“Can we dance in this place?”: Body Practices and Forms of Embodiment in Four Decades of Dutch Evangelical Youth Events

Reflexive dis/embedding: Personal narratives, empowerment and the emotional dynamics of interstitial events

“…It has been argued that emotional energy reinforces existing relational investments instead of supporting change (Collins, 2004). Indeed, the mechanism for embedding shares similarities with the charisma and rhetoric of evangelical appeals (e.g., Jones & Massa, 2013) and the solidarity embodied at religious festivals (Roeland et al, 2012). Embedding alone therefore has the potential to reinforce existing beliefs and suppress questioning.…”

“…A spectacle, on the other hand, has a distinct division between active performers and passive spectators, and is often seen as an event of non-reflexive embeddedness that ensures stability of the social order (Handelman, 1982). For example, religious events are often designed as spectacles that provide a physical experience for the audience, eliciting ‘emotional effervescence’ (Durkheim, 1965/1915) that sustains emotional ties to religious teachings (Roeland et al, 2012). Thus, similar to informal interactions between diverse actors in interstitial spaces (Furnari, 2014), the diversity and unstructured interaction at festivals has been linked to change, while the formal performance of a spectacle has been connected to institutional stability.…”

Church Growth and Appealing Sermons: A Case Study of a Dutch Megachurch

“…It challenges both the idea of secularisation (with its emphasis on religious decline) and the idea of religious individualisation (with its emphasis on the rise of New Age spirituality), by pointing to a third alternative: the transformation of 'traditional' religion itself (Roeland et al 2012). But despite the challenge this development poses to existing theory, scholarly attention to the phenomenon remains rather scarce in the Netherlands.…”

Buildings and Bibles Between Profanization and Sacralization: Semiotic Ambivalence in the Protestant Dutch Bible Belt

“…Meyer and Houtman 2012, 9-13;Pels 2012, 34-38;Vásquez 2011, 32). Instead, the material turn's central notion that "religion cannot do without material culture" (Engelke 2012, 40) has prompted research into the materiality of Protestantism itself, with attention for bodily sensations (Klaver 2012;Roeland 2009;Roeland et al 2012), pictures (Exalto 2016;Meyer 2012;Morgan 1993Morgan , 2004, church buildings and rituals taking place therein (Buggeln 2003;Coleman and Collins 2006;Martin 2006;Molendijk 2003), and traditions (Crapanzano 2000). Studies like these focus on Protestants' material practices, and raise the pivotal question how these practices are related to religious beliefs among various Protestant groups.…”