Hendrik Kraemer

Hendrik Kraemer ( born May 17, 1888 in Amsterdam, † November 11, 1965 in Driebergen ) was a Dutch Reformed Mission Theologian, historian of religion and resistance fighters.

Life

Hendrik Kraemer attended from 1905, the mission school in Rotterdam. In 1911 he began studying Indonesian language and literature in Leiden. In 1921, he completed a doctorate on a Javanese treatise from the 16th century. From 1921 to 1935 he was a research associate of the Netherlands Bible Society in the colony of the Dutch East Indies, now Indonesia.

After his return from the colonial service in 1936, he entered into the service of the Dutch Missionary Council. From 1937 to 1947 he worked as a professor of religious history and phenomenology of religion at the University of Leiden. During the occupation of the Netherlands by the Wehrmacht, he was one of the leaders of the Church's resistance movement against Nazism, which he was 1942/43, taken hostage and was interned in a camp in St. Michielsgestel.

From 1948 to 1955 Kraemer was the director of the Ecumenical Institute of the World Council of Churches in Bossey.

Writings (selection )

• The Christian message in a non- Christian world. (1938)
• Religion and the Christian faith. (1956)
• The communication of the Christian faith. (1956)
• World cultures and world religions: The coming dialogue. (1960)

Honors

• The Faculty of Theology of the University of Hamburg drew Kraemer 1965 with an honorary doctorate.