Recherche – Detailansicht
Ausgabe: | Juli/August/2023 |
Spalte: | 665-684 |
Kategorie: | Aufsätze |
Autor/Hrsg.: | Henk de Roest/Marten van der Meulen/Jonna van den Berge-Bakker |
Titel/Untertitel: | Country Report |
In the years 2020–2022, Dutch newspapers, nation-wide and regional, reported repeatedly about church closures that caused resistance among churchgoers, parish members and also among villagers.1 Emotions and debates accompanied these church closures and several members indicated that they considered leaving the church. Since some decades, church closures, Protestant and Roman Catholic, have become a common phenomenon in the Dutch ecclesial landscape. Every year, there are fewer churchgoers in the pews, the number of church members is declining, and those who still belong to a church are getting older. In addition, the time for volunteering to make activities happen decreased. Congregations have become dependent upon the effort of a few stalwarts. For some churches a lack of money for maintenance and, recently, energy costs, is a problem too. Also, demographic changes in the neighbourhood, such as an influx of people with ethnic origins or religious affiliations different from the original members of the congregation in that neighbourhood can play a role. In the end, the sum of all or some of these factors that are related to congregational dynamics, can lead to church closure.
We start this introduction with closures, since for many people in the Netherlands they form a visible signal of unchurching and of the diminishing importance of the church in Dutch society. Visitors to the Netherlands will see churches converted to bookshops, exhibit halls, theatres or apartment buildings. However, at the same time there are also signs of new things happening in the church, or of surprising resilience. Churches and church members find ways to continue what they have been doing or find new ways of being church. Some congregations are growing or demonstrating a new vitality. In the last two decades, in the major cities, migrant churches with different ethnic backgrounds have been mushrooming. Also, pioneering has acquired a firm place in the ecclesial landscape and for example the Protestant Church in the Netherlands (PCN) now conceives itself as a »mosaic of churches«. Also, the question of the identity of the church, its basic convictions and mission and, so to speak, its raison d’être, i. e. for whom it exists, has received new attention, both at a national level, in books, research articles, policy documents and creeds and at the level of the local congregation. The new developments are much less visible than the larger picture of closure and decline. They are also not a replacement of religiosity in the sense of numbers or societal impact. However, the protestant ecclesial landscape is shaped by both developments: a general decline of protestant churches in numbers (volunteers, members, buildings) and of (often small) tokens of renewal and in some congregations, growth.
To understand what is happening in this article we look at the protestant ecclesial landscape at three levels. First, the macro level of society which is characterised by continuing secularisation and religious diversification. The closing of churches and the decline in membership and attendance or, more general, the shrinking human and material resources, but also the new ecclesial groups are phenomena on the meso-level of our society, that can be studied in congregational studies and ethnographies of congregations, so that it can be connected to different perspectives like resources, leadership, local context, structure and identity, but that we also need to understand, following Jonathan Turner, by micro and macro principles.2 At the micro level therefore, the level of the individual, we will look at personal religiosity and commitment, zeroing on the details of everyday behaviour.
In this article, we will focus on the Protestant Church in the Netherlands, but with additional information about other denominations. The general decline has been documented well, which will be reflected in the sources we refer to. The small tokens of renewal have not been as well researched. Due to our work and research in the context of both the academy and the church, we have a good overview and knowledge of what takes place within local congregations. We use this experience in describing and analysing the examples we present here.
I Macro-level
First, we present some figures on what has been called a »rapid secularisation« in the Netherlands. In March 2022, the third report of a trilogy by the Netherlands Institute for Social Research (Dutch: Sociaal en Cultureel Planbureau, SCP), the first two reports being published in 2018, was released to the public.3 It received broad coverage on television and in the newspapers. The major public broadcasting corporation NOS wrote in its widely read news-app: »For the first time: more unbelievers than believers in The Netherlands.«4 More than 50 % of the population self-identified as atheist or agnostic and according to the report, the decade between 2008 and 2018 shows a significant rise, particularly of self-defined atheists. A vowed atheism increased from 16 % in 1991 to 29 % in 2018.5 »The percentage of Dutch citizens who have never been brought up in a particular religion rose from 25 % to 36 % between 1975 and 2018, while the percentage who are not affiliated to a church community rose from 42 % to 76 %«, according to the SCP.6 We can call this a tendency of rapid secularisation, including when compared with other countries. The SCP researchers write: »Together with the Scandinavian countries and the Czech Republic, the Netherlands is now among the most secular countries in Europe.«7
Because the Protestant ecclesial landscape has diversified since two Secession Movements in the Dutch Reformed Church in the 19th Century, one in 1834 (Dutch: Afscheiding) and 1886 (Dutch: Doleantie), with following church splits in the 20th century, we present some data with regard to current membership size, also in comparison with the Roman Catholic Church and compared with other religions.
Indeed, religious diversification is omnipresent in Dutch society, especially in the major cities, where growing numbers of migrants, muslim and Christian, contribute to a colourful picture. »Precise figures are unfortunately still lacking, but there are estimates that there are about 1 million Christian migrants living in the Netherlands, spread over a few thousand churches, congregations or parishes which have on average a few hundred believers.«8
It is not easy to get exact figures on religious affiliation in the Netherlands, given the different questionnaires and formulations of items that are being used. With regard to religious affiliation, the figures of the so-called LISS-Panel are considerably lower than the figures of the Central Statistical Office (Dutch: Centraal Bureau voor de Statistiek, CBS). The CBS-figures of 2020 show religious nones 55,4 %, Roman Catholic 19,8 %, Protestant 14,4 %, Muslim 5,2 %, other 5,1 %.9 In the table below, we follow the most recent data of the LISS Panel. The LISS panel is a representative sample of Dutch individuals who participate in monthly Internet surveys. The panel is based on a true probability sample of households drawn from the population register. Households that could not otherwise participate are provided with a computer and Internet connection. A longitudinal survey is fielded in the panel every year, covering a large variety of domains including health, work, education, income, housing, time use, political views, values and personality. For the domain of religion, a two-step question is being used. First question is: »Do you consider yourself as belonging to a church community or religious group?« If people answer yes, they are asked: »Which church community or what religious group is that?«
| Relative size of different religions, religious groups and churches in the Netherlands 10 | |
| % of Dutch population | |
| Roman Catholic | 9,5 |
| Protestant Church in the Netherlands (PCN) | 7,4 |
| Reformed Churches in the Netherlands (Liberated) | 0,9 |
| Christian Reformed Churches in the Netherlands | 0,8 |
| Dutch Reformed Churches | 0,4 |
| Reformed Congregations | 0,4 |
| Evangelical, Pentecostal or Baptist | 1,1 |
| Eastern Orthodox church | 0,1 |
| another Christian church | 0,9 |
| Islam | 1,6 |
| Hinduism | 0,4 |
| Buddhism | 0,1 |
| Judaism | 0,1 |
| another non-Christian faith | 0,2 |
| Total | 23,8 |
COVID-19 has had a large impact on the life of churches and other religious groups. During the different lockdowns, people could not attend the Sunday worship services and other events, or only in very limited numbers. Research has been done on the impact of COVID, but it is difficult to get a clear picture. Dutch respondents in the international CONTOC (Churches Online in Times Of Corona) Research in the summer of 2020 by De Roest and Pleizier say they lost a sense of koinonia, »Due to this experience, pastors express concerns about whether ›their‹ congregations, [sic] will ›return‹ to their former sizes post-Corona.«11 In March 2023, Dutch newspaper Nederlands Dagblad reported, based upon its own survey, that indeed these concerns were justified. After the Corona crisis, the decline in the number of churchgoers is estimated to be around 25 %.12
The Roman Catholic Church has published figures about church attendance. Noticeable is a large decline in the number of church attenders from 2018 (the last year a church count was done before COVID) and 2022 (the most recent figure). The number dropped from 153.800 to 98.600.13 This is a much sharper decline than in previous years.
