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twenty years the various French governments confiscated most of the
national church property and wealth, and imposed restrictions that
weakened the church.

When Napoleon fell, the royalty of Europe sought to reduce the risk of
democratic trends by restoring the Netherlands as a monarchy, and not
as the republic that had existed previously. When Willem I became King
of the Netherlands in 1815, he reinstated the Reformed Church as the
official state church, although other churches were permitted. In spite of
their traditional religious freedom, relatively few Dutch belonged to
anything but the Reformed Church or Catholic Church. The religious
factions such as Puritans, Baptists and Mennonites had generally
emigrated to America over the centuries.

Unfortunately, the new king had observed the operation of national
churches in England and Germany during his twenty year exile, yet had
little knowledge of how the Dutch Church previously operated. He
thought he could restore and improve the Reformed Church by
nationalizing it, and controlling it from a State Ministry of Religion. What
he failed to understand was that the Reformed Church was traditionally
controlled at the provincial level and not from a central national
authority. Each province had its own synod, and their policies were
varied because the local government, lay and clergy had significant
control. Now the organization of the church underwent a major change
into a centralized authority without significant lay input.

During the preceding centuries, the Reformed Church (Hervormde Kerk)
had already liberalized and strayed from many of the principles
espoused by Calvin and the Protestant Reformation. This was the result
of many influences, including government politics, the teachings of
individual philosophers and theologians, mercantile interests, and the
religious beliefs of immigrants. The newly appointed rulers of the
church tended toward a rationalism that minimized or denied the deity
of Christ and rejected the value of the sacraments. They strongly
favored the unification of all Protestant faiths and merged the French
Reformed and Dutch Reformed churches. This sudden imposition of
major changes by the government was unacceptable to many. Strong
opposition leadership developed in Utrecht, but was subjected to heavy
punishments. In 1834 this "first separation" resulted in the formation of
an independent church, initially called the Free Reformed Church, but
soon renamed the Christian Reformed Church (Christelijke
Gereformeerde Kerk). Many churches, principally in the Groningen
province, joined and issued the "Act of Separation and Return". They
declared themselves to be true Reformed Churches and would return to
the national church when it returned to the teachings of Calvin.
Contrary to Dutch tradition, King Willem I chose to persecute these
renegade churches and their followers. Laws were enforced that forbade
any meeting of over 20 people in a non-proscribed group. This was

- Religious Turmoil - page 2 -