De kerk slopen of renoveren? De vrijmaking van de plaatselijke kerken bij de oprichting (1906) en de doorstart (1909) van de Gereformeerde Bond

Soon after the start in 1906 the ‘The Reformed League for the Liberation of the Dutch Reformed Churches,’ experienced a deep crisis. By 1909 the League, however, remade itself under the name ‘The Reformed League for the Promotion and Defence of Truth in the Dutch Reformed Church,’ a change often interpreted as a conscious shift away from the Doleantie and Abraham Kuyper’s ecclesiology. This article argues that in 1909 the Reformed League only renounced the appeal to political power for the liberation of the churches, an appeal that Kuyper was unhappy with. During its formative period the ecclesiology of the Reformed League emphasized the local congregations as the true confessional church, an emphasis that made its position within the Dutch Reformed Church vulnerable.