Gerrit Hendrik Kersten

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Gerrit Hendrik Kersten
Member of parliament
In office 1922 – 1945
Head of Reformed Political Party
In office 1918 – 1945
Preceded by	none
Succeeded by	Pieter Zandt
Born	August 6, 1882 Deventer, Netherlands
Died	September 6, 1948 Waarde, Netherlands
Political party	Reformed Political Party
Spouse	Catharina Adriana Wisse
Children	6 sons, 4 daughters
Residence	Yerseke, Rotterdam
Occupation	Minister of religion
Religion	Netherlands Reformed Church

Gerrit Hendrik Kersten (Deventer, August 6, 1882–Waarde, September 6, 1948) was a Dutch minister of religion and politician. In 1907, Kersten founded the Netherlands Reformed Congregations. Eleven years later, in 1918, Kersten established the Reformed Political Party. He was the party's first representative in the Tweede Kamer, after being elected in 1922. He would remain in parliament until 1945.

On the evening of November 10, 1925, Kersten, staunchly opposed to Roman Catholicism, proposed an amendment to the 1926 budget for the Ministry for Foreign Affairs. Kersten's proposal came down to ending financial support for a Dutch office at the Holy See. The amendment was adopted the next day, with support from government party Christian Historical Union. This led to the resignation of four catholic government ministers and the fall of the first government of Hendrik Colijn. The fall of the cabinet became known as the Night of Kersten.

Kersten was a staunch critic of the policies of Colijn. The speaker of the Dutch parliament had parts of Kersten's contributions to debates edited in the Proceedings no less than thirteen times between 1922 and 1940.

Kersten's career ended after the Second World War. During the war, Kersten had denounced resistance against the Nazis, claiming they were sent by God as punishment for desecration of the Sunday. He also refused to sign a 1941 protest of the convent of Dutch churches against the persecution of Jews during the war.