Author : Michael J. Wintle
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 116 pages
Book Rating : 4.05/5 ( download)
Book Synopsis Pillars of Piety by : Michael J. Wintle
Download or read book Pillars of Piety written by Michael J. Wintle and published by . This book was released on 1987 with total page 116 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: But even among Christian Democrat nations in general, the Netherlands still figures as one of the countries where religion is most likely to excite political emotions, and to be called into the discussion at every stage. To a large extent this is due to the Dutch phenomenon of verzuiling, 'pillarisation' or 'vertical pluralism': a socio-political system in which groups with different ideologies--the Catholics, the Calvinists, the Socialists and the Liberals--lead their separate lives in isolated 'pillars', only coming into contact with each other at the top level, where their leaders confer and compromise among themselves in order to run the nation. The conditions under which this system functioned were being created in the nineteenth century, and the most important force behind it was organised religion. In this way the history of Dutch religion in the nineteenth century can help to explain the 'pillarised' nature of society in the Netherlands for most of the twentieth.