Religious Choice in the Dutch Republic The Reformation of Arnoldus Buchelius, 1565-1641

Catholics, Calvinists, Mennonites, Arminians, Libertines--the Dutch Republic has always been renowned for its religious diversity. This book asks a simple but novel question: why did individual Dutch believers decide to join, or not to join, one of the many churches, and what consequences did these decisions have for their lives? It addresses this problem through the unique collection of autobiographical writings by the Utrecht lawyer Arnoldus Buchelius (1565-1641). Raised a Catholic, he was for some time without any religious affiliation, then became a Libertine Protestant, and ultimately developed into a committed Contra-Remonstrant Calvinist. Judith Pollmann argues that it is important to understand religious choice as a response to anxieties about the salvation of a society undergoing rapid change. She demonstrates how Dutch believers' approach to church membership enabled them to combine strong confessional partisanship with an ongoing ability to appreciate the piety of individuals of other churches, and thus proposes a new explanation for the absence of religious violence in a multi-confessional society.