Clifford Hill explores the Dutch election from a biblical standpoint.

What’s happening in the Netherlands? The results of their General Election have surprised the pundits who were all expecting Geert Wilders to do well.

He had been topping the polls for some time but then, days before the election, the spat with Turkey was a gift for Prime Minister Mark Rutte. He took a courageous decision to defy Turkish requests for rallies of Turkish nationals in Holland as part of Erdogan’s bid to gain greater power for his Presidency.

Rutte’s decision to break up demonstrations of expatriate Turks in Rotterdam, to ban Turkey’s Foreign Minister from the country and to expel another Turkish Minister who arrived in the Netherlands by car without permission, delighted the Dutch public and greatly enhanced Prime Minister Rutte’s electoral prospects. The timing could not have been better for him and the results from the 80% turnout of voters has reflected this.

Dutch newspapers have been full of congratulations to Rutte and political commentators have hailed the increase of right-wing parties and the diminished support for Wilders as a significant shift away from populist parties. One newspaper (NRC) said that the result showed that the Netherlands had returned to ‘normal’ and the ‘patriotic spring’ was dead.

Is Populism Dead?

But Dutch elections never give a clear-cut result. No party is able to form a Government on its own and, although Rutte has slightly increased the number of seats his party holds, he cannot govern alone. He will have to do deals with two or three other parties to try to find a working majority for a coalition to govern the nation.

Newspapers are claiming that Rutte’s win shows that European populism is dead.

It would be reckless to conclude that populism in Europe is now dead, especially with the French elections coming up soon and Marine Le Pen doing well in the polls. The level of dissatisfaction with their political leaders among Europeans is still running high and part of the reason why Rutte did well was because he stole some of Wilders’ anti-immigration thunder.

Focus will now be upon what a new right-wing Government led by Rutte will do to restore broken relationships with Turkey. If they give in and apologise, they will inflame the rising anti-Muslim sentiment in the Netherlands.

No Understanding

Europe has by no means ‘returned to normal’ because one nation has narrowly held on to the political status quo. Politicians do not understand the mood of the people because they do not understand the socio-economic and social forces of change that are currently driving Western nations.

These forces of change cannot be understood simply in terms of an ideological battle between the radical left and the conservative right. Neither can they be understood purely in economic terms of Marxism versus capitalism; or in sociological terms of relative deprivation and the revolt of the ‘have nots’ against the ‘haves’ in society.

The reason why our political leaders cannot understand what’s going on today is because they have abandoned God. It is as simple as that! In academic institutions of former generations, theology was regarded as the queen of the sciences, because people understood that God was the God of Creation who had created human beings in his own image. This was the starting point of all investigations of human relationships. If you rule out God, you lose the anchor point of truth for all subsequent investigation.

If you rule out God, you lose the anchor point of truth for all subsequent investigation.

The Bible’s Timeline

The Bible gives us a timeline that enables us to see the development of humanity against the backcloth of God’s plan for the nations. If we look at humanity from God’s perspective, we can see how far we are along the road to self-destruction. God sees the global arsenal of weapons of mass destruction – nuclear bombs, nerve gas, germ warfare weapons.

He also sees the vast pollution of society and the corruption of human beings, not least through the internet’s transmission of pornography and the degradation of human bodies through sexual perversion, violence and drugs.

These twin forces of global destruction – violence and moral corruption – are the fruit of the spiritual forces of darkness or ‘principalities and powers’ against which the Bible warns us.

Jeremiah has a telling phrase:

This is what the Lord says: let not the wise man boast of his wisdom or the strong man boast of his strength or the rich man boast of his riches, but let him who boasts boast about this: that he understands and knows me, that I am the Lord. (Jer 9:23-24)

This is where wisdom truly resides!

Wake Up!

The populist movement we are seeing today is not just a social movement of underclass protest; it is the result of God shaking the nations. God is alerting us to danger. He is drawing our attention to the fact that humanity is heading for global disaster.

The populist movement today is not just a social movement of underclass protest – it is the result of God shaking the nations.

The populist movement is just a small symptom showing that ordinary people know there is something wrong. But will the leaders of the nations pay heed? Will the elite secular humanist intelligentsia who have been the driving force behind globalisation and the undermining of Western Judeo-Christian heritage for decades take heed? Will they open their spiritual eyes and understand what is happening before it is too late?

Much depends upon whether the churches in the Western nations have sufficient strength and spiritual insight to stand for truth and righteousness against the forces of darkness. We cannot expect to see repentance or understanding in the world until there is first repentance and understanding in the Church, which must mediate the truth at this pivotal time.

The Apostle Peter says in the Bible:

The day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything in it will be laid bare. (2 Peter 3:10)

Was this just a flight of fantasy? Or did Peter know something that we don’t?