Divine Secularisation: a Possible Genealogy of Nationalism

This article questions the idea that secularism always comes about by the gradualelimination of the sacred from the political sphere. It also aims to discuss howin the case of seventeenth-century Netherlands, religious sentiments and anearly ethnic claim participated in moulding a political regime characterisedby a peculiar form of divine secularisation and by a fusion of ethnic-centreddemands capable of compacting and unifying the Dutch people