by Jules Henry

Dutch Theologian and Prime Minister Abraham Kuyper was pro-Vaccine but anti-coercion.[1]

In 1823, because of a deadly Smallpox epidemic in the Netherlands “The Dutch government decided to make the cowpox vaccination indirectly compulsory for children. From then on, anyone who wanted to go to school had to present proof of vaccination, the so-called smallpox certificate.”[2] So, the situation is not that unlike ours with Covid. Abraham Kuyper, Theologian and eventual Primer Minister of the Netherlands wasn’t having it:

For this reason alone, compulsory cowpox vaccination should be out of the question. Our physicians may be mistaken and government may never stamp a particular medical opinion as orthodox and therefore binding. Moreover, compulsion can never be justified until the illness manifests itself and may therefore never be prescribed as a preventative. A third reason is that government should keep its hands off our bodies. Fourthly, government must respect conscientious objections. In the fifth place, it is one or the other: either it does not itself believe in vaccination, or if it does, it will do redundant work by proceeding to protect once more those already safeguarded against an evil that will no longer have a hold on them anyway. Vaccination certificates will therefore have to go—and will be gone at least from our free schools. The form of tyranny hidden in these vaccination certificates is just as real a threat to the nation’s spiritual resources as a smallpox epidemic itself.[3]

For more neo-Calvinist (biblical) view on the role and reach of the government listen to Dr. Joe Boot’s lecture “Sphere Sovereignty and State Absolutism.” I know of nothing more compelling and accurate than this.

[1] To read the sections in their entirety see chapters 71 and 72 of Common Grace: God’s Gifts for a Fallen World (Vol. 2) and 16.201-204 of Our Program. Thanks to the 3 part series by Coyle Neal https://adfontesjournal.com/web-exclusives/kuyper-on-vaccines-i-handling-disagreement/

[2] “Vaccination Certificate: The Smallpox Note …and the opposition to compulsory vaccination” https://historyofyesterday.com/vaccination-certificate-the-smallpox-note-19th-century-e2dab81cc49d

[3] Kuyper, A. (2015). Our Program: A Christian Political Manifesto (J. J. Ballor, M. Flikkema, & H. Van Dyke, Eds.; H. Van Dyke, Trans.; pp. 248–249). Lexham Press; Acton Institute for the Study of Religion and Liberty.