%0 Journal Article %A van der Woude, Rolf %T ‘Dien verschrikkelijken watersnood’ %D 2021 %J DNK : Documentatieblad voor de Nederlandse kerkgeschiedenis na 1800, %V 44 %N 95 %P 103-131 %@ 2665-9492 %R https://doi.org/10.5117/DNK2021.95.001.VAND %K Disaster Studies %K Gerrit Johan Friedrich Cramer von Baumgarten %K religion and disasters %K The Christmas Flood of 1717 %K Jacobus Isebrandus Harkenroht %I Amsterdam University Press, %X Abstract That horrendous Christmas flood: 1717 Hundred years Christmas flood 1817 Christmas night 1717 a heavy storm pounded on the coast of the Northern Netherlands and East Frisia. The consequences were disastrous. Thousands of residents drowned and extensive damage was done. Reverend Jacobus Isebrandus Harkenroht, who had personally experienced the storm surge, gave a sermon for his East Frisian municipality of Larrelt on Sunday after the flood. He told his congregation that disaster came from God, who punished land and people for their sins. Passionately, he called on his listeners and later his readers to repent. One hundred years later, his confrere Gerrit Johan Friedrich Cramer von Baumgarten commemorated the disaster. He also told his congregation of Middelbert in Groningen that they should see God's hand in the flood. The aim of this pedagogical correction was to show the way to perfection with respect for the laws of nature. Harkenroht’s immanent God had become transcendent. %U https://www.aup-online.com/content/journals/10.5117/DNK2021.95.001.VAND