: “Removal of the designated words appears to your deputies to be the most advisable” (Bavinck et al. 1905, 49). And that is what the synod did.^[5]

With this we have Bavinck’s considered opinion, along with other Neocalvinists of his time, about what the church should not ask of the state. That leaves the question: Did Bavinck ever state positively how the church should bear testimony to the state? He does, and in fact actually briefly outlines his views in part as an interpretation of Article 36, four years before the GKN dealt with the article at its synod in Utrecht.^[6] He wrote a brief column published in the weekly journal De Bazuin (The Trumpet), which billed itself as “Voices from Reformed Churches [Gereformeerde Kerken] in the Netherlands” (Bavinck 1901, 2).^[7] The occasion for Bavinck’s column was a series of articles in another ecclesiastical journal, De Gereformeerde Kerk, by a member of the Dutch House of Representatives, the Second Chamber of parliament, Jan Schokking, who was a also a member and former pastor of the national Dutch Reformed Church (Nederlandse Hervormde Kerk). Schokking’s articles were a commentary on the Dutch election of 1901 which led to Abraham Kuyper becoming prime minister of the Netherlands. His articles specifically considered “the outcome of these elections in connection with the church,” as Bavinck put it (1901, 2).

Church and Politics

Bavinck writes:^[8]

Naturally Mr. Schokking joins with all Christians in the land in the highest joy about this outcome of this election.^[9] But he also warns, equally correctly, against excessive expectations. We ought not to imagine, he says, that now there will immediately arise a Christian political science, because neither a majority of right-leaning deputies in the chamber nor even a cabinet formed by deputies from this side would be sufficient. Before we can speak about Christian political science^[10] in a true and full sense, something quite different and more must happen. This requires a fully Christian form of government, legislation, jurisprudence, and administration.

No one knows whether this can be achieved in our fatherland; only the future will tell. If it comes to that, then in any case a healthy, energetic church is necessary to accomplish this. Because any Christian political science is unsustainable in the long run, unless it is supported^[11] by a Christian church—which is not to say it should be led by or driven by the church. The calling to declare Christian principles and via confession, preaching, and discipline have them be acknowledged is entrusted to the church.

This is definitely true.^[12] Societies, corporations and organizations, no matter how good, necessary, and useful, have their moments, they rise and disappear, they flower and fade. The church, however, endures from generation to generation and outlives all societies and corporations. Furthermore, she has received from the Lord the calling, the competence, and the ability to declare the Christian principles and confess them before the ear of the world. These principles are not restricted to those that concern the church and theology, but include those that concern the broader terrain of human life in its totality and therefore also the state.

Of course, we are speaking of principles, not platforms, not even platforms of principles, and even less so about political action or urgency. Instead, we have in mind Christian principles, derived from God’s Word, principles that are valid for political life now and for all time.

This is what the Reformed churches did in Article 36 of their Confession. They confess here not what is nor what can be, but what ought to be according to the Word of the Lord, according to the requirement of his commandment.

It is an altogether different question whether this confession is correct in all aspects.^[13] Nonetheless, the calling of the church remains the same to this day. She must declare the Christian principles that are valid, also for the state. Her confession is not a temporary platform but a sum total of unchangeable truths, unchangeable because they are grounded in God’s Word.^[14]

That is why it is absolutely true that a Christian political science not supported by a Christian church is unsustainable in the long term. Mr. Schokking directs these words in the first place to his Hervormde brothers. But they are valid also for us.