Islamic schools are often criticized for indoctrinating children, which would violate the goals of education in a democratic society. This article explores whether, as a matter of principle, parents could legitimately choose to send their child to a school where he or she will be indoctrinated, for example because they believe that at a religious schools the opportunities for a child to be stigmatized are smaller. Besides, the article investigates whether it is plausible that children in Islamic school in the Netherlands are indeed being indoctrinated.

According to the Coalition Agreement 2017-2021, the Dutch government intends to develop policy to prevent religious communities from receiving support from abroad if this support comes from so-called ‘unfree countries’. In the article, the author argues that restrictive measures in this area touch upon the collective freedom of religion, which is protected by the ECHR, measures that can only be justified under strict conditions in the light of religious freedom as guaranteed in article 9 ECHR.

This article aims to give insight in negotiations which took place from 1999 to 2002 between diverse Protestant parties in Belgium and which resulted in an enlargement of the recognized Protestant religion. This enlargement primarily served free Evangelical churches, as it allowed them to share in the benefits consequent to official recognition by the state. The article describes their strategic choices in view of full state recognition and highlights the active role played by the ‘neutral’ Belgian state in the negotiations that took place concerning this recognized religion.

Circles of Support and Accountability (COSA) is a method in which volunteers support and monitor a convicted sex offender during his or her re-entry into society in order to prevent new sex offences. COSA was developed in Canada in 1994 as a grass roots approach to an acute crisis in a small town near Toronto, and since then has spread throughout Canada. In 2002, the COSA model was introduced and further developed in England, and from there the approach found its way to the Netherlands, where circle projects are provided by the Dutch Probation Organization since 2010. Until now, more than one hundred sex offenders (‘core members’ in a circle) have participated in a circle in the Netherlands. Although the COSA model predates the Good Lives Model, it’s basic principles align very well to the Good Lives Model. In COSA, a group of three to five volunteers form a surrogate social network, that offers social inclusion, practical and moral support in all kinds of daily challenges the core member faces, and that monitors risk and risk behavior. The volunteers are supervised by a professional circle-coordinator and supported by professionals who are involved in the core members’ after care arrangements. The COSA intervention model describes a number of conditions and strategies that support its effectiveness. Canadian, American and English case-control studies into the effectiveness of COSA shows a substantial reduction of offending behavior in core members compared to controls. Since the international proliferation of the COSA model is ever increasing, protecting the program integrity is a growing concern, and stresses the need for international cooperation between COSA providers.

In the context of the project Careful Church the Protestant Church in the Netherlands has developed pilot projects in the field of care and welfare in eighteen local churches. The aim of these is to get learning experiences to determine her position in local society. A description is given of these pilots and of the most important experiences. It is of relevance also on basis of contacts with organisations and local authorities to develop a plan of action. Most activities have to do with creating rooms for encounter and with assisting people who are dependent on care. In this way churches can be a relevant actor in local society with meaningful and small scale activities.

The Protestant Church accepted in November 2015 a report about her future. This reflection was necessary because of the shrinking amount of members and of income. The report combines a principal view on the essence of being church with practical proposals to get a more simple organisation of the church and savings in expenditures. The responsibility of the church for society is explicitly stated. Much shall depend on the concrete follow up. Needed is more attention to the question how this responsibility can get shape.

In the Netherlands, a national model for church-state relations is often put forward as the guiding light for authorities struggling with governance dilemmas related to religion. This model supposedly represents ‘The Dutch Way’ of dealing with religion and is, among other things, linked to multiculturalism, a pragmatic outlook, and typically Dutch historical processes like pillarization. This paper examines whether this model holds up in practice. It argues that the Dutch model does not suffice as an accurate description of current policy practices at the local level and that, given various underlying processes that influence this practice, this model also does not provide a credible normative guideline for the future. Dutch society has undergone significant changes, and the Dutch model should be rethought accordingly.

In this article, the authors explore how active state support for religions and worldviews could be in accordance with the principle of liberal neutrality. They focus on the Belgian church-state policy because this policy is characterised by an explicit and extended form of active support for recognised worldviews. If this policy is in accordance with liberal neutrality, some other, weaker forms of state support for religions and worldviews may also be in accordance with this neutrality principle. In the light of these considerations, the authors make some suggestions about possible ways to bring the Belgian church-state policy more in accordance with liberal neutrality.

In the accommodation of Islam to Europe, policymakers are confronted with the secular identity of the Western-European democracies which, over time, has resulted in diverse church-state regimes serving to shield politics from religion and vice versa.In this article, we examine whether these regimes have resulted in differences concerning the coming together, shape and problems with which representative bodies for the Islamic faith are faced. To do this, we compare the Belgian, Dutch, French, German and English case.Though governments are bound to existing church-state regimes, we note a European trend that questions their influence on said bodies.

Since 30 years the Netherlands’ government practises an integration policy towards ethnic minorities. From the beginning, this comprehensive approach is challenged by demands of immigrated religious communities, e.g. the erection of buildings of worship. For the government, religion is an influential circumstance, not an object of the policy-making process. Therefore religious matters deserve political attention.The mid-nineties of the twentieth century brought the Islam into the focus of national policy. The first issue concerned the appointments on a temporary basis of Turkish imams by the Turkish authorities. That evoked the need for a Dutch training-school in order to be prevented from further admissions from abroad. In the meantime, compulsory introductory courses for religious leaders with a non-EU- or EEA-nationality were introduced. Since nine-eleven, the threats of Islamic ultra-orthodox tendencies dominate the political discourse.