Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-vdxz6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-29T07:41:27.008Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Can Political Factors Account for the Fact that Calvinism Rather than Anabaptism Came to Dominate the Dutch Reformation?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

Peter De Jong
Peter De Jong
Affiliation:
Smithers, British Columbia
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

It is not surprising that the sixteenth century Anabaptist movement should gain increasing attention among American church historians. Anyone who becomes even slightly acquainted with that movement cannot help but observe that many of its features, such as its individualism, its rejection of infant baptism, its subjectivism, and its fragmentation into many diverse groups, seem to anticipate the kind of ecclesiastical developments that characterize much of North American church history. The parallel even extends to a number of individual phenomena: Many modern premillennialist movements hold views remarkably like those of Melchior Hoffman. The efforts of Jan de Bakker and Jan Beukelzoon to set up a Kingdom of God at Miinster were very like those of Joseph Smith and Brigham Young, and the Latter Day Saints who followed them, to achieve a similar objective in the United States. In this case the parallel even extends to the polygamy that was introduced in both movements. Among the early Anabaptists Adam Pastor held beliefs which did not differ markedly from the anti-trinitarian doctrines of the present Jehovah's Witnesses. The existence of many such similarities makes the study of early Anabaptism a profitable one to the student of American church history.

Type
Research Article
Information
Church History , Volume 33 , Issue 4 , December 1964 , pp. 392 - 417
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Church History 1964

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1. Smit, J. W., “The Present Position of Studies Regarding the Revolt in the Netherlands,” in Bromley, J. S., and Kossmann, E. H., eds., Britain and the Netherlands, (London, 1960), p. 18.Google Scholar

2. Geyl, Pieter, Debates with Historians (New York, 1959, 1960), pp. 207–209.Google Scholar

3. Rogier, L. G., “De Protestantisering van het Noorden,” in Van Houtte, J. A., Niermeyer, J. F., Presser, J., Romein, J., and Van Werveke, H., eds., Algemeene Gesehiedenis der Nederlanden, Deel V., (Utrecht, Antwerpen, Brussel, Gent en Leuven, 1952), pp. 327, 328, 333, 343, 345, 350.Google Scholar

4. Reitsma, J. and Van Veen, S. P., eds., Acta der Provinciale en Particuliere Synoden Gehouden in de Noordelijke Nederlanden Gedurende de Jaren 1572–1620, 8 volumes (Groningen, 1892-1901).Google Scholar This work will henceforth be referred to simply as Acta.

5. Rogier, p. 438.

6. Psalter Hymnal Doctrinal Standards and Liturgy of the Christian Reformed Church (Grand Rapids, 1959), Appendix p. 19,Google Scholar footnote (containing the old reading).

7. Acta, I, 39.Google Scholar

8. Wessel, J. H., De Leerstellige Strijd tusschea Nederlandsche Gereforneerden en Doopsgezinden in de Zestiende Eeuw (Assen, 1945), pp. 292, 293.Google Scholar

