Christian Historical Union

The Christian Historical Union (Dutch: Christelijk-Historische Unie, CHU) was a Protestant Christian democratic political party in the Netherlands. The CHU is one of the predecessors of the Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA), into which it merged in September 1980.

An important inspiration for the CHU was Guillaume Groen van Prinsterer (1801–1876), who coined the terms "anti-revolutionary" and "Christian-historical". In 1879, the Anti-Revolutionary Party (ARP) was founded as a Protestant mass party by Abraham Kuyper. Unlike previous anti-revolutionary politicians such as Groen van Prinsterer, Kuyper was convinced God's will could be translated to politics. As part of Kuyper's antithesis, the ARP worked together with Roman Catholics in the Coalition, with the goal of achieving equal funding for religious schools (the school struggle). After the 1888 election and the subsequent formation, this strategy resulted in the Mackay cabinet, comprising Anti-revolutionaries and Catholics. This cabinet partially managed to achieve funding for religious schools.

Meanwhile, divisions emerged within the ARP, which became increasingly clear over time. Many anti-revolutionary parliamentarians valued their independence from their electorate, leading to the formation of two distinct factions within the parliamentary group. The 1886 Dutch Reformed Church split, instigated by Kuyper, resulted in the Reformed Churches in the Netherlands in 1892. Moreover, some viewed the collaboration with the Catholics as a betrayal of the nation's Protestant identity. The direct cause of a break was a proposal in 1892 by liberal minister Johannes Tak van Poortvliet to expand suffrage. While Kuyper supported this, the more conservative wing of the parliamentary group led by Alexander de Savornin Lohman opposed it. After the 1894 election, this wing formed its own parliamentary group, mostly comprising members with an aristocratic background and who had not followed Kuyper in the Dutch Reformed Church split. When reunification turned out to be impossible, they formed the Free Anti Revolutionary Party (VAR) in 1897.

Around the same time, two other Reformed parties were founded. In 1896, the Christian Historical Voters' League (CHP) was founded, followed by the Frisian League in 1898. Both rejected the secular state, emphasising respectively the Protestant and Dutch Reformed character of the nation. In 1903, the VAR merged with the Christian Historical Voters' League to form the Christian Historical Party. In 1908, the Christian Historical Party merged with the Frisian League to found the Christian Historical Union. The two mergers resulted in a party manifesto, which was a combination of the constitutional views of the VAR and religious views of the other two, although it would emphasise the broader Protestant character advocated by the CHP. Under the influence of the Frisian League, it became more of a testimonial party. Later in 1912, members of the small National Historical Party also joined the CHU.

Between 1908 and 1913, the CHU supported a minority Coalition cabinet of ARP and the General League of Roman Catholic Electoral Associations. In the 1909 election the party won 10 seats, two more than the CHP and Frisian League had won in 1905. In the 1913 election the party stayed stable. Between 1913 and 1918 the country was governed by an extraparliamentary cabinet formed by liberals. Its main goal was to implement a constitutional reform combining both male universal suffrage and equal payment for religious schools. At the end of the cabinets term, two CHU ministers joined the cabinet, as they were relatively neutral politicians.

In the 1918 elections, in which male universal suffrage and proportional representation were used for the first time, the party lost three seats. The ARP, CHU and Roman Catholic State Party won a combined fifty seats. The CHU started to cooperate fully in the confessional Coalition. They formed a cabinet led by the Catholic Charles Ruijs de Beerenbrouck. The CHU provided only one minister (De Visser became minister of Education, Arts and Sciences) and two non-partisan sympathisers of the CHU were appointed. During the cabinet's term one CHU member, Dirk Jan de Geer and another CHU sympathiser were appointed as ministers, while the two CHU sympathisers stepped down. In the 1922 election, the party won four seats. The cabinet of Ruijs de Beerenbrouck continued to govern; the CHU supplied two ministers and one non-partisan CHU sympathiser was appointed. During the term one CHU minister, minister of finance De Geer, stepped down after the budget of the ministry of the Navy had been rejected. In the 1925 election the party remained stable at 11 seats. A party which was closely related to the CHU, the HGS, an orthodox version of the CHU, also won one seat. Another RKSP-ARP-CHU cabinet was formed, now led by Hendrikus Colijn; the CHU supplied two ministers. In 1925, the cabinet fell prematurely because of a motion supported by the CHU parliamentary party. Each year the anti-Papist Reformed Political Party proposed a motion to remove the Dutch representative at the Holy See (a symbolic motion to show their opposition to the Pope), which was supported by the CHU. In 1925, the left-liberal Free-thinking Democratic League and socialist Social Democratic Workers' Party supported this motion because they saw it as an opportunity to bring about the downfall of the cabinet and form a progressive coalition after the election. After lengthy formation talks an extraparliamentary cabinet was formed, led by De Geer of the CHU, with one other CHU member appointed and one further CHU member joining during the cabinet's lifetime. De Geer was chosen because he was seen as a reliable administrator and a less divisive figure. In the 1929 election the party remained stable at 11 seats. It cooperated in a new Coalition cabinet led by Ruijs de Beerenbrouck, supplying two ministers, with one CHU sympathiser also serving as a minister.

After the 1933 election, in which the party lost one seat, another Coalition cabinet led by Colijn was formed, which was joined by members of the liberal Free-thinking Democratic League and the Liberal State Party. The CHU supplied only one minister and a further CHU member was appointed minister during the cabinet's term, who left after a cabinet crisis. During the 1930s, a group of the party's younger members, including Piet Lieftinck began to develop support for state intervention in the economy and form a Christian basis for this intervention on basis of the work of the theologian Karl Barth. In the 1937 election the party lost two additional seats, leaving eight. The party continued to govern in an ARP-RKSP-CHU coalition. In 1939, a national cabinet was formed with the SDAP and the three confessional parties. De Geer, as a reliable, respected administrator, led this cabinet. During World War II, De Geer's position became less tenable, as he attempted to negotiate a peace with the Germans against the will of the government. When the Dutch government went into exile he was replaced by ARP member Pieter Sjoerds Gerbrandy and the CHU provided one minister in these cabinets in exile.

After the Second World War, prominent CHU politicians wanted to end the pillarisation of Dutch politics. Some wanted to unite the CHU with the ARP, others, like Piet Lieftinck, joined the new social democratic Labour Party (PvdA).