Het programma Toekomst Religieus Erfgoed

Samenvatting

The program Future of Religious Heritage, coordinated by the Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands (RCE), is dedicated to ensuring a sustainable future for Dutch places of worship. The program leader of the Future of Religious Heritage program reflects on the book God in the Netherlands 1966-2024 from her perspective. This publication offers a historical-sociological overview of religiosity in the Netherlands and discusses, among other things, the Dutch population's declining connection with institutional Christianity. What remains underexplored in the book is the physical impact of these processes: the effect on places of worship. This is despite the fact that a church building is a place of gathering and also the direct expression of religious communities in the urban and social landscape. It is precisely the condition of buildings that reveals the secularization and decline in the number of believers. Due to secularization, approximately 150 churches lose their religious function every year, which raises questions about preservation, secondary use, and repurposing.