REC Home*** Theological Forum Theological Forum Vol. XXVII, No. 3, October 1999 Theological Education for a New Millennium
Netherlands
Henk Vroom
Although the Netherlands has many meadows, woods and lakes, nowadays this
country is one of the most crowded areas in Europe. In our small country
16 million people live together, of whom about 6 million are in an urban
circle of cities between Amsterdam, Harlem, The Hague, Rotterdam and Utrecht
with a great number of smaller towns in between. Two million inhabitants
do not have two parents who were both born in the Netherlands; one million
inhabitants belong to target groups of the inculturation policy of the government,
the other million are mostly people coming from Belgium, Germany, England
and North- America or have an Indonesian or Chinese background and have
found their way in Holland long ago.
Dutch Calvinism has grown rapidly in those years in which Europe was a kind of battlefield where Catholic and Protestant countries were at war for many decennia. When after a long siege the duke of Alva took the city of Anvers, many Calvinists from the southern Lowlands fled to Holland, and found their new families and friends in the congregations, who, in order not to be outdone by these southern Calvinists, made a rule that the newcomers could not get the majority in the consistories. Afterwards Dutch Calvinism suffered from all kinds of illnesses as liberalism, modernism, elitism, pietist sentiments or just the most common disease of laziness, until in the end the healing had to come from that other infectious illness which has become an hereditary disorder of the Reformed family world-wide, separatism. The Separation of 1834 and the 'Doleantie' of 1886 tried to restore Calvinism in its piety, earnest and power. Four of the Churches who have their origin in these separations have together about one million members. Two of them, the Christian Reformed Churches and the (Free) Reformed Churches have their small seminaries in Apeldoorn and Kampen; recently they started forms of cooperation. Both have been are financed privately, although 'Apeldoorn' accepts state support for 49%, and both have to fulfil the state criteria for acknowledgment of academic work in order to have the right to grant academic titles.
Since the fifties culture in Western Europe has changed very rapidly. Closed communities have been broken open, and so also the church communities which had developed culturally and socially as identifiable parts of Dutch culture with their own schools, papers, broadcasting and community life. After the second Vatican Council a more ecumenical spirit developed also in the Catholic Church, and many Protestants started to read these catholic theologians too. After some years of doubt about his orthodoxy, Karl Barth has been discovered and welcomed as a Reformed theologian. So in the Reformed Churches in the Netherlands the walls of separate development came down, the windows on the world have been opened, and many people made friends in other churches and outside of the churches. Alongside the economical and technical changes in society the 'modernization' of society inevitably gave the individual not only more freedom but also forced him or her to be educated and to find a more or less specialized job and so have their own way of life in urban culture. Through these societal processes the influence of the churches on the life of members has diminished considerably, and as a consequence church attendance and even membership are not matters of course any more, but dependent upon individual decisions, especially in younger generations. Today the official membership of the Uniting Reformed Church is about three million people, of whom about 40% are active participants. The Catholic Church has more members, but the percentage of inactive members is considerably higher as well. Besides this, it should not be forgotten that the total membership of all WARC-churches in Europe is only about ten million. The Reformed Churches in the Netherlands and especially in Scotland are in processes of church union with other denominations. In the Netherlands the old, small Evangelical-Lutheran Church participates in the uniting process as well.
The open society with its open windows (television) and doors (biggest harbor in the world and one of the five biggest airports in Europe) has become a multicultural society, whatever the meaning of that term may be. Since the sixties many people from Surinam, Turkey and Morocco have found their way to our cities. More than half a million people are Muslims; about one hundred thousand Hindus. As in Germany and Britain eastern ideas are attractive to many people of younger generations, although a belief as reincarnation has also been accepted by some catholic intellectuals and even some Reformed elders, although that might be an exception. Who knows what they will believe in their next life? Inevitably society has become individualistic (independent of whether people are altruistic or egoistic), and this individualism has had many consequences for the traditional life of the churches. Children do not go to church just by tradition; they have to be attracted. Dutch mainline churches have to learn to reach out to people. Because we have not been mission churches in our own country, this is a new task (and we may learn a lot from the churches which have developed from our own missions abroad). Many congregations have developed quite extensive groupwork; women's organizations are active and quite strong, and much attention is given to the younger children. Through all these developments the task of ministers has changed over the years. In quite a number of congregations members do a lot of work, and the minister has the task to stimulate them and give advice. Nationwide much attention has been given to liturgy and the ways in which an active, lively congregation can be built. Many ministers have had further pastoral training. So over the years the task of ministers has changed considerably. In the theological education the various fields of practical theology have become more important.
