Guillaume Groen van Prinsterer (21 August 1801 – 19 May 1876), was a Dutch politician and historian; he was born in Voorburg, near The Hague.

Overview

Groen is a Dutch historical icon. He was an educated and devout man of the Dutch middle class (his father, Petrus Jacobus Groen van Prinsterer, was a physician). Being a devout Christian, he never left the Dutch Reformed Church, the state church of the Netherlands and of its Royal Family, in spite of its sorry state, in his view. Being a gentleman, he mingled in aristocratic circles, while also coming under the influence and then leading the evangelical renewal movement thriving at the time (the European Continental counterpart to the Second Great Awakening), known in the Netherlands as the '' Réveil''. He studied at

Leiden University Leiden University (abbreviated as ''LEI''; nl, Universiteit Leiden) is a Public university, public research university in Leiden, Netherlands. The university was founded as a Protestant university in 1575 by William the Silent, William, Prince o ...

, and graduated in 1823 both as doctor of literature and

LLD Legum Doctor (Latin: “teacher of the laws”) (LL.D.) or, in English, Doctor of Laws, is a doctorate-level academic degree in law or an honorary degree, depending on the jurisdiction. The double “L” in the abbreviation#Plural forms, abbrev ...

. From 1829 to 1833 he acted as secretary to William II of the Netherlands and during this time attended Brussels Protestant Church under pastor Merle d'Aubigné. Afterwards he took a prominent part in Dutch home politics, and gradually became the leader of the Anti-Revolutionary Party, both in the Second Chamber of parliament, of which he was a member for many years, and as a political writer. In Groen, the doctrines of Guizot and

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found an eloquent exponent. They permeate his controversial and political writings and historical studies, of which his ''Handbook of Dutch History'' (in Dutch) and ''Maurice et Barnevelt'' (in French, 1875, a criticism of

Motley Motley is the traditional costume of the court jester, the motley fool, or the arlecchino character in ''commedia dell'arte''. The harlequin wears a patchwork of red, green and blue diamonds that is still a fashion motif. The word ''motley'' i ...

's ''Life of Van Olden-Barnevelt'') are the main works. Groen was ardently opposed to Thorbecke, whose principles he denounced as ungodly and revolutionary, i.e. inspired by the French Revolution. Although Groen lived to see these principles triumph in the constitutional reforms implemented by Thorbecke, he never ceased to oppose them until his death in 1876.

Publications

By the time the revolutionary movement in Europe had begun to break out in various cities, the monarchist and restorationist secretary to the Dutch king began lecturing on the spiritual-political crisis of the Continent. Groen also was ready to publish. He had begun to do so with his ''Overview'' of 1831, his ''Essay on Truth'' of 1834, a manuscript harder to date precisely but entitled ''Studies on the revolution'', his ''Prolegomena'' of 1847 (the following year Karl Marx issued the ''

Communist Manifesto ''The Communist Manifesto'', originally the ''Manifesto of the Communist Party'' (german: Manifest der Kommunistischen Partei), is a political pamphlet written by German philosophers Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Commissioned by the Comm ...

''). Groen's most influential work ''Lectures on Unbelief and Revolution'' appeared in an initial edition in 1847, and then a revised edition of 1868; there were subsequent editions as well. In time he founded an intellectual Christian political circle among the upper classes, through which Groen tried to teach the political responsibility of such people. He also founded a newspaper. He is best known as the editor of the ''Archives et correspondence de la maison d'Orange'' (12 vols, 1835-1845), a great work of patient erudition, which procured for him the title of the Dutch Gachard. John L. Motley acknowledges his indebtedness to Groen's ''Archives'' in the preface to his ''Rise of the Dutch Republic'', at a time when the American historian had not yet made the acquaintance of King William's archivist, and also bore emphatic testimony to Groen's worth as a writer of history in the correspondence published after his death. At the first reception, in 1858, of Motley at the royal palace at the Hague, the king presented him with a copy of Groen's ''Archives'' as a token of appreciation and admiration of the work done by the worthy vindicator of William I, prince of Orange. This copy, bearing the king's autograph inscription, afterwards came into the possession of Sir William Vernon Harcourt, Motley's son-in-law.

Thoughts

The translator of the Dutch political thought and influence of Groen, Harry Van Dyke, has summarized Groen's mature view in this way:

"We are living in a condition of permanent revolution... revolutions are here to stay and will grow much worse in scope and intensity unless men can be persuaded to return to Christianity, to practise its precepts and to obey the Gospel in its full implications for human life and civilized society. Barring such a revival, the future would belong to socialism and communism, which on this view were but the most consistent sects of the new secular religion. To Groen, therefore, the political spectrum that presented itself to his generation offered no meaningful choice. "In terms of his analysis, the 'radical left' was composed of fanatical believers in the godless
ideology An ideology is a set of beliefs or philosophies attributed to a person or group of persons, especially those held for reasons that are not purely epistemic, in which "practical elements are as prominent as theoretical ones." Formerly applied pri ...
; the 'liberal centre,' by comparison, by warm believers who warned against excesses and preached moderation; while the 'conservative right' embraced all those who lacked either the insight, the prudence, or the will to break with the modern tenets yet who recoiled from the consequences whenever the ideology was practised and implemented in any consistent way. None of the shades or 'nuances of secular liberalism represented a valid option for Christian citizens." Groen called for a rejection of the entire available spectrum of political positions, calling for a "radical alternative in politics, along anti-revolutionary, Christian-historical lines".

The South African scholar Jan Adriaan Schlebusch describes the basic theme of Groen's anti-revolutionary theory as follows:

"The dichotomy of revolution or rebellion against God on the one hand and faith in God on the other, was one that Groen believed to be ever-present throughout history. Groen therefore also understood this epistemic Revolution to be opposed to history, i.e. the divinely-ordained cosmic-historic telos of evangelistic progress and the glorification of the Lordship of Christ ... ‘Revolution’ for Groen was ultimately a denial of the sovereignty of God in favor of the sovereignty of mankind, with the ‘revolutionary’ ideas of the Enlightenment being the fruits of a rationalist religion wrongly elevating man-made abstractions as truths supreme over the revelation of God. This epistemic perspective shaped his political theory and engagement. Groen argued that the Revolution, not only as a historical-political phenomenon, but as a historical-philosophical development, amounted to an anti-Christian infringement upon the natural rights, established socio-political relationships, and justice system rooted in a divinely-ordained social order. Therefore the anti-revolutionary or Christian-historical position entailed opposing this epistemic Revolution as a path doomed to social disaster and political tyranny."Schlebusch, Jan A. "Democrat or traditionalist? The epistemology behind Groen van Prinsterer’s notion of political authority" in ''Journal for Christian Scholarship'' 56(3-4)
2020, pp. 120-121.

Works in English translation

* ''Unbelief and Revolution: A Series of Lectures in History''. Amsterdam: Groen van Prinsterer Fund, 1973-1975. * ''The History of the Revolution in its First Phase''. Amsterdam: Groen van Prinsterer Fund, 1978. * ''Christian Political Action in an Age of Revolution''. Translated by Collin Wright. Aalten, the Netherlands: WordBridge Publishing, 2015.

References

External links