As a broad, national church the Protestant Church in the Netherlands holds together different wings with very different theological perspectives. Different from the USA, where many experience unity and purity of the church as opposites, the PCN believes the church’s unity expresses its purity. In this episode we host Marco Batenburg, who for five years was the moderator of the national synod of the Protestant Church of the Netherlands. He currently directs the largest independent organization that supports missional work within the PCN. With him we talk about what it looks like to hold together a church as broad as the PCN, and how secularization impacts the national structures of a church, as well as old and tired oppositions between the left and the right.

About the church’s vision of the unity of the church, see also:

https://www.academia.edu/7080996/Church_and_Covenant_Theological_Resources_for_Divided_Denominations

When contexts change, ministry changes; and when ministry changes, theological education will also need to change. In this conversation we talk about the ways in which the Protestant Church in the Netherlands approaches the education of its (future) pastors, and how the praxis of ordained ministry itself changed over the last decades. Our conversation partner is Klaas Bom, associate professor of theology and intercultural theology, who oversees the educational program of the Protestant Theological University.

https://www.pthu.nl/en/about-us/people/k.l.bom

How do you preach about God, eschatology, or salvation to people who have no sense of the transcendent at all? How do you introduce them to what the Christian faith is all about? This is not just a question relevant to those reaching out to the unchurched; the same challenge holds within the church. In this episode we speak with Kees van Ekris. He is a pastor, podcast maker, was elected “national theologian” in 2023, and wrote several books about preaching in a post-Christian world.  

https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kees_van_Ekris

What is the unique thing we find in Christianity but nowhere else? Recent research among Dutch pastors and church planters revealed that while most of them would answer this question with “Jesus” – but that they find it difficult to express what difference he makes. Older soteriological models no longer seem to resonate; past language no longer feels life-giving or even feels somewhat embarrassing. Anecdotal evidence suggests this is not much different among North American church leaders. In this episode we speak about these questions with Jan Martijn Abrahamse, who was involved with the Dutch research project on these issues. Abrahamse studied theology in the Netherlands and the USA (Duke), was a Baptist pastor in the Netherlands, and currently is lector in theology.

https://christelijkehogeschoolede.academia.edu/JanMartijnAbrahamse

The research on salvation will be published in: Hans Schaeffer, Jan Martijn Abrahamse, Karen-Zwijne-Koning, and Stefan Paas, eds., Visions of the Good Life: Salvation, Church, and Mission in the Secular West. Leiden: Brill, 2025.

In the conversation, Abrahamse refers to a number of other books:

While society might be secularizing, many are still drawn to the beauty of religious art. Over the last couple of decades, traditional Anglican Choral Evensong became very popular in the Netherlands. This is highly surprising, since the Netherlands is neither Anglican nor religious anymore. In this episode we talk to Hanna Rijken, who in cooperation with Oxford University studied the ways in which Choral Evensong reaches a secular audience. She tells us about her research and the ways in which it led to a new worshipping community rooted in the practice of choral singing in Utrecht.

Dr. Rijken’s research was published in: Hanna Rijken, ‘‘My Soul Doth Magnify’. The Appropriation of Anglican Choral Evensong in the Netherlands, Amsterdam: VU University Press, 2020.

See also:

https://www.pthu.nl/en/about-us/people/c.s.h.rijken/

https://www.hannarijken.nl

Pieter Versloot was a missionary in central-Asia, worked at the national offices of the Protestant Church in the Netherlands, and now is pastor of the Martini Church in Groningen, a church at the center of a small, Medieval city in the north of the Netherlands. In this traditionally-minded Protestant community he re-introduced the confessional as a means for missional outreach to a largely secular city. His church also makes its presence known through a “Trace of light,” a regular event in which the shopping public in the Groningen inner city is drawn into the church building through a path of candles, while organ music, more candles, and the possibility for conversation awaits them inside. With Pieter we talk about reclaiming traditional liturgical rituals for the sake of missional engagement.

https://wijkgemeente-martinikerk.nl

Hinne Wagenaar studied theology in the Netherlands and at Union Seminary in New York, taught theology in Cameroon, but then returned to his roots in the Frisian countryside where he started a new worshipping community rooted in the old, Medieval church building in this farmer town with 350 inhabitants. This church plant grew into a monastic community that rebuilt the monastery that once had stood outside of town. With Rev. Wagenaar we speak about language and silence, the importance of speaking to God in our own mother tongue, and monastic life as a means of new missional outreach at the edge of church and secular society.

To see and read more about Nykleaster (“new monastery”), see: https://nijkleaster.frl/en/

For Hinne Wagenaar, see his essays in English: https://hinnewagenaar.frl/articles-english/

In this episode we remain in Amsterdam, but this time focus on the work of church planting in such a highly secular context. David van der Meulen, also known as “dominee David’ (pastor David) or “the millennium pastor” (dubbed as such by a secular newspaper in Amsterdam) focuses his ministry on post-Christian successful millennials, who have no interest whatsoever in anything like religious faith. He tells about the “Master Classes” in which he has specialists address topics of concern for highly educated urban young adults and discussion groups in which believers and unbelievers read Scripture together. In his ministry he is inspired by the idea of the “court of the gentiles”: how do we created a sanctuary-adjacent space where those with religious faith and those without it might meet?

See also: https://vu.nl/en/stories/david-van-der-meulen-millennial-pastor

Rosaliene Israel is an ordained minister and was until January 1, 2025 the secretary-general of the Protestant Church in Amsterdam, overseeing twenty-five faith communities in the city. For a number of years she lived in and led a new monastic community located right at the center of the Red Light District in Amsterdam. She also is a PhD candidate preparing a dissertation on new monastic communities. With Rev. Israel we speak about the deeply secularized Amsterdam context and the ways in which the church still creates places of holiness and hospitality in the city. In particular, we discuss the creative ways in which the church uses its old sanctuaries as means of witness to the gospel – a challenge also for North American congregations that wonder what to do with their buildings.

https://www.rosalieneisrael.nl/ministry/

David Boogerd is a journalist working for Dutch public television and radio. Since 2019 he presents a weekly podcast about religion that has become highly popular. In this podcast, together with missiologist Stefan Paas, Boogerd interviews religious leaders, philosophers, psychologists, journalists, and politicians about secularization and its effect on Dutch society. With Boogerd we talk about the search for meaning and the lack of community. What have five years of interviews with both religious and completely areligious conversation partners taught him about life in a post-Christian society?

If you want to hear Boogerd and Paas in action, they interviewed in English the British historian Tom Holland, who after writing bestsellers about the Greeks, Romans, and Islam, turned his attention to Christianity. In his massive Dominion: How the Christian Revolution Remade the World Holland describes as a non-believer the impact Christianity had on the West, and on himself.

https://www.nporadio1.nl/podcasts/de-ongelooflijke-podcast/28385/22-tom-holland-over-hoe-het-christendom-het-westen-vormde