Talk:Sphere sovereignty

History section
This section is so bad that I think it must be taken away straight away. But what to replace it with?

Commentary:

''Sphere sovereignty is an alternative to the worldviews of ecclesiasticism and secularism (especially in its Statist form). During the Middle Ages, a form of Papal Monarchy assumed that God rules over the world through the Church.''

Ecclestiasticism isnt even a wiki-concept. And a "Papal monarchy assumed that God rules over the world through the church" is a deeply ahistorical thing. The pope held temporal monarchichal power in the Papal State; nowhere else.

''Ecclesiasticism was widely evident in the arts. Religious themes were encouraged by art's primary patron, the Church.''

Ehhh?? Religious art is a symbol of this ecclesiasticism thing. Then almost all Western Art from all ages are ecclestiasticism.

Similarly, the politics in the Middle Ages often consisted of political leaders doing as the Church instructed.

Investiture Controversy? The anti-popes of Avignon and Rome?

In both economic guilds and agriculture the Church supervised.

The guilds was of course ruled by themselves, their masters, and not the Church. That the Church should have ruled every single farm is just ridicolus.

In the family sphere, the Church regulated family procreation, sexual positions, sexuality, and infidelity.

That the Catholic Church claims authority over questions of morality (and faith) is correct which makes this statment correct. But how does it differs from other denominations; say protestantism? Do protestants think "everything goes" when it comes to sexuality? That the Bible etc. does not hold authority in this aspect because of "sphere soverignity"?

In the educational sphere, several universities were founded by religious orders.

Which proves?

''During the Renaissance, the rise of a secularist worldview accompanied the emergence of a wealthy merchant class. Some merchants became patrons of the arts, independent of the Church.''

Correct.

Protestantism later made civil government, the arts, family, education, and economics officially free from ecclesiastical control.

Eh? Civil government was never under Church control (excpect in the Papal State.) Arts, family, education and economics was completly subordinated to the State after the Reformation.

While Protestantism maintained a full-orbed or holistically religious view of life as distinguished from an ecclesiasticism, the later secular Enlightenment sought to rid society of religion entirely.

This ecclesiasticism has never existed! In a traditional catholic state civil power (war, tax) was vested in the king and religious power (faith, moral) in the church. In a traditional protestant state civil and religius power was veste in the king. No spehere Sphere soverignity at all! Even less than in the catholic states where a polarity between state and church exists! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.1.38.7 (talk) 22:46, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

Pillarization
I do not think sphere sovereignty as a philosophical concept can be equated to pillarisation. – Kaihsu 14:04, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

I am not sure that pillarization is a necessity for sphere sovereignty. – Kaihsu 13:52, 21 July 2006 (UTC)
 * If a country has multiple religions within its borders, yes this will certainly result in pillarizatio. --C mon 15:50, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

I am not so sure. Having read quite a lot of Herman Dooyeweerd, I have never seen him talking about pillarization, let alone that it being a necessary configuration (him being Dutch, if he had thought so, he would have said it). In my own thoughts, I also do not think pillarization is a necessary result of sphere sovereignty even in a multi-confessional society. – Kaihsu 17:02, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Readings
http://www.acton.org/publicat/m_and_m/2002_spring/heslam.html

Peter S. Heslam (Spring 2002) Prophet of a Third Way: The Shape of Kuyper's Socio-Political Vision. J. Markets Morality 5(1). "Now, the founding and development of such ideologically based institutions as the Free University is generally taken as evidence for the emergence of verzuiling. It would therefore seem reasonable to assume, along with most commentators, that Kuyper’s doctrine of sphere sovereignty lay at the foundation of verzuiling. There is, however, no necessary theoretical connection between sphere sovereignty and verzuiling. Sphere sovereignty is chiefly concerned with the existence of social spheres such as the family, education, business, and the church, whereas verzuiling was a phenomenon involving the arrangement of ideological groupings in society, such as Catholic, Protestant, Liberal, and Socialist. Indeed, it could be argued that if Dutch society had been of a more “homogenous” nature—rather than manifesting a roughly tripartite ideological divide between Catholics, Protestants, and Humanists—sphere sovereignty would still have been practicable whereas verzuiling would not have been necessary."

