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Psychologie en het raadsel van de religie: Beschouwingen bij een eeuw godsdienstpsychologie in Nederland [Psychology and the Enigma of Religion: Reflections on a Century of Psychology of Religion in the Netherlands] By J. A. van Belzen

This book by Jacob Belzen, on the history of the psychology of religion in the Netherlands, provides an interesting, detailed, and highly readable account of the rise of that discipline in the early 20th century, its full development in the second half of the century, and its neardisappearance from the academic scene in the 21st century. That last claim is perhaps not altogether true, given the many national and international publications of the author of this history on so many facets of the discipline, and the body politics’ growing interest in the influence of religion on society. Nevertheless, the tone of the story is in a minor key. This history begins with two theologians. H. T. de Graaf, a liberal, Modernist minister who, as the local pastor in a small village near Groningen, introduced the subject in 1905 through an article in Teekenen des Tijds (Signs of the Times), the journal of the Modernist ministers of the Dutch Reformed Church. The article’s title was straightforward: “About the Psychology of Religion.” The other founding father was Herman Bavinck, professor of dogmatics at the Free University, who succeeded to the chair vacated by Abraham Kuyper, the founder of the university. Kuyper, who was simultaneously active in the political domain, had opted to become the first antirevolutionary prime minister of the new government. Herman Bavinck, of Secessionist stock, was interested in the social sciences. In addition to his dogmatic studies, he published books on psychology, education, and pedagogics. In 1909, when he was inaugurated as a member of the KNAW (Royal Dutch Academy of Arts and Sciences), he gave a lecture on the psychology of religion, introducing the American empirical studies of Starbuck, Leuba, and others on conversion and adolescence; he also made reference to James’s The Varieties of Religious Experience. A major impetus for the growth of the psychology of religion as an academic discipline was the interaction with international scholars on the occasion of the Eighth International Congress of Psychology held in Groningen, the Netherlands, in 1926, with Gerard Heymans as chairman. Immediately after the closing of the Congress, the Dutch Godsdienstpsychologische