“When Creed And Morals Rot ...”: Orthodoxies Versus Liberalisms In The Nineteenth-Century Netherlands Reformed Church

Chapter Summary

The clash between orthodoxy and &t;adaptation&t; (or &t;liberalism&t;, &t;modernism&t;, &t;progressivism&t;) is a familiar theme in the historiography of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Dutch Protestantism. This chapter looks into a few major clashes between "orthodoxy" and "liberalism ", "modernism ", "latitudinarianism", or "progressivism" in the history of nineteenth-century Dutch mainline Protestantism : (a) Bilderdijk and Da Costa versus Enlightenment Christianity ; (b) De Cock and his followers versus the Reformed Synod; (c) the Seven The Hague Gentlemen versus the Groningen Theologians; (d) the Groningen Theologians versus historical criticism or Modern Theology , and (e) Kuyper versus Modern Theology, Ethical Theology and the Reformed Synod. In traditional church histories, these clashes are often interpreted as the successive battles in one and the same war, which ended with the miraculous regeneration of the Church - in 1834, 1886, or 1951 (when the Netherlands Reformed Church reintroduced ideological discipline).

Keywords: adaptation; Dutch Protestantism; liberalism; modernism; Netherlands Reformed Church; nineteenth-century; orthodoxy; progressivism