On many occasions one discovers how much one does not know. Even though I have studied Dutch church history for decades, I knew nothing about the role of the North Holland village of Lutjebroek in the history of Dutch Catholicism.

Lutjebroek is a name that sounds familiar to many Dutch people. The name has become a metaphor for a super boring place, where an average Dutchman has no reason to go. Quite a few of my compatriots even think it is an imaginary place that does not really exist. But Lutjebroek does exist. It is a village in the northern part of North Holland (the region above Amsterdam) with about 2200 inhabitants, which is now part of the municipality of Stede Broeck, between the historic cities of Hoorn and Enkhuizen. I lived in my youth about 25 kilometers away from Lutjebroek.

In the village of Lutjebroek stands a large neo-gothic church, which was built in 1876-1877, after a design by the famous architect Pierre Cuypers, who has many Roman Catholic buildings to his name. [He was also the architect of the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.] The Nicolaas Church is still used for Catholic worship services, and a look at the parish website indicates that there is still plenty of life in this Catholic community.

How did my attention suddenly get drawn to the parish of St. Nicolaas in Lutjebroek? It was because a few days ago I attended a lecture during the annual meeting of the Society for Dutch Church History on the Dutch Zouaves. The Zouaves were members of an international military corps that supported the Pope in his last desperate (but vain) attempts in the years 1860-1870 to save from the Italians what was left of the Church State. The corps of the Zouaves consisted of about 12,000 idealists, who manifested an enormous loyalty to the “holy father,” and who were prepared to seal their loyalty to Pope Pius IX with their lives. The Netherlands contributed no fewer than three thousand Zouaves to the papal army. A significant number of them came from a few Catholic villages in North Holland. No less than 22 came from the small village of Lutjebroek. One of them, Pieter Jong, actually died on the Italian battle field and became the hero of Lutjebroek. The street where the large church is located is named after him. Furthermore, the memory of the Zouaves in Lutjebroek is kept alive by the local soccer club, which still bears the name de Zouaven.

The lecture about the Zouaves was held in a meeting room of the small Zouave Museum in Oudenbosch in Brabant (the predominantly Catholic southern part of the Netherlands). The “skyline” of this small historic town is dominated by the dome of the basilica, which is a copy of St. Peter’s in Rome. The Dutch Zouaves gathered in this little town, after which they coninued to Italy via Brussels. I hardly knew anything about this footnote in church history, but that gap in my knowledge has now been somewhat filled.

Incidentally, it is significant that the predominantly Protestant North of the Netherlands (including North Holland) has a number of traditionally Catholic enclaves. The tourist trap of Volendam is one of these. I lived as a child in North Holland in a village called Schermerhorn, where the majority was Protestant, but the adjacent village of Ursem was 99% Catholic. A similar situation occurs in some other regions of the country. The reason goes back to the Reformation and the period thereafter. In the Netherlands, the measures of the Protestants against Catholics were usually less aggressive than in other European countries, with the result that, here and there, significant Catholic enclaves remained unscathed. When, in the middle of the nineteenth century, the Catholics again regained full freedom to organize and manifest themselves, a host of church building projects followed almost immediately. The construction of the St. Nicolaas Church in the 1870s in Lutjebroek fits seamlessly into that development.

The first systematic persecution of Christians took place during the short rule of the Roman Emperor Decius (249-251). All Christians were required to bring sacrifices to the state gods, or face martyrdom. Many refused and had to pay for this with their life. They were referred to as confessors. But many others lacked that courage and decided that under the circumstances they would sacrifice to the pagan gods. Those who did so were labeled sacrificati, or thurificati, in case they had only burned some incense. There was also a significant group, the so-called libellatici, who managed to obtain a certificate (from a friendly administrator or through bribery) indicating that they had sacrificed, while in reality they had not. When the persecution subsided, church leaders were faced with the disciplinary question of how to treat the men and women who had not been brave enough to disobey the emperor’s order. Could these people resume normal participation in church life? And if so, on what terms? The question was not answered everywhere in the same way, which led to controversies and even church splits.

