Dr. Bastian Jan "Bart Jan" Spruyt (born 29 January 1964, in Ridderkerk) is a Dutch historian, journalist and conservative writer. Academic background Spruyt grew up in Rotterdam, and studied history, theology and law at the Utrecht University and Leiden University. He is a practising Calvinist of the Hersteld Hervormde Kerk denomination (Restored Reformed Church). Spruyt obtained his M.A. in Renaissance and Reformation History in 1990 from Utrecht with the highest honors. Spruyt was a graduate student at Leiden University from February 1991 through February 1994 and obtained a doctorate in February 1996 on an English-language dissertation entitled 'Cornelius Henrici Hoen (Honius) and his Epistle on the Eucharist (1525): Medieval Heresy, Erasmian Humanism and Reform in the Early Sixteenth-Century Low Countries', which was supervised by Prof. Posthumus Meyjes (Leiden) and the late Prof. Heiko A. Oberman (Arizona). A book version of this dissertation was published in 2006 by E. J. Brill in their series 'Studies in Medieval and Reformation Traditions: History, Culture, Religion, Ideas'. Spruyt published scholarly papers in such journals as the Dutch Review of Church History, Sixteenth Century Journal, Wolfenbütteler Renaissance Mitteilungen, English Historical Review, Quaerendo, and Reformatorica. He's currently an assistant professor at the Free University of Amsterdam, where he teaches ecclesiastical history. Journalist From 1994 to 2002, Spruyt worked as a journalist for the Reformatorisch Dagblad, the sixth largest Dutch daily newspaper, with a mainly Protestant readership and an explicitly Calvinist editorial line. He covered Dutch politics and the foreign desk. His last position was from 2000 to 2002 as chief political editor and commentator of the newspaper, working from The Hague. In the second half of 2006, he picked up journalistic work again. Think tank director As one of the leading voices of intellectual conservatism, Spruyt was instrumental in founding the Edmund Burke Foundation, the Dutch conservative group, in the second half of 2000. Together with conservative activist Joshua Livestro, Spruyt became the Foundation's director when the Foundation opened up its own offices in The Hague. Livestro soon left the Foundation and Spruyt was managing director for three years. In that period, he openly sought to emulate the American conservative movement—taking the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, the Heritage Foundation and the American Enterprise Institute as his leading examples. Under his leadership, the Foundation worked to make the legacy of such conservative politicians as Ronald Reagan relevant to the Dutch political climate. To that end, the Burke Foundation