Faith in the familiar : religion, spirituality and place in the south of the Netherlands / / by Kim Esther Knibbe.

• Superior document: Numen book series, v. 143
• Author: Knibbe, Kim E.
• Year of Publication: 2013
• Language: English
• Series: Studies in the history of religions ; 143.
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (196 p.)
• Notes: Description based upon print version of record.

Faith in the Familiar is an ethnography of religious change in the Netherlands, a country that has moved from strongly pillarized to strongly secularist in the space of fifty years. This book shows how people look back on this, but also how Catholic rituals continue to play a role in the reproduction of place. Furthermore, it shows how forms of spiritualism and new age have become part of a pluralistic local religious landscape, and are used to create new ways of relating to religious authority and to reshape personal relationships. Situating itself within general theories of religious change in Western Europe, it offers a contribution to this discussion from an angle that is often neglected, focusing on locality, rather than on globalization; on what happens to ‘old’ religion, rather than on new religious trends, on popular forms of ‘spirituality’ rather than on middle class and highbrow spirituality.

Table of Contents

Preliminary Material / Kim Esther Knibbe -- I Situating the Research / Kim Esther Knibbe -- II Moral Discourses in Dutch Catholicism: from Pillarization, via Liberation to Polarization / Kim Esther Knibbe -- III Narratives of the Past, Progress and Polarization / Kim Esther Knibbe -- IV Religious Authority, Ritual and the Familiar / Kim Esther Knibbe -- V Practicing Spirituality / Kim Esther Knibbe -- VI Liberal Catholicism: The Burden of the Past and the Problem of the Present / Kim Esther Knibbe -- VII Conclusions / Kim Esther Knibbe -- Bibliography / Kim Esther Knibbe -- Index of Modern Authors / Kim Esther Knibbe -- Index of Subjects and Persons / Kim Esther Knibbe.