The integration policy of the Dutch government encourages the development of a society where members of ethnic minorities can fully realize their civil rights and can fulfill their social rights and duties. The same is true for priests and clergymen who come to the Netherlands on behalf of the ethnic minority groups that live in the Netherlands. They will have to be prepared for Dutch society and their role as clergymen within the Dutch secular nation. The specific integration programme that the government introduced in 2002 for this particular target group will end in 2014. During the last 12 years this programme has changed considerably as a result of developments in the social and political context that influenced the integration policy of the government. In this paper the considerations and policy changes towards integration in general and more specific towards the integration of immigrant priests and clergymen in the Netherlands are pointed out, together with the changes in the programme entailed by these policy changes.

In 2005 and 2006 three state-funded Islam- and imam training programs started at Amsterdam Free University, Leiden University and Hogeschool Inholland, after more than two decades of political and public debate. These confessional programs were to educate a Dutch ‘polder imam’. Recently however, the closure of two programs was announced.
This article places the establishment as well as the closure of these programs in a historical perspective. It explores two striking parallels between the motivations in favor of an imam training and the ways the Dutch state has dealt with the institutionalization of religious plurality in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

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.

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.