Rev. Willem J. J. Glashouwer – President
Reverend Willem J.J. Glashouwer was born in the Netherlands in 1944 during the Second World War into a Dutch Reformed family that was active in the Resistance Movement. His father was a nationally well-known Dutch Reformed pastor, who was in prison several times during World War II, and was actively involved in hiding Jews.
After completing his classical High School Education at the Gymnasium, he studied Theology at the Universities of Groningen and Utrecht, where he received his theological degrees, and was ordained as a minister in the Dutch Reformed Church in The Netherlands.
For 20 years he served as a producer, host and finally executive director of the Television department of the ‘Evangelische Omroep’ (Evangelical Broadcasting Company) . He was one of the pioneers who established this broadcasting organization in The Netherlands, which is now part of the State Broadcasting system of The Netherlands, as one of the larger broadcasting companies.
During these years he produced and/or hosted many Radio and Television programs. Among others, for instance, a many episode multi-media documentary series on: How the Bible came to be (on the Bible as a book and on Higher Bible Criticism); How the world came to be (on the Creation-Evolution debate); How Israel came to be (on the reliability of the Old Testament) and How Christianity came to be (on the reliability of the New Testament). He was also one of the pioneers of the establishment of the Institute for Evangelical Higher Education in the Netherlands, and the Christian School for Journalism.
After a mayor brain-surgery during which a very large brain-tumor was removed, he became full-time minister of a 2500 member Dutch Reformed church in Katwijk, Holland, which he served for 7 years.
Rev. Glashouwer served for over 10 years as the Chairman of the Dutch organization ‘Christenen voor Israel’, a pro-Israel organization with a subscriber-base for their monthly free newspaper of over 60.000 addresses, a ‘Holland Choir’ that sings for and in Israel of over a 800 voices, charity projects in Israel through Jewish organizations, among which the collecting of funds to bring over 90.000 Jews home to Israel from the former USSR.
After having served for over 10 years, Rev. Glashouwer was asked in July 1999 to become the full-time President of ‘Christians for Israel International’, an organization with affiliates in the Netherlands, Belgium, USA, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Singapore, Malaysia, the UK, Uganda, Nigeria, Philippines, Australia, New Zealand and Brazil and ongoing contacts today with over 40 countries worldwide. The bi-monthly international edition of the newspaper ‘Israel & the Church Today’ is printed in various countries worldwide. Dutch and German editions of the newspaper are also available.
Publications
Rev. Glashouwer published several books, articles and Bible Studies on Israel, on the Christian faith, and a 500-page commentary in the format of a daily devotional on the book of Revelation, called Zie Hij komt. The English translation: The Book of Revelation: Day-to-Day, Verse-to-Verse is in progress. The German edition Der Erste und der Letzte is available.
The Bible Study book Why Israel? has been published in over 30 languages today. Among them: Dutch, English, French, German, Portuguese, Spanish, Hungarian, Italian, Greek, Romanian, Polish, Russian, Ukrainian, Afrikaans, Chinese (both simplified and traditional), Bahasa Indonesian, Albanian, Arabic, Korean and more translations are in preparation.
The Bible Study book Why Jerusalem? was published in English, German and Dutch. The Bible Study book Why End Times? was published in English, German, Dutch, Russian, Italian, Polish and Thai.
His latest book, Israel: Covenants and Kingdom was published in 2016.
Knighthood
By Royal Decree on the 20th of February 2010 Her Majesty, Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands decided to appoint Rev. Willem J. J. Glashouwer Knight in the Order of Oranje Nassau.
Family
Rev. Glashouwer has been married to Marianne for over 40 years and they have 4 children and 8 grandchildren.