How to interpret the developments in the last decades on a macro level? It is often argued that the proclaimers of a continuing secularisation are wrong and that, looking at today’s Dutch culture, we should speak of a »transformation of the religious landscape«, leading to a multicultural and multireligious society. Todd Weir proposes that secularisation, pluralization, and spiritualization be seen as the »three axes of religious diversification«.14
Still, recently, diehard adherents of the secularisation paradigm continue to receive data that confirm their theory, at least when focusing on diminishing commitment to Christianity and even religiosity in general in a number of countries. Sociological data demonstrate that based on a comparison of EVS and WVS surveys in between 1981 and 2007, in 14 high-income societies, including the Netherlands, traditional indicators of religiosity, such as attending worship and belief in God, declined. According to Ronald Inglehart, in between 1981 and 2007, in these countries the »process of intergenerational population replacement«, in short, more secular younger birth cohorts, shows »substantial decline in emphasis on religion,« but while in these years, on a global scale, religiosity was still rising, in the years between 2007 and 2020, surprisingly, a »surge in secularisation occurred that is moving much faster than intergenerational population replacement.«15 Many other countries than the 14 high-income societies became less religious too.
Over the years, Ronald Inglehart attributes the decline in religious commitment to both increasing individual choice and rising existential security. With regard to the first factor, indeed the nature of bonding patterns in Dutch society has changed. There is less peer pressure and social control. Selectivity and mobility, also by using the internet as a source of information, open up a wide horizon of possibilities for short-term attachment. Practically each individual can choose from a dizzying and confusing array of churches, political parties (currently 17 parties in the Dutch parliament!), businesses, companies, associations and even partners.16 Continuously, a wide range of options presents itself to the Dutch. The days of lifelong commitment to one institution seem to be over. Apart from some geographical enclaves, such as the Dutch Bible belt or some villages inhabited by relatively few families, and apart from associations in the sports sector, we see fewer places where people ›witness each other’s lives‹ in the long term, although we add that the Dutch are often members of informal groups. Informal groups are small groups of people who come together on a regular basis to pursue a certain goal or with whom they share a particular hobby and they may exist for many years.17 Again, to become a member of such groups is a matter of personal choice. Bond-ing to groups, informal or other, and communities often shows a temporary or even incidental character. Consumers ›float‹ and are difficult to bind, employees »hop« from job to job, voters »float«18 and even believers »float. «19 Interestingly, the latter does not only entail a loosening bond between believers and faith communities, but it also implies a mismatch between the measurements of religious commitment, belonging, believing, bonding and behaving.20 Beliefs, such as in heaven and miracles, can be endorsed by people who do not self-define as religious. Values and ideals, such as loving your neighbour, offering help to people and living as a Christian are not reserved to churchgoers.
With regard to Inglehart’s second factor, existential security, the Netherlands has occupied a steady tenth place on the global HDI, Human Development Index, a UN-measurement instrument of well being, taking into account per capita income, life expectancy, and education.21 It counts as a high-developed country by UN definition. Statistical analysis shows that indeed rising income and welfare, i. e. growth in prosperity and security can in the Netherlands be regarded as a factor to explain declining church membership and attendance. Yet also, looking at the period of 1966–2015, the increasing level of education plays an important role.22 Here researchers point at scientific rationalism and naturalistic explanations, which are at the heart of education, undermining the cognitive basis of religious worldviews.23 Since the late sixties until now, following Kregting and others, »there has been a huge educational expansion in the Netherlands«24 and these highly educated people also influence each other through their interaction. Related to these factors, although one may be raised in a Christian family, many Dutch are likely to be less committed to the Christian religion later in life.25 Dutch people who socialised in a Christian tradition are affected by the diminishing plausibility of religious values. Kregting an others, however, also nuance earlier research in this respect, stating that »over the last decades, Christian socialisation of the youngest generations of Dutch people has increasingly taken place in a secular context, putting this socialisation under pressure, which means that it is less likely to have a long-lasting effect on the religiosity of the younger generations.«26
II Meso-level
The description in this paragraph will follow a framework from the field of congregational studies, with five perspectives: resources, leadership, relationship with local context, structure, context and identity.27 We will see that in the PCN and to a lesser extent, also in other protestant churches, except some evangelical and conservative reformed ones, resources are shrinking. As for leadership, the total number of professional workers, like ministers, is declin- ing, which has – paradoxically – resulted in a shortage of ministers. The relationship of the Protestant Church with its immediate context, shows a mixed picture. On the one hand, there are serious concerns whether the church is really connected to what is happening around it, but on the other hand there are several signs the Protestant Church is in the midst of the concerns of society. The PCN has made changes in its structure, partly in response to the changes they perceive in their context. It is now easier to start new congregations within the church by pioneering (similar to »Fresh expressions« in the UK and Erprobungsräume in Germany). Finally, the question of the identity of the church has been given attention in policy documents returning to the original raison d’être of the church.
1 Human and Material Resources
In 2022, on behalf of the PCN, the KASKI-institute (Research Centre on Religion and Society Radboud University, Nijmegen) conducted an analysis of member-development, ministry-development and congregational development in the PCN, which was published in a PCN-report.28 The KASKI-researchers focused on baptised members and professed members, leaving out unbaptized children of members, guest members, friends and co-registrants. Both the number of baptised members and the number of professed members over the past decade, declined between 2012 and 2021, by 22 %.
As of 2021, the PCN has approximately 700,000 baptismal members and 640,000 professing members, together making 1,340,000 members. The members of the PCN are relatively old, compared to the Dutch population in general (see figure X). While the biggest age group in the Netherlands is the group aged between 50 and 59 years, for the PCN this is the age group 70–79. There are relatively few people in the younger age groups in the PCN membership statistics. It is also important to note that professing membership is increasingly something of older age groups. Only in the age groups from 50–59 and older there are more professing than baptised members, which is remarkable considering the fact that public confession of faith (in Dutch: »belijdenis doen«) has been traditionally done at the end of people’s teenage years. This practice is disappearing in the Protestant churches, except in the conservative congregations of the PCN.
