In the time before the Reformation, the people that inhabited the Netherlands belonged to the Roman Empire and to the Holy Roman Empire, meaning they followed their lead in religious matters.
Before the founding of Christianity, Celtic tribes that populated the southern area of the Netherlands practiced Celtic Polytheism while those Germanic tribes that lived in the North followed Germanic Paganism. The arrival of the Romans in the south of the Netherlands brought with it new religious influences including aspects of Mithraism, Judaism and Egyptian Mythology, culminating in the total conversion of the south to Christianity in the 6th Century. During the 8th Century the North experienced waves of Christrian missionairies that attempted to convert them. It was not until the North was brought under Saxon subjagation that it was finally Christianised. The Middle Ages brought with it the rise in power of the Catholic Church, which controlled much of the Netherlands.
In both the 16th and 17th Centuries, religious events in the Netherlands were dominated by the Protestant Reformation which would change the entire psyche of the Netherlands and influence its history. The main changes in religious belief were experienced most notably in the North and West of the Netherlands.
The first wave of Reformation to sweep through Europe, initiated by the most famous of reformers, Martin Luther, did not actually come the Netherlands. However, the second wave of Reformation, Anabaptism, took root in both Holland and Friesland and became very popular. The Anabaptists were radical and believed that the apocalypse would soon take place. In refusing to live in the old ways, they began new communities which would cause wide spread chaos. Later English and American Baptists would model themselves on this institutionalised Dutch Baptism.
The 1560's heralded the arrival in the Netherlands of the third wave of the Reformation, Calvinism. Large parts of society, of both the elite and the common people, converted to Calvinism, mainly in Flanders in the South. At this time, the Netherlands was under the Spanish rule of Phillip II. The Calvinists were persecuted relentlessly by the Spanish government and supported by the Spanish Inquisition. This caused the Calvinists to openly revolt and, with political reasons further deepening the crisis, the Netherlands was plunged in to the Eighty Years War to free itself from their Spanish overlords. The Calvinists eventually prevailed and many churches became Calvinist, though a large number of Catholics remained. Due to the war being of both a political and religious nature, once independant the Netherlands practiced a great deal of tolerance towards other religions within its borders, with the notable exception of the native Catholics.
Over time the Dutch Catholics lost more of the country to conversions to Calvinism. An arc spanning from the West of the Netherlands to the North became the Calvinist belt, which largely remains to this day. In the South remained the Catholics. The Netherlands also became a beacon of religious tolerance, experiencing waves of religious refugees including Jews from Antwerp, Huguenots from France and Puritans (including the now well known Pilgrims) from England.
Forces of Revolutionary France invaded the country in 1795, establishing the Batavian Republic which brought about equal rights and emancipation for all faiths in the Netherlands. In 1813 the Calvinist Republic of the North united with the Catholic Southern Netherlands resulting in the creation of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands. This United Kingdom however was not to last. In 1830 the union split as a result of the Belgian Revolution which was motivated by a mix of Protestant and Catholic tensions as well as a bitter royalist and liberalist divide. Once again the position of Catholics in the Netherlands deteriorated.
At this time the Netherlands was ruled by a liberal Calvinist elite which dominated botht he bureaucracy of state as well as the Dutch Reformed Church. In 1886 a group of orthodox Calvinists split from the liberal controlled Dutch Reformed Church. In 1892 these orthodox Calvinists founded the Reformed Churches of the Netherlands. In addition to this, one of their prominent leaders, Abraham Kuyper, began establishing many organisations with his orthodox faith at its core, such as a newspaper, labour union, schools, a university and a political party to represent the orthodox Calvinists. His idea behind this was, while allowing cooperation and interaction on the national level in government and polictics, the creation of a social network based solely on orthodox Calvinist principles where they could live apart scoially from the rest of society. Running parallel to this, the Catholic Church made similiar moves in the Netherlands. Ulimately the Netherlands became divided in to three distinct communities along religious lines. Between each segment of society, there was wide spread tolerance of the others, but little interaction socially - in government however, all three cooperated and worked together. This system is called pillarization. In the 20th Century, a fourth Socialist Pillar would develop with the changing times. Since World War Two, the pillarization of Dutch society gradually broke down until today, where little sign of it remains.
Nazi German occupation swept over the Netherlands in 1940. As a result of this the majority of the Dutch Jewish community was brutally exterminated.
In reaction to this, in the February of 1941, there was a general strike held in Amsterdam and in the surrounding areas to protest and resist the first razzia. This would be the single largest act of resistance in the Netherlands against the persecution of Jews during the Second World War at the hands of the Nazis. The resistance was predominantly composed of Communists, Catholics and conservative Calvinists. Notably the liberals were underrepresented. The resistance went on to hide many Jews from the Nazis. Before the Nazi occupation in 1940, Jews number 140,000 in the Netherlands. 20,000 of these Jews were protected from persuction due to being either being the children or grandchildren of Aryan non-Jews, or due to being married to one. In addition to this, another 20,000 Jews survived the occupation by being hid from the Germans by the Dutch population. Out of the more than 100,000 Jews that were deported to the death camps, only 1,000 returned after the end of the war. As a percentage, the Jews of the Netherlands suffered a much higher extermination rate than in other countries, even that of Germany.
In the post war time, especially during the 1960s and 1970s, the Dutch population underwent a major religous shift. The pillarization of Dutch society entered a severe and ultimately terminal decline. Both the Catholic Church and the various Protestant faiths suffered dramatic falls in both their members and influence. Currently only 44% of the Dutch population associates itself with a church. In the 1980s and 1990s this was reflected in the strong swing towards liberal goverment policies regarding abortion, euthanasia, homosexuality and prosituition. This is the modern liberal Netherlands that you will see while visiting the big cities.
Running parallel to this is the rise in Islam in the Netherlands. Going from a following of in effect none at the end of the Second World War, the Muslim faith now accounts for 6% of the population. This is the result of decolonization (Surinam and Indonesia), migrant workers seeking a better life (Turkey and Morocco) and refugees (Iraq, Iran, Bosnia and Afghanistan). This has caused a large degree of concern and unrest in Dutch society and policitcs as many Dutch fear the conservative Muslim immigrants will undermine their liberal values and social tolerances.
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