History of religion in the Netherlands

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

The Oude Kerk in Amsterdam.

The history of religion in the Netherlands has been characterized by considerable diversity of religious thought and practice. From 1600 until the second half of the 20th century, the north and west had embraced the

Catholic.[1]
Associated with immigration from Arab world (North Africa and the Middle east) of the 20th century, Muslims and other minority religions were concentrated in ethnic neighborhoods in the cities.

Since the 1960s, the Netherlands has become one of the most secular countries in the Western world. In a December 2014 survey by

ietsist (27%).[2]

Altar for Nehalennia AD 150–250

Prehistory and Early Middle Ages

Before the advent of Christianity, the Netherlands were populated by

Celtic polytheism, and Germanic tribes in the North, which adhered to Germanic paganism. After the Roman Empire occupied the later southern Netherlands, Roman mythology became important there, as well as religions from the Middle East, including relics from Egyptian mythology, Judaism, Mithraism and later Christianity
.

The oldest data on the profession of religion by the inhabitants of the regions that are now the "

Donar's oak. Temples were probably built only during and after the romanization. Examples have been preserved in Empel and Elst
.

From the 4th to the 6th century AD,

Servatius
, was buried in this city in 384 CE. Only Bishop Domitianus (c. 535) is documented as having resided in Maastricht.

At the start of the 6th century, the first (Hiberno-Scottish) missionaries arrived. They were later replaced by Anglo-Saxon missionaries, who eventually succeeded in converting most of the inhabitants of the southern Netherlands to Christianity by the 8th century.

From the late 7th century, missionaries coming from

Radboud refused to be baptized by Wulfram. Because he was assured of getting to heaven if he repented and converted, Radboud instead chose an afterlife with his ancestors who, according to Wulfram, were in hell. After the Frisian–Frankish wars (c. 600–793) and the Saxon Wars (772–804), the Low Countries all fell under the rule of the Christian Frankish kings. They wanted their people to be both religious and political subjects, as the kings claimed divine right of leadership. The Old Saxon Baptismal Vow describes how one must renounce his old gods (described as "devils") and submit to the Christian Trinity
.

In the 8th century, Anglo-Saxon missionaries such as

Christian religion
, which is syncretic. During the following centuries, Catholic Christianity was the main religion in the Netherlands, but other practices likely survived in the conservative societies of the villages.

The Old Saxon Baptismal Vow: "Forsachistu diobolae.." (Forsake devils) and "gelobistu in got alamehtigan fadaer" (believe in god almighty father). Left caption in a later writing: "Abrinuciatio diaboli lingua Teotisca veter." = (abjuration of the devil in Old German). Under the Baptismal Vow in Latin is an enumeration of the first 20 practices in the Indiculus superstitionum et paganiarum.

High and Late Middle Ages

Thomas à Kempis, the author of The Imitation of Christ (c. 1418–1427)

Religious life was ubiquitous in

Frisian participation in the Crusades
).

Where justice until the 12th century existed largely in actions by

Dirck Coornhert
) changed the Dutch world. It began to shift from a theocentric to an anthropocentric worldview.

Reformation in the Early Modern Period

Adrian of Utrecht (Pope Adrian VI
)
Erasmus in 1523 as depicted by Hans Holbein the Younger
Hugo Grotius
Benedictus de Spinoza (painting by an unknown artist, ca. 1665), the author of Tractatus Theologico-Politicus
(1670)

Catholicism dominated Dutch religion until the early 16th century, when the

Protestant Reformation
, an independent Dutch religious tradition began to take shape in the northern parts of the independent Netherlands.

The most prominent Dutch theologian was the

Philip Melancthon. He continued to recognise the authority of the Pope. Erasmus emphasized a middle way, with a deep respect for traditional faith, piety and grace, and rejected Luther's emphasis on faith alone. Erasmus therefore remained a Catholic all his life. In relation to clerical abuses in the Church, Erasmus remained committed to reforming the Church from within. He also held to Catholic doctrines such as that of free will, which some Calvinist Reformers rejected in favour of the doctrine of predestination. His middle road approach disappointed and even angered scholars in both camps.[4]

Menno Simons. The Mennonites are named after him.
Jacobus Arminius, the Reformed theologian and the father of Arminianism.
Cornelius Otto Jansen, the father of the Roman Catholic reform movement known as Jansenism in the Southern Netherlands
.

The 16th and 17th century were characterized by the Protestant Reformation, which greatly influenced the history of the Netherlands, especially in western and northern areas of the country. They also had influence with the eastern English shires, with which they were in contact through trading across the North Sea. The first wave of Reformation, initiated by Luther, did not come to the Netherlands.

The second wave of the Protestant Reformation,

Baptists
.

