From: The Encyclopedia of Canada's Peoples/Dutch/Herman Ganzevoort
The religious identity of Dutch Canadians has been determined in great part by the views that they held in the Netherlands prior to their departure. The great majority of immigrants who came to Canada were of the Reformed tradition. Rooted in the Dutch experience during the Protestant Reformation and the schismatic struggles of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, it embraces not only the liberal views of the Dutch Reformed Church but also the most conservative of orthodox beliefs as represented by the dissenting Neo-Calvinist churches. The relations between the different churches, often characterized by antagonism and conflict in the Netherlands, were in part transferred to Canada.
Leaders of the Dutch Reformed Church in the Netherlands generally held positive views about the religious character of Canadian society. As a result, they encouraged their emigrating members to join the Presbyterian or, after 1925, United Church upon their arrival in this country. Language retention was not regarded as essential to the maintenance of religious traditions, and in fact most of the church leaders favoured rapid assimilation into the Canadian milieu. However, the Dutch Reformed Church abandoned this view in the early 1950s when many of its members had problems fitting into Canadian churches because of language difficulties. The Dutch church then allied itself with the Reformed Church in America, which had headquarters in the United States, and began to encourage the organization of Dutch-speaking congregations and aid for new immigrants.
Neo-Calvinists in the Netherlands shared similar views about language, but differed as to the nature of Canadian churches. Relying upon reports from earlier Dutch and Dutch-American immigrants, they concluded that the United and Presbyterian churches did not share the Reformed principles and beliefs that were part of their tradition. As a result, they sought to establish their own churches with the assistance of the Christian Reformed Church (CRC) of the United States, which had separated from the Reformed Church in America in 1857. Essentially a mission field until well into the 1950s, Canada saw the founding of the first CRC congregation in Winnipeg in the early part of the century. From then on, congregations were established wherever there were enough Neo-Calvinist immigrants to sustain them. By 1947, when a new wave of Dutch immigrants, the majority of whom were Calvinists, was about to flood into Canada, the Christian Reformed Church had prepared a religious seedbed complete with established congregations and had organized a placement and aftercare system using experienced settler-fieldmen.
Until 1947 the Roman Catholic episcopacy in the Netherlands opposed any emigration to Canada other than in the form of colonies because of fear that parishioners would lose their faith in that predominantly Protestant country. When Catholic emigration came to be encouraged after the war, it was with the understanding that Canadian Catholic churches would provide an easy integration into existing parishes. As the Canadian episcopacy had no interest in creating another “national” or ethnic church within its communion, the emphasis was on the rapid assimilation of the immigrants. Dutch priests of the Norbertine order played an important role in the settlement of the immigrants and greatly eased the process of integration. Language acquisition and integration into English-speaking parishes were regarded as of paramount importance and progressed rapidly. Of all the Dutch immigrants, the Roman Catholics assimilated the most quickly and completely.
The Christian Reformed Church dominated the religious life of the Neo-Calvinist community in the immediate post-war period, but the reforming impulse that is so much part of Calvinism was not always contained within the church. Conflicts over matters of common grace, church order, and other doctrinal matters that had coloured the Dutch experience spilled over into Canada. A sense of unity in the face of adversity restrained conflict in the first years of settlement, but by the beginning of the 1950s, old differences surfaced once again. Some Neo-Calvinists who had temporarily aligned themselves with the CRC as a matter of convenience began to give expression to the doctrinal differences that had separated them into competing churches in the Netherlands. Often open conflict resulted in the withdrawal of the dissenting minority from the established churches. Such disagreements led to the founding of the Canadian Reformed Church in 1950 and the Free Reformed Church five years later. These communions continue to flourish and represent a more conservative aspect of the Calvinist community.
Also part of the community in Canada are the Protestant Reformed Church and the Netherlands Reformed Congregation. The first of these groups broke away from the Christian Reformed Church in the United States in the early part of this century over the issue of common grace, and it has established a small presence in Canada, primarily in Ontario. The Netherlands Reformed Congregation was introduced by immigrants from the Netherlands and is regarded as the most conservative of all the Calvinist churches. It opposes inoculation, for example, and encourages an experiential relationship with an omniscient and omnipotent God. Its theology emphasizes the sinful and depraved nature of humanity and the limits of salvation.
The Christian Reformed Church, the largest Dutch communion in Canada, is not free from religious division. Recently, conflict over the role of women has led to the withdrawal of more conservative elements who oppose their ordination as ministers and their installation as elders and deacons. These dissenting members have organized at least five new congregations in Canada. Since the Reformed tradition has always placed importance on local congregations, and members control the affairs of their churches and call their own ministers, schism and internal division have been part of its history. As the role of women is redefined within the church and they begin to play an equal part in that institution, conflict will inevitably result.
