Dutch Christian leader Bas van der Vlies dies

Bas van der Vlies, the former leader of the Reformed SGP party in the Netherlands, has passed away on Sunday evening. The 79-year-old was one of the most visible characters of Christian politics during his generation.

Van der Vlies was a member of parliament for over 29 years. With that, he belongs to a small group of people who have ever been in parliament for such a long time.

The continuity in his work always was "praising God's faithfulness and goodness", according to MP Kees van der Staaij, the present SGP leader.

The party's board president, Dick van Meeuwen, refers to the latest words of Van der Vlies in the Second Chamber in 2010: Soli Deo Gloria (Glory to God alone). He calls these words "typical" for the person.

Van der Vlies connected the work as an MP with a very personal and pietistic faith. He had a good sense of humour but lived also from a deep earnestness. "Everything you do has to be to God's glory", he said at a jubilee meeting when he was 25 years in office as MP. He was able to make the whole chamber laugh, followed by a very serious remark about the spiritual degradation in society.

Storms in the party

During his time as party leader, from 1986 onwards, MP Van der Vlies had to struggle with several storms in his party. One of the debates was whether local SGP councillors could vote for mosques or Islamic schools. The conservative stream in the party would say that this was not possible. A related debate was about how much room there is in a Biblical approach on politics for compromise.

The most crucial debate in the SGP under Van der Vlies' leadership was about female membership. In 1993, the party voted with a large majority not to allow women to become members. Most of the members of the party do not recognise women in church offices either. This decision provoked enormous outrage from the outside. All other political parties –including Christian parties– distanced themselves from the SGP.

In 2010, the highest court in the Netherlands called the SGP's policy intolerable. After this, the government stopped the party's financing for a while.

The debate almost split the party into two. It took until 2013 before the SGP decided to accept women as members. In the summer of that year, the first female SGP councillor started. But that was already after Van der Vlies had left politics.

Van der Vlies' approach to all these debates was to be moderate and patient. He tried as much as possible to be a bridge between the extremes. But many critics said that this style of leadership was no leadership at all. Afterwards, Mr Van der Vlies noted that his goal was to keep the party together.

Mr Van der Vlies became Bas

After he retired from politics in 2010, speaking about "Bas van der Vlies" became much more usual. But during his years in the parliament's lower house, he was usually referred to as "Mr van der Vlies", even within his own team. This has to do with a culture change in the SGP from formal and traditional in style to more informal and modern.