Abstract
Together, the Netherlands and Flanders constitute the Dutch-speaking region historically known as the Low Countries. This name stands for the coastal region, north of France and west of Germany, where three main European rivers—the Rhine, Meuse, and Scheldt—pass along their broad final stretches to the North Sea. Vital for trade to and from the French and German hinterlands, and to and from England on the other side of the Channel, for centuries the Low Countries remained a disputed region between major European powers. Its various parts, with—for outsiders—confusing names such as Holland and Zeeland, changed hands repeatedly. The religious wars of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries split the Low Countries into a northern Calvinist part, the Netherlands, and a southern Catholic part, Flanders (which in 1830 became part of Belgium). At present the Netherlands has a population of 17 million and Flanders—officially “the Flemish Region”—almost 7 million. Note that the noun “the Dutch” and the adjective “Dutch” pertain to the Netherlands. However, when “Dutch” refers to the language, it pertains to the language spoken in both countries.
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Notes
- 1.
Keith C. Warner, “History of the Netherlands Mission of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, 1861–1966,” Master’s thesis (Brigham Young University, 1967): 149.
- 2.
See Walter van Beek, “The Temple and the Sacred: Dutch Temple Experiences,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 45, no. 4 (2012): 27–54.
- 3.
The church administration keeps track of its membership demographics, church attendance, and involvement, but does not disclose this information. We could obtain only limited figures. See also David Clark Knowlton, “How Many Members Are There Really? Two Censuses and the Meaning of LDS Membership in Chile and Mexico,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 38, no. 2 (2005): 53–78.
- 4.
Figures obtained from church headquarters. The public figures which the Church Newsroom provides mention for the whole of the Netherlands 9421 members for 2018. The figures are difficult to parse because the Antwerp Stake, with its base in Flanders, now also includes parts of the south of the Netherlands. For Belgium, the Church Newsroom provides figures for the whole country, thus including the French-speaking south. At the end of 2019, the four Dutch-speaking stakes (Antwerp, Apeldoorn, The Hague, and Rotterdam) report a total of 9869 members, but transfer of the international ward in Brussels to the Antwerp Stake further muddles precise counting.
- 5.
Wilfried Decoo, “Feeding the Fleeing Flock: Reflections on the Struggle to Retain Church Members in Europe,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 29, no. 1 (1996): 97–118.
- 6.
Gary C. Lobb, “Mormon Membership Trends in Europe Among People of Color: Present and Future Assessment,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 33, no. 4 (2000): 55–68.
- 7.
José Casanova, “The Karel Dobbelaere Lecture: Divergent Global Roads to Secularization and Religious Pluralism,” Social Compass 65, no. 2 (2018): 187–98.
- 8.
Casanova, “The Karel Dobbelaere Lecture,” 191.
- 9.
David Martin, On Secularization. Towards a Revised General Theory (London: Ashgate, 2005).
- 10.
This Latin phrase literally means “whose region, his religion.” Before toleration of individual religious differences became widely accepted, most European political theorists took it for granted that religious diversity weakened the power of the state under monarchical control. The expression formed the catchphrase in the treaty of Augsburg in 1555, that settled the religious differences within the Holy Roman Empire of Charles V, between Lutherans and Catholics.
- 11.
José Casanova, Public Religion and the Modern World (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1999); Grace Davie, “Patterns of Religion in Western Europe: An Exceptional Case,” in Bernice Martin and Richard K. Fenn, eds., The Blackwell Companion to Sociology of Religion (Oxford: Blackwell, 2001): 264–78.
- 12.
Casanova, “The Karel Dobbelaere Lecture,” 192.
- 13.
Charles Taylor, A Secular Age (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007). See also Peter Berger, The Many Altars of Modernity. Towards a Paradigm for Religions in a Pluralist Age (Boston MA: De Gruyter, 2014).
- 14.
Rob S. Warner, Secularization and Its Discontents (London: A&C Black, 2010).
- 15.
Warner, Secularization, 24.
- 16.
Gerard Dekker, Van het Centrum naar de Marge. De Ontwikkeling van de Christelijke Godsdienst in Nederland (Kampen: Kok, 2006): 98.
- 17.
Dekker, Van het Centrum, 211.
- 18.
De Hart, Zwevende Gelovigen, 217. See also Warner, Secularization, 68.
- 19.
Joep de Hart, Zwevende Gelovigen. Oude Religie en Spiritualiteit (Amsterdam: Bert Bakker, 2011).
- 20.
Davie, “Patterns,” 270.
- 21.
Gregory A. Prince and Wim Robert Wright, David O. McKay and the Rise of Modern Mormonism (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2005): 113.
- 22.
Geert Hofstede, Culture’s Consequences: Comparing Values, Behaviors, Institutions and Organizations Across Nations (London: Sage, 2001): 63.
- 23.
Wilfried Decoo, “Mormonism in a European Catholic Region: Contribution to the Social Psychology of LDS Converts,” BYU Studies 24, no. 1 (1984): 61–77.
- 24.
Jaak Billiet, “De evolutie van de betrokkenheid bij de katholieke kerk in Vlaanderen 1996–2015,” in Ann Carton, Jan Pickery, and Dries Verlet, eds., 20 jaar peilen in Vlaanderen! De survey ‘Sociaal-culturele verschuivingen in Vlaanderen’ (Brussel: Studiedienst Vlaamse Regering, 2017): 125–50.
- 25.
