Bedenkingen bij het boek “God in Nederland”

Samenvatting

In a critical analysis of the book “God in Nederland 1996-2006 (God in the Netherlands)” the author discusses first of all some methodological aspects of the study – the representative character of the data, valitidy problems, and the lack of significance tests. He concludes that the book is a well carried out public opinion research, which offers some interesting insights on topics like: the reasons why members of different denominations are involved in their church; their evaluation of the religious rituals and of their perceived impact on the policies of their church; their conceptions of a life after death; and their understanding of the place of religion in the public domain. Concerning the results of the analyses, he discusses topics such as rites of passage, religion as social capital, spirituality, secularization and compartmentalization, putting the Dutch situation in a broader context by comparing some results with those of Belgium and Europe.