Chapter 4. “We were right to follow the Genevans”: Calvin and the Church in the Netherlands 1572 – 1578

Keyword(s):  
2014 ◽  
Vol 39 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jan Kurowiak

AbstractAs a work of propaganda, graphics Austroseraphicum Coelum Paulus Pontius should create a new reality, make appearances. The main impression while seeing the graphics is the admiration for the power of Habsburgs, which interacts with the power of the Mother of God. She, in turn, refers the viewer to God, as well as Franciscans placed on the graphic, they become a symbol of the Church. This is a starting point for further interpretation of the drawing. By the presence of certain characters, allegories, symbols, we can see references to a particular political situation in the Netherlands - the war with the northern provinces of Spain. The message of the graphic is: the Spanish Habsburgs, commissioned by the mission of God, they are able to fight all of the enemies, especially Protestants, with the help of Immaculate and the Franciscans. The main aim of the graphic is to convince the viewer that this will happen and to create in his mind a vision of the new reality. But Spain was in the seventeenth century nothing but a shadow of former itself (in the time of Philip IV the general condition of Spain get worse). That was the reason why they wanted to hold the belief that the empire continues unwavering. The form of this work (graphics), also allowed to export them around the world, and the ambiguity of the symbolic system, its contents relate to different contexts, and as a result, the Habsburgs, not only Spanish, they could promote their strength everywhere. Therefore it was used very well as a single work of propaganda, as well as a part of a broader campaign


2013 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 51-68
Author(s):  
Leon van den Broeke

Abstract The Reformed Church in America is wrestling with an interesting question in ecclesiology and church order: is there a place within the church for so-called non-geographic classes. Non-geographic classes are classes which are not formed around a geographic regional principal, but by agreement in theological perspective or a peculiar way that a congregation is shaped. The question central to this article is then: is there a place in Reformed churches for non-geographical classes? In answering this question, the following will be considered: a similar proposal from the Gereformeerde Bond in the Netherlands Reformed Church in 1998; the geographic-regional principle; the Walloon Classis; the Classis of Holland; the Reformed Church in America; Flying, diocesan and titular bishops and finally a conclusion.


2017 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
pp. 174-196
Author(s):  
Sjoerd-Jeroen Moenandar ◽  
Krina Huisman

In this article the authors analyse a collection of essays written by young Dutch people who grew up in the Reformed Liberated Church, a small Christian denomination in the Netherlands. Traditionally, this church is characterised by its inwards nature: members strive to live their lives within the confinements that the church and its institutions stipulate. This has changed over the last few decades and the essays attest to the effects these changes have had on individual lives. We discuss the underlying narrative structure of their accounts and how the authors negotiate different lifestyles and interpretations of the Christian faith on either side of the borders that demarcate the Reformed Liberated tradition. We discuss if – and how – the essays work towards an outcome of ‘discordant concordance’ (Ricœur) where narrative identities remain whole, despite relatively drastic border crossings in the course of the lives that formed them. We address how these stories give insight into how people use the stories they tell to define what needs to be remembered and forgotten when we cross borders. Finally, we discuss the relevance of these essays and our analysis of them for our understanding of today’s globalised and multicultural societies in which many are in a permanent state of transition. This article was submitted to the European Journal of Life Writing on February 17th and published on August 28th 2017.


2019 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 7-27
Author(s):  
Alexander Forsyth

This article focusses on the formation and delivery of training and support for pioneer ministry in the Church of Scotland, by (i) reflecting on recent thinking on the place of theological education in enabling missional vocation; and (ii) presenting three case studies of approaches taken by denominations (in the Netherlands, Germany and Aotearoa New Zealand) which share a similar historical tradition with the Church of Scotland and which have seen similar trajectories of decline.