Karel Dobbelaere and Liliane Voyé, “From Pillar to Postmodernity: The Changing Situation of Religion in Belgium,” Sociological Analysis 51, Special Issue (1990): S1–S13.
- 26.
Ipsos, American and Global Views on Religion (New York: Ipsos, 2017).
- 27.
Leni Franken and Paul Vermeer, “Deconfessionalising RE in Pillarised Education Systems: A Case Study of Belgium and the Netherlands,” British Journal of Religious Education 41, no. 3 (2019): 272–85; Leni Franken, “Ethics and Religious Culture: An Inspiring Example for Religious Education in Flanders,” Journal of Religious Education 67, no. 1 (2019): 1–19.
- 28.
Paul Borghs and Bart Eeckhout, “LGB Rights in Belgium, 1999–2007: A Historical Survey of a Velvet Revolution,” International Journal of Law, Policy and the Family 24, no. 1 (2009): 1–28.
- 29.
Herman Cosijns, ed., De Katholieke Kerk in België 2018: Jaarrapport (Brussel: Licap, 2018).
- 30.
Pew Research Center, “Being Christian in Western Europe” (Washington, D.C.: Pew Research Center, 2018).
- 31.
Decoo, “Mormonism.”
- 32.
Adelbert Denaux, Godsdienstsekten in Vlaanderen (Leuven: Davidsfonds 1982).
- 33.
George Tuffin, Mormonen in Vlaanderen, Deel 1 – 1840–1959, Deel 2 – 1960–1969 (Kerk van Jezus Christus van de Heiligen der Laatste Dagen, 2012, 2018).
- 34.
Walter van Beek, “Mormon Europeans or European Mormons? An Afro-European look at religious colonization,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 38, no. 4 (2005): 3–36.
- 35.
Adelbert Denaux, “The Attitude of Belgian Authorities toward New Religious Movements,” Brigham Young University Law Review (2002): 237–67.
- 36.
Thomas W. Murphy, “‘Stronger Than Ever’: Remnants of the Third Convention,” The Journal of Latter Day Saint History 10, no. 1 (1998): 8–11; F. LaMond Tullis, Mormons in Mexico: The Dynamics of Faith and Culture (Logan: Utah State University Press, 1987).
- 37.
Carine Decoo-Vanwelkenhuysen, “Mormon Women in Europe: A Look at Gender Norms,” in Kate Holbrook and Matthew Burton Bowman, eds., Women and Mormonism: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives (Salt Lake City, UT: University of Utah Press, 2016): 213–29.
- 38.
Ellen Decoo, PhD work in progress, University of Ghent.
- 39.
Van Beek, “Mormon Europeans,” 28.
- 40.
Kristof De Witte, Kaat Iterbeke, and Oliver Holz. “Teachers’ and Pupils’ Perspectives on Homosexuality: A Comparative Analysis across European Countries.” International Sociology 34.4 (2019): 471–519; European Commission, Eurobarometer on Discrimination 2019: The Social Acceptance of LGBTI People in the EU (Brussels: European Commission, 2019).
- 41.
Wilfried Decoo and Ellen Decoo, “De visie op homoseksualiteit bij mormonen: verkenning in een historisch-sociologisch kader,” Religie & Samenleving 14, no. 3 (2019): 244–71.
- 42.
“Poldering” is a method of reclaiming land from the sea involving the use of “polders” as a way to control floods. A polder is a piece of land in a low-lying area that has been reclaimed from a body of water by building dikes and drainage canals.
- 43.
Jennifer Huss Basquiat, “Embodied Mormonism: Performance, Vodou and the LDS Faith in Haiti,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 37, no. 4 (2004): 1–34.
- 44.
Curtiss Paul DeYoung, Michael O. Emerson, George Yancey, and Karen Chai Kim, United by Faith: The Multiracial Congregation as an Answer to the Problem of Race (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004); Janet Saltzman Chafetz and Helen Rose Ebaugh, Religion and the New Immigrants: Continuities and Adaptations in Immigrant Congregations (Walnut Cree, CA: AltaMira Press, 2000); Brandon C. Martinez, “The Integration of Racial and Ethnic Minorities into White Congregations,” Sociological Inquiry 88, no. 3 (2018): 467–93; George Yancey and Michael Emerson, “Integrated Sundays: An Exploratory Study into the Formation of Multiracial Churches,” Sociological Focus 36, no. 2 (2003): 111–26.
- 45.
Kevin D. Dougherty and Kimberly R. Huyser, “Racially Diverse Congregations: Organizational Identity and the Accommodation of Differences,” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 47, no. 1 (2008): 23–44.
- 46.
Armand L. Mauss, “Can There Be a ‘Second Harvest’?: Controlling the Costs of Latter-day Saint Membership in Europe,” International Journal of Mormon Studies 1 (2008): 1–59.
- 47.
Walter van Beek, “Ethnization and Accommodation: Dutch Mormons in Twenty-First Century Europe,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 29, no. 1 (1996): 119–38.
- 48.
Mauss, “Can There Be,” 2008.
- 49.
Cited in Karen Armstrong, A History of God, From Abraham to the Present: the 4000 year Quest for God (London: Heinemann, 1995): 418.
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van Beek, W.E.A., Decoo, E., Decoo, W. (2020). Persisting in a Secular Environment: Mormonism in the Low Countries. In: Shepherd, R.G., Shepherd, A.G., Cragun, R.T. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Global Mormonism. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-52616-0_19
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