The trend of general decline is clearly visible in the Protestant Church statistics, but is also visible in the statistics of several of the smaller, conservative reformed denominations. These have been better able over the years to retain their numbers, or even to grow, but in some of these denominations there are clear signs of a downward trend, particularly due to declining birth rates.29
There are a number of churches and denominations that are growing against the trend. As a rule, much of this growth consists of people from existing churches seeking alternatives, and not from non-Christians converting. Vermeer and Scheepers conclude in their study on the growth of several evangelical congregations that »evangelical church growth in the Netherlands is probably more a matter of the ›circulation of saints‹ than of proselytism«30. Despite this, we would not be surprised if these evangelical churches are better in drawing new converts, i. e. people with no or only a minimal Christian background.31
The figures concerning money in the Protestant Church follow a downward trend, although differently than the memberships trend. While the number of members has been declining steadily for decades, until 2012 the amount of money protestant congregations annually received was growing. The amount of »living money« (membership contributions, donations, bequests etc.) received in 2012 by congregations in the PCN was roughly 230 million euros. In 2017 this had declined to roughly 215 million euros.32
While the figures about living money earned are more or less public, figures about the capital owned by PCN congregations are notoriously difficult to come by. Most of the buildings, land, investments and other forms of financial capital are owned by local congregations. Up till very recently, local congregations of the PCN were not required to report the current value of these possessions. A report in 2015 estimated that congregations in the Protestant Church in the Netherlands had around 1–2 billion euros on bank accounts.33 When taking the buildings and lands owned in consideration, the wealth of local congregations must be considerably higher. However, wealth is distributed very unequally across congregations. The report in 2015 estimated that 10 % of the wealthiest congregations in the northern provinces of the Netherlands owned 35 % of the money in bank accounts. The Protestant Church makes a very strict distinction between diaconal and church finances. Every congregation basically has two separate financial flows. Church money and capital is used for the running of the church organisation, and includes the pay for the minister and the upkeep of the church building. Diaconal money and capital is intended to be given away and is spent to support people in hardship.
Although there is a lot of wealth available in assets, land and buildings, Protestant congregations are reluctant to spend it. In general, congregations respond to diminishing annual revenues by making cuts in costs, especially in costs for buildings and ministers. In general churches work with, what experts call the »cheese slicer method«34: every year or once in a few years congregations cut another slice of their costs, until nothing is left and congregations have to close down or merge with a neighbouring congregation.
Across the Netherlands there are some people and initiatives who find creative ways to invest available capital. In particular, diaconal money and capital is spent, as deacons are more used to give their wealth away. One example is a congregation located in a rural area of the bible belt that supported an urban pioneer church in one of the most deprived urban neighbourhoods in the Netherlands. Between the churches a relationship developed. Teenagers of the village travelled by bus to meet the teenagers in the city, experiencing what church can look like in a very different environment. On return, they asked whether they could do something similar for people living in poverty in their own village. We can give many more examples of these types of partnerships.
With buildings we see a similar pattern as with money. There is a general trend of decline, but there are also many examples of creative ways of congregations doing something new and different.
In a recent inventory of the number of church buildings by the government organisation Rijksdienst voor cultureel erfgoed, it was estimated that there are almost 5.000 church buildings in the Netherlands . This includes buildings of all denominations, not just of the Protestant church. In 5 years time 265 church buildings were closed, which accounts for roughly 1 church building closing each week36. A cautious turnaround in this seems to be visible, with more and more churches doing their best to preserve their buildings. For example, the Protestant Church in Amsterdam decided not to sell any more buildings37 and the national church developed a manual to help church boards develop a vision for the church building38.
To give an example of a small, not at all exhaustive list of examples we encountered recently of creative use of existing and new (church) buildings:
– As part of the Floriade Expo 2022, an international horticultural exhibition, a Tiny Church was built in Almere.39 The example inspired a tiny church architecture competition in Denmark, organised by the church development foundation Kirkefondet.
– In Amsterdam the former rectory of one of the neighbourhood parishes was transformed into an intentional community. The students living there support the diaconal work in the neighbourhood.
– In the Frisian town of Sneek all the church buildings of the PCN are closed and sold, except for the mediaeval Martini church in the centre of the town. The Martini church is being renovated and a new construction is added to the old building, containing, among other things, a kitchen.
– In the small village of Angerlo40 close to the border with Germany, the rectory has been transformed into a community centre with space for yoga courses, inspiration and literature.
– The Grote Kerk in the centre of Zwolle has started the Academiehuis (»academy house«) devoted to art, literature, story telling, music, discussion and debate in the old mediaeval building. Similar initiatives take place in other so called »iconic city churches«, which is being researched by the PhD student Matthias Kaljouw.41
– The last ten years there seems to be an increase in intentional christian communities.42 In a research conducted in 2021, over half of the communities surveyed were started in the previous 10 years, suggesting this is a growing movement. Most of the communities are located in areas with lower than average income. This movement changes how and what type of buildings are used in the church. The intentional community Nijkleaster (which is Frisian for »new monastery«) recently held a successful crowdfunding to buy and renovate a farm building in the middle of the country side of Friesland, transforming it to a house where several people can live together.
– In Assen, a city located in the Northern part of the Netherlands, a former church building of the PCN transformed into a community centre, Assen Bloeit.43 Starting from the assets of people and the neighbourhood, they developed a programme with a restaurant, art, creativity, gardening and so on. Their aim is to help people flourish. People who work here are all volunteers, including the people who are at a distance from the labour market. The teams in which they work are small inclusive communities. Two churches are involved in this project, one of them is the church that once owned this building, but had to sell it due to decline of income and members.
2. Leadership
The figures about leadership in the Protestant Church follow the general trend of decline. But just as was the case with money, the pattern is again a little different. The number of Protestant ministers is declining, but considering the relatively old age of ministers, and the fact that the number of congregations is declining slower than the number of ministers, a shortage of ministers is expected in the near future, or is already experienced by congregations in certain areas of the Netherlands.
Between 2011 and 2021, the number of ministers of local congregations fell by 25% (from 2,018 to 1,506). The number of ministers with a special assignment or in general service declined by 11 % (from 589 to 522). Ministers in the PCN are relatively old. The mean age of ministers in 2021 was 53,5 years. A shortage of ministers is expected in the coming years – and already felt in some parts of the Netherlands – because many ministers retire due to reaching retirement age.
In congregations there are also people working as »church workers«. These are often people working with special assignments, such as doing pastoral work for elderly people or doing youth work. The Protestant Church does not have exact figures about these church workers, but estimated that in 2021 785 church workers were operating in congregations. These figures apply only to church workers who work in the context of the regular church. The people working in hospitals, prisons, elderly homes, diaconal initiatives and other organisations are not taken into account in these figures, one reason being that there is no central registration for church workers employed by other organisations.