The third wave of the Reformation,

Inquisition of the Catholic Church, as Protestantism was seen as threatening the royal government. In reaction to this persecution, the Calvinists rebelled. In the Beeldenstorm in 1566, they conducted iconoclasm, destroying statues, paintings, and other religious depictions and artifacts in churches. Also in 1566 William the Silent, Prince of Orange, a convert to Calvinism, started the Eighty Years' War
to liberate the Calvinist Dutch from the Catholic Spaniards.

The counties of Holland and

estates of Holland, led by Paulus Buys, decided to support William the Silent. All churches in the Calvinist territories became Calvinist and most of the population in these territories converted to or were forced to convert to Calvinism. Because the Netherlands had gained independence from Spain over both political and religious issues, it chose to practice certain forms of tolerance toward people of certain other religions. It opened its borders for religious dissenters (Protestants and Jews) from elsewhere. For instance, René Descartes
, a French Catholic, lived in the Netherlands for most of his adult life. As the Reformation reached England, some Puritans fled from persecution to Amsterdam and other Dutch cities. (Jews had been expelled from Spain and Portugal in the late 15th and 16th centuries if they refused to convert to Catholicism, and were prohibited from England.) But the Calvinist-dominated areas maintained persecution and later discrimination against native Dutch Catholics.

Philip II of Spain was the hereditary ruler of the Netherlands. As a devout Catholic, Philip believed he was obligated to fight Protestantism, which also threatened his rule. After the Beeldenstorm, he sent troops to suppress Protestantism in the Netherlands. The Spanish conquered the southern Netherlands (Flanders and Brabant). Protestants in this area, many of them prosperous merchants, fled en masse to Holland, Zeeland, and Friesland. An extreme example was the city of Hondschoote, where the population dropped from 18,000 to 385 inhabitants. Antwerp, formerly the most powerful city in the Low Countries, lost more than half its residents to this exodus.[5]

In the Calvinist-controlled northern counties, many of the remaining Catholics were tending toward converting to Protestantism for temporal gain, to survive in the changed society. In the early 17th century, the Roman Catholic

Friesland
.

At the same time, the larger western cities received an influx of Protestant immigrants from

belt of land from the southwest (the province of Zeeland), via the Veluwe, to the north of the Netherlands (to the city of Staphorst
) during the 17th and even as late as the 18th centuries. This remains strictly Calvinist until this day.

During the

Johan van Oldebarnevelt, the official head of state of the County of Holland, was executed. Calvinism became the de facto state religion. Only Calvinists (and, in some cases, Jews) were allowed to hold political office. Other Christian denominations were mostly tolerated, although discriminated against, and believers were not allowed to practice their religion in public. Judaism was allowed in public, and Lutheranism only in larger cities. It was permitted only on the condition of the congregations maintaining Calvinist church interior styles, without having crucifixes, as were still displayed in Scandinavian
Lutheran cathedrals.

In 1648, Spain and the

States-General; it roughly included the current provinces of North Brabant and Limburg
. The Netherlands became known among dissenting Anglicans (such as Puritans), many Protestants, and Jews for its relative religious tolerance; it became a refuge for the persecuted and a home for many of these immigrants.

English Puritans in Amsterdam formed what was known as the "Ancient Church of Amsterdam", whose leaders included wealthy merchants such as

Pilgrims, who in the early 17th century emigrated to what became the Massachusetts Bay Colony in North America). Protestant Huguenots from France fled to Amsterdam after repeal in 1689 of the Edict of Nantes
and renewed persecution and attacks from Catholics.

19th century

Abraham Kuyper
Religious division in the Netherlands in 1849. Catholicism holds a majority in green areas. Protestantism holds a majority in red areas.

During the 19th century, there was a rising conflict among Catholics, liberal Calvinists, and orthodox Calvinists. The Dutch solution, known as

pillarization
, lasted until the 1960s.

Following the invasion of forces of Revolutionary France in 1795, the Batavian Republic was established for a time, creating equal rights for all religious groups in the Netherlands. In 1813, the Calvinist Republic united with the Catholic Southern Netherlands to form the United Kingdom of the Netherlands.

The union split in 1830 after the Belgian Revolution, which was partially motivated by religious differences between Protestants and Catholics, as well as by the political split between Orangists (royalists) and Liberals (mainly from Brussels and Ghent). The position of Catholics in the Kingdom of the Netherlands worsened. The Catholic episcopal hierarchy was forbidden and Catholics were forbidden to hold religious processions in all provinces except for Noord Brabant and Limburg.

A liberal Calvinist elite dominated the Netherlands for a period, including the national bureaucracy and the

seceded
from the Dutch Reformed Church in what was known as the Afscheiding.

