This year, the Protestant Reformed Churches will celebrate the 400th anniversary of the Synod of Dort. This was a synod in the Netherlands from 1618 to 1619 that defended the five points of Calvinism and wrote the Canons of Dort. At the time that the Canons of Dort were written, the Netherlands was going through […]
As Reformed Christians, we give thanks to God that we stand in the line of the great 16th century Reformation. But when we trace our spiritual heritage back to the Reformation, we recognize that there are a number of intervening links in the chain. Not only did Christ reform his church in the 16th century, […]
The only growing and flourishing Protestant churches in The Netherlands are the Liberated Reformed Churches. They not only buy the empty church buildings from the Synodal Reformed Churches (whose members left in droves since they associated themselves with the State Reformed Churches and the Lutherans), but they are also building many new churches themselves, all […]
Once a year the churches in The Netherlands await with much interest the latest figures about the welfare of the various churches in the country, their growth or otherwise. The State Reformed Churches, in a period of 150 years (beginning in 1849) have gone down from 55% of the Dutch population to only 14%. Again […]
In our study of the history of Pella, we have noted the reasons why Reformed believers wanted to leave the Netherlands. In addition to persecution, the farmers suffered from a severe potato blight. What makes Pella unique is the man who led the Reformed believers out of the Netherlands and to the plains of America. […]
The Dutch governmental city of The Hague became soon after the Reformation a center for all those who had chosen for the Reformed Churches in the Netherlands. The Roman Catholic magistrates of the day were not happy with that and several Reformed preachers were put in prison, and some even killed. The whole situation changed […]
Introduction (by John Huizenga) Although many of our readers can trace their family history back to the Netherlands, the bond has become very weak and our Fatherland has become a Great Grandfatherland known only from secondary sources. Yet we do well to keep abreast on church news in the Netherlands as well as the other […]
This past summer, we two girls were privileged with something that neither of us will ever forget. We travelled around the world and learned a lot. One of the things we realized was how fortunate we are to have been brought up in Christian homes and in a country in which we have almost anything […]
A TIME OF DECLINE (1619-1834) Since it is several months that an article appeared in this rubric on this subject, we shall have to try to pick up the thread of the story. We were discussing in general the history of the Reformed Churches in the Netherlands between the end of the Synod of Dordt […]
A TIME OF DECLINE (1619-1834) We discussed in the last two articles the sad condition into which the Reformed Churches had fallen in the period between the Synod of Dordt and the Secession of 1834. We discussed some of the major causes of this spiritual decline, notably the influence that the State had in the […]