Dutch rethink Christianity for a doubtful world (BBC)

[eppur_se_muova]

By Robert Pigott
Religious affairs correspondent, Amsterdam

The Rev Klaas Hendrikse can offer his congregation little hope of life after death, and he's not the sort of man to sugar the pill.

An imposing figure in black robes and white clerical collar, Mr Hendrikse presides over the Sunday service at the Exodus Church in Gorinchem, central Holland.

It is part of the mainstream Protestant Church in the Netherlands (PKN), and the service is conventional enough, with hymns, readings from the Bible, and the Lord's Prayer. But the message from Mr Hendrikse's sermon seems bleak - "Make the most of life on earth, because it will probably be the only one you get".

"Personally I have no talent for believing in life after death," Mr Hendrikse says. "No, for me our life, our task, is before death."

Nor does Klaas Hendrikse believe that God exists at all as a supernatural thing.
***
His book Believing in a Non-Existent God led to calls from more traditionalist Christians for him to be removed. However, a special church meeting decided his views were too widely shared among church thinkers for him to be singled out.
***
more: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-14417362




Yet another bit of "satire" from Yes, Minister proves to be factual ...

"The bench of bishops should have a proper balance between those who believe in God and those who don't."

"An atheist clergyman could not continue to draw his stipend, so when they stop believing in God they call themselves 'modernists'."

"Theology is a device for helping agnostics to stay within the Church of England."

"The Queen is inseparable from the Church of England. God is an optional extra."

http://www.jonathanlynn.com/tv/yes_minister_series/yes_minister_episode_quotes.htm

[Kurmudgeon]

1. A false preacher, wasn't he in Poltergeist?

[kickysnana]

2. His cousin was hired at the Methodist church I went to as a teen.

A former Lutheran that did not believe in a real Jesus or an afterlife ca 1964.

The board had decided that our elderly minister was not raking in enough young people to the Church. I am betting they just assumed he believed. My folks joined another church so I don't know what happened to him but it was mind boggling that you would spend your life pretending and upsetting the people who hired you or were looking to you for spiritual guidance.

[Humanist_Activist]

3. Why is the message of no life after death bleak?

I seriously don't understand why people take such a negative view of THIS life, that they are happy that it will end. Seems pathetic. Relish in this life, its the only one you got, the fact that its going to end gives your life purpose and meaning.

[eppur_se_muova]

4. I guess the notion of a heavenly afterlife appealed to medieval serfs and the like. nt