‘Dutch’ religious tolerance: celebration and revision

The Sociology of Theology Revisited and Applied

“…Hence, the doctrine or vision of the Christiana respublica (or ''City of God'') is the dependent variable or function of medieval tyranny or despotism as a social system, as is its complement the doctrine of ''holy'' war between God and ''enemies of God,'' true believers and ''infidels,'' ''good'' and evil.'' Christiana respublica (or the ''City of God'') and Calvinism overall is the doctrine or vision (Mannheim's ''utopia'') of a ''purer'' privilege and power (Bourdieu, 1998), of the medieval order of masters (Eisenstadt, 1965), or tyranny (Heller, 1986;Kaplan, 2002), thus a primitive or premodern theocracy rather than that of the early modern state (Gorski, 1993). The preceding is condensed below: ''Holy'' pure medieval tyranny, primitive theocracy !…”

Protestantism and Authoritarianism: Weber's Secondary Problem

“…It does so given that, in contrast to its persistent presence and salience in the “new world”, Puritanism and its revolution was eventually, as Weber (1976) puts it, “abortive” (as Germans would say kaput ) or tempered by counteracting forces such as less ascetic and more moderate Anglicanism (Munch 2001) and especially secular liberalism (Walzer 1963; Zaret 1989) in Great Britain. Calvinism was also moderated (Elwood 1999; Heller 1986) and eventually neutralized by the liberal and rationalistic Enlightenment in Europe, including France (Artz 1998), Holland 11 (Kaplan 2002), and Germany (Schmidt 1996).…”

“…However, it could establish a theocracy only for a limited time and only in local areas: in Geneva and New England, incompletely among the Huguenots, and in the Netherlands.” Notably, he specifically registers the “ecclesiastic revolution of the strict Calvinists in the Netherlands during the 1580s” establishing such theocracy. Moreover, he suggests that that “the rule of Calvinism, on the other hand, as it was enforced in the sixteenth century in Geneva and in Scotland, at the turn of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in large parts of the Netherlands, in the seventeenth in New England, and for a time in England itself, would be for us the most absolutely unbearable form of ecclesiastical control of the individual which could possibly exist.” In addition to Weber's early observations, contemporary analysts provide document and analyze the Calvinist theocracy in 17 th and 18 th Century Holland (Frijhoff 2002; Hsia Po‐chia and Henk van Nierop 2002; Kaplan 2002; Pollmann 2002; Prak 2002; Sprunger 1982). The common finding of these studies is that 17 th and 18 th Century Holland was indeed a Calvinist theocracy in the form of an official “true” Reformed Church, and that the Netherlands gained its present “image of tolerance” not because, but in spite and opposition, of Calvinism, and primarily owing to the Enlightenment, notably its new idea of religious liberty and tolerance (Kaplan 2002).…”

Moral Panic and Holland’s Libertine Youth of the 1650s and 1660s

“…As long as the rest of the Dutch population (roughly 40 percent were Roman Catholic, and there were small groups of Mennonites, Lutherans, and Jews) had not been converted-and moreover were tolerated and, with the exception of the Roman Catholics, allowed to openly practice their denomination-there was still a lot of work to be done before the Republic could consider itself a Dutch Israel. 56 Prosperity and misfortune could be regarded as God's blessings and punishment. The wealth and prosperity generated until 1650 was considered to be God's blessings, but by the middle of the seventeenth century, ministers and moralists detected the beginning of God's wrath.…”