Buiten kerk en moskee

gious belief in the modern-day Netherlands are the orthodox reformed Bible belt, a few
communities of Christian migrants and the population of Dutch Muslims.
Does all this make the Netherlands a secularising country? And does it mean that atheists
and agnostics are gradually gaining the upper hand? In most of the usual senses, the
answer is yes. It is evident from the loss of monopolies by religious institutions, the reducing
of religion to the personal sphere, the greatly diminished influence of religion in the
everyday life of modern society, and the process of ‘depillarisation’ (the ending of the segregation
of Dutch society along denominational lines). It is evident from the diminished
control over the lives of affiliates and the greatly reduced popularity of the professed religious
beliefs, or the declining participation in the rituals, or the reduced knowledge of the
traditions and doctrines. The shifts are moving immutably in the direction of a crumbling
significance of religion, or at least the traditional Christian religion, for Dutch society and
the Dutch population as a whole.
The fact that more and more people no longer experience an overarching (religious) meaning
of life does not however mean that modern-day spirituals, agnostics and atheists do
not experience meaning in life in their own lives. Self-development, caring for others, partaking
in intense experiences and knowing that one is part of a greater whole are a few
examples of ways in which non-traditional believers give meaning to their lives.
In an age when all manner of traditional religious institutions are crumbling, the individual’s
own biography is becoming ever more important. It is not so much about conforming
to the rules of an organisation or attending mass ritual gatherings in a fixed and prescribed
rhythm, but more a matter of a personal spiritual journey of discovery and sharing the
emotional and religious feelings associated with that. It is about going in search of who
you are, on a quest for the core of one’s being. ‘Atman’, ‘γνῶθι σεαυτόν’, ‘werde, der du bist’,
‘intrapersonal intelligence’, ‘know thyself’. From the Vedas, Delphi and Pindaros to
Goethe, Nietzsche and contemporary cognitive psychology, they provide a constantly
recurring testimony to an indefatigable desire to know oneself, a desire which is today
acquiring a new topicality – within religious communities, too, but above all beyond church
and mosque.
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