One more development should be noticed. Secularization has been understood as a process in which many people lost faith, church membership declined and the churches got less influence on life in modern urbanized societies. Religion should disappear from the cultural scene. However, that is not what happens. Although religion has become private, religious life is important, and religious and cultural pluralism is one of the characteristics of our society. In a city like Amsterdam more people participate in groups than attend Sunday services. For more and more people religious participation depends upon a personal decision. As far as I see, our churches have to learn to forget the idea of 'mainline' churches, to become the minority churches which we are, and to learn, which seemingly is very difficult, to be one religion amidst other traditions, who compete to help people to live their lives meaningfully.
One of the major problems brought to the fore by religious pluralism is relativism. Christianity has claimed to be the only true religion, and in post- colonial times this claim to exclusivity has become inveracious to many. With the exception of Calvinist or Catholic orthodox and Barthian circles dogmatics has become unpopular and apologetics is understood to be a relic from times gone by since long. In our enlightened and postmodern times many think it an old- fashioned ideal to want to save souls.
Theological institutions
After a rough sketch of some major changes in the context of the Dutch churches I will try to describe some of the main challenges for theological education. But let us look first into the radical recent institutional changes in Dutch theology, which are brought about by the diminishing membership of the churches and the process of reunion. Therefore, I have to draw some historical lines.
The three state universities in the Netherlands, at Leyden, Groningen and Utrecht, originally had a theological faculty. Lutherans, Mennonites and Arminians had their own small seminaries in Amsterdam, in close cooperation with the Amsterdam institute for higher education. These seminaries have received an amount from the government since long ago. The Afscheiding (Separation) of 1834 founded a theological school in 1854, now Kampen Theological Seminary. During the French occupation church and state were separated officially (1795). It took the newly established Kingdom of the Netherlands from 1815 till 1848 to establish a new Constitution, and then till 1876 to make a new law on higher education.1
In that law a distinction was made between public and confessional theology. State professors were appointed by the crown in the fields of literature of Israel, history of Christianity, religious studies, philosophy and sociology of religion. The Netherlands Reformed Church got two professors, to be appointed by synod, for confessional disciplines. This means that a study of (nowadays) four years at the state university is followed by a study of two years in dogmatics, practical theology, Christian ethics and missiology. This system has become known as the 'duplex ordo', the twofold order of public and confessional theology all paid by the state. In 1876 the Amsterdam institute for higher education got the status of a university and the Reformed, Lutherans and Mennonites worked together in the confessional education of the ministry. The Arminians (Remonstrants) had moved their seminary to Leyden.
In some orthodox Calvinist circles in
the Reformed Church the law of 1876 has been interpreted as a change from
theological faculties into religious studies departments, although after
some decennia these faculties practically mostly have been 'normal' reformed
theological faculties. Catholic students went to Louvain or to the private
seminaries of the bishops, which had been founded since the reinstatement
of the catholic hierarchy in 1853. Abraham Kuyper with his friends not only
opposed the 'duplex ordo' as conversion of theology to religious studies
but also the direct authority of the modernist church over theology. In
line with some European and North-American private universities, their ideal
was a theological faculty which would be free from state influence and relatively
free from the churches also. In 1880 the Free University (Vrije Universiteit/VU)
has been founded as a Christian university. In 1886 most of the people involved
in the Free University took part in an second church separation (Doleantie).
The Free University had a contract with these churches to train their ministers.
In 1892 these churches united with part of the Separation (1834) churches.
So the new church, the Reformed Churches in the Netherlands (RCN), had two
theological institutions, Kampen Seminary (owned and paid by the churches)
and the theological faculty (with a contract between church and the VU).
Both institutions teach all disciplines as Christian theology; this has
become known as 'simplex ordo of Christian theology'.2
The churches have appointed a committee for the supervision of the VU- Faculty. Synod has the right to refuse the appointment of professors, has to approve major changes in the program of studies, and can refuse to accept professors who teach doctrines that are not acceptable to the churches. Between 1892 and 1908 it was discussed again and again whether Kampen and the VU could merge. In 1902 a committee of four persons, among whom were H.Bavinck and H.H.Kuyper, proposed to move Kampen Seminary and let it merge with the theological faculty of the VU into a institution governed by the church and the university. By that time Kuyper, as prime minister and, as such, minister of education, prepared a change in the law on higher education, according to which the exams of the VU would be acknowledged by the government. The law required that the university should have five faculties, among which was a theological faculty. As far as I see, the proposal of Bavinck and Kuyper's son would have made it impossible for A.Kuyper to get the VU publicly acknowledged, and maybe for this reason the proposal was not accepted. Anyway, the union of both institutions, which church leadership never accomplished, in the end has been caused by secularization.
