Settling the "Social Question": Three Variants on Modern Christian Social Thought

Abstract

This article examines three historic Christian responses to the “social question” prominent in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Christian social thought: the sovereignty, the Thomist, and the neo-Calvinist movements. Through a careful treatment of each movement’s core features, specifically exploring their core principles and views of nature, human nature, social organization, the meaning of law, and the aim of politics, each group’s positions are compared and contrasted, highlighting the cooperation between the Thomists and the neo-Calvinists against the sovereignty movement and socialism in the Netherlands.