Abstract:
This article is an attempt to open up a new perspective on the crisis of christianity and church in the context of Western Europe, especially The Netherlands. Since half a century the secularisation paradigm has been the dominant perspective to explain this development. But a long-term historical perspective offers a wider horizon. Through the ages there have been different types of christianity (E.Troeltsch): the public church in relation to the civil society, the free church emphasizing church membership (the priesthood of the believers) and the more individualized mystic type of faith. Since the separation of church and state untill totday the second type had been the dominant one. A consequence of the cultural shift from modernity to postmodernity is the rise of 'wild devotion' conform the third type of a more individualized way of life. This article pays attention to the challenges of these developments to the practice of church life and the pastoral profession
