Matthew Henry John Bartlett

Kuyper is quoted in Lew Daly’s article on Bush, Kuyper and faith-based initiatives as saying:

Whenever one uses the phrase ‘social question’, one recognizes, in the most general sense, that serious doubt has arisen about the soundness of the social structure in which we live. One thereby acknowledges that public opinion is at war over the foundation on which a more appropriate—and therefore more livable—social order may be built. Merely to raise the question in no way implies that it has to be answered in a socialistic manner. The solution one reaches can be of a totally different kind. Only one thing is necessary if the social question is to exist for you: you must realize the untenability of the present state of affairs, and you must account for this untenability not by incidental causes but by a fault in the very foundation of our society’s organization. If you do not acknowledge this and think that social evil can be exorcised through an increase in piety, or through friendlier treatment or more generous charity, then you may believe we face a religious question or possibly a philanthropic question, but you will not recognize the social question. This question does not exist for you until you exercise an architectonic critique of human society, which leads to the desire for a different arrangement of the social order.

[via Thinknet]