A few days ago, I consulted a book while writing an article, which referred to this episode in church history. It got me thinking: What would I have done? Would I have been a sacrificatus or thurificatus rather than a confessor? Or would I have had the courage to put my life on the line. Over the centuries, millions of believers were willing to do this, and even today there are countries in the world where it is literally a matter of life or death to be a follower of Christ. What would I do if I lived in such a country and I had to make the choice between staying true to my faith or becoming a martyr?

In the last two weeks we have been confronted with the determination of a large part of the Ukrainian people to fight against their Russian enemy. Many say that they will fight as long as it takes, and that they are willing to give their lives if necessary. The example of President Zelensky is impressive. He wants to stay with the people, whatever the costs, and he has firmly rejected the American offer to be taken with his family to safety. I am happy to live in a free and democratic country and would give much to preserve my democratic freedom. But would I be willing to die for my country? Suppose Putin can realize his dream and advance further towards the West. Wouldn’t I then rather be “red” than “dead”?

How far should we go in our allegiance to our faith and to fundamental moral principles? Let us first of all note that we can only answer that question for ourselves. And we can only really do so when we find ourselves in a concrete situation in which we must make such a choice. In such circumstances it is possible that some people, who sounded very tough, will, after all, opt for a safe way out, while others who did not seem so courageous may display true heroism.

Let us be slow in our judgment of others. I admire the men and women who want to defend their country, but I can also understand the Ukrainians who desperately want to survive this conflict and therefore flee from the violence. We, who live in the relatively safety of the Netherlands [and this applies to readers elsewhere], must offer support and shelter to as many victims of war and violence as we possibly can (and not only to people from Ukraine!). Let us not complain too easily when life becomes a few percent more expensive, because for most of us this may be annoying but is not a really big deal. And as we provide support, it remains important that we continue to pray for those in need, but also ask the Lord to give us true courage if we should ever find ourselves in circumstances where very difficult choices have to be made.

Since several months I am a member of a reading club. When we last met, we selected an extraordinarily fascinating book. The plan is to read it and then discuss it when we meet again. That explains why I have currently arrived in the middle of the book by a Norwegian historian and geographer. It is called: The Nile—Biography of a River. It presents quite a challenge, as it has over 500 rather densely printed pages. But it is downright fascinating to learn more about the enormous significance this river has had throughout history-and still has-for the fourteen countries that depend to a considerable extent on the White Nile and the Blue Nile, and their tributaries, for their water supply (and thus for their development and economy).

Books always take on a special meaning when, as a reader, you have been to the places that are described. In the last four years of my period in Africa for the Adventist Church, I visited almost two-thirds of all the African countries. A few years later, I returned a few times to Egypt and Sudan because those countries at the time were under the supervision of the regional church office (TED) of the Adventist Church, where I served as the executive secretary. After that I was for a short time the director of ADRA-Netherlands, and that took me to East Africa again.

The book I am currently reading follows the course of the Nile from the North to the South. From Egypt the author takes his readers to Sudan and the new republic of South Sudan and then to Uganda. In the process, the lakes region of East Africa then comes into extensive focus, with special attention for the immense Lake Victoria. With its surface of 70,000 square kilometers, this is the second largest freshwater reservoir on earth. We hardly ever stop to think today that it was only about 150 years ago that this area was properly mapped and Western explorers determined that this lake is the origin of the White Nile, which merges with the Blue Nile in the Sudanese capital of Khartoum.

The first time I saw Lake Victoria was after a 350-plus km drive from Nairobi to the Kendu Bay, in the northwestern part of Lake Victoria. My destination was the Adventist publishing/printing house (the Africa Herald Publishing House) located there, in the immediate vicinity of the Kendu Adventist Hospital. I had rented a car in Nairobi and remember very vividly three aspects of the trip: the vast tea fields in all shades of green in the Kericho area, the herd of thousands of zebras that crossed the road somewhere halfway through the trip, and the hefty fine for a speeding ticket somewhere in the middle of nowhere.

