What have you been smoking? While Protestants did not engage in forced conversions they certainly were engaged in missionary work.
An agenda was developed over the course of the late-sixteenth and early-seventeenth centuries by colonial projectors in these countries, an agenda which reflected the strong Calvinist influence among them. With the blossoming of international Calvinism during this time there was developed a full-orbed world-view and cultural perspective, rooted in the work of the School of Salamanca in Spain;(1) this world-view is reflected strongly in the original aims and purposes of these projectors.
A good example of this was the Calvinist Willem Usselincx, a well-to-do tradesman who migrated to Holland wheile his native Flanders remained under Spanish dominion. Usselincx tirelessly pushed for the formation of a Dutch West-Indies Company which would establish permanent settlements in the New World, to bring the gospel, along with Christian civilization, to the native inhabitants. It was Usselincx's idea that exposure to Calvinist civilization would be the best way to bring the native populations over to Christendom, and of course over to the Calvinist side vis-a-vis the Latin powers. Peaceful trade with the natives would have a better effect on them than forceful subjection: "the Indians would become more civilized and become accustomed to labor in order to enjoy the fruits of labor. This could be effected better and more capably, at less expense and perils, in times of peace than of war."(2) In Usselincx's view, this contrasted with the approach of the Spaniards and Portuguese, who according to him allowed the natives to remain in their dismal state, or what is worse, enslaved and oppressed them, without making any effort to improve their lot.
Usselincx the layman was accompanied in this missionary zeal by members of the Reformed clergy. The Zeeland minister Godfried Udemans presented his ideas on the matter in justifying the missions of the Dutch East India and West Indies companies, delivering a positive evaluation of economic activity as conducted by God-fearing businessmen along the way. One noteworthy element of his exposition lies in his recognition of the concept of a community of nations, with freedom of trade between them being in the best interests of all. The formation of public trading companies was made necessary by the claims to world empire on the part of Spain and Portugal, supported by the Pope. Udemans pointed out the necessity of combining military, political, and economic efforts in these public monopolies in order to effectively carry out trade in a hostile environment. Things had been brought to this point through the failure of the Catholic powers to allow free trade. Udeman's argument thus echoes that of Grotius's Freedom of the Seas, and constitutes another expression of the theocratic jus gentium.(3)
In this connection it seems appropriate to point out the contribution of the Dutch theologian Gisbertus Voetius to the development of the Protestant mission enterprise. Voetius was a Reformed minister, theologian, and university professor, renowned among English-speaking Puritan and Presbyterian circles for his mastery of Calvinist doctrine and casuistry. The unofficial leader of the Dutch Reformed Church itself, Voetius was dubbed by his enemies, "the Pope of Utrecht" (Utrecht being the name of the city and of the university in which he lived and worked). To Voetius may be attributed nothing less than the development of the first comprehensive Protestant theology of Christian mission, developed chiefly though not exclusively in the cause of the colonial effort.(4)
The Dutch East India Company (Vereenigde Oost-Indishe Compagnie, or VOC) was formed in 1605 expanding Dutch influence which supplanted the Portuguese, Spanish and English in the region. The Reformed church was the only officially accepted religion and began by taking over Catholic congregations (freedom of religion was only allowed from 1807). Mission work was carefully controlled. (Presbyterian and Reformed Churches in Asia)
http://www.schoolofministry.ac.nz/reformed/asia.htm
You folks are disgusting hypocrites. Same method seen in Europe to create your churches in the 1500's - conversion at gunpoint.
The Dutch Reformed Church dates from 1642. As the religion of the colonial government, its membership reached about 400,000 before the end of Dutch rule in 1796. Under the British, Church of Scotland chaplains were present from 1830 and the Dutch and Scottish presbyterians united in 1882. Membership has since reduced to about five thousand through migration and reversion to Catholicism and to other faiths.(Presbyterian and Reformed Churches in Asia)
http://www.schoolofministry.ac.nz/reformed/asia.htm
Fairly obvious where those Reformed "adherents" came from, and their motivation for being Protestant (persecution and outlawing of Catholicism). There are today 1.4 million Catholics in Sri Lanka, despite the Dutch persecution.
You should never have brought up Dutch Protestant "mission" work in Asia.
No, they just forbid the Irish to own land, arms, etc.; forced them from their ancestral lands; forbid the saying of Mass; and offered charity during the imposed starvation of the Famine only to those willing to denounce their Catholicism.
But Protestants never forced anyone to convert.
(Oh, I know. The English weren't really Protestants. The glory of the Church of One is having no history.)
SD