What it means to be a professional of the church (but not necessarily in the church) is changing shape and is diversifying, following the decline of traditional forms of church, and the development of new ways of being church. Some churches are ahead and already work with multidisciplinary teams of ministers, pastors, pioneers, youth workers, diaconal workers and others. The changes with regard to professionals in the church and the lessons learned in pioneering have prompted discussions about the future of the leadership and the offices in Protestant congregations. We will dive a little deeper in the influence of pioneering on the broader church in the paragraph about »structure«. But it is clear that new skills and knowledge are needed in the new, uncharted terrain the church is finding itself in. There are many ministers and pioneers who realise their initial education did not prepare them well enough for new expectations. They are complementing this by following specific (missional) training or by participating in learning groups of ministers. A minister in a current research project of one of undersigned authors, Jonna Bakker-van den Berge, said succinctly: »Spiritual leadership is of utmost importance in these times. It is important to provide direction. Ministers have allowed congregations to drift.« Within this research project, spiritual leadership is a recurring theme. We think that in particular spiritual leadership is required, the ability to discern what the Spirit is up to and leading people into what is discerned as God’s future.
In the CONTOC research we mentioned earlier, it became clear that the impact of COVID-19 made ministers reconstruct their pastoral identity:
»It is this longing to bring people together in the community of faith that is at the heart of pastoral identity, in addition to the pastoral role as preacher, worship leader, or spiritual guide. (...) They also feel that their pastoral identity has become more missional since more people are watching their worship services than there were in their congregation before the pandemic. Pastors reconstruct their identity in this direction.«44
3. Context: connections with the local and national
One of the issues of the Protestant Church is that its connection with its context is limited to certain groups in society. When it comes to social milieu, age and ethnic background the Protestant Church has a different composition compared to the composition of Dutch society. In general it is older, whiter and culturally homogeneous.
In 2011, the Dutch research bureau Motivaction conducted a survey among members of the Protestant Church.45 This survey found that only two of the the eight »mentality milieus« in the Netherlands are well represented in the Protestant Church: the »traditional bourgeoisie« and the »post-materialists«. The two milieus that the PCN covers have a share of about a quarter of the Dutch population.
The connection with people living in poverty seems weak. This is shown for example in the fact that only about 1 in 20 Dutch people say they seek support from the church when they are struggling to make ends meet.46 They do not look for help from the church for several reasons. They do not know that the church offers support when people are struggling, have an outspoken negative attitude towards Christianity or find it inappropriate to receive support while they are not members.
A recent survey on poverty however also shows that churches do a lot for society.47 Churches and diaconal organisations spent 2.2 million hours supporting people in poverty and nearly 41 million euros on poverty alleviation and reduction.
When it comes to nationalities and ethnicities in the Protestant Church, the church appears to be largely monocultural and composed of »Dutch Dutch people«48. Around 93 % of the people who affiliate themselves with the Protestant Church do not feel they have any other ethnicity than a Dutch ethnicity. For the Dutch population as a whole this figure lies around 83 %.49 Based on preliminary findings of Nieuw Kerkelijk Peil, the Dutch version of the Church Life Survey,50 around 97 % of the people attending Protestant churches have been born in the Netherlands. The Roman Catholic Church in comparison is more multicultural. This is a reflection of the fact that the Roman Catholic Church is a worldwide church. In 2021 there were 41 special parishes for migrants in the Netherlands.51 It is also a reflection of the fact that Protestants tend to start their own, often independent, congregations when they migrate to another country.
In villages, churches continue to have an important role in the symbolic and ritual domain, even in villages where the inhabitants are not very religious. This is shown by the research of Jacobine Gelderloos,52 who studied Protestant village churches in the North and South of the Netherlands. She noted that on important feast days, or when something impactful happened, churches – the communities, but also their buildings – were places of reflection and consolation. She also tracked how churches can be instrumental in cooperation with other societal partners. She describes how churches organised and supported protests against the natural gas extraction in Groningen, in the north of the Netherlands. The gas extraction caused earthquakes in the areas, but the government was reluctant to lower the production and to compensate the people affected by the earthquakes.
Even when congregations are not connected to their context, the people in the church might often very well be. Research shows that churchgoers are significantly more likely to volunteer than non-churchgoers. 48 % of churchgoers (or church members who also attend church regularly) volunteer compared to 23 % of people who never attend church. Churchgoers are also more likely to give informal help and more likely to carry out actions focused on national or international issues than non churchgoers.53 Surprisingly, quite often church people don’t consider their volunteering work as part of being church. When we encounter diaconal volunteers, we often hear sentences like: »Besides being a deacon, I also support refugees, but not on behalf of the church.«
There are some churches which are developing into inclusive, diaconal communities as part of an intentional choice to respond to unexpected changes in the context, such as the arrival of groups of refugees. One example is a Protestant congregation in Roermond,54 that changed into a multicultural church when a group of people started to invite refugees into the life of the church. Interestingly, the changes also brought new life to the church, as the new visitors and members became part of the church and introduced their own language, songs and food. This might sound appealing for other congregations, but it should not be considered as an easy success story, while this change is also a demanding process, not least for the members who have been part of this church for a long time.55
4. Structure
The Protestant Church responds to the changes on the macro level (decline of traditional indicator of religiosity) and micro level changes by changing its structure. The Protestant Church itself is the result of a structural change: it is a merger of three different denominations who after decades of discussion merged in 2004.
A recent development is the wish to become a »Mosaic of churches«. The idea is that different forms of church complete each other, like little colourful stones who together form a beautiful mosaic. As of 2021 the PCN has 1.657 »regular« congregations.56 Since the merger in 2004 and especially since 2010 over a 100 new pioneer churches have started.57 Most of these pioneer churches are small, fragile and transient, but some have grown larger. One of the reasons to start the pioneer programme was the fact that the church only reaches a limited group of people (see the Motivaction research we mentioned earlier). The Mosaic of churches is partly meant to solve this issue and reach a more diverse group of people.
The pioneer programme has been a driver for this structural change in the Protestant Church.58 The report Mozaïek van kerkplekken tracks how pioneering has raised all kinds of issues that needed further discussion and changes in the working of the church, for example with regard to the sacraments, the meaning of membership, working conditions of pioneers, and cooperation between pioneer churches and regular congregations.
One of the changes is that a new type of congregation has been formulated in the church order, the so-called kerngemeente.59 This is a lighter form of church organisation, specifically meant for growing pioneer churches who want a more structured organisation but for whom becoming a regular congregation is a bridge too far. Interestingly, during the research process leading up to the report, many small, longer existing churches mentioned that they too would like to have a lighter form of church, with regard to (financial) accounting and governance. This has resulted in several proposals for making regular congregations easier to manage.
In addition to the regular congregations, kerngemeentes, and pioneer churches, several other communities and forms of church have sprung up, including several intentional communities, diaconal initiatives, community centers and 250+ kliederkerken (the Dutch version of the UK Messy Church and German Kirche Kunterbunt). The debate about structural changes in the PCN is ongoing and will continue to be front of mind for many.
