ABSTRACT
Across the Netherlands – and Northern Europe – Christianity is in decline. This is a material process, in the course of which churches and objects lose their religious function, implying that churches are repurposed or destroyed and Christian material objects are set adrift. The guiding proposition of this chapter is that a focus on the material dimension of de-churching and the debates ensued by it offers a productive empirical and conceptual entry point into the transforming dynamics of religion in the public domain and its perceived malaise. While such Christian buildings and objects once operated as media that made tangible the divine, in the process of de-churching and the concomitant heritagization of Christianity, they are reframed as art and cultural heritage. I trace the process through which they are recycled and made to mediate secular narratives about culture, traditional and national identity, and are drawn into the “culturalization of citizenship” (Tonkens and Duyvendak).
