Van God los?

Abstract

In the media unchurched Europeans, and within Europe unbelieving Dutch, are often depicted as clear cut corroborations of the secularization thesis. At the same time, however, the media now and then detect signs of a revival of religion in both Europe and the Netherlands. Whenever survey researchers attempt to detect traces of this religious renaissance the result is largely negative. They occasionally find an increase on one or two indicators, but they do not observe a new rise of religion. Recently the Social and Cultural Planning Bureau published a new report on religious change in the Netherlands. This article is a review of that report. There are at least two remarkable outcomes. First, secularization is in several respects an ongoing process in the Netherlands, but the Netherlands today no longer belongs to the most secularized countries in Europe. Second, the Dutch are more and more unchurched, whereas their religious beliefs become less doctrinal but do not decrease in frequency.