Home
/
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
/
What Kuyper Can Teach Us About Trump and the ‘Third Temptation’
What Kuyper Can Teach Us About Trump and the ‘Third Temptation’
Jul 6, 2025 5:46 PM

Liberty University president Jerry Falwell Jr. recently stirred up a bit of hubbub over his endorsement of Donald Trump, praising the billionaire presidential candidateas a “servant leader” who “lives a life of helping others, as Jesus taught.”

For many evangelicals, the disconnect behind such a statement is more than a bit palpable. Thus, the critiques and dissents ensued, pointing mostly to fortable co-opting of Trump’s haphazard political proposals with Christian witness.

As Russell Moore put it:

Politics driving the gospel rather than the other way around is the third temptation of Christ. He overcame it. Will we?

— Russell Moore (@drmoore) January 18, 2016

Richard Muow picks up on this same point over at First Things, noting that this “third temptation” has lured many Christians throughout church history, and was aptly warned against by Abraham Kuyper, the great Dutch statesmen and theologian.

Himself a Calvinist, Kuyper traced many of these errors within his own tradition, though concluding that the proper esfrom within Calvinism’s own theological resources.

As Mouw explains:

In tension with the practices and events that Kuyper deplores, he holds up an underlying Calvinist celebration of the liberty of the individual conscience—a theme clearly on display, he observes, in the way “our Calvinistic Theologians and jurists have defended the liberty of conscience against the Inquisition.” Indeed, Kuyper argues, it was the genius of Calvinism to oppose the French Revolution’s corrupt notion of individual liberty as the freedom “for every Christianto agree with the unbelieving majority” in favor of the kind of liberty, as Calvinism eventually came to endorse explicitly, “which enables every man to serve Godaccording to his own conviction and the dictates of his own heart.”

This healthy understanding of liberty was put on display in a special way, says Kuyper, under Calvinism’s influence in the Netherlands. “There,” he observes, “the Jews were hospitably received; there the Lutherans were in honor; there the Mennonites flourished; and even the Arminians and Roman Catholics were permitted the free exercise of their religion at home and in secluded churches.”

Or, as Kuyper himself put itin his 1879 political manifesto,Our Program(now available from Lexham Pressin partnership with the Acton Institute):

The mission of our republic was to use its armies and fleets and mercial influence to protect the free course of the gospel throughout Europe and other continents and to safeguard the free course of the gospel at home in accordance with freedom of conscience for everyone.

The inspiring ideal of our nation at that time was civil liberty, not as a goal in itself but as the vehicle and consequence of that much higher liberty that is owed to men’s conscience.

And so people knew what they lived for; they knew the purpose of their existence. They believed, they prayed, they gave thanks. And blessings were plentiful: the country enjoyed prosperity, happiness, and peace.

William of Orange was the spiritual father from whom this type grew and who preserved it from those excesses of the left and of the right that led similar efforts in Westminster and New England to such totally different es…The motto Hac nitimur, hanc tuemur — leaning on the power of God in his holy Word and deeming liberty a priceless good — was a marvelous and meaningful expression. When struck on coins it was a cautionary reminder for a trading nation that this treasure of Orange was to be deemed of greater value than all the spices from the Orient.

Evangelicals are right to seek a political order that “protects Christianity,” if by this we mean the protection ofa robust religious liberty that spans religions and dogmas, reinforcing abroader flourishing of society from the bottom up.

But this e from the Trumpian definition, wherein Christians are another disaffectedinterestgroup, primed for poisonous identity politics that seeks power and privilege as both its means and ends.Whatever visions of “greatness” Trumppromotes along the way — generic, libertine, or otherwise — Christians must be wary ofswallowing the bait.

As Mouw concludes, “The religious freedom we long for has e as part of a larger movement for justice that generates a prehensive vision for a pluralistic society.”

For more on Kuyper’s contribution to Christian social thought, see Our Program and the rest of his Collected Works in Public TheologyfromLexham Press.

