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Politics, Society, and Law

From the sixteenth century, the Reformed movement was committed to a programme of social reform in which church and civil authorities worked together in partnership not only in the cause of ecclesiastical reform but with a view to establishing a ‘godly society’ in accordance with the Word of God. Sanctification thus extended to the entire social order, often through appeal to Old Testament ideals and the concept of ‘covenant’. This chapter explores that programme with reference to its democratic impulses, political criticism and concerns for a just legal and economic order. Within the later context of modernity, the Reformed reception of human rights, nationalism, and religious toleration is examined. Finally, the twentieth-century contributions of Abraham Kuyper and Karl Barth are assessed with respect to their relevance for contemporary Reformed social thought.