Buiten kerk en moskee

2019). Orthodox and other Muslims and Christians will probably also be able to agree on
their aversion to blasphemy and their appreciation of private denominational schools and
freedom of religion, amongst other things. However, there are sometimes tensions between
religious groups too, about Israel and Palestine, for example.
Possible challenges and experiences that these religious groups have in common are often
overlooked (Beekers 2015). In a largely secular environment, faith is a shared experience
that is sometimes also subject to secular pressure and religious misunderstanding.
The pursuit of faith by many believers (Muslims or Christians) constantly confronts them
with doubt, uncertainty, oppression and fragmentation in their everyday encounters with
people with different beliefs as well as images in the media and popular culture (Beekers
2015). Orthodox believers (Christians or Muslims) live in a society in which a huge majority
of the Dutch population has a largely different value and norm pattern in respect of religion,
sexuality, leisure activities and the perception of illness and health (Duyvendak
2004). For example, the cleavage between believers and secular individuals recently
became evident during the coronavirus pandemic and lockdowns, when there was little
understanding from secular individuals for the wish of religious Dutch citizens to attend
church services. In this context, religion psychologist Van Saane (Van Houten 2021) wrote
about ‘the complete lack of understanding’ of the secular society for what motivates
orthodox and other believers: ‘To them, belief is not just “an opinion”; it determines everything
in their lives’, she says, ‘and church is the holy place where they experience their religion.’
Professor Wim Dekker (Dekker 2021) mentions this lack of understanding too. He
says that many secular individuals view religion as a vision on life, an opinion that individuals
can keep to themselves. Orthodox and other believers disagree: to them, it is a lifestyle,
a mode of being and an identity. This is met with a great lack of understanding from the
secular environment. Almost all young religious people encounter prejudice and judgements
about their belief to a certain extent, which can manifest itself in discrimination and
a feeling of not being accepted (De Gruijter et al. 2011). It is likely that the lack of understanding
for religion and prejudices about believers are even greater where Muslims are
concerned.
If a cleavage were to develop in the future, this would probably involve differences between
the two ideological groups that have grown relatively strongly in recent decades:
Muslims and non-believers. After all, we know from research, including the scp Citizens
Outlooks’ Barometer (Continu Onderzoek Burgerperspectieven, cob), that some people without
a migration background (who are predominantly non-believers) feel very distanced from
Islam and are concerned about the increasing number of Muslims in the Netherlands
(Huijnk 2018; Huijnk and Andriessen 2016; Den Ridder et al. 2019). Earlier research also
shows that a relatively large number of Muslims experience discrimination because of their
religion (Andriessen et al. 2020; Butter et al. 2021). Islamophobia may involve everyday
forms of exclusion and discrimination, in the form of prejudiced questions and comments
and stigmatising reports in the media, but also open discrimination based on faith, hate
speech, violent or threatening incidents that target Islamic places of worship and schools,
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