Difference of opinion does not, however, always lead to separation and division. Within the Christian Reformed Church, a minority (perhaps 20 to 30 percent) have sought to impress Calvinist principles on Canadian society. Committed to the belief that all activity must follow the direction of God’s word and acknowledge his law, they have ventured in new directions, founding the Christian Labour Association of Canada, the Christian Farmers Association, and the Citizens for Public Justice. The impact of these organizations on the Christian Reformed community has been strong, although not without dissension and conflict, but it has been less so in the larger Canadian community. The organizations have, however, made Canadians somewhat more aware of the Neo-Calvinist opposition to prevailing liberal and secular thinking.
The desire the keep alive and even spread Neo-Calvinist thought in Canadian society was a concern of some of the earliest immigrants to Canada. Prior to World War I, Dutch and Dutch-American newcomers regarded Christian education as an important means by which they could preserve their religious traditions. Concentrated settlement, such as in Nobleford and Neerlandia, permitted the establishment of public elementary schools and school boards dominated by Neo-Calvinists. Some parents were happy with the essentially Christian nature of the public school system, but others regarded it as inadequate and even dangerous. Lacking the resources to underwrite an alternative approach, many had nevertheless to content themselves with the public school system and its shortcomings until after World War II.
The influx of Dutch immigrants after 1947 and the growth of the community in Canada provided the opportunity for a re-evaluation of the educational needs of its children. Neo-Calvinists predominated in the early years, and for them Christian education had been a given in the Netherlands, where they had access to a full range of state-supported Christian schools from elementary to university level. They soon learned that in Canada, provincial governments were prepared to support public (Protestant) and separate (Catholic) schools but not alternative Christian schools. The Canadian system did not present a problem to the Roman Catholic immigrants, who were content to send their children to the local separate school or to the public school if separate facilities were not available. Dutch Protestant immigrants from non-Calvinist backgrounds, too, did not sympathize with the supporters of the Christian school movement and regarded the public school as perfectly competent to educate their children.
Even in the Christian Reformed Church, the issue was often divisive. Members generally opposed such worldly amusements as movie attendance, card-playing, and dancing, entertainments that the public schools either promoted or expressed no moral judgment about. The question of public school education went deeper, however. These schools, while teaching nominally religious sentiments, did not provide moral instruction and failed to recognize the supremacy of God in all aspects of life. The most blatant example was the teaching of the theory of evolution. As a result, some believed that an attempt should be made to change existing public schools into more Neo-Calvinist institutions. Given the constraints of language and numbers, however, this approach seemed impractical. Others objected to the separatism implied by a parallel school system. Nevertheless, a majority believed that, whatever the shortcomings of the Canadian public school system, deficiencies could be remedied by home instruction and the guidance of the church.
The real issue, however, was money. Congregations already burdened with the high costs of assisting the burgeoning immigrant community were sometimes reluctant, and often unable, to find the funds for buildings, teachers, and transportation. Although the local school society run by the parents was by constitution and practice independent of the church, the membership of the two organizations was usually identical and the same pockets had to be drawn on for both. The financial burden of providing an alternative Christian education often seemed insurmountable. The financially conservative element adopted a cautious approach, while some 30 percent of the congregations pushed for the establishment of their own schools. In some cases, this disagreement fractured church communities, with ministers occasionally caught between the contending parties. The fact that Christian schools were state supported in the Netherlands encouraged some groups to lobby for provincial support; others regarded the privately supported system of Christian Reformed schools in the United States as the model for Canadian development. A number of school societies began optimistically to build, while others waited until adequate financing was available.
The continued growth of the Christian Reformed communities and commitment to a God-centred, quality education, based on Calvinist traditions, for Canadian society as a whole eventually led to a nationwide system of Christian schools in all the provinces except Newfoundland, where there has been little Dutch settlement. At present, some 150 schools provide an education to over 27,000 students at the elementary and high school levels. Although the majority of the students come from the Christian Reformed Church and are of Dutch background, an increasing number come from the larger Canadian evangelical community. Other Dutch churches, such as the Canadian Reformed and the Netherlands Reformed, although relatively small, have their own parent-controlled schools.
Many of the same individuals who were involved in the Christian school movement also worked for the development of post-secondary Christian education in Canada. One of the earliest results was the Institute for Christian Studies in Toronto founded in 1967. It was followed by King’s College in Edmonton and Redeemer College in Ancaster, Ontario. In the course of some forty years, Calvinist immigrants concerned with preserving their religious heritage and disseminating it in their new homeland have established a lasting presence. Few other Dutch-Canadian institutions have had such an influence.
