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Book Reviews
| Janet Sjaarda Sheeres. Son of Secession: Douwe J. Vander Werp. Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2006. Pp. 231. Appendix. Bibliography. Illustrations. Index. Paper, $25.00.
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The Reverend Douwe J. Vander Werp (1811–1876) was one of the people who helped sustain the Dutch-American colony Albertus C. Van Raalte founded in west Michigan in 1846. From the moment he arrived in 1864 to pastor a church near Holland, Vander Werp began to influence the local culture through his work as a preacher, editor, polemicist, teacher, and denominational leader. |
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Janet Sjaarda Sheeres's new biography of Vander Werp was undertaken because of the author's love for the denomination Vander Werp molded, the Dutch Calvinist theological tradition he championed, and the region he adopted as his home. Vander Werp placed his stamp on the fledgling Christian Reformed denomination through the numerous lengthy articles he wrote for the church's periodical. During his travels, both within Michigan and beyond, he organized congregations, dispensed advice, and chaired countless meetings. He trained a generation of pastors for the denomination, first in the parsonage in Graafschap, and then at his home in Muskegon. Sheeres relies on church records to relate Vander Werp's tireless efforts to nurture a sense of unity among cantankerous factions of religious dissenters. |
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Sheeres's account begins with Vander Werp's life in the Netherlands, his odyssey from barge captain's son to school teacher to minister. He imbibed religious controversy early, and as an adult he became a polemicist on behalf of a group of angry religious dissenters known as the "Seceders." His knack for framing edgy prose and expressing blunt opinions inspired an oddly mixed result: a permanent denominational split among the Dutch Calvinists and a heightened ethnic cohesion drawn from each faction's refusal to abandon the field to the other. |
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Vander Werp generally maintained a profound silence about his private life. Sheeres acknowledges this problem by qualifying her conclusions on the subject, drawn from a few personal letters and the observations of acquaintances. We are left with a story long on the public side and short on the domestic side. That is all right, however, because it was the public Vander Werp who did the spadework for the foundations of the Christian Reformed Church and today's Calvin Theological Seminary. |
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Janet Sheeres has done much to rescue Vander Werp from obscurity. Scholars will admire her skillful use of the available sources, and general readers will enjoy her clear, jargon-free prose. Anyone interested in how the Dutch became a fixture in west Michigan will be enlightened by the story she relates within the covers of Son of Secession. |
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| Robert Schoone-Jongen
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| Calvin College |
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