Dutch Christianity values and norms in the past, present & future?
“I think you can no longer say that the Netherlands is still a Christian nation in the way we knew it to be in the past. But even if no one goes to church any more this doesn’t mean you have washed away the Christian roots just like that. In that sense we remain a Christian land.”
Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende made this statement in a recent interview with the NRC newspaper, but was this the Wisdom of Solomon or typical political double-speak?
What exactly was the former professor of “Christian social thought” and leader of the ruling Christian Democrat CDA in the Netherlands referring to when he talked about “Christian roots”?
Was he talking about the belief the world was created by an omnipotent being whose only son was incarnated as a man and died on a crucifix in Jerusalem about two thousand years ago?
Or did he mean Jesus Christ’s message of love, charity and forgiveness as brought to us by the Bible?
One could make the case that Dutch people in general accept the wisdom of numbers 6 and 8 of the 10 commandments. Who could argue with “Thou shalt not kill” and “Thou shalt not steal”?
But do you have to be a Christian to accept the sense of not killing and stealing indiscriminately?
Read the rest of Balkenende’s advocacy of values and norms at Expatica.
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