5. Identity
The different policy documents published in the PCN since the merger in 2004 contain reflections on identity, in particular on the topic of ecclesiology. The subsequent publications60 stress the missionary task of the church.61 The topics in the different publications are fairly consistent: worries about the decline are countered with statements about the continuing faithfulness of God. The latest policy document proposes that the church should practise a faithful receptiveness and anticipate the future of God. This is translated in practice by focusing on missionary work, youth work, and »back to basics« – a focus on the essentials of church. While the policy documents of the church focus on ecclesiology, discussing more controversial topics, such as soteriology is avoided. Interestingly, the topic of soteriology has been studied in relation to the pioneer programme, in Stoppels study of the »missionary mindset« of pioneers and ministers.62 It would be in line with what we described in the paragraph about structure that pioneering again is a driver of change, in this case on further theological reflection on identity.
COVID-19 has also impacted identity aspects of church life. Again, it is difficult to precisely gauge its impact. One of the things that we found remarkable was that COVID revealed the very strong emphasis on worship services of the PCN. This is for example clear in the topics discussed in the report Kerk na corona, which are mainly about the communal meetings in church buildings. It is also clear in the energy the national church devoted to align church policies with the measures announced by the government, regarding meetings in church buildings during lockdowns and communicating these measures with local churches.
We think that the move towards online and hybrid ways of being (or doing) church during COVID lockdowns will have a lasting impact on church life in the Netherlands. Pastors report changes in patterns of how people connect to church and how they understand what involvement in church life means. Many churches continue to offer streaming services of their worship service and sometimes offer additional video resources on their websites. The strengthened online presence of churches creates an opportunity for people, both unchurched people and churched people, to check out a church – listen to some sermons, follow a worship service, before they decide to attend in the physical church building.63 However, the hope of pastors to be able to reach a wider audience, during lockdowns turned out to be idle. »In fact, the data show that the ›playground‹ of the pastor, the field in which he/she operates, was reduced to the inner circle of the core members of the congregation.«64
A church that has benefitted from its focus on online streaming is Mozaïek. This is a fast growing network of churches. The original »mother church«, Mozaiek0318, in the town of Veenen-daal was able to draw a large online public with its professionally streamed worship service. This has made the church »brand« well known across the country, which is now helping them to set up new church plants in many new towns, with a similar style.
III Micro-level
After our analysis of the developments on macro- and meso-level, we now turn to the microlevel of individual behaviour. According to Collins and Turner, and following Durkheim and Goffman, the microlevel of a society is sustained by emotions and interaction rituals: »In the end, it is still the emotions aroused in rituals that build up, tear down, change, or sustain meso and macro structures.«65 Applying this to the PCN, we see indeed how interaction patterns and rituals, and in particular the deliberate or undeliber-ate, often gradual withdrawal from these patterns and rituals play an important role in the »tearing down« of what used to be an important meso structure in Dutch society, namely the church. Negative emotions or, conversely, the lack of or low frequency or intensity of positive emotions aroused in these interaction rituals are exercising a causal effect. It helps to understand the findings of Church historian Peter van Rooden who writes, in a seminal article based upon dozens of interviews, that Christianity in Amsterdam collapsed in a relatively short period of time.66
He strongly rejects the hypothesis that this collapse was caused by the modernization process of Dutch society. On the contrary, modernization in The Netherlands ran parallel with the formation of four distinct simultaneously existing social worlds, the so called »pillars«, that were also represented on a political level: these forms of closely knit social organisation had a protestant, roman-catholic, liberal or socialist collective identity. A strong social control imposed limits upon exchange and borderline crossings. Marriage and friendship between members of these social worlds were always submitted to debate, among close relatives, but also in the local area. The moral communities, in the Durkheimian sense, had their own values, interaction rituals and prohibitions. In the sixties this so-called »pillarized society« broke down by the cultural revolution that included the ideal of a reflexive, expressive and liberated subject. The sixties also subverted the norms and ritual behavioural patterns that had shaped social life for decades. The large moral communities, including the socialist one, evaporated. Oral history, allowing former church members who are now elderly people to speak about their experiences demonstrates that after the sixties they usually drifted away from the church. The narratives of the evaporation of the previous religious pattern of life are accompanied by positive memories, in which the increasing reflexivity is more evident. One Amsterdam woman tells, that praying before dinner stopped when the children left the house, »because you think why should you keep on doing that?« According to another woman, faith just died down slowly. Van Rooden asserts that his respondents did not necessarily make a conscious, well-considered decision for another pattern of life, rather the former pattern disappeared without being noticed. The beliefs of these respondents had not been reflective, but were taken for granted. Dutch religion of the fifties »went without saying«.
In our macro level analysis, we saw how Dutch society in general is marked by loss of transcendence. Some sociologists argue that church attrition will continue for some time to come, not only on the basis of projecting numbers into the future, but also on the basis of a micro level phenomenon, that is called the »inner secularisation« in the church.67 The Protestant minister and writer Wim Dekker recognises among individual members in many churches what he calls geloofsverlegenheid, a shyness to talk about faith. »This shyness, certainly among theologians, but also among church members, has to do with the fact that we are much more secularised than we realise. We no longer think from the reality of God, as the First.«68
Although this inner secularisation might be true, there is also another trend. People who remain affiliated to church, tend to become more loyal to church. In addition, and to the surprise of the researchers, younger generations of church members tend to become more religious than older generations. This is shown in the SCP report Christenen in Nederland from 2018. The report shows a continuing decline of religion, in line with what we have been reporting in this article. However, interestingly, it also shows that people in the age group of 17–30 are the most active and loyal generation in generation in church, measured across a number of parameters. They for example tend to go more often to church worship services on Sunday, than the average church member.
»[...] compared to church members as a whole, young people within the churches now stand out in many respects as exceptionally committed to the faith. They are driving against traffic in this respect, as it were.«69
In a contemporary study of youngsters and adolescents by Harmen van Wijnen, the changes in the micro level of faith and church can be seen clearly. Van Wijnen studied small groups of Christian youngsters and described their struggles with faith.
»For these adolescents, supplied faith was mainly an external cognitive category that was separate from their daily lives and they were really struggling with the relevance of this supplied faith in their lives.«70
He argues that a twofold turn is taking place in Christian youngsters: there is a turn from the individual to the communal and the turn from an organised environment to a natural environment. Especially the first element of the twofold turn might come as a surprise, as the changes in faith and youngsters is usually seen from the aegis of the individualization thesis. Van Wijnen’s thesis is more subtle and can account for the paradoxical and sometimes com- plexing dynamic of young people, church and faith. Van Wijnen sees a transition of faith with deconstructive elements and constructive elements. The deconstructive elements are a (concurrent) process of both deinstitutionalization and deindividualization. And a process of crystallisation and tribalization, where youngsters gather (»crystallise«) around communal identities, or »tribes«.
Protestant churches do not seem to have taken the changes Van Wijnen describes into account. They still have a strong institutional reflex, and order their community life often mostly around the interests and experiences of older generations. Churches are in a particular mode of sustaining the familiar way of being church: »this is how we have done things before«. Only few church members, and also professionals, are able to nurture a different way of being church.
