In the easy-going Netherlands, two worlds have clashed

By M.S. and ERASMUS | AMSTERDAM

THE NETHERLANDS is famed for tolerance of all beliefs, and for liberal attitudes towards ethical matters from drugs to euthanasia to sexuality. It’s a tradition that runs deeps: this is where Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677) laid the philosophical ground for the Enlightenment, and indeed where a cleric called Erasmus (1466-1532) tried to transcend Christian sectarianism and embrace humanism. As the 21st century dawned, this became the first country to legalise same-sex marriage.

Hence many would be surprised to know the Netherlands still has a Protestant Bible Belt. From Friesland in the north to Zeeland in the south, the country’s middle comprises towns where Sundays are silent, women defer to husbands, and pastors set rules in family life and politics.

This week, two Dutch worlds clashed. On January 6th it was reported that 250 clerics, mainly from small conservative congregations, had signed a Dutch version of a declaration on sexuality known as the Nashville Statement. Originally published by American evangelicals in 2017, this is a protest against progressive ideas about sex and gender. It says marriage is for a man and a woman, that gay sex is immoral, that adopting homosexual or transgender identities is not “consistent with God’s holy purposes”, and that these are not matters on which Christians can disagree. One signatory was Kees van der Staaij, leader of the SGP party, a conservative group with Bible Belt roots.

Dutch society responded with swift condemnation. The government, which groups two liberal parties with two Christian ones, reaffirmed its gay-friendly bona fides: the minister of education and culture, a member of the liberal D66 party, called the Nashville Statement “a step backwards in time”, and the justice ministry said it might constitute hate speech.

The president of Amsterdam’s Vrije Universiteit (VU), a Protestant university that counted a few faculty members among the signers, denounced the declaration; a gay-pride flag was hoisted on the main building. Amsterdam’s city government and many mainstream churches also flew the banner; the country’s biggest flag producer said orders for rainbow bunting surged. Gay and lesbian celebrities and clergy from liberal Christian groups voiced indignation.

In some ways, the affair is perplexing. For the SGP, the Nashville Statement contained little new. The party takes a hard line on reproduction, sexuality and marriage, but in recent years it has voiced its views quietly, recognising that with three out of 150 parliamentary seats, it will hardly prevail. Mr van der Staaij’s charm has given the party a gentler image.

The SGP’s exclusively male politicians are often dubbed mannenbroeders (man-brothers), and its female adherents are called “black stockings” for their hosiery. But these terms are now used mostly in jest, not derision.

Problems do exist between the secular Dutch majority and the fundamentalists; some won’t vaccinate their children and this has contributed to outbreaks of measles. But the SGP and the Bible Belt are mostly viewed now as harmless historical curiosities. So why the flare-up?

Two explanations seem relevant, one political, one religious. On the political side, Ariejan Korteweg, a Dutch reporter, notes that Mr van der Staaij’s support for the Nashville Statement should be seen in the light of competition for votes on the right. In recent years, a series of Dutch anti-Muslim populist parties have emerged, like the Freedom Party of Geert Wilders and the newer Forum for Democracy.

These parties enjoy much wider support than the SGP, and threaten to erode its base, especially among young constituents. But the populist parties endorse gay rights. Indeed, their antipathy to Islam is laced with complaints of homophobia. They take their cue from Pim Fortuyn, a flamboyant gay anti-Muslim populist who was assassinated. For Mr van der Staaij, reiterating opposition to same-sex marriage may be one way to differentiate his group from the new populist rivals.

But a bigger driver is confessional ferment amongst Dutch Protestants. Most of the pastors who signed the Nashville Statement hail from small ultra-conservative congregations which refused to join the consolidation of the Protestant Church of the Netherlands (PKN) in 2004. That fusion reunited the two main versions of Dutch Protestantism, the Dutch Reformed Church and the Reformed Churches in the Netherlands, which had been divided since the 19th century.

The creation of the PKN in 2004 also took in the Netherlands’ smaller Lutheran churches. To accommodate the differences between these two forms of Protestant doctrine, the PKN had to embrace some theological freedom for member congregations. That was too much for a small minority of orthodox Calvinists, who split off to form the Restored Reformed Church (HHK).

The mainstream PKN, with over 1m adherents, has lost members year by year; the stricter HHK has held steady. The initiative to translate the Nashville Statement came from Heart Cry, a youth-oriented movement that fuses Calvinism with an American-style emphasis on being born again. (Adherents of John Calvin take a darker view of human nature and the inevitability of divine punishment than do followers of Martin Luther. And Calvinists do not see such differences as trivial.)

For most Dutch Protestants, the Nashville Statement seems harsh and insensitive, says Stefan Paas, a theology professor at the VU. The majority accept the legitimacy of homosexuality and transgender identity, but for those who don’t, stridency seems self-defeating. “For people in the churches who are wrestling with their sexuality, or feel they were born in the wrong body, will this sort of statement encourage them to go to a pastor?” asks Mr Paas. Most disturbing, he says, is the document’s refusal to accept that some Christians might think differently.

The Dutch signers of the Nashville Statement seemed naively surprised by the vehement reactions. One pastor at the VU blithely insisted that Dutch churches must denounce “gender ideology” now because they had failed to call out Nazism (which was, incidentally, murderously homophobic.)

Although Mr Wilders, the champion of Dutch nativism, has stayed almost silent, some conservative commentators accused leftists of hypocrisy, in other words of condemning homophobia among Christians, but not among Muslims. Still, within a few days, even the signers of the statement seemed to be backing away.

Gay Christian youth groups condemned it. One of the pastors who initiated the translation said the group recognised that homosexuality is an inborn trait, not a “curable” one. In the end, the effect of the Nashville Statement’s Dutch version has been to confirm that, outside a tiny minority, acceptance of homosexuality and transgender identity is too firmly established in Dutch society—and in Dutch Christianity—to dislodge.