Geothermal map of the Netherlands!
Many Dutch Christians are letting go of traditional beliefs, but holding onto the idea that there is ‘something’ out there, something just above the surface of reality, something more. Robert Pigott explains:
Professor Hijme Stoffels of the VU University Amsterdam says it is in such concepts as love that people base their diffuse ideas of religion.
“In our society it’s called ‘somethingism’,” he says. “There must be ‘something’ between heaven and earth, but to call it ‘God’, and even ‘a personal God’, for the majority of Dutch is a bridge too far.
“Christian churches are in a market situation. They can offer their ideas to a majority of the population which is interested in spirituality or some kind of religion.”
To compete in this market of ideas, some Christian groups seem ready virtually to reinvent Christianity.
They want the Netherlands to be a laboratory for Christianity, experimenting with radical new ways of understanding the faith.
Much of this is led by the Dutch clergy, many of whom are professed agnostics or atheists.
The Rev Klaas Hendrikse can offer his congregation little hope of life after death, and he’s not the sort of man to sugar the pill.
An imposing figure in black robes and white clerical collar, Mr Hendrikse presides over the Sunday service at the Exodus Church in Gorinchem, central Holland.
It is part of the mainstream Protestant Church in the Netherlands (PKN), and the service is conventional enough, with hymns, readings from the Bible, and the Lord’s Prayer. But the message from Mr Hendrikse’s sermon seems bleak – “Make the most of life on earth, because it will probably be the only one you get”.
“Personally I have no talent for believing in life after death,” Mr Hendrikse says. “No, for me our life, our task, is before death.”
Nor does Klaas Hendrikse believe that God exists at all as a supernatural thing.
“When it happens, it happens down to earth, between you and me, between people, that’s where it can happen. God is not a being at all… it’s a word for experience, or human experience.”
Mr Hendrikse describes the Bible’s account of Jesus’s life as a mythological story about a man who may never have existed, even if it is a valuable source of wisdom about how to lead a good life.
His book Believing in a Non-Existent God led to calls from more traditionalist Christians for him to be removed. However, a special church meeting decided his views were too widely shared among church thinkers for him to be singled out.
A study by the Free University of Amsterdam found that one-in-six clergy in the PKN and six other smaller denominations was either agnostic or atheist.
None of this is new. When I was studying theology as an undergraduate in the 1980s (before going to seminary) various versions of this ‘agnostic Christianity’ were on offer. I wonder whether the attraction this kind of worldview is rising or declining in our present culture in Britain.
Bridges and Tangents 
I accept that none of this may be new Father Stephen. Indeed, I have experienced similar ideas proposed by Hospital Chaplains where I work. It has, in my experience, been dressed up as ‘spirituality’ (note the small ‘s’) and has been described by many writers as the things that give meaning and purpose in life. This is all well and good for helping people of no religious faith to explore their spirituality. But it seems to me that too many are prepared to dilute the teachings of the mainstream Churches in order not to offend those who don’t share their beliefs rather than to go out there and try to attract them to these beliefs. This is, surely, not what we are about. It is one thing to accept that people gain purpose and meaning from the neauty of nature, artistic activities and interaction with others. It is another thing to help those same people to appreciate that nature and people are the creations of God.
God works in truly amazing ways doesn’t He. Just think of all of those peoples that could just be living a secular life, who instead are holding on to Love. Who we in Catholicism, know to be God!
“Love is the one thing that can not hurt our neighbor”.
Love is the one ‘thingism’ that is in all of the commandments.
Hendrikes says “God is not a being at all… it’s a word for experience, or human experience.”
John Lennon disagrees he says “Love is being- being Love”
Sounds like there is a great opportunity for Christ’s apostles amongst the Dutch clergy in the Netherlands. I don’t think it would take much to secure the synaptic connection.
Not sure.
What i’m more sure about, though, is that there is a pagan idea of Christianity that is dangerous.
PAGAN IDEA:
(and ranging from people of both belief, to a degree, to non-belief, in particular – and everything inbetween – with this pagan idea drifting in and out of the individual with varying strengths)
that God is some kind of Zeus-like figure who we have to plead to and try and placate. That he has good days and bad days. That he needs us (in terms of his plan of salvation for mankind). That we’re his servants. That the physical = bad, and the spiritual = good. That we’re meant to empty ourselves and that’s it (instead of emptying ourselves not for emptying-sake, but in order to allow God to fill up our being) – “that’s it” except that we’re just meant to suffer (for suffering-sake). That just making a big, muscular effort is enough. That god has a notebook and ticking down everything good and bad we do. That we lose our personality and freedom in devoting our lives to what god wants us to do. That Jesus isn’t really human, he’s really just god, on the one hand, or that Jesus wasn’t really divine, but just a great, holy man, on the other.
And so on.
The thing that concerns me is that I’d call myself a firm believer, and a times, i find myself drifting, at times, into a pagan view of God (from one degree to another).
It is this pagan view of God that is so dangerous, and certainly has to be challenged (by, in particular, priests and bishops, apologetics, evangelical, teachers – but by people in general).
“That he needs us (in terms of his plan of salvation for mankind)”
– need to be more careful here (and this was said in context of pagan idea of Christianity)
Pagan idea is that god is needy of our love in some way. He isn’t.
Regarding “his plan of salvation for mankind”, we (Christian idea) all participate, in some way, in God’s salvation for mankind (wouldn’t want to say anything more prescriptive than this, as there is mystery involved, ultimately, in God’s salvation for mankind and our participation in it).
Hi Ed,
I keep on thinking of your last few comments…..
…..Maybe all Pagans are ‘Catholics’ that just haven’t had the privilege of meeting Jesus up close and personal yet…and haven’t kept Him there.
Ignatius of Antioch
“wherever Jesus Christ is, there is the Catholic Church” (Letter to the Smyrneans 8:2 [A.D. 110])