All Articles For A Brief History of the Afscheiding

Rev. Hanko is pastor of the Protestant Reformed Church of Lynden, Washington. Previous article in this series: November 1, 2007, p. 65. The Character of the Movement  The Secession of 1834 was for the most part a movement among the lowest and poorest of the Dutch people. Even the ministers of the Secession were not from the higher classes, but for the most part from the middle class. Kromminga says: The National Synod of the established Church is said to have comforted itself with the numerical smallness of the secession. The seceders came then and for years continued to come...

Rev. Hanko is pastor of the Protestant Reformed Church of Lynden, Washington. Previous article in this series: October 15, 2007, p. 30. Hendrik de Cock  De Cock was the oldest of the Secession leaders, the first to take an active stand against unbiblical doctrines and practices in the state church; the first to be disciplined; the first, with his congregation, to secede from the Dutch Reformed Church; and also the first of the leaders to die, for he saw only the beginnings of the Secession, dying already in 1842, just eight years after its beginning and at the young age...

Rev. Hanko is pastor of the Protestant Reformed Church of Lynden, Washington.   Introduction    The Afscheiding, or “Secession,” that took place in Holland in 1834, when a large group of dissenters separated from the state church, is a movement that had a profound impact on the history of Reformed churches, including that of the Protestant Reformed Churches. The historical roots of the Christian Reformed Church and of the Protestant Reformed Churches are in that Secession. The Dutch immigrants who first formed the Christian Reformed Church and then the Protestant Reformed Churches were almost all from the Secession.¹ Herman Hoeksema and...