Roughly fifty years later, in 1886, another group of orthodox Calvinists, led by

political party.[6]

During this period Catholics began to develop their own non-governmental institutions. The Netherlands became dominated among three religious pillars, an orthodox Calvinist, a Catholic, and a neutral one. These subcultures generally did not interfere with each other. During the 20th century, a separate socialist pillar would also develop. This phenomenon is called

pillarization. There was considerable religious tolerance among these subcultures, and they cooperated with each other at the level of government
.

The social distance grew. People read different newspapers; by the 1930s they listened to different radio programs. Catholic and Protestant children generally lived in different neighborhoods and provinces, and did not play together. Adults did not socialize across religious lines. Marriage across religious lines grew rare.[7]

Jews had become fully integrated into Dutch society after 1795. Most Jews in the 19th and 20th centuries became later become aligned within the socialist pillar, many became highly secularized and adopted mainstream dress rather than that associated with Orthodox Judaism. They formed a considerable minority, especially in certain cities: one-eighth of the population of Amsterdam was Jewish.[8]

The Second World War

In 1940, the

exterminating
them.

In February 1941 after Nazi occupation, a general strike took place in Amsterdam and the surrounding areas against the first

Second World War. The main resistance groups
were composed of conservative Calvinists, Communists and Catholics, while liberals and others were underrepresented. An important action of the resistance movement was hiding Jews from Nazis.

There were 140,000 Jews recorded in 1940 in the Netherlands. 20,000 of them were free from persecution, because they were married to Aryans, or because some of their parents and grandparents were non-Jews. Another 20,000 Jews hid from the Germans. Of the 101,000 Jews that the Nazis deported, only 1,000 returned after the war.[citation needed] The percentage of Dutch Jews who were exterminated was much higher than in other countries, including Germany.

Secularization

Beliefs in the Netherlands (2015), based on in-depth interviewing by

Radboud University and Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam[9]

  Atheism (24%)
  Agnosticism (34%)
  Ietsism (28%)
  Theism (14%)

Religions in the Netherlands (2015), based on in-depth interviewing by

Radboud University and Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam[9]

  No affiliation (67.8%)
  
Protestant Church of the Netherlands (8.6%)
  Islam (5.0%)
  Other Protestant denominations (4.2%)
  Hinduism and Buddhism
(2.0%)
  Other churches and religions (0.7%)

Religions in the Netherlands (2013), based on self-reported numbers by religious organizations (KASKI).[10]

  
Protestant
denominations (3.3%)

Until late into the 20th century, the predominant religion in the Netherlands was

Radboud University and Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam.[11]

In 2015, approximately 67.8% of the population claimed no religious affiliation, up from 61% in 2006, 53% in 1996, 43% 1979, and 33% in 1966.[12] In 2007, the Sociaal en Cultureel Planbureau (Social and Cultural Planning Agency, SCP) expected the number of non-affiliated Dutch to be at 72% in 2020.[13]

Secularization, or the decline in religious adherence and practice, first became noticeable after 1960 in the Protestant rural provinces of Friesland and Groningen. It became more obvious in Amsterdam, Rotterdam and the other large cities in the west. Finally, the Catholic south also showed declines in religious practice and belief. By contrast, there has been a religious revival in the Protestant Bible Belt of the Netherlands. In addition, there has been growth of Hindu and Muslim communities as a result of immigration and higher birth rates.[14][15]

After the Second World War, the major religions began to decline. With higher immigration of workers from North Africa and the Mideast, the number of people practicing Islam increased. During the 1960s and 1970s, the traditional pillarization began to weaken and the population became less religious. In 1971, 39% of the Dutch population were members of the Roman Catholic Church; by 2014, their share of the population had dropped to 23.3% (church-provided KASKI data). The proportion of adherents of mainline Protestantism declined in the same period from 31% to 10% (church-provided KASKI data).[16] KASKI (Katholiek Sociaal-Kerkelijk Insituut / Catholic Social-Ecclesiastical Institute

Radboud University and Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. Some of that may be attributed to methods of data collection. According tot KASKI, the total number of members of Christian groups in the Netherlands has decreased from approximately 7,013,163 (43.22% overall population) in 2003 to 5,730,852 (34.15% overall population) in 2013.[19] An additional 4.2% of the population adhere to other Protestant churches. With 32.2% of the Dutch identifying as adhering to a religion, among which 25% adhere to Christianity and 5% to Islam, the Netherlands is one of the least religious countries of Europe
.

During the late 20th century, in keeping with changes in their society, the Dutch liberalized their policies on abortion, drug use, euthanasia, homosexuality, and prostitution. As a result of the declining religious adherence, the two major strands of Calvinism, the Dutch Reformed Church and the Reformed Churches in the Netherlands, together with a small Lutheran group, began to cooperate. They identified first as the Samen op weg Kerken ("Together on the road churches"). Since 2004, they formed the Protestant Church in the Netherlands, a united Protestant church.

