- ISSN: 0923-7771
- E-ISSN: 2665-9492
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oa Dominees op half licht
De gebroeders Hugenholtz en de Vrije Gemeente: een geschiedenis van vrijzinnigheid
- Amsterdam University Press
- Source: DNK : Documentatieblad voor de Nederlandse kerkgeschiedenis na 1800, Volume 47, Issue 101, Dec 2024, p. 140 - 167
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- 01 Dec 2024
Abstract
The half-lit church ministers. The Hugenholtz brothers and the Free Congregation: a history of religious liberalism
The walls of the famous and iconic ‘pop temple’ Paradiso — a free-spirited music venue in Amsterdam — tell the fascinating history of a bold liberal religious movement with international appeal. Brothers Petrus Hermanus and Philip Reinhard Hugenholtz, liberal ministers in the Dutch Reformed Church, played a key role in establishing De Vrije Gemeente (The Free Congregation) of Amsterdam. This congregation, founded in 1870, was a liberal religious community that split from the Dutch Reformed Church and distanced itself from traditional dogmas, emphasizing free thought and individual spirituality. Their openness was reflected in their active interest in for example Hinduism, Buddhism, and Islam, as well as in their promotion of greater gender equality, hiring women as Sunday school teachers and allowing them to preach, thereby challenging the conservative norms that had excluded women from religious leadership and the pulpit. The history of the Hugenholtz brothers and their free congregation illustrates the broader tensions within Dutch Protestantism during this period, as the nation grappled with issues of modernity, secularization, and religious identity. Through its international connections the Free Congregation became central to the International Congress of Religious Free-Thinkers, which later became the still-existing International Association for Religious Freedom (IARF). Their 1901 conference, held in their Amsterdam church, brought together free-thinkers and liberal religious groups from the USA, England, Australia, New Zealand, Switzerland, Germany, Japan, and India. Though the Free Congregation itself no longer exists, its legacy still resonates in the liberal religious movements of the Netherlands as well as in in recent academic research.