IV Conclusions
We want to reiterate here what we have stated in the beginning: we have shown that the trend of general decline of church life, which is characteristic for the Netherlands and many other European countries, is also dominant in the Protestant Church in the Netherlands. However, there are also many stories that can be told of new and different ways of how to be church. A rediscovery of church is not a given, but it is certainly not out of the picture. The question is how one evaluates different and new initiatives. To us it seems certain that, while these new developments might be hope giving, they will not lead to a restoration, a going back to what was. The shape of Protestant Church life has changed decisively in the last decades and what was will not return. It is also not possible yet to gauge what kind of impact the new developments in church that we describe will have. However, we think it is important to note this dual face of the developments in the Protestant Church: on the one hand there is a general, ongoing, structural and painful decline. On the other hand, new things are happening. It is important to make space for lament and mourning of what has been, or will be gone in a short time. Whatever comes next cannot be, at least not in the short term, a proper replacement of what is lost. And it might be conceivable that these new ways of being church will remain fragile.
All things considered, we think that for the near future it is necessary to think again about what we are measuring and seeing. It is important to honestly acknowledge what is happening to church as we know it, but also to not be fooled by it. Church is changing shape, and we think it is imperative to develop a spirit of discernment in church, that judges itself not just by facts and figures – whether it be decline or growth – of the church as an organisation, but judges itself by the extent to which she is sign, foretaste and instrument of the Kingdom of God. After this descriptive and sociological mapping exercise, this might seem a pious ending, but we follow the example of the distinguished philosopher Charles Taylor, who ends his magnum opus with a chapter on conversions. We think the following quote is a fitting end to what we try to say:
»[...] Christian life today will look for and discover new ways of moving beyond the present orders to God. One could say that we look for new and unprecedented itineraries. Understanding our times in Christian terms is partly to discern these new paths, opened by pioneers who have discovered a way through the particular labyrinthine landscape we live in, its thickets and trackless wastes, to God.«71
Zusammenfassung
Die protestantische Kirchenlandschaft in den Niederlanden ist von zwei Entwicklungen geprägt: einerseits von einem allgemeinen Rückgang (Ehrenamtliche, Mitglieder, Kirchenbesucher, Gebäude) und andererseits von Erneuerung, Experimentieren mit neuen Formen des Kircheseins und – in einigen Gemeinden – Wachstum. Um zu verstehen, was in den Gemeinden geschieht, werden die Entwicklungen in den protestantischen Kirchen auf drei verschiedenen Ebenen betrachtet.
Erstens stellen die Autoren auf der Makroebene der Gesellschaft auf der Grundlage der jüngsten Zahlen eine rasche Säkularisierung und eine religiöse Diversifizierung fest. Sie geben auch eine vorläufige Deutung dieser Entwicklungen: individuelle Wahlmöglichkeiten, existenzielle Sicherheit und zunehmendes Bildungsniveau. Zweitens konzentriert sich der Artikel auf der Mesoebene auf die abnehmenden personellen und materiellen Ressourcen der Ortsgemeinden und auf Veränderungen in Struktur und Leitung. Die Autoren untersuchen aber auch die Beziehung der Gemeinden zu ihrem lokalen Kontext und die neue kirchliche Gemeinschaftsbildung. Der Aufruf, zu den Grundlagen des Kircheseins zurückzukehren, wird ausführlich behandelt. Drittens befasst sich der Artikel auf der Mikroebene mit Forschungsergebnissen zu persönlicher Religiosität und Engagement. Schließlich werden die Auswirkungen der COVID-19-Pandemie und die Entstehung hybrider Formen des Gottesdienstes behandelt.
Fussnoten:
1) Tubantia, September 16, 2020; Tubantia, Nov. 11, 2020; Tubantia, Jan. 13, 2021; Tubantia, December 3, 2021; De Volkskrant, Dec. 12, 2021; Trouw, July 6, 2020; Trouw, May 31, 2021.
2) Randall Collins, Jonathan Turner’s Macro-Micro-Meso Theory, in: Seth Abrutyn and Kevin McAffree (Eds.), Theoretical Sociology. The Future of a Disciplinary Foundation, New York/London: Routledge, 2011, 129–143. Following Turner, if micro-dynamics change the macro realm, change will occur first at the level of corporate and categoric units, see Collins, 136. A congregation can be described as one of such ›corporate units‹.
3) Joep de Hart, Pepijn van Houwelingen, Willem Huijink, Religie in een pluriforme samenleving. Diversiteit en verandering in beeld. Deel 3: Buiten kerk en moskee, Den Haag: Sociaal en Cultureel Planbureau (SCP), 2022.
4) NOS Nieuws, March 24, 2022.
5) J. J. M. de Hart and Pepijn van Houwelingen, Christenen in Nederland: kerkelijke deelname en christelijke gelovigheid, SCP-publicatie 2018–32, Den Haag: Sociaal en Cultureel Planbureau, 2018.
6) Idem, 170.
7) Idem, 167.
8) Idem, 9.
9) See https://opendata.cbs.nl/statline/#/CBS/nl/navigatieScherm/thema?themaNr=83289.
10) M. Elshout, LISS Panel – Religion and Ethnicity – Wave 15, SPSS, STATA,CSV,PDF (Centerdata DANS/KNAW, 2022), https://doi.org/10.17026/DANS-XA3-PJPX, https://easy.dans.knaw.nl/ui/datasets/id/easy-dataset:260886.
11) Henk de Roest, Heidi Park, Matthew Pulis, Responding to Imposed Online Communication in the Church. Reconstructing Pastoral Identity During the COVID-19 Crisis, in Ilona Nord, Sabrina Müller and Thomas Schlag (Eds.), forthcoming 2023.
12) Nederlands Dagblad, March 10, 2023.
13) See KASKI, https://www.ru.nl/kaski/onderzoek/cijfers-rooms/ (accessed March 8, 2023).
14) Todd H. Weir, Heritage and Religious Change in Contemporary Europe: Interactions Along Three Axes, in: Trajecta. Religion, Culture and Society in the Low Countries 30/2 (2021), 219, https://doi.org/10.5117/TRA2021.2.001.
15) Ronald Inglehart, Religion’s Sudden Decline: What’s Causing It, and What Comes Next?, New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2021, 79–80.
16) In 1970, 19 % of the Dutch population (aged 20 and older) were single, i. e. unmarried or divorced; by 2018, this proportion had increased to 43 %. Statistics Netherlands f (n. d.). Bevolking; geslacht, leeftijd en burgerlijke staat, 1 januari. Accessed February 21, 2023. Available at: https://opendata.cbs.nl/statline/#/CBS/nl/dataset/7461bev/table?ts=1561637758353. Statistics Netherlands f, n. d.; Figure 1.5, A.
17) E. van den Berg, P. van Houwelingen, J. J. M. de Hart, Informele groepen. Verkenningen van eigentijdse bronnen van sociale cohesie, Den Haag: Sociaal en Cultureel Planbureau 2011.
