By Jeff Fountain, Evangelical Focus. (editor’s note: a look at the powerful influence of the Dutch reformation) (photo: Tobias Kordt/UnSplash)
This weekend, the Geloof in Mokum series explores Amsterdam’s so-called ‘Golden Age’—a time when faith played a central role in making the city the world’s leader in the 17th century.
Spoiler: faith influenced virtually everything.
Amsterdam’s rise was rooted in the Reformational worldview embraced during the Alteratie on May 26, 1578. That day, the city’s old Catholic leadership was removed and sent away in boats, marking a dramatic shift in spiritual and civic life.
The central belief: God’s sovereignty extends over all of life, not just church and family, but also commerce, politics, and culture. This shattered the medieval divide between sacred and secular, affirming that every vocation was holy if done in service to God.
Belief in the dignity of each individual and in a moral order of creation made Amsterdam the ‘womb of the modern world’. From it were born the ideas of individual liberty, urban pluralism, modern capitalism, and global trade.
Respect for individual dignity led to freedoms of conscience, thought, and speech. Reformers like John Calvin argued that faith must be voluntary—conscience must be free to respond to God.
This principle encouraged a commitment—imperfect but enduring—to freedom of worship. Such freedoms were not secular accidents. They sprang from the deep theological foundations of the Dutch Reformation, which gave moral legitimacy and structural coherence to the city’s institutions and ambitions.
Trade, finance, and craftsmanship were no longer just about survival or wealth. They became callings, stewardships of divine trust, inspiring a disciplined, industrious, and morally serious economic culture that fueled Amsterdam’s commercial success.