Eminent Dutch theologian and professor in the Reformed Churches in the Netherlands.
Klaas Schilder was the son of the poor and hard working cigar maker Johannes Schilder (7 March 1860, Kampen – 18 December 1896, Kampen), who worked under bad sanitary circumstances at home. On 15 February 1883, his father had married Elisabeth Nieuwenhuis, who died 15 April 1886. On 4 November 1886, he remarried Grietje Leydekker (3 March 1881 – 9 Augustus 1854 – 21 December 1926) and got three children: Arnoldus (2 December 1887 – 12 May 1964), Klaas (19 December 1890 – 23 March 1952) and Neeltje Johanna Maria Aleida (29 April 1897 – 17 November 1979). But his father died before the birth of his sister.
After the death of her husband, the pregnant Grietje had to sustain the family by going out to work. For health reasons, she could not maintain that and also her work of sewing and ironing collars failed. Through a friend she got alternative unskilled labour, and helped by her children, especially Arnold, they managed to survive under difficult circumstances. Grietje also changed church from the Dutch Reformed (“Hervormde”) Church to the “Gereformeerde” Reformed Churches in the Netherlands (1892). Her son Klaas would contribute the the foundation of the “Gereformeerde Kerken vrijgemaakt” (Liberated Reformed Churches in the Netherlands, 1944), that was a split off from the Reformed Churches in the Netherlands. It is of interest that the word “Kampen” means “wrestle” and that the medieval Hanze city Kampen is famous for its many competing churches.
The very intelligent Klaas Schilder had to work after the elementary school, as his mother was not able to pay for the school. He first worked as a bellboy at a hosiery and later as junior clerk at a notary office. But his schoolmaster plead for him and succeeded in sending him with a stipend to the Reformed Gymnasium and the associated Theological School in Kampen. On 2 September 1903 he was allowed to study there after having done his exams undr J. Kapteyn. During the Gymnasium years he flourished up and became the best pupil of the examination class, that would yield two professors, a lecturer at Princeton University, a literary man and a poet, a journalist, a missionary and three vicars.
After finishing the Gymnasium, he studied Theology from 17 September 17 1909 till 23 January 1914 (exams with honours) in Kampen. But not just theology, also modern philosophy and classical literature were absorbed by him. Especially Kierkegaard fascinated him. This caused a faith crisis, but also emotional and intellectual depth, so that even his professors attended his preachings.
On 18 June 1914 he married the 9 years elder Anna Johanna Walter (3 March 1881, Haarlemmerliede – 30 October 1977, Bosch en Duin). They got four children, his daughter Johanna Gretha “Jopie” Schilder ?(22 October 1915, Vollenhove – 28 May 1987, Rijswijk) being the first.
After two ecclesiastical exams, he was on installed as a Minister of the Word in the Reformed Churches in Ambt-Vollenhove. Later, he served the churches at Vlaardingen, Gorinchem, Delft, Oegstgeest and on 27 June 1928 he became pastor in the church at Rotterdam-Delfshaven. His sermons became famous and his churches were crowded.
He received a leave of absence to study in Erlangen, Germany. He studied philosophy under E. Herrigel, O. Stahlin, and J. Hell. He followed the theologian W Vollrath as an auditor. On 3 March 1933 he graduated with great honours with the dissertation “Zur Begriffsgeschichte des “Paradoxon”. Mit besonderer berücksichtigung Calvins und des nach-Kierkegaardschen “Paradoxon”” (the Historical Concept of Paradox). It was a criticism on the subjective part of the philosophy of Kierkegaard and Karl Barth. He sent a specimen to Barth, but Barth ignored it.
On 26 September 1933, he became emeritus minister of the church at Delfshaven, pending his appointment as professor Dogmatics at the Theological College in Kampen. On 17 January 1934 he held an inaugural lecture, taking a stand against Dr. Haitjema and the theology of Karl Barth. He would give lectures daily and he only interrupted this schedule during his travels to America in 1939 and 1947. The lectures also continued partly during the years of the German occupation. In 1935 he became the main editor of the Calvinistic periodical De Reformatie. His fierce polemics against the Nazi’s and the Dutch NSB of Mussert, resulted in the rejection of both plitical parties by the Protestant churches in 1936.
But already in the thirties he had warned against Nazism in the brochure “Not One Square Inch” (1936), so that he had to be careful after May 1945, when the Germans occupied the Netherlands. On 22 August 1940 in Kampen, Schilder was arrested and transported to Arnhem where he was held in prison until 6 December 1940. Upon his release he was informed that he was not to take part in any activities of the Anti-Revolutionary Party or to do any writing, otherwise he would be sent to a concentration camp.
But Schilder went on writing and had to go underground, provoking not only the Nazi’s, but also Reformed Christians. Whilst he was hiding for the Germans, with his friend the physician Pieter Jasperse (10 July 1901 – 23 March 1991) in Leiden, under the nickname Mr. De Priester, the ecclesiastical action of General Synod Sneek-Utrecht was set up against his radical theological views. On 23 March 1944, he was suspended for being schismatic and four months later, on 3 August 1944, fired as emeritus-minister of Delfshaven and professor at the Theological College. The news shocked and divided the Reformed Church.
On 11 August 1944, there was a crowded meeting of 1000 men in the Lutheran church in Den Haag organised by referent Herman Knoop ((1891-1974), who after his arrest in 1941 in Delfshaven, had spent from April 1942 till October 1943 in the hell of Dachau. That day, the searched for by the Nazi’s Schilder appeared suddenly to read the “Acte van Vrijmaking of Wederkeer” {The Act of Secession and Return) in the church, which resulted in the liberation of the Reformed Churches in the Netherlands “liberated” from synodal authority. Within a few months there were 68 churches and 77 pastors, and by the appearance of their first yearbook in 1946 there were 216 churches listed which were served by 152 ministers and had 77,000 members.
The Liberated churches from the Northern regions asked Schilder, Greijdanus and the on 10 April 1945 fusilladed Roelof Jan Dam to train the students of theology, and in the autumn of 1945 he did so at the Theological College of Kampen. The liberated churches started their own Christian papers, schools and a new Christian political party the Gereformeerd Politiek Verbond (1948). Dutch emigrants also founded liberated churches in South Africa, Australia and North America.
Schilder had a broad philosophical mind, but the ordinary church goers were not interested in his treatises on Nietzsche, Kierkegaard and Karl Barth. They wanted simple dogmatic answers, not philosophical enquiries on existential questions. In 1947, he wrote a popularised version of his ideas in his most read work “Christus en cultuur”, written on a ship during a travel to the USA. But more and more internal church affairs, disputes in his eyes on minor questions, asked his attention.
On 26 September 1951, Schilder held on the Kamper School day the speech “Zelus en zeloten” in which he stated that zealous work without consideration led to zealotry. His ideal was a broad “studie-kerk” (Lernhaus, a dialogue with possibilities to disagree), but the competition of the separated by schisms churches, led to a climate in which individual churches claimed to posses the best version of the Christian faith.
Schilder died 23 March 1952 of a massive heart attack, exactly eight years after his suspension, that led to a major Dutch not by him wished church schism. His last words were : “It is well with me. I go to Jesus.” Four thousand people attended his funeral in Kampen. There was a simple service and at his graveside John 17 was read.
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