Revolt in Utrecht

Just finished Dr. Van Hulzen's book 'Utrecht in Revolt. The end of the old bishops' city 1528-1580'. He deals with an interesting period in the history of Utrecht and the Netherlands: the religious battles following the Reformation, leading to the Iconoclasm, the Union of Utrecht, and ultimaltely the Calvinist take-over and deliverance from the Spanish yoke.

It sounds like the classical story of a fight for freedom, but the reality was mixed. Both Catholics and Calvinists had blood on their hands. The first constitution of the Netherlands was a covenant of disunity, denying a full expression of the Body of Christ. It introduced something we later exported to South Africa: Apartheid.

Churches and monasteries were desecrated, and the Catholics were treated as second-class citizens, both politically and economically. It took nearly 300 years before a new constitution made an end to this religious version of Apartheid. But it's still in our genes, and I believe we cannot ignore this historic root sin if we want to see unity and breakthrough in the present.