Religious responses to the 2009 Darwin commemorations in the Low Countries

Through the Darwin year celebrations, evolutionary theory reached the general public on a large scale. Unsurprisingly, religious denominations felt the need to respond. In the Low Countries the responses were generally reconciling, calling for a dialogue between science and religion. In the Netherlands, however, young-Earth creationists launched a campaign against evolution. The Netherlands have a Protestant (reformed) tradition, whereas Belgium’s main denomination is Catholic. As such, the Low Countries can be regarded as a case-study of a global tendency where Protestants are more likely to take a hard stance towards evolutionary theory than Catholics. Historical and contemporary counter-examples of liberal Protestants and antagonistic Catholics, however, resist too simple an analysis. They suggest that other factors, on both a local and an international level, have determined the present situation as well. It seems that for the Low Countries things could have turned out differently. This paper examines why they didn’t.