S. Paas

Post-Christian, Post-Christendom, and Post-Modern Europe: Towards the Interaction of Missiology and the Social Sciences

Three concepts are often used in missiological literature relating to the West. These are “post-Christian,” “post-Christendom,” and “post-modern.” Often, they have been used as if they are more or less synonyms without much precision or reflection. By relating them to different strands in social theory around “secularization,” this article suggests how these terms can be defined more precisely. In this way the author intends to stimulate the discussion between missiology and the social sciences within the context of Western Europe. On the basis of a more exact definition of these terms, areas for further research are indicated. As descriptive concepts these “post” labels invite us to explore their interdependence, mirroring the secularization debate within the sociology of religion. As heuristic concepts they raise questions about the social construction of secularized Europe within missiology. Finally, they may shed light on different social spaces for Christian mission in Europe.

Religious Consciousness in a Post-Christian Culture: J.H. Bavinck’s Religious Consciousness and Christian Faith (1949), Sixty Years Later

Abstract The Dutch missiologists J.H. Bavinck (1895-1954) has become well-known for his far-sighted view of human religious consciousness. Bavinck believed that the religious impulse of mankind would not disappear, not even with increasing secularity in the West. In this article it is asked to what extent Bavinck’s view of religiosity is still of use in a missiological approach of the most secularized part of the world, Europe. Its conclusion is that Bavinck’s essentially psychological view did not take the cultural nature of religion sufficiently into account, and therefore the possibility that it will disappear. Therefore, a more realistic view of religious consciousness than Bavinck’s is needed in a missiology of Europe.

The Making of a Mission Field: Paradigms of Evangelistic Mission in Europe

AbstractSince the Second World War Europe has increasingly been considered as a ‘mission field’. Sometimes it is suggested that this belief could only emerge after the collapse of the colonial empires, effectively abolishing the difference between the ‘Christian’ and the ‘pagan’ world. However, this is only partially true. There has always been a strong undercurrent within European churches, especially among missionary practitioners, that Europe was not all that ‘Christian’, even when its institutions and laws were influenced by Christianity. In this article I argue that this consciousness even increased in the post-Reformation centuries. In fact, ‘home missions’ were in every bit a part of the great Protestant missionary movement, just as ‘foreign missions’. Before the 20th century the awareness of Europe as a mission field was embodied in two missionary paradigms that I have termed ‘confessional’ and ‘revivalist’. In the 20th century a new paradigm emerged that I have called ‘ideological’.

Mission from Anywhere to Anywhere: Americans, Africans, and Australians Coming to Amsterdam

World Christianity entails a multi-centric Christianity, and mission from anywhere to anywhere. Today, any place can be a mission base and a mission field at the same time. According to Andrew Walls this may lead to a new “Ephesian moment” in Christianity. To what extent this is happening can only be found out, however, by doing actual research into local encounters of different Christianities. In this article three post-War missionary movements to Europe are subjected to scrutiny: American evangelicals, who came to Europe after the Second World War; African immigrants, who started to plant churches in the 1980s; and Australian neo-Pentecostals, who have recently extended their missionary efforts to European cities. Especially, attention is paid to their views of Europe and European churches, their methods of mission, and how they are received by Europeans. This analysis forms the basis of several missiological reflections regarding mission in secularized (Western) Europe, with a view to the realization of “Ephesian moments”. It is demonstrated that the late modern missionary movement to Europe is determined to a large extent by globalizing tendencies, which threaten local expressions of Christianity. Also, some stereotypical pictures of Europe, as they are held by missionaries, are challenged. Different approaches are suggested in order to have a genuine encounter between different kinds of Christianity on the European mission field.

A Case Study of Church Growth by Church Planting in Germany: Are They Connected?

It is widely believed that the planting of new churches is a cause of church growth, regardless of culture or context. However, surprisingly little reliable and relevant data are presented to support this claim. In this article recent membership data of the Bund Freier evangelischer Gemeinden (Association of Free Evangelical Congregations) in Germany is explored to examine the relationship between church planting and church growth. The data show that there is indeed a positive correlation, but since there is also a clear correlation between rapid growth and decline, the evidence should be treated with care.