Comments
Welcome to mreligion comments! Please keep conversations courteous and on-topic. To fosterproductive and respectful conversations, you may see comments from our Community Managers.
Sign up to post
Sort by
Show More Comments
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
Original Sin
Headline: It’s a Sin to Fly, Says Church Actually, "It’s a Sin to Fly, Screams Headline" would be more appropriate. Here’s what the Church (or rather, the Bishop of London) actually says: “Making selfish choices such as flying on holiday or buying a large car are a symptom of sin. Sin is not just a restricted list of moral mistakes. It is living a life turned in on itself where people ignore the consequences of their actions.” I think there’s...
Connect the Energy Dots…
Today’s NYT editorializes: “a country that consumes one-quarter of the world’s oil supply while holding only 3 percent of the reserves will never be able to drill its way to lower oil prices, much less oil independence.” You’ll often hear plaint that Americans use more than their fair share of the world’s oil. We’re addicted to it, some say. After all, so goes the reasoning, we have less than one-half of one percent of the world’s population, but we “consume...
More on Secularism and Universities
Just a brief note addition to Kevin’s post: the free article from May’s Touchstone magazine is Terence O. Moore’s feature, “Not Harvard Bound.” A key quote: The elite schools no mand the reverence and deference of red-state America. The parents and students of “flyover country” are starting to put their money where their morals are or where they believe truth is. There’s a discussion of Moore’s article at Touchstone‘s reader discussion site, Treaders. HT: Mere Comments ...
Potty-Mouthed President
The amount of media attention over the past week’s devoted to President Bush’s utterance of a “naughty” word has been incredible. Maureen Dowd uses it as just one more bit of proof supporting her depiction of the president as a frat-boy, who “has enshrined his immaturity and insularity, turning every environment he inhabits — no matter how decorous or serious — into fortable frat house.” She writes, “No matter what the trappings or the ceremonies require of the leader of...
Beyond Black and White: New Realities of Race In America – BUMPED: Video now available
Anthony Bradley delivers his remarks last Wednesday The 2006 Acton Lecture Series continued today with Anthony Bradley’s presentation of Beyond Black and White: New Realities of Race In America. Mr. Bradley is an Acton research fellow and assistant professor of Apologetics and Systematic Theology at Covenant Theological Seminary in St. Louis, Missouri. His lecture describes the new market trends which reflect the changing demographics in America. With a decline in population amongst whites, a stagnated black population, and the ever-increasing...
Seek Dignity? Then, “You Gotta Shake Your MoneyMaker”
The Super MoneyMaker Pressure Pump No, we’re not talking about Elmore James’ Blues hit covered by the likes of George Thorogood, Fleetwood Mac and The Black Crowes nor its racy subject matter. Rather, it’s how members of the other oldest profession in Kenya and Tanzania power the irrigation pumps that extend both their growing season and range of crops. This foot-powered move beyond subsistence farming to much more profitable harvests, such as vegetables, is facilitated by the aptly named MoneyMaker series...
Environmental News Roundup
Juliet Eilperin, “Bush Pollution Curbs Are Rated Equal to Clinton’s: Science Panel Says Proposed Cap-and-Trade System Will Help Clean Air,” Washington Post, July 24, 2006: The report from the National Academy of Sciences, released yesterday, represents the latest effort to assess how best to reduce air pollution estimated to cause as many as 24,000 premature deaths each year. The panel concluded that an earlier Bush plan would have allowed pollution to increase over a dozen years, but it found that...
Secular Universities in Decline?
In his New York Times column this week, Peter Steinfels has an insightful analysis of an intriguing and provocative new book by C. John Sommerville, The Decline of the Secular University. Those who study the history of American academia are familiar with the story of the secularization of universities as recounted expertly by Christian scholars such as George Marsden (The Soul of the American University) and James Burtchaell (The Dying of the Light), who decry the shunting of religion from...
Taking Games Seriously
An article in yesterday’s NYT, “Saving the World, One Video Game at a Time,” by Clive Thompson, gives a good overview of the current trend in the video game industry, especially by nonprofits and activist groups, to create “serious games,” a movement which “has some serious brain power behind it. It is a partnership between advocates and nonprofit groups that are searching for new ways to reach young people, and tech-savvy academics keen to explore video games’ educational potential.” “What...
Federal Funding for the Humanities
Hunter Baker, blogging at his new home on the American Spectator Blog (recently added to our blogroll), responds to a post by James G. Poulos, which emphasizes President Bush’s “proposed emphasis on math and science education, to the patent detriment of the humanities.” Says Baker, “Although I am a faithful disciple of the humanities, I often fort in the fact that the majority of students won’t have much exposure to the offerings on hand. Better they remain busy with their...
Related Classification
Copyright 2023-2025 - www.mreligion.com All Rights Reserved