In this first episode, Kendra Buckwalter Smith and Edwin Chr. van Driel introduce the concept of this podcast: stories from the Dutch church for the sake of the missional conversation in North America.

They discuss the nature of secularization in the Netherlands, the ways in which the Dutch church is a generation or two ahead of the North American church in terms of learning to live in a post-Christian world, and what we might learn from listening to stories about Dutch Christian communities. They give a sneak-peak of what we can expect in future episodes, and what they find inspiring about these conversations.

In this episode, Kendra and Edwin delve more deeply into what we mean by a “post-Christian world.” A post-Christian culture is one in which, not only does the church have less power or influence, but in which for a growing group of people the Christian faith, or any kind of religious outlook, is increasingly implausible or irrelevant. Kendra and Edwin discuss what this means, and where such post-Christian way of life comes from, by reflecting on the work of three cultural commentators. Charles Taylor is a Canadian philosopher whose book The Secular Age is generally seen as the analysis of Western secularization. Hartmut Rosa is a German sociologist whose books on Social Acceleration and Resonance give a detailed description of the dynamics of modern life and what these dynamics do to our ability to experience God. And the Dutch professor of secularization study Herman Paul wrote several books giving a unique analysis of the ways secularization shaped Dutch culture. Together, these three thinkers give us the concepts that will help us reflect on the conversations in future episodes.