Umbrellas of Conservative Belief: Explaining the Success of Evangelical Congregations in the Netherlands

Abstract

Dutch society is characterized by a high degree of religious dis-affiliation and non-affiliation and most religious communities are facing hard times in the Netherlands. But there are also exceptions. Against the contemporary current of ongoing secularization, some religious communities seem to thrive like never before and even attract new members. But why is that? Why do some religious communities succeed in retaining and also attracting new members while others fail? This article focuses on successful evangelical congregations in the Netherlands and tries to account for their relative success. On the basis of a subcultural identity theory, it is argued that the success of evangelical congregations is largely due to the fact that they offer protective umbrellas of conservative belief in an otherwise very secular context. This line of thought is substantiated with empirical findings from a current research project into thriving evangelical congregations in the Netherlands. The article closes with some theoretical reflections on the future of evangelicalism in contemporary Dutch society.

The Missional Future of Free Churches in a Secular Context: A German Case Study

“…Conversion growth in the BFeG is subsiding over the years, from 2.5% in 2003 to 1.9% in 2017, suggesting a drying 'pond' of potential converts in the membership of the larger churches. This lines up well with the observation by Vermeer and Scheepers (2017), that the growth of evangelical churches in the Netherlands largely depends on the availability of orthodox believers in other churches and on the receptivity of the mainstream culture towards evangelical beliefs and values. This does not necessarily affect the growth of individual free churches in every single location, but it will certainly affect the overall growth of free churches if this growth stays dependent on the revivalistic strategy of offering faith renewal to nominal or lapsed Christians.…”

“…While Christian churches in most European nations have suffered extensively from what can be summarized as 'secularization' , resulting in a massive loss in numbers, the classic free churches (Geldbach 2005;Voigt 2004) seem to have avoided this fate so far. A recent study into thriving evangelical free churches1 in the Netherlands presented them as offering 'protective umbrellas of conservative belief' , allowing them to grow-at least for the time being-even in a very secular context (Vermeer & Scheepers 2017). Also, free churches such as Baptists and Pentecostals have been among the most vigorous planters of new churches, with a strong intention to make converts, achieve church growth, and impact societies (Paas 2016, 61-88).…”

“…This raises the question to what extent the classic free church approach of mission is still effective in a more deeply secularized society, where 'nominal' church members are less in stock. While some studies suggest that the free churches still combine resilience against secularizing forces with a significant competitive strength (Stolz & Favre et al 2014;Vermeer & Scheepers 2017), 1 Historically, the label 'free' refers to an organization type of church independent from the state (non-establishment), and usually on a congregationalist basis (autonomy of local congregations). 'Evangelical' refers to a theological tradition as exemplified by most free churches.…”

Comparing Political Attitudes of Evangelicals with the Attitudes of Mainline Christians and Non-Church Members in The Netherlands

“…As we already mentioned in the introduction, the Christian Union is one of the three Christian political parties in the Netherlands and is more left of center, next to the more right wing Reformed Political Party, and the right of center Christian Democratic Party. Not by accident, then, with 53.1% voting for the Christian Union this party is also the most popular political party among our evangelical respondents (Vermeer and Scheepers 2017).…”

Bonding or Bridging? Volunteering Among the Members of Six Thriving Evangelical Congregations in the Netherlands

“…Boersema (2005) calls Dutch evangelicalism a conservative, reactionary movement with a distinctive religious and ethical profile and refers to the establishment of the Evangelical Broadcasting Company, today the biggest religious broadcasting company in the Netherlands, as a milestone in the history of Dutch evangelicalism. More recently, Vermeer and Scheepers (2017) showed that Dutch evangelicalism indeed differs from mainline Christianity in terms of strictness, a striving for religious homogeneity and in terms of specific organizational characteristics that evangelical congregations exhibit. Dutch evangelicals thus also display a kind of subcultural identity as a result of which they may be more oriented towards their own religious networks than to society at large.…”