In my ADRA days I was involved in the construction of an elementary school (of 8 classes) on Buvuma, one of the islands in Lake Victoria. It was a wonderful project-urgently needed on this island where the poor population lives primarily on fishing, and where at the time a frighteningly high percentage of both men and women were HIV-infected. Representatives of ADRA-Uganda brought me to the island in a motor sloop, where we stayed so long that I missed my flight home from the Entebbe airport.

Several years into my retirement, I taught for a month at Bugema University in Uganda. This Adventist university, which now has about 5,000 students, is located along a largely unpaved road about 65 km north of the Ugandan capital Kampala. During a day off, the administrators treated me to a touristic excursion. We drove to the spot on the north shore of Lake Victoria where the Nile has its origin. In a small boat, we sailed a short distance from the shore, where we could clearly see how currents in the water form the start of the river that here begins its course to the North.

The following chapters in the book discuss the role of the Nile for Kenya and Tanzania and a number of other countries in that region. This will no doubt also bring back memories of visits I paid there. It was a privilege for which I am still grateful. [And it is nice to think for a few moments of something pleasant in the midst of the atrocities in Ukraine which currently dominate the news.]

In my previous blog I wrote about the hymnal of the Adventist Church in the Netherlands which has now been in use for forty years. One of the special features of this hymnal is the section with the 150 psalms. At the time when this hymnal was created, many church members indicated that they wanted to sing more psalms in our church service. However, the expectation (which I also had) that this would indeed happen, has not materialized. Only occasionally a psalm is chosen for communal singing in the Adventist worship service.

I have often wondered about the reason for this reluctance to sing psalms. While in many respects there has been a tendency in recent decades to adopt practices from the general Protestant tradition–such as pronouncing the Votum at the beginning of the divine service, and giving the blessing at the end of the service–there has not been such a development with regard to psalm singing. Was this perhaps partly due to the fact that the Adventist Hymnal adopted a rather unknown version of the psalter, namely that of Rev. H. Hasper (1886-1974)? The reason for this choice was that we faced difficulties in obtaining the rights to include the psalter that is most commonly used by Protestant in the Netherlands. The foundation that owns the rights to Hasper’s psalter was willing to allow us the use of their psalter under conditions that were attractive to both parties. However, psalm singing in the Dutch Adventist Church has remained at a low ebb and it does not look as if this will change any time soon.

Yet, the singing of psalms has not only remained popular in the most conservative Protestant churches in the Netherlands, but psalms also continue to have a permanent place in most “moderate” Protestant denominations. A recent survey found that psalm 121 and psalm 42 rank highest in popularity. Perhaps the time has come that I choose one of these psalms as the hymns to be sung with one of my sermons. The words are beautiful and I find them much more meaningful than the text of most popular hymns.

Perhaps what surprised me most in the outcome of the recent survey was the fact that for many churchgoers the organ is still the preferred instrument in the church service . 62 percent of the members of the United Church of the Netherlands prefer organ accompaniment. The piano and a band score much lower, at 26 and 19 percent respectively. So, the fact that I still like organ accompaniment in church singing does not make me unique!

The hymns of Johan de Heer (1866-1961) also seem to be as popular as ever in the Dutch Protestant churches. Johan de Heer, the writer and composer of hundreds of hymns, was in his younger years for some time a member of the Adventist Church in Rotterdam. He left Adventism in 1902 and later became the leader of the interdenominational “Zoeklicht” movement, which focused primarily on the return of Christ. In a sense, therefore, he remained an Adventist.

Finally: I was not surprised that the survey showed that “Go with God” is very popular. One in twenty members of the United Protestant Church of the Netherlands mentioned that hymn as their favorite. Also high on the list of popular hymns: are “Abba, Father” and “I Will Be There.” In our Adventist circles, these hymns are also frequently sung. I can personally also appreciate “Go with God”. But once in a while a psalm . . I would really enjoy it!