18) C. H. de Vreese, The Netherlands: Media logic and floating voters, in: J. Stromback and L. L. Kaid (Eds.), The handbook of election news coverage around the world, New York, NY: Routledge, 2008, 145–159.
19) Joep (J. J. M.) de Hart, Zwevende gelovigen. Oude religie en nieuwe spiritualiteit, Amsterdam: Bert Bakker, 2011.
20) Grace Davie, Religion in Europe in the 21st Century: The Factors to Take into Account, European Journal of Sociology 47, no. 2 (2006), 276; Vassilis Saroglou, Believing, Bonding, Behaving, and Belonging: The Big Four Religious Dimensions and Cultural Variation,Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology 42, no. 8 (2011), 1323.
21) https://hdr.undp.org/data-center/documentation-and-downloads. See tables 1 and 2.
22) Joris Kregting, The Persistent Religious Gender Gap in the Netherlands in Times of Secularisation 1966–2015, Dissertation Radboud University 2019; Joris Kregting, Peer Scheepers, Paul Vermeer and Chris Hermans, Why God Has Left the Netherlands: Explanations for the Decline of Institutional Christianity in the Netherlands Between 1966 and 2015, Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 57, no. 1 (2018), 58–79.
23) Stijn Ruiter, Stijn and Frank van Tubergen, Religious attendance in cross-national perspective: A multilevel analysis of 60 countries, American Journal of Sociology 115, no. 3, (2009), 863–895; Jan Reitsma, Ben Pelzer, Peer Scheepers, and Hans Schilderman, Believing and belonging in Europe, European Societies 14, no. 4 (2012), 611–632.
24) »In 1966, 3 percent of the Dutch population (aged 15–64 years) had completed higher vocational education or university; in 2015, this had gone up to 30 percent.« Kregting, Scheepers, Vermeer and Hermans, 61; 70–72.
25) Kregting, Scheepers, Vermeer and Hermans, 64.
26) Kregting, Scheepers, Vermeer and Hermans, 73.
27) In his transformational ecclesiology, following Jackson Carroll, Hans van der Ven identified four core functions in a local church: identity, integration, policy and management. Johannes A. van der Ven, Ecclesiologie in context, Kampen 1993. In Carroll’s first handbook of congregational studies, the authors use four frames: identity, context, process and program. Jackson W. Carroll et al., Handbook for Congregational Studies, Nashville 1987. In the extension of this handbook by Nancy Ammerman and her team we find the four frames again: identity is changed into culture and resources are mentioned instead of program. Nancy Tatom Ammerman, Congregation and Community, New Brunswick, N. J.: Rutgers University Press 1997. Also Helen Cameron, Philip Richter, Douglas Davies and Frances Ward use four perspectives in their handbook for studying local churches to get a grip on the development and complexity of local faith communities: context, worship and action, people and resources, power. Cameron et al. Studying Local Churches: A Handbook, London: SCM Press 2005. For our purposes, we will distinguish five perspectives: human and material resources, leadership, relationship with context, structure and identity.
28) Van der Meulen, Marten, et al., Geroepen om te dienen. Een onderzoek naar kerkelijk werkers en predikanten in de kerk. Protestantse Kerk in Nederland, maart 2022.
29) For a comprehensive and differentiated picture of these denominations, see: Wijma, Merijn. A Great Multitude One Can Count: A Statistical Study on the Spatio-Temporal Development of the Reformed Denominations in the Netherlands between 1892 and 2015, Buijten & Schipperheijn Motief, 2022.
30) Paul Vermeer and Peer Scheepers, Church Growth in Times of Secularization: A Case Study of People Joining Evangelical Congregations in the Netherlands, Rev Relig Res 63, no. 1 (2021), 43–66, see p. 62.
31) Paas and Bartholomä conclude that the percentage of growth coming via new converts is much higher in evangelical GermanFreikirchen than in the large mainline churches. We assume that something similar will be the case in the Netherlands. Stefan Paas and Philipp Bartholomä, The Missional Future of Free Churches in a Secular Context: A German Case Study, Journal of Empirical Theology 33, no. 2 (2020), 157–177, https://doi.org/10.1163/15709256-12341388.
32) Figures are based on a graph in the statistical newsletter of the Protestant Church, theStatistische Jaarbrief 2019 van de Protestantse Kerk in Nederland (Dienstenorganisatie Protestantse Kerk, January 2020). More recent figures are not publicly available.
33) Marten van der Meulen, Krimpende middelen en toch vitaal. Rapportage over de financiële situatie van protestantse kerken in Drenthe, Friesland en Groningen (Groningen: Protestantse Theologische Universiteit, 2015).
34) See Erik Borgman, Waar blijft de kerk: gedachten over opbouw in tijden van afbraak (Baarn: Adveniat, 2016), 11. Or: Marten van der Meulen and Dorothee Berensen-Peppink, Over berg en dal: Twintigers En Dertigers in de protestantse kerk (Groningen: Protestantse Theologische Universiteit, 2014), 40.
35) Anouk Gras, In vijf jaar tijd zijn er 262 kerken gesloten. Een kwart van de kerken is omgebouwd voor andere functie, Volkskrant, 23 December 2022, https://www.volkskrant.nl/nieuws-achtergrond/in-vijf-jaar-tijd-zijn-er-262-kerken-gesloten-een-kwart-van-de-kerken-is-omgebouwd-voor-andere-functie~b9351b97/.
36) In a previous estimate the rate of closure was estimated much higher: between two to four churches a week. See Daan Beekers, De waarde van verlaten kerken, in Oskar Verkaaik, Daan Beekers, Pooyan Tamimi Arab, Gods huis in de steigers: religieuze gebouwen in ontwikkeling, Amsterdam: AUP, 2017, 163.
37) Vijf Broden, Twee Vissen. Beleidskader 2023–2027 (Protestantse Kerk Amsterdam, 2023), 18.
38) Gerben van Dijk, Speelruimte gezocht. Protestantse visie op kerkgebouwen (Protestantse Kerk in Nederland, 2021).
39) https://fruitfulcity.nl/, accessed 24 February 2023.
40) https://www.komdersuut.com/, accessed 24 February 2023.
41) See for more info, Henk De Roest, Collaborative Practical Theology: Engaging Practitioners in Research on Christian Practices, Theology in Practice Volume 8 (Leiden; Boston: Brill, 2020), 16.
42) Anna van Veelen-Blomgren and Herman van Veelen-Blomgren, We delen gewoon ons leven. Onderzoeksrapport Vereniging van Religieuze Leefgemeenschappen (Vereniging van Religieuze Leefgemeenschappen, 2021), 19.
43) https://www.assenbloeit.nl/, accessed 24 February 2023.
44) De Roest, Park and Pulis, forthcoming 2023.
45) The research has never been published. However, the results have often been used in internal church documents, classes and presentations.
46) Rapportage Panelonderzoek Armoede (Utrecht: Citisens, December 2022), https://protestantsekerk.nl/nieuws/presentatie-rapport-armoede-in-nederland-2023/.
