The following story from the Washington Post is already over 2 weeks old, but this elf hadn’t seen it before tonight and found it quite fascinating.
Changing Patterns in Social Fabric Test Netherlands’ Liberal Identity
By Molly Moore
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, June 23, 2007; Page A12
AMSTERDAM — For years, W.B. Kranendonk was a lone ranger in Dutch politics — the editor of an orthodox Christian newspaper in a nation that has legalized prostitution, euthanasia, abortion and same-sex marriage and allows the personal use of marijuana.
Today, with an orthodox Christian political party in the government for the first time, and with immigration anxieties fueling a national search for identity, the country that has been the world’s most socially liberal political laboratory is rethinking its anything-goes policies.
And suddenly, Kranendonk no longer seems so all alone.
“People in high political circles are saying it can’t be good to have a society so liberal that everything is allowed,” said Kranendonk, editor of Reformist Daily and an increasingly influential voice that resonates in the shifting mainstream of Dutch public opinion. “People are saying we should have values; people are asking for more and more rules in society.”
In cities across the Netherlands, mayors and town councils are closing down shops where marijuana is sold, rolled and smoked. Municipalities are shuttering the brothels where prostitutes have been allowed to ply their trade legally. Parliament is considering a ban on the sale of hallucinogenic “magic mushrooms.” Orthodox Christian members of parliament have introduced a bill that would allow civil officials with moral objections to refuse to perform gay marriages. And Dutch authorities are trying to curtail the activities of an abortion rights group that assists women in neighboring countries where abortions are illegal.
The effort to rein in the Netherlands’ famed social liberties is not limited to the small, newly empowered Christian Union party, which holds two of the 16 ministries in the coalition government formed this year. Increasingly, politicians from the more center-left Labor Party are among the most outspoken proponents of closing some brothels and marijuana shops — known here as “coffee shops.”
“Has the Netherlands changed? Yes,” said Frank de Wolf, a Labor Party member of the Amsterdam City Council. “There is not only a different mood among our people and politicians, but there are different problems now.”
[blockquote] Leaders of the Christian Union say they are not pushing to banish legalized prostitution or soft drugs. And no officials are discussing rollbacks on same-sex marriage, euthanasia or abortion, even though the party opposes all three. [/blockquote]
Why not? Sounds like they’re making a good start and should continue the moral momentum.
[blockquote] He paused and smiled, “But there are other ways of believing.” [/blockquote]
What does that mean?
Watcher
The news coming out of the Netherlands over the last few years has been quite interesting. NPR, the washpo, the nytimes and others have all had a few stories on it. It does appear that there is a backlash against the excesses of Dutch society in the wake of increasing immigration. It has even been described as a resurgence of a more traditionalist, nationalistic core of Dutch civilization.
Pray for our brothers and sisters there. A million immigrants, many of them North Africans, in a small, crowded country of 16 million concentrates the mind.
So, is this a resurgence of *Godly* morality? Or secularist morality (where the rules are controlled by people, not God)? Or muslim morality filling a vacuum?
I suppose any kind of morality is better than none at all, but any kind of unGodly morality will fall. And note the Washington Post’s “sly” dig at weak white Christians.
In faith, Dave
Viva Texas