Happy Thanksgiving from the Netherlands

Here in this country we refer to this special day as Thursday

On Thursday morning I took the train from Den Haag Centraal Station to Leiden so that I could participate in an American Thanksgiving service at the Pieterskerk, a beautiful old church in the middle of an old city.

My hopes weren’t high. When I reviewed the “order of worship” earlier in the week, I thought the service would be mostly a celebration of the U.S. for lonely Americans. The only thing missing, I thought, was the chanting of “USA, USA.”

But I left feeling pretty good about what we did. The music was beautiful, an important story was told, and—as the Mayor of Leiden put it in his remarks to several hundred Americans who attended—it was as though we gathered in the living room of a dear friend and had a good conversation.

I met the new U.S. Ambassador to the Netherlands, Shefali Razdan Duggal, and a few clergy from Leiden, the Hague, and even Amsterdam, including the rabbi of the Liberal Jewish Congregation of the Hague, Marianne L. van Praag. She and I sat together in the front row and provided a running commentary on the service as it progressed.

The Pieterskerk, where the service was held, is a gorgeous old church in the center of Leiden. It was built around 1100, and for a few hundred years, it was a Catholic church. Then, in the 16th century, it became Protestant. And in 1975 it ceased being a church altogether and became instead an event center. This story—Catholic to Protestant to secular meeting space—describes nearly all of the old churches in the Netherlands I have toured so far. If there is any good news in this, the church is being maintained and it remains in use.

In my walk around the inside before the service began, I saw a small shrine dedicated to the Pilgrims who moved from England to Leiden. As it turns out, they worshiped at the Pieterskerk. And then (eleven years later, fearful of being assimilated into Dutch culture) they set sail on the Mayflower for the new world. The Puritans, as most of us know, are credited with the start of the Thanksgiving Day tradition.

My walk around the old church also took me past a memorial to Jacobus Arminius, who was a professor theology at the University of Leiden. I have long since lost count of the number denunciations I heard in my childhood for the teachings of Arminius. Arminianism was not only a heresy, we were taught, but the worst kind. Human free will simply could not be countenanced. Imagine my surprise, then, to see a memorial giving Arminius a place of honor in the Pieterskerk. He was apparently not burned at the stake, which is what most of my teachers thought he deserved.

And here’s something that you weren’t expecting to read: I tested positive for Covid not long ago. I’m back to work (and back to taking trains to Leiden for interfaith Thanksgiving services), but I’m still easily fatigued. I can say, though, that I’m grateful for the vaccine and boosters I have received. And I am grateful for much more besides, including the opportunity to serve as interim pastor at the American Protestant Church in the Hague. Happy Thanksgiving Day!