Pieter Zandt

Pieter Zandt (6 March 1880–4 March 1961) was a Dutch Reformed minister and politician who was a member of the House of Representatives from 1925 to 1961 for the Reformed Political Party (SGP). He served as the SGP's parliamentary leader from 1945 until his death, succeeding the party's founder Gerrit Hendrik Kersten.

Early life Pieter Zandt was born on 6 March 1880 in the village of Stedum in the province of Groningen. After completing his secondary education at a Reformed gymnasium in Kampen, he began his studies in theology at Utrecht University in 1900. While initially influenced by the thought of Tolstoy and Hegel, he underwent a sudden conversion to orthodox Reformed Christianity in 1902 and 1903 and would later go on to label them as "unbelievers".

In 1905, he was ordained as minister in the Dutch Reformed Church, and took on a position as minister in Kamperveen the next year. For the next two decades he worked as minister for various parishes, moving to Loon op Zand in 1909, Grafhorst the next year, Ede in 1915 and finally to Delft in 1919 where he remained as minister until 1925. Throughout his career he would continue to harshly criticise the ARP and CHU for their cooperation with the Catholic People's Party, though with significantly less influence than his predecessor. In 1953, he demanded the withdrawal of the 25 guilders banknote after discovering it depicted St. Martin of Tours, seeing it as a sign of the growing, pernicious influence of the Roman Catholic Church in Dutch society.

On domestic affairs, Zandt was deeply conservative, seeing his political activity as a way to combat the shifting zeitgeist and uphold what he saw as "the old, proven truth" of the word of God. and state lotteries. On foreign policy, he was opposed to Indonesian independence, strongly condemned Dutch membership in international organizations, speaking out against the League of Nations in 1931 because the organisation was not founded on Biblical principles, and opposed the United Nations on similar grounds.

Zandt died in Delft on 4 March 1961 at the age of 80 as the oldest sitting MP in the House of Representatives.