In the sixties the bishops merged their seminaries into five theological schools; in the early nineties their number has been reduced again to three (at Utrecht, Nijmegen en Tilburg), although some orthodox and Rome-oriented bishops started new private seminaries also. In 1989 the state minister of education installed a review committee for theological education, which pointed to the diminishing number of theological students and proposed the reduction of the six theological institutions of the uniting churches. In December 1997 a further review committee for theological education came to the conclusion that six theological institutions were becoming too small to preserve their quality. The state minister of education urged the churches to reduce the number of the theological institutions, and the churches agreed to close (at least) three centers. As the biggest faculty, Utrecht would survive. One institution should be in the east and one in the west of the country, and one should be a simplex ordo faculty of Christian theology. So the combined synod of the three uniting churches (Netherlands Reformed Church, RCN, and Evangelical-Lutheran Church in the Netherlands) had to choose between Leiden-Utrecht-Kampen and Amsterdam- Utrecht-Groningen. A kind of middle way has been found by merging Kampen and the VU-faculty as a theological seminary in the buildings of the VU in Amsterdam, in close cooperation with the VU. On the 14th of November 1998 synod decided in principle to close the confessional theological study at the municipal university of Amsterdam and at the University of Leyden, and to erect a Theological University (of the churches) at the VU (with a merger between Kampen, the VU-faculty and the Lutheran Seminary), and invite the Mennonite Seminary to cooperate in Amsterdam.
Leyden University and the University
of Amsterdam may continue to offer programs of public theology and religious
studies if they wish, and they will do so. The uniting church will have
three places for the training of ministers: Utrecht and Groningen (duplex
ordo) and the Theological University Amsterdam (in one of the buildings
of the VU). In November 1998 synod left the possibility that this merger
for financial reasons could be impossible, and decided that the plans for
the merger should be decided upon in December 1999. The Boards of Kampen
Seminary and Free University take for granted that the new institution will
open its doors in September 2000 or 2001.3
A variety of reasons lay behind this decision. The proposal to merge in Amsterdam can from the three persons responsible for education in the three church boards. One reason was that the church wanted to have, via her committee for the theological studies, full authority over one institution, which could help also to guarantee a good position for the confessional disciplines at the universities of Utrecht and Groningen. Another reason has been that the church wanted to have the seminary in the academic climate of a full university and also acknowledged that the only Protestant university in the Netherlands could not do without the various theological disciplines. Quite a few members of synod mentioned as a motif that theological education should be in the middle of an urban, secularized and religiously plural environment. These ideals also play a role in the papers being written in preparation of the new institution: theological training in an urban, secularized and plural area, in cooperation with a university.
The staff of the Reformed Theological Institute (two years of confessional theology) is preparing the reduction from four to two places, Utrecht and Groningen. The Mennonites most probably will cooperate with the seminary in Amsterdam, while the Arminians have to make up their minds whether to go to Amsterdam or to Utrecht, where they can cooperate with the uniting church and the Baptists and some other free churches. On an institutional level these mergers are challenges in themselves: to learn to cooperate with new colleagues and to open yourself to the new challenges for theology.
Challenges
The most crucial challenges arise from the deep changes in culture, some of which have been indicated already in the first section. Because in urban areas social control has fallen away, people feel less pressure to adapt to customs and formal obligations. Because the culture forces people to live their own lives, with their small families and their network of friends (and their mobile telephones to be in steady contact with them), they learn to choose which activities help them in their lives. We are only beginning to realize the implications this structural individualism has for the churches. Many local churches offer more kinds of activities, but the Sunday services are in steady decline, as is the membership. There is less direct evangelization, but there are many diaconal projects, which take care of people with all kinds of problems. Perhaps the main challenge for the churches is to develop new strategies to attract new people to the congregations, especially young people, and to find new opportunities to bring people together to reflect and learn about the Gospel. These issues are on the agenda of practical theology and missiology indeed.
Pluralism has brought forth relativism. Also here, in the area of apologetics theology has to find new ways for dialogue and witness. At least three responses can be distinguished. Some say Christians should speak louder, testify to the Gospel more clearly, and not listen so much to the various sorts of unbelievers. This approach can be found in orthodox-evangelical circles and, somewhat differently, in barthian theology. At the liberal side other traditions are met with understanding; e.g. meditation practices have been borrowed, and people do not feel a need for Christian witness. A middle position is that we have to respect people with other secular worldviews or religious beliefs and may learn from them as they may learn from us. Dialogue includes empathic and critical dialogue. In these circles the challenge is understood as the need to develop an attitude of sympathy and respect in which Christians can testify of their own beliefs unapologetically. Our churches, who in a way have been majority churches for centuries, now have to find their corners on the religious market of the global culture. In modern Europe these questions are new. I forego what this reveals about the way in which the majority has thought about mission and other religious traditions in former times.