During the same period,

decolonization; Turkey and Morocco, as migrant workers; and Iraq, Iran, Bosnia and Afghanistan as political refugees. In the early 21st century, religious tensions between native Dutch people and migrant Muslims have increased in some areas. The popular politician Pim Fortuyn provoked controversy by defending the Dutch liberal culture against what he considered a "backward religion", conservative Islam.[20] Stricter immigration laws were enacted. Religious tensions heightened after film director Theo van Gogh was killed in 2004 by Mohammed Bouyeri
.

A December 2014 survey by the

VU University Amsterdam concluded that, for the first time, there were more atheists (25%) than theists (17%) in the Netherlands. The majority of the population identified as agnostic (31%) or ietsistic (27%).[2]

In the 21st century, a large majority of the Dutch population believes in the separation of church and state, that is, that religion should not play a decisive role in politics or public education. Religion is also decreasingly seen as a social binder.[11] Religion in the Netherlands is generally considered a personal matter, which is not supposed to be propagated in public.[21]

ietsists, since affiliation with a Christian denomination is also used in a way of cultural identification in the different parts (especially the south) of the Netherlands.[22]
According to research in 2015, a more generalized rise in individual spirituality has ended. In 2006, 40 percent of respondents considered themselves spiritual. But in 2015, this had dropped to 31 percent.[11]

According to the CBS in 2018, 53% of the Dutch were religiously unaffiliated, 37% were Christians (out of whom 22% registered Catholics, 15% Protestants – 6% PKN + 6% hervormd + 3% gereformeerd), 5% were Muslims, and 5% adherents of other religions.[23]

See also

References

  1. ^ see map Archived 26 March 2017 at the Wayback Machine
  2. ^ a b van Beek, Marije (16 January 2015). "Ongelovigen halen de gelovigen in". Dossier Religie. der Verdieping Trouw. Archived from the original on 9 May 2015. Retrieved 21 April 2015.
  3. ^ Mark, Joshua J. "Reformation in the Netherlands & the Eighty Years' War". World History Encyclopedia. Archived from the original on 28 April 2023. Retrieved 28 April 2023.
  4. ^ Manfred Hoffmann, "Faith and Piety in Erasmus's Thought," Sixteenth Century Journal (1989) 20#2 pp 241–258
  5. ISBN 0-19-820734-4
  6. ^ James D. Bratt, Abraham Kuyper: Modern Calvinist, Christian Democrat (2012)
  7. ^ On the decline of intermarriage see Erik Beekink, et al. "Changes in Choice of Spouse as an Indicator of a Society in a State of Transition: Woerden, 1830–1930," Historical Social Research (1998) 23#1 pp 231–253.
  8. ^ Yosef Kaplan, The Dutch Intersection: The Jews and the Netherlands in Modern History (2008)
  9. ^
    ISBN 978-902590524-8
  10. ^ "Cijfers Rooms-Katholieke Kerk". Archived from the original on 25 May 2019. Retrieved 22 April 2015.
  11. ^ a b c "Hoe God (Bijna) verdween uit Nederland". 13 March 2016. Archived from the original on 5 April 2016. Retrieved 19 March 2016.
  12. ISBN 9789025905248
  13. ^ Sociaal en Cultureel Planbureau, God in Nederland (2006/2007)
  14. ^ Hans Knippenberg, "Secularization in the Netherlands in its historical and geographical dimensions," GeoJournal (1998) 45#3 pp 209–220. online Archived 2 May 2023 at the Wayback Machine
  15. ^ Tomáš Sobotka and Feray Adigüzel, "Religiosity and spatial demographic differences in the Netherlands" (2002) online Archived 15 November 2012 at the Wayback Machine
  16. ^ (in Dutch) Godsdienstige veranderingen in Nederland, Sociaal en Cultureel Planbureau, September 2006 Archived 17 April 2012 at the Wayback Machine
  17. ^ "Kaski". Archived from the original on 24 September 2015. Retrieved 22 April 2015.
  18. ^ "Cijfers overige kerkgenootschappen". Archived from the original on 24 September 2015. Retrieved 22 April 2015.
  19. ^ "Lopende projecten". Archived from the original on 11 April 2016. Retrieved 19 March 2016.
  20. Volkskrant
    , 9 February 2002
  21. ^ Donk, W.B.H.J. van de; Jonkers, A.P.; Kronjee, G.J.; Plum, R.J.J.M. (2006)
  22. ISBN 90-5589-248-3
  23. Centraal Bureau voor de Statistiek. 1 August 2019. Archived
    from the original on 27 July 2020. Retrieved 27 July 2020.

Further reading

External links

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