9. Acta, I, 135, 209, 210.Google Scholar

10. Acta, I, 215, 219.Google Scholar

11. Acta, I, 283, 292.Google Scholar

12. Acta, I, 335, 341.Google Scholar

13. Acta, I, 348Google Scholar.

14. Acta, III, Preface, p. viii.Google Scholar

15. Acta, II, 30, 31.Google Scholar

16. Acta, II, 146.Google Scholar

17. Acta, II, 197.Google Scholar

18. Acta, II, 335.Google Scholar

19. Acta, II, 399.Google Scholar

20. Acta, II, 439.Google Scholar

21. Acta, III, 48.Google Scholar

22. Acta, III, 49.Google Scholar

23. Acta, III, 88, 108, 127.Google Scholar

24. Acta, III, 201.Google Scholar

25. Acta, III, 214.Google Scholar

26. Acta, III, 394.Google Scholar

27. Acta, III, 446.Google Scholar

28. Acta, III, 450.Google Scholar

29. Acta, IV, 2.Google Scholar

30. Acta, IV, 6.Google Scholar

31. Acta, IV, 38, 49.Google Scholar

32. Acta, V, Preface, p. vii.Google Scholar

33. Acta, V, 149, 152.Google Scholar

34. Acta, V, 236, 245, 248.Google Scholar

35. Acta, V, 270.Google Scholar

36. Acta, V, 292.Google Scholar

37. Acta, V, 310.Google Scholar

38. Acta, V, 354.Google Scholar

39. Acta, VI, 23, 26.Google Scholar

40. Acta, VI, 33, 34, 91, 100, 105, 134, 141, 174, 189.Google Scholar

41. Acta, VI, 33, 34.Google Scholar

42. Acta, VI, 82.Google Scholar

43. Acta, VI, 87.Google Scholar

44. Acta, VI, 92.Google Scholar

45. Acta, VI, 97, 100, 105, 116.Google Scholar

46. Acta, VI, 123.Google Scholar

47. Kuhler, W. J., De Gesehiedenis der Nederlandseh Doopsgezinden in de Zestiende Ecuw, (Haarlem, 1932), p. 445.Google Scholar

48. Acta, VI, 91, 92.Google Scholar

49. Acta, VI, 123.Google Scholar

50. Acta, VI, 141, 142.Google Scholar

51. Acta, VI, 182, 189.Google Scholar

52. Acta, VI, 148, 149.Google Scholar

53. Acta, VI, 219.Google Scholar

54. Acta, VI, 276, 28.Google Scholar

55. Acta, VI, Preface, p. x.Google Scholar

56. Acta, VI, 305, 309.Google Scholar

57. Acta, VII, Preface, pp. v, vi.Google Scholar

58. Acta, VII, 4.Google Scholar

59. Acta, VII, 10.Google Scholar

60. Acta, VII, 14, 15, 16.Google Scholar

61. Acta, VII, 29, 31, 36, 43, 58, 83, 101, 111, 158, 173, 191, 204, 226, 233, 268, 276, 295, 304, 309, 316, 327, 343, 366, 368, 379, 380, 384, 389.Google Scholar

62. Acta, VII, 58.Google Scholar

63. Acta, VII, 83.Google Scholar

64. Acta, VII, 101.Google Scholar

65. Acta, VII, 111.Google Scholar

66. Acta, VII, 158, 164.Google Scholar

67. Acta, VII, 173.Google Scholar

68. Acta, VII, 233, 241.Google Scholar

69. Acta, VII, 268.Google Scholar

70. Acta, VII, 276.Google Scholar

71. Acta, VII, 295, 304, 309, 316.Google Scholar

72. Acta, VII, 327.Google Scholar

73. Acta, VII, 58, 111.Google Scholar

74. Acta, VII, 261, 262.Google Scholar

75. Acta, VII, 278, 288.Google Scholar

76. Acta, VII, 327, 366, 380.Google Scholar

77. Acta, VII, 53.Google Scholar

78. Acta, VII, 114.Google Scholar

79. Acta, VII, 193, 200.Google Scholar

80. Acta, VII, 213, 227.Google Scholar

81. Acta, VII, 242.Google Scholar

82. Acta, VII, 257.Google Scholar

83. Acta, VII, 276.Google Scholar

84. Kuhier, p. 446.

85. Acta, VIII, 90, 97, 98, 111.Google Scholar

86. Reitsma, J., Geschiedenis van de Hervorming en de Hervormde Kerk der Nederlanden (Groningen, 1899), p. 138.Google Scholar

87. Kuhler, p. 440.

88. Rogier, pp. 327, 340, 342.

89. Rogier, p. 333.

90. Geyl, p. 209.

91. Smit, pp. 11–28.

92. Rogier, pp. 326–342. Campare especially the single sentance on p. 326, “The expansion of Protestantism … is in origin the result of preaching and exposition, but very soon became a political concern” with the extensive discussion of Catholic missions on pp. 333–337.

When Rogier maintains that in this early period (1) very few people became Protestants and (2) those who did usually did so because of political or economic pressure, be may be shedding some light on the general political and social situation but he completely fails to account for the existence of the undeniably powerful religious movement we see revealed in the Acts of the Reformed Synods. Unless we focus some attention also on this factor we are left without an adequate explanation of “the Protestantization of the North.” Rogier pp. 326–350.

93. “Gewiss stand de Handlungweise des mittelalterlichen Menschen viclstarker unter religiosen Motiven als heutei” Koch, Paul, Der Einfluss des Calvinismus und des Mennonitentums auf die Niederrheinische Textilindustrie, (Krefeld, 1928), p. 70.Google Scholar