Personality Traits of Church Planters in Europe

In this article we present the results of a Big Five personality test among 59 religious entrepreneurs (church planters) in Europe, and we compare these results with (a) a general database, and (b) existing research among secular entrepreneurs. Our study concludes that church planters are significantly more extravert and significantly less neurotic than the general population. Although our research also indicates that church planters are more agreeable and more conscientious than the general population, differences on these items were not significant. As to openness to experience, there was no difference between church planters and the general population. Comparison with research among secular entrepreneurs leads to rather ambiguous results. The only shared trait that can be established with some reliability is that both church planters and secular entrepreneurs are less neurotic than other people.

Church Planting and Church Growth in Western Europe: An Analysis:

Church planting is often seen as the best way to grow the church numerically. However, there is surprisingly little research examining this claim in any detail, and the research that exists turns out to be not very well-founded or unclear in terms of sources, definitions, and so forth. Recently, research has been conducted in three small Reformed denominations in the Netherlands, comparing older and younger churches with regard to converts and returnees. The results show that the younger churches gained approximately four times as many converts and five times as many returnees as did older churches. Three explanations seem the most plausible: younger churches are more often in good demographic locations, they spend more time and energy on outreach, and their leadership is more entrepreneurial.

Reconstructing Reformed Identity: Experiences from Church Planting in the Netherlands

Recently some Reformed denominations have embarked on church planting in the major cities in the Netherlands. This was done mainly for evangelistic reasons. From a quantitative perspective this project has been rather successful. However, many of the new churches deviate in some respects from official doctrines and practices of their denominations, as a consequence of contextualization. This has provoked some protest, leading to the failure in at least one case of instituting a new church plant as a full member of one of these Reformed denominations. In this article we add research data to this experience, demonstrating that this is not an isolated discussion. Moreover, we use this experience as a point of departure for an ecclesiological discussion about the continuous reformation of the church. The conclusion is that church planting is an occasion for ecclesial reconstruction with a view to mission, and we make some suggestions how this should happen.

The Use of Social Data in the Evangelization of Europe: Methodological Issues

January 2013 Stefan Paas is J. H. Bavinck Professor of Church Planting and Church Renewal at the VU University, Amsterdam, and Lecturer in Missiology at the Theological University of the Free Reformed Churches, Kampen, Netherlands. He has worked as a missionary church planter in Amsterdam. —s.paas@vu.nl F the very beginning of the modern missionary movement, extensive data have been collected and published regarding the numbers of new church plants, workers in the field, demographics, and the like. With the West increasingly being seen as a mission field, it has become an area for collecting mission statistics as well. This is particularly true for Europe. Today the websites of virtually all organizations and denominations concerned with the evangelization of Europe contain a large amount of quantitative information about European countries, with varying degrees of accuracy. We read, for example, that “in many European countries less than five percent of the population attend any church,”1 that Portugal had 3.0 percent evangelicals in June 2010,2 or that 40.4 percent of Ukraine’s “People Groups” are “unreached.”3 Most of these statements are presented without clearly indicating the sources of the information, delineating the research methodology followed, or defining the core concepts employed. They present supposedly “hard” data but without explanation or theoretical framework. Obviously, most of these surveys, with their maps, descriptions of unreached people groups, statistics, and definitions of “felt needs,” are not primarily meant as social research data but as “mobilization rhetoric.”4 Although they point us in the right direction (collecting social data is imperative in any missiological analysis), they are virtually worthless as serious research. Fortunately, there are reliable data collections that missiologists can use. In fact, Europe (especially western Europe) is among the best-researched areas of the world in terms of religion. These collections contain a large amount of accessible data, collected according to the highest social-scientific standards. This does not mean, however, that they have no problems. There are important methodological issues to be considered in using these databases in the context of efforts to evangelize Europe, some of which I discuss here.

Church Renewal by Church Planting: The Significance of Church Planting for the Future of Christianity in Europe

The current secularization of Europe faces churches with two challenges: poor contextualization and a lack of credibility. It is clear that innovation is needed to answer these challenges. Planting new churches, instead of being a rapid way to numerical growth (which it is not, at least not in Europe), can become a road to this innovation. This is an important reason to plant churches, apart from other, ecclesiological, and missiological reasons. Church plants are ecclesial laboratories: free havens for missiological experiments. This thesis is defended with an appeal to innovation theory, with historical examples, and with some promising recent developments in one of the most secular countries in Europe: the Netherlands.