It is exactly forty years ago this year that the Dutch Adventists started using their new hymnal (now mostly known as “the red hymnbook”). Its history was quite complicated, but when the LIEDBOEK VOOR DE ADVENTKERK was ready in 1982, the introduction in the churches went quite smoothly. Only a few congregations were hesitant to replace the old GEZANGEN ZIONS hymnal with the new one. But now, after forty years, the role of the hymnal has changed dramatically.

The Liedboek voor de Kerken–the ecumenical hymnal that most Protestant denominations in the Netherlands have now used for several decades–dates from 1973. Gradually the feeling arose in Protestant Netherlands that this hymnal was in need of a radical overhaul. In 2013–exactly forty years after its predecessor was introduced–the new ecumenical hymnal was a fact.

For some time now, I have felt that the Adventist Church in the Netherlands is also in urgent need of a renewed hymnal. But I must immediately admit that I have strong emotional ties with “the red book,” so that my opinion is far from objective. Many church members have noticed by now that, when I am invited to preach somewhere, and am asked to select a few appropriate hymns, I always limit myself to hymns from the official hymnal. There are two reasons for this. The first is simply a matter of taste. I like the traditional church hymns much better than most of the “revival songs”, songs of the “happy-clappy” variety, and most of the songs from the youth hymn book (the so-called “blue book”). Especially, the verses in which single words or phrases are almost endlessly repeated do not appeal to me. I recognize that the Corona-era has significantly increased the popularity of such songs, with all the streaming and YouTube services that replaced regular church services.

The second reason is, that I was very closely involved in the creation of our current hymnal. When, some 45 years ago, it was decided that the old GEZANGEN ZIONS was to be replaced, a committee was formed, in accordance with good Adventist practice. From the start I was a member of this committee. At that time, I was in charge of our church publishing house “Veritas”, and it was my job to make sure that the church would have a steady supply of hymnals. The committee soon came to the conclusion that we were setting ourselves an unnecessarily burdensome task. After all, a beautiful hymnal had just been created by the Dutch Protestant churches. Why couldn’t Adventists make use of that as well? A proposal to do so was, however, firmly rejected by the union board: we had to have our own Adventist collection of hymns and not a hymn book that was compiled by “others”. It was conveniently forgotten that the GEZANGEN ZIONS hymnal had actually been compiled by a Dutch Reformed minister, because at that time we did not have the necessary expertise, and that most of the hymns we had been singing for decades, were borrowed from non-Adventist sources.

The committee was disappointed, but we tried again. I negotiated with the interdenominational committee that dealt with the rights of the ecumenical hymnal, and a compromise finally emerged. Under certain conditions we were allowed to add about a hundred hymns that were popular in our church to this hymnal. That proposal also could not find favor with our national administrators. The committee then decided to dissolve itself, and since there were no copies of GEZANGEN ZIONS left in stock, I then set myself the task, with the staff of “Veritas,” to provide a new hymn book. After some time I did get some help from a few people. The cooperation of Rob Schouten was especially important (see the preface in the hymnal). Rob came from an Adventist family, and therefore knew the Adventist jargon. Having studied Dutch literature, he was an expert in the field of the Dutch language. In addition, he had musical talents and had already published several books of poetry. For about two years we met on a weekly basis to work on new or revised texts. I still have very good memories of that time.

All this perhaps explains why “the red hymn book” is still a very special book to me. But this does not take away from the fact that, in my opinion, the church is ready for a new hymnal. Undoubtedly, the local churches will continue to use several popular hymnals, but, perhaps we are now ready to consider also using the new ecumenical hymnal of 2013. There may be a few hymns that do not appeal to us as Adventists, but there is so much to choose from in this collection of hymns that, in my opinion, this can hardly be an objection! It would, I think, be an enormous enrichment for our worship services.

Just in the last few weeks, a survey of the preferences of churchgoers with respect to hymns for the worship service in various churches has been published. More on that next week.