The Post-War ARP and Kuyper's Legacy

Abstract

Jose Casanova's central thesis in his well-known book Public Religions in the Modem World (1994) is that what we are witnessing is a global I deprivatization' of religion. Casanova uses this term to explain that 'religious traditions throughout the world are refusing to accept the marginal and privatized role which theories of modernity as well as theories of secularization had reserved for them.' From this and other literature it appears as though, as far as secularization is concerned, The Netherlands constitutes an exception in Western Europe, just as Western Europe forms the exception in the world.

In this chapter I will try to at least partially explain this remarkable phenomenon by giving an account of the history of the rise and fall of the Anti-Revolutionary Party (ARP). Before I describe the post World War II vicissitudes of the party, I will define Abraham Kuyper's original intent and his legacy in the 1920S and 1930s. Finally, by means of conclusion, I will briefly return to Casanova's thesis.