Holland was once a Protestant (Calvinist) nation. Those days are gone. A report published earlier this week by the Sociaal en Cultureel Planbureau (SCP), entitled “Godsdienstige verandering in Nederland” (Religious Changes in the Netherlands), states that secularization will continue until it stabilizes at around 70 to 75% of the population by 2020. In 15 years from now over two thirds of the Dutch will no longer belong to any church, while the only remaining religious groups of any significance will be Catholics (10%) and Muslims (8%). Protestants will constitute a tiny minority of 4%.

Currently half the Dutch population still believes in God, 44% belong to a church and 28% of the 16 million Dutch are Catholics. The SCP estimates that the Catholics will constitute one tenth of the population by 2020. The Catholic Church lost 20% of its members since the 1970s, when they constituted 40% of the Dutch population. In 1980 a quarter of those who described themselves as Catholics attended Mass on Sundays, today this figure is only 8%.

The situation of the Protestant churches is even worse. In the past 25 years they lost almost 50% of their congregations. According to the SCP the Protestants will lose another two thirds of their present 2 million members by 2020. That will reduce them to 4% of the population, compared to the Catholic 10% and the Muslim 8%. The religious vacuum left by the demise of Christianity is being filled by Islam. This is a phenomenon that can be witnessed all over Western Europe.

The Netherlands are one of the most secular nations in Europe. However, 52% of the contemporary Dutch still believe in God, which is more than in neighbouring Germany (38%). 17% of the Dutch describe themselves as atheists. Four in every ten call themselves religious. Perhaps, the SCP report says, religiosity has a positive status, which is why people like to call themselves so. A large group of those who call themselves religious may be described as “spiritual seekers”, the SCP report says. These people go to church occasionally, they pray now and again and they believe in “paracultural” phenomena, such as prophesies and healing through prayer. The report says this group includes one fifth of the Dutch, which prompts the SCP to state that the religious Dutch have a “patchwork identity” “They believe all kinds of things: anything that is supernatural.”