Pluralism inevitably stimulates secularization and agnosticism: If the believers do not know what is really true, because their opinions vary widely, we have to stick to the facts, many say, and we should not speak about what is above our understanding. Academic life here as in North-America has an empiricist flavor. As some members of a university advisory committee on research programs remarked when they had to deal with an application in comparative theology on Why are human beings on earth? "In five years nine persons will not solve that question." There is a mystery about life, many people will admit, but unhappily the only method for valid knowledge is to find results with which everybody can agree. This paradigm of research has entered into academic theology quite strongly, and also in the study of the bible. The result not seldom is a kind of reductionism in which only those views with which everybody can agree count as true and the rest are seen as the personal and subjective interpretation of believers or unbelievers. In the dialogue between secular academic studies and theology the presuppositions of this paradigm should be discussed, and a proper way must be found to do critical historical research without reductionism.
In other branches of theology people take care of other crucial issues of society. Ethicists think about medical ethics and care, questions of justice, the overcoming of discrimination and the preservation of the natural environment. Feminist theology has influenced most parts of theology already deeply, although her prophetical role surely is not over. Ecumenical studies are needed, but the whole of theology is being done in a more ecumenical spirit then ever before.
A committee at one of our theological faculties has made a small inquiry into the texts of advertisements of local congregations with a vacancy in order to see which characteristics they expect their future ministers to have. One of the most important wishes is that the minister should inspire the congregation and know how to let things happen. What are the implications thereof for the program of theological studies? Some in our staffs say that the students should learn to read the Bible in Hebrew and Greek better, know more about the history of the church and be better in dogmatics. All modish fields like contextuality and spirituality should be removed from the curriculum and most of the time should be used to learn about our own tradition. However, others think that the two main challenges are, first, to learn to confess faith unapologetically in dialogue with secular and religious fellow human beings. This requires a thorough confrontation with the critiques of others, which helps to find your own faith and to grow in explaining it. The second challenge is to build a church community in which people find a spiritual home and which fulfils tasks in the mission of the church. These two solutions for the lack of certainty and direction in the churches are incompatible. So the churches have to compromise or to give students the opportunity to make their own choice.
As in nearly the whole Western world the number of theological students has declined quite strongly, which has resulted in a reduction of the number of faculties in some European countries, but there are other developments as well. Many young students do not know whether they will be ministers right from the start of their studies. Some prefer to study religious studies and to acquaint themselves with more traditions, although eventually they could end up as pastors. Many people take theology as a second career study. In the Netherlands in the last twenty years several other theological institutions have been erected, preparing (mostly somewhat older) assistants in local congregations. Many places for ministers have been changed into places for such assistants with more experience of life and a more practical training for the pastorate and church work. The theological education nowadays shows a broad spectrum of forms, from the training of elders on a local level via regional courses and teacher's training centers to the old seminaries and faculties. Things have changed in the old Calvinistic homelands, not least by the aftershocks of the end of colonialism and the decline of the ideology of the supremacy of Western culture. While the World Missionary Conference in Edinburgh in 1910 had the ideal to carry the Gospel in the 20th century to all the non-Christian world, at the end of the century the churches on this traditionally Christian continent have to find their place amidst all kinds of religious and secular movements in a corner of a global village. We are in need of inspiration and support, not only but also from churches in other parts of the world.
Endnotes:
Those interested in the background of this Dutch arrangement, could read in Dutch language more about it in the journal of the theological faculty of Pretoria Skrif en kerk, my 'Staatsvakken en kerkelijke vakken aan openbare universiteiten', 18 (1997) 210-231; 'De Vrije Universiteit en de organisatie van de theologie in Nederland', 18 (1997) 395-414; 'De inrichting van de theologie in de plurale cultuur', 19 (1998) 419-437.
2 For several years the theological faculty of the VU has also a 'simplex ordo' program of religious studies.
3 Since this article
was written, the author informed the editor that the Steering Committee
working on the merger of Kampen and the Free University has encountered
unforeseen problems that have not yet been resolved. In early October the
synodical board decided that Kampen would not merge with the Free University,
but would try to attach itself to the University of Utrecht. This would
merge the schools of Utrecht, Kampen and Leiden. (Editor).