Open Theology ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Manuela Kalsky

AbstractThe Netherlands has undergone a radical religious transformation through secularization, individualization and migration. Expressions of Christian belief are no longer strictly defined by the Church and hybrid forms of religiosity incorporating other religions have emerged. After a brief sketch of Dutch religious plurality, the author focuses on interviews with ‘flexible believers’, people who combine elements from different religious traditions and worldviews. Through interviews, she discovers a number of characteristics of these multiple religious believers (MRB) - interviewees - such as ritual praxis, identity-making processes and belonging - and reflects on their impact for the wider picture of religiosity in today‘s post-Christian Dutch network society. She concludes that hybrid forms of lived religion like mrb, present a challenge to traditional concepts of religious identity and belonging. They require a paradigm shift from an ‘either/or’ to a relational ‘as well as’ approach within a rhizomatic network of meaning.


2004 ◽  
Vol 38 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
B. Wielenga

In this article the Dutch roots of Reformed missionary work, based at Richmond (KZN) since 1960 are analysed. The following three aspects were investigated: the church-historical background of Dutch missionary work in KwaZulu-Natal; the political context within which the work was undertaken, the relationship between the Gereformeerde Kerke in Suid-Afrika (GKSA) and the Dutch churches that sent missionaries to KwaZulu-Natal, the Netherlands Reformed Churches (Nederlands Gereformeerde Kerken). The investigation undertaken in this article attempts to contribute to a deeper understanding of the sometimes uneasy relationship between the GKSA and one of her missionary partners from abroad.


1995 ◽  
Vol 51 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
W. A. Dreyer

Church, people and government in the  1858 constitution of the South African Republic During the years 1855 to 1858 the South African Republic in the Transvaal created a new constitution. In this constitution a unique relation-ship between church, people and government was visible. This relationship was influenced by the Calvinist confessions of the sixteenth century, the theology of W ά Brakel and orthodox Calvinism, the federal concepts of the Old Testament and republican ideas of the Netherlands and Cape Patriots. It becomes clear that the history of the church in the Transvaal was directly influenced by the general history of the South African Republic.


1987 ◽  
Vol 56 (2) ◽  
pp. 188-203 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lynne Courter Boughton

When William Ames (1576–1633) chose not to wear a surplice while preaching at a Cambridge University chapel, he embodied the Reformation spirit of defiance toward the symbols of ecclesiastical and educational authority. This action and subsequent signs of dissent within the Church of England earned Ames a life of exile in the Netherlands. Yet in serving as a professor at the Universities of Leiden and Franeker, the Puritan scholar perfected methods of instruction that would establish him as an authority among those similarly committed to learning the revealed will of God and investigating the structure and operation of the human mind.


2017 ◽  
Vol 48 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-16 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jan Harasimowicz

The article was written within the framework of a research project “Protestant Church Architecture of the 16th -18th centuries in Europe”, conducted by the Department of the Renaissance and Reformation Art History at the University of Wrocław. It is conceived as a preliminary summary of the project’s outcomes. The project’s principal research objective is to develop a synthesis of Protestant church architecture in the countries which accepted, even temporarily, the Reformation: Austria, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Great Britain, Hungary, Island, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, Poland, Romania, Russia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Switzerland, Sweden and The Netherlands. Particular emphasis is placed on the development of spatial and functional solutions (specifically ground plans: longitudinal, transverse rectangular, oval, circular, Latin- and Greek-cross, ground plans similar to the letters “L” and “T”) and the placement of liturgical furnishing elements within the church space (altars, pulpits, baptismal fonts and organs).


2019 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 48-55
Author(s):  
Stefan Netsch ◽  
Katharina Gugerell

Abstract European churches are confronted with the challenge of finding new uses for their church buildings. Due to a lack of members and income, the maintenance of their buildings cannot be ensured in the future; therefore, new applications and users are to be found. This task poses a considerable challenge, especially in a to a certain extent provincial and conservative country like the Netherlands, where people, even irreligious ones, perceive the church as a building that belongs to them. Besides having to deal with the building in an architectural way, there is a wide range of possibilities for reusing it; for example, community-based or mixed uses, commercial or residential ones. The eventual solution is mainly based on the church’s building type, the influence of the neighborhood, the owner’s financial possibilities, and the location. One of the present study’s main results suggests that uses which serve the community are more likely to be found in rural areas, consequently reflecting the importance of those buildings there.


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