Why I, as a Christian, Support Forum for Democracy

Forum for Democracy does not present itself as a Christian party. So why would I, as a Christian, pass over parties such as the CDA, the Christian Union, and even the SGP, to give this party my vote and to be active within it? Below are a few fundamental considerations that, for me, have been decisive.

1. Since the Enlightenment, God Has Been Declared Dead

It is highly doubtful whether the spirit of the Enlightenment has truly passed the Church by.
Perhaps I exaggerate, but I sometimes fear that with the passing of Cornelis Graafland, we also lost the last Reformed believer still earnestly searching for God.

Today, the Church seems full of people who imagine they have God – reverently speaking – in their pocket, and who live from the prayer: “Thank you that I am not like those others…” From that mindset, they engage in politics – if necessary invoking the Old Testament (as in the SGP, where the prophets have been replaced by appeals to Romans 13) or the Gospels (as in the Christian Union, which places everything on the card of imitating Christ).

In fact, there is only one party that ruthlessly exposes such well-intentioned yet shallow political theology, and that is Forum for Democracy.

Too often, God is identified with the state. We ourselves are reduced to compliant citizens (as in the SGP and among CDA figures like Tijs van den Brink, who “want to be able to trust the government”). Others reduce God in Jesus to a kind of moral reformer whom we must simply emulate for the sake of harmony and social peace (as in the Christian Union and the CDA).

Forum for Democracy alone, I believe, tears through this kind of sentimental political theology.
My experience over recent years is that many within the party are again searching for the God behind Jesus – the God who cannot be identified with any state or supranational body: the God who was wrongly declared dead, the almighty and gracious Creator of heaven and earth.

2. The Tension Between Already and Not Yet

I called the political theology of much of today’s Christian politics shallow because it no longer seems able to sustain the essential Christian tension between the already and the not yet of redemption. Since God was declared dead, humanity has decided to take His creative work into its own hands, to perfect the world according to its own desires. Every supposed problem is immediately politicised, and responsibility for solving it is eagerly handed to supranational authorities.

What is especially striking is that this kind of politics is now supported by Christians – with only faint protest from the SGP.

We see Christians joining hands with secularists to bring about, once and for all, the Kingdom of God, or at least God’s realm of peace, here on earth.

This aspiration surfaces in many areas. In health, through Pandemic Treaties and mRNA vaccines, we seek to make the human body so resilient that viruses can no longer touch it. In climate policy, through Green Deals and energy transitions, we strive to become masters of the processes of climate change.

To preserve the sustainability of our welfare state, the UN now proposes, under the banner of Replacement Migration, policies that seem to undo the scattering of nations after the Tower of Babel. This is then facilitated here through the European Migration and Asylum Pact. And as if that were not enough, our politicians have also pledged themselves to the Sustainable Development Goals, promising to eradicate poverty and inequality once and for all.

Forum for Democracy recognises here – often intuitively, sometimes very consciously – a form of politics that runs counter to the foundations of our Judeo-Christian civilisation: the conviction that this earthly life cannot be perfected through human effort. A politics that seeks to establish God’s peaceable kingdom on earth must, therefore, be rejected as heretical.

Whether we speak of the heresy of Pelagianism (E.P. Meijering), Anabaptist radicalism (A.A. van Ruler), or Gnosticism (Eric Voegelin) makes little difference. All are driven by a pride that inevitably comes before the fall.

3. On Pride and Naivety

Is it really necessary to accuse today’s Christian politics of something as dreadful as pride? Personally, I always try to assume good intentions. Yet history has shown often enough that the road to hell is paved with them (F.A. Hayek).

This raises the question of whether, during the recent pandemic, the power of our God-given immune system was not seriously underestimated.

When, with the very best intentions, one is blind to the harmful side effects of one’s own policies, that is naivety. You can reproach secular people for that, but not believing Christians who still know their own tradition. And when such Christians dismiss prophetic voices that warn of these side effects as sinister populists, praying meanwhile, “Thank you that I am not like these…”, then that surely borders on pride.

As Christians, we must not close our eyes to the negative side effects – long predicted by critics – of government measures during the coronavirus period, including the universal vaccination campaign. Again, it is worth asking whether the strength of our Creator-given immune system was not systematically underestimated.

As a result of our climate policies, energy poverty has risen alarmingly. 
Grid congestion has compounded economic and social harm by limiting business activity and house-building. Meanwhile, scientists tell us that the effect of these measures on climate change is negligible, while we risk slowing the greening of our planet. A wiser course would be to combine our stewardship of creation with a deep awareness of our smallness before God and the natural forces He created, the forces we now group together under the word climate.

Nor should we ignore the negative effects of current migration policy. The alienation many migrants feel, with all the risks of radicalisation among second and third generations, remains underestimated. Beyond the social disruption in local communities, public safety is also deteriorating, particularly for women and for sexual and ethnic minorities in large cities. The same applies to tolerance and to the mutual trust on which it depends.

What I encounter within Forum for Democracy are people suffering from the emptiness that the “death of God” has left in our everyday lives.

Even when it comes to the negative consequences of well-intentioned policy, Forum for Democracy is the party that most consistently identifies them and puts forward alternatives.

What I see in Forum are people who feel the ache of that void – who are again searching for the God once recognised as the source of life and the guiding point of our civilisation. 

At the same time, they see a politics that seeks to fill this emptiness by claiming for itself the role once reserved for God before the Enlightenment. Where that leads, the European and world wars have already shown us all too clearly.

Yet the allure of a politics that aims to establish God’s kingdom of peace on earth remains strong. Within Forum there is a deep mistrust of such politics. That mistrust leads the party, for now, to prefer a stance of principled opposition, continually questioning the worldview that underpins the present political order.

It is tragic that parties which so often invoke the Bible and call for the imitation of Jesus no longer seem to have any sensitivity to this. More tragic still: they frequently display the same impulse to demonise as secular parties. But as with so much else, you only begin to see it once you realise it.

That is why I can, with a clear conscience and full conviction, be active within Forum for Democracy.