Dutch Christians

I have a tip if any of you want to know whether your Dutch Christian friends are Protestant or Catholic. Of course you can always ask them, they are very blunt anyway. But I amused them by saying 'Based on your vocabulary I can conclude that you were raised in a Protestant family.'

I'll start with a historical fact. In the past, in order to have a 'peaceful' community, Dutch society was divided in such a way that Protestants and Catholics does not have any contact at all. There were Protestant cities and Catholic cities. For those who like bridge there were Protestant clubs and Catholic clubs. There were even Protestant television and Catholic television. A Protestant lived in Protestant city, their children attended a Protestant school. They joined a Protestant sport club. They watched a Protestant television, and so on. The same can be said for Catholics.

They were totally unaware of the others that they even developed a different way of saying 'Merry Christmas' or 'Happy Easter'. A Protestant will say 'Vrolijk Kerstdag' and 'Vrolijk Pasen' while a Catholic will say 'Zalig Kerstdag' and 'Zalig Pasen'.

The unawareness is as far as if today you ask a Dutch Christian friend, he/she will only tell you one version. So for fun, during Easter Conference I asked some of them: how do you say 'Happy Easter'? And then, after the answer, stated, "Based on your vocabulary I can conclude that you were raised in a Protestant/Catholic family."

They were so unaware of this difference in vocabulary that all were asking me how do people from the other background will respond to my question, and moreover: how could I know?:D