47) Jurriaan Omlo, Sylvana Robbers, Mayke Kromhout, Gerechtigheid en barmhartigheid. Onderzoek naar de betrokkenheid van Kerken en diaconale organisaties bij de Aanpak van Armoede en Schulden, Utrecht: Bureau Omlo, 2023.
48) The phrase comes from Dutch anthropologist Kim Knibbe, who heard it being used by a Nigerian pastor in the Netherlands to describe people whose ethnic origins are limited to the Netherlands. See Kim Knibbe, How To Deal with the Dutch. The Local and the Global in the Habitus of the Saved Soul, in Anna Fedele and Ruy Llera Blanes (Eds.), Encounters of Body and Soul in Contemporary Religious Practices: Anthropological Reflections, New York/Oxford: Berghahn Books 2011), 91–108.
49) This is based on the LISS panel data. The LISS panel asks »To which of the following groups do you feel you belong?«, one of the answers being »no other group«. M. Elshout, LISS Panel – Religion and Ethnicity – Wave 15, SPSS,STATA,CSV,PDF (Centerdata DANS/KNAW, 2022), https://doi.org/10.17026/DANS-XA3-PJPX, https://easy.dans.knaw.nl/ui/datasets/id/easy-dataset:260886.
50) »Nieuw Kerkelijk Peil« surveys participants of congregations. At the end of 2022 60 local congregations have taken part. See for more information: Theo Pleizier, Karen Zwijze-Koning, and Marten van der Meulen, Who Cares? Exploring Pastoral Care in Dutch Protestant Parishes Using the Church Life Survey (CLS), Pastoral Psychol 71, no. 3 (2022), 345–358, https://doi.org/10.1007/s11089-021-00981-2.
51) Joris Kregting, Kerncijfers Rooms-Katholieke Kerk 2021 (Nijmegen: KASKI, August 2022). For more information about Christian migrants in the Netherlands see Marten van der Meulen, The Continuing Importance of the Local. African Churches and the Search for Worship Space in Amsterdam, African Diaspora 2, no. 2, (2009), 159–181; And: Marten van der Meulen, The Importance of Denomination for the Civic Engagement of Migrant Congregations in Amsterdam and Beyond, Ecclesial Practices 5, no. 1 (2018), 5–21, https://doi.org/10.1163/22144471-00501005.
52) Jacobine Gelderloos, Meaningful in the Margins: Churches and Quality of Life in the Dutch Countryside (Diss. Protestantse Theologische Universiteit, 2018).
53) Joep de Hart and Pepijn van Houwelingen, Christenen in Nederland: kerkelijke deelname en christelijke gelovigheid. SCP-publicatie 2018–32, Den Haag: Sociaal en Cultureel Planbureau, 2018, 66–67.
54) https://protestantsekerk.nl/nieuws/is-de-protestantse-gemeente-roermond-de-kerk-van-de-toekomst/, accessed 24 February 2023.
55) In the UK, research about the relation between social action and the extent in which the church is a reflection of its context showed that social action can contribute to a more diverse and inclusive church community. See Hannah Rich, Growing Good: Growth, Social Action and Discipleship in the Church of England (London: Theos, 2020).
56) Source: Protestantse Kerk.
57) Sake Stoppels et al., Tussenstand Pionieren. De impact van pionieren op sociale verbondenheid en geloofsontwikkeling (Utrecht: Protestantse Kerk in Nederland, March 2020).
58) See for more info on pioneering: Marten van der Meulen and Martijn Vellekoop, The Impact of the Emerging Church on the Protestant Church in the Netherlands, International Review of Mission 108, no. 2 (2019), 311–325.
59) Difficult to translate in English. »Kern« means »essence« or »core«. »Gemeente« translates as »congregation«. The idea is that rules and regulation for thekerngemeente focus on the essential aspects of church and not much more.
60) Leren Leven van de Verwondering. Visie op het leven en werken van de Kerk in haar geheel (Utrecht: Protestantse Kerk in Nederland, 2005). Arjan Plaisier, De hartslag van het leven: visie op het leven en werken van de Protestantse Kerk in Nederland (Utrecht, Zoetermeer: Protestantse Kerk in Nederland ; Boekencentrum, 2012). Arjan Plaisier, Kerk 2025. Waar een Woord is, is een Weg (Utrecht: Protestantse Kerk in Nederland, 2016). René Reuver, Van U is de toekomst. ontvankelijk en waakzaam leven van genade (Utrecht: Dienstenorganisatie Protestantse Kerk, 2020).
61) This emphasis on the missionary task of the church has been inspired by the report Mission Shaped Church. Church of England, ed., Mission-Shaped Church: Church Planting and Fresh Expressions of Church in a Changing Context, 2. ed. (London: Church House Publ., 2009).
62) See: Sake Stoppels, »De weg heeft ook een berm«. Missionaire mindsets van voorgangers binnen de protestantse kerk, Kerk En Theologie 71.3 (2021).
63) Theo Pleizier and Henk de Roest, Enhanced Streaming and the Rediscovery of Phone Calls. Experiences of Pastors during the first COVID-19 Lockdown in The Netherlands, in: Ilona Nord, Sabrina Müller and Thomas Schlag, forthcoming 2023.
64) De Roest, Park and Pulis, forthcoming 2023.
65) Jonathan Turner, Randall Collins on Micro-Meso-Macro Theorizing, in: Seth Abrutyn and Kevin McAffree (Eds.), Theoretical Sociology. The Future of a Disciplinary Foundation, New York/London: Routledge, 2011, 144–149.
66) Peter van Rooden, Oral history en het vreemde sterven van het Nederlandse christendom, in: Bijdragen en Mededelingen betreffende de Geschiedenis der Nederlanden 119 (2004), 524–551. For an English version, see: Peter Van Rooden, The Strange Death of Dutch Christendom, in: Callum G. Brown and Michael Snape (Eds.), Secularisation in the Christian World: Essays in Honour of Hugh McLeod, Farnham: Ashgate 2010, 175–196.
67) Gerard Dekker, Belonging without Believing. Het belang van ongelovige kerkelijken voor de godsdienstsociologie, Religie & Samenleving 4, no. 1 (2009), 5–15.
68) Translated by authors. See: W. Dekker, Marginaal En Missionair: Kleine Theologie voor een Krimpende Kerk, 2e druk. (Zoetermeer: Boekencentrum, 2011), 174.
69) Translated by authors. See: De Hart and Van Houwelingen, Christenen in Nederland (Den Haag: Sociaal en Cultureel Planbureau, 2018), 96.
70) Harmen van Wijnen, Faith in Small Groups of Adolescents. Being Together as a Basic Given (Delft: Uitgeverij Eburon, 2016), 92.
71) Charles Taylor, A Secular Age (Cambridge Univ Press, 2007), 755.
98–111. Vgl. meine Besprechung: Ein achsenzeitlicher Booster. Das frühe Christentum in der Sicht von Jürgen Habermas, FZPhTh 69 (2022), 499–510.