The Netherlands at the Crossroads: On the Need for a Covenantal Comeback for Principled Pluralism

Hans-Martien ten Napel

The Review of Faith & International Affairs, 2025, vol. 23, issue S1, 76-88

Abstract: Principled pluralism, which overlaps to a significant extent with the concept of covenantal pluralism, is not what it used to be in the Netherlands. The country finds itself at a crossroads regarding church-state relations specifically and religion-society relations more generally. While principled pluralism in the Netherlands broadly reflected the first enabling condition of covenantal pluralism (religious freedom and equal treatment) it has been less effective regarding the other two enabling conditions (religious literacy, and practical virtues of multi-faith engagement). Today there appears to be no real alternative for reinvigorating principled pluralism but by a movement for covenantal pluralism. This article proposes two adjustments to further guarantee the future-proofing of principled pluralism: halting uncontrolled immigration and enhancing integration efforts. These address a key weakness of principled pluralism—its limited defense against views and actions incompatible with the democratic rule of law.

Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/15570274.2025.2571313 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:rfiaxx:v:23:y:2025:i:s1:p:76-88

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/rfia20

DOI: 10.1080/15570274.2025.2571313

Access Statistics for this article

The Review of Faith & International Affairs is currently edited by Dennis R. Hoover

More articles in The Review of Faith & International Affairs from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().