If it isn't Dutch, it isn't up to much

One of the crucial countries for the history of Protestant Christianity is the Netherlands. 

The area now known as the Netherlands was originally evangelised in the 600s and 700s by missionaries such as Willibrord, an Angle (as in, Anglo-Saxon) from northern England, bringing the gospel to his historic ancestors on the continent of Europe, in this case, the Frisians living north of the Meuse and Rhine rivers. The base for his mission was Utrecht, which became the seat of a Christian bishop ("see").  

Later, the Netherlands were significant in the pre-Reformation period as the base for lay monastic movements such as the "Brothers of the Common Life" which later fed into the Reformation. One of the most famous "products" of these movements was Erasmus of Rotterdam, a significant humanist scholar, who did significant work on publishing the Greek text of the New Testament. The saying goes that "Erasmus laid the egg that Luther hatched."  

Protestant Christianity first came to the Netherlands, at that time under Spanish domination, in the form of Lutheran teaching, but it was the Reformed faith, which originated in Switzerland, which eventually took root in Dutch soil. This is expressed, for example, in the Belgic Confession of 1561, penned at Antwerp by Guido De Brès (martyred in 1567). The Netherlands were to engage in a protracted war of independence from Spain, starting in 1568; eventually the northern Netherlands gained independence, while the southern provinces, corresponding to what is now Belgium, remained under Roman Catholic rule. The period from 1588 until 1674 is known as the Dutch "Golden Age", when the Netherlands, a former colony of Spain, flourished economically and culturally, came to dominate European and international trade, and became a worldwide Empire, reaching east to Indonesia and west to the Caribbean. 

In the early 600s, the controversy between Arminius and the Calvinists over questions of God's election and Christ's atonement took place in the Netherlands. This controversy began in 1603 and led to the ruling at the Synod of Dordt in 1619, the so-called "Five Points of Calvinism", while the Arminian party formed their own, rival church structure. This debate continues to be of relevance in Protestant/evangelical churches.  

In the 1600s, the theological thought of the Netherlands was second to none, with major thinkers such as Voetius, Cocceius and Witsius developing, inter alia, what is known as "Covenant Theology". This dovetailed with the Nadere Reformatie ("Further Reformation"), a movement not dissimilar to the Puritan movement in England, furthering personal experience and whole-life discipleship. 

In the 1600s, the Netherlands was also a place of relative religious toleration, which allowed, for example, English religious dissenters to find refuge in the Netherlands. The group which eventually sent the Pilgrim Fathers on the Mayflower to the American colonies had previously been based in the Netherlands. It was also in Amsterdam that the first Baptist church was formed. What's more, huge numbers of French Huguenots came to the Netherlands ("The Huguenot refuge in the United Provinces"), which became a haven for political and religious dissidents, arguably bringing with them destabilising theological trends which went on to shape European church and society in the 1600s and 1700s. An example of this would be Jean LeClerc (1657-1736), who held rationalistic views and joined the Remonstrant church. While the Dutch Reformed Church enjoyed established status in the Netherlands, Remonstrants (Arminians), Anabaptists and Roman Catholics were all allowed to gather in secret churches ("schuilkerken") as long as these were not publicly visible. Jews enjoyed similar privileges and were subject to similar restrictions.  

Moreover, the Dutch were also pioneers in relation to foreign missionary work, reaching out to unevangelised non-Christian peoples. After the Reformation in the 1500s, Protestants, with a few exceptions, were notoriously slow to move out in foreign missionary work, but, by the start of the 17th century, the Dutch were doing just that. For example, Dutch trader Albert Cornelius Ruyl of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) completed translation of the Gospel of Matthew into the Malay language in 1612. Likewise, missionary Abraham Rogerius came to Pulicat/Pallaicatta (on the south east coast of India), which became an important Dutch trade centre, in 1630 and ministered there among the Tamil people until 1647. The work of Dutch missions was recorded in William Carey's "Enquiry" of 1792, a survey of existing Protestant missions work pre-dating Carey's own efforts. 

In the mid-1800s, the Europe-wide evangelical revival, which began in French-speaking Switzerland, spread to the Netherlands through figures such as Guillaume Groen Van Pinsterer (1801-1876), and was known as "Het Reveil" ("the awakening"). Van Prinsterer became the mentor of Abraham Kuyper (1837-1920), who, along with Herman Bavinck (1854-1921), inspired and led a movement known to history as Neocalvinism devoted to "the sovereignty of God over every sphere and aspect of creation." Abraham Kuyper even served as Prime Minister of the Netherlands 1901-1905 under the aegis of the Anti-Revolutionary Party.