Also see:

Lew Daly (2005-04/05) Compassion Capital: Bush’s faith-based initiative is bigger than you think. Boston Review 30(2). http://bostonreview.net/BR30.2/daly.html

Markha Valenta (2006-02-09) Facing up to Islam in the Netherlands. OpenDemocracy. http://www.opendemocracy.net/debates/article.jsp?id=5&debateId=57&articleId=3253

Theodore Plantinga (2006-06) The Reformational Movement: Technology and Verzuiling. Myodicy. http://www.redeemer.on.ca/~tplant/m/MDL.HTM

– Kaihsu 17:40, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

Christian Democratic
I'm confused as to what this political philosophy has to do with christian democracy? Also, the origins of it having to do with cchristianity seems dubious to me. Hasn't this perspective (in some form) pre-existed christianity? Could someone give a citation for that, or at least explain it for my benefit? It sees more likely to me that the concept is of humanistic origin.

"Sphere sovereignty is based on the Christian religious confession concerning creation. In this view God has created the different spheres of family, church, state, and all the other forms of organized social life developing in history."

Atom 20:55, 18 September 2006 (UTC)


 * The term was invented by a dutch neo-calvninist orthodox protestant christian theologist and politician Abraham Kuyper, who founded one of the first christian democratic parties, because of this concept. It was based on his view of how god created the world: in multiple social spheres each sovereign by itsself. This interpretation of the division between church and state is based on the bible (Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's; and unto God the things that are God's. Matthew 22, 15-21). I don't understand how this could be pre-christian at all C mon 21:37, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

A Minor Edit That Grew & Grew
Hi, I am a complete layperson who stumbled across this page while looking into Christian Democratic parties. I noticed several errors of syntax and word usage. Possibly because of translation issues? Anyway, I took the liberty of fixing some of them and also added several wiki links.

There were a few places where the average lay person, such as me, could use some citations. Saying the church "ruled" areas like government and farming is a fairly strong statement, and could use a reference, or at least some elaboration and examples. Also, in the third paragraph of "Historical Background" I was simply confused. Are the authors saying that Protestantism arose due to secularism exclusively rather than due to a combination of factors, including secularism, urbanization, class mobility, wider literacy and pre-existing religious dissent? Is it the authors' opinion that Calvin, Zwingli, Luther and the rest of that bunch were secularists? If so, some citations would be helpful. Also, the last sentence of the paragraph simply does not make sense. It looks as if there is a word missing: "...the secularist model, which moved to free up ???? from any Church influence." That part could still use some cleaning up.

Also, throughout the article, it is not clear when the term "Church" refers specifically to the Roman Catholic Church and when it refers to a given ecclesiatical body, such as the Dutch Reformed or German Evangelicals. I am not, however, familiar enough with this subject to make that distinction clearer. Maybe it is clear to someone more conversant in European religious history?

If I have stepped on any toes with this edit, I apologize.Nosimplehiway--Nosimplehiway 17:52, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Ecclesiasticism word change
Hi everyone,

I am suggesting that all instances of "Ecclesiasticism" be changed into "clericalism" or "integralism". The reason that I have suggested this is because that the context in which ecceles- is used in this article is an unusual word. I looked it up and the other websites defintions are completely unrelated to this topic. I think changing it to clericalism / integralism would make the article easier to understand. Most people do not know what ecceles- means, and upon googling it, it just turns out to be something unrelated and throws people off. I would highly recommened placing in the word clericalism or integralism because it means exactly what the paragraph is implying Philipbrochard (talk) 05:43, 7 February 2024 (UTC)