Civic engagement measured in square metres. Church and civil society in a Dutch suburb

Abstract

In a case study on suburban churches the author describes how religious ideas, material resources and relationships of trust together form capital that enables and limits the civic engagement of the churches. The case study is based on ethnographic research in the newly built suburb of Leidsche Rijn in the Netherlands. The author concludes that a focus on the combination of different forms of capital available in congregational networks helps to obtain a better understanding of the often noted positive relationship between religion and civic engagement. The study shows that capital has an ambiguous influence: it enables and limits civic engagement. Researchers should therefore not be overly positive about the effects of social capital. They should also be aware of the ‘essential contestedness’ of civic engagement. The way civic engagement actually works on an empirical level calls into question any easy definition that researchers may devise.

Introduction: methodology and definitions

Leidsche Rijn is a new suburb of the city of Utrecht, in the centre of the Netherlands. It is the largest urban project currently under way in the Netherlands. This article focuses on how five churches in the area co-operated with other organisations in order to build a ‘Culture Campus’, a multipurpose building with a social function for the neighbourhood.

My main questions in this article are: How does the availability of a combination of religious, material and social resources influence the civic engagement of the mainline churches in the Dutch suburb of Leidsche Rijn? What does this case study teach us about the relationship between church, (social) capital and civic engagement?

The article is based on research that I conducted between 2002 and 2005 (van der Meulen, 2006). I studied the engagement of the churches in Leidsche Rijn with the developing civil society. I participated in religious meetings, attended meetings of government and civil society organisations in the area, interviewed members of congregations, government officials, professionals in other organisations, etc., conducted archival research and read the local newspapers and church bulletins. In short: the standard stock of ethnographic research.

Religion and civic engagement

There are a great number of studies on the relationship between religion, often in its Christian form, and civic engagement (cf. Becker and Dhingra, 2001; Bekkers, 2002; Beyerlein and Chaves, 2003; Beyerlein and Hipp, 2006; Brown and Brown, 2003; Campbell, 2004; Driskel, Embry and Lyon, 2008; Jamal, 2007; Jones-Correa and Leal, 2001; Kwak, Shah and Holbert, 2004; Lichterman, 2005; Loveland et al., 2005; Putnam, 2000; Regenerus, Smith and Sikkink, 1998; Ruiter and De Graaf, 2006; Schwadel, 2002; Smidt, 1999; Uslaner, 2002; Verba, Schlozman and Brady, 1995; Weithman, 2002; Wuthnow, 2000, 2004; Yeung, 2004). These studies consistently show a positive relationship between high levels of religious involvement – measured by a variety of indicators – and individual civic engagement. Compared with other forms of religious activity, regular participation in a religious congregation has the strongest influence on civic engagement. People who regularly attend worship services usually give much more time and money to volunteering than non-churchgoing persons (cf. Bekkers, 2002; Smidt, 1999). But it is not just the worship services that have a civilizing effect. Beyerlein and Hipp (2006: 115) argue that people who are involved in congregational activities other than religious services are particularly likely to be active in ‘bridging’ civic organisations.

The different studies provide many explanations for the positive relationship between active religious participation and civic engagement, but we can distinguish two basic lines of argument. The first states that the positive relationship is a result of regular exposure to and internalisation of the spiritual content of religion: the theological ideas, moral imperatives, religiously informed views which are communicated and experienced in and through religious settings, such as worship services. The second line argues that the positive relationship is an effect of the network character of religious congregations. Congregations are interrelated with all kinds of other organisations, and provide many opportunities for involved persons to volunteer. Many churches, for example, have Amnesty International sample letters at the information tables, or information about local volunteer work.

Most studies use a combination of the two lines of argument: being active in a congregation motivates people and creates the opportunity to become active citizens. For example, Brown and Brown (2003) argue that regular church attendance in African American churches only leads to political activism if the church attendees hear a clear political message and learn how to put this message into practice. ‘We argue that church attendance alone is not likely to lead to increased political participation. Rather, it is church-based political communication and church involvement that have positive and direct effects on political activism’ (628).

Wuthnow concludes in his study on religion and forgiving that the combination of being in a network with resources and having access to a religious language (Wuthnow, 2000: 138) positively affects the likelihood of forgiving behaviour. ‘It is indeed the spiritual capital that religious groups generate that affects the likelihood of forgiveness, rather than just getting together to eat, party, or discuss politics. … the religious content of groups appears to give people a language in which to think about forgiveness (138).

And Regnerus, Smith and Sikkink (1998: 490) conclude in their study on personal generosity of Americans toward the poor that: ‘The more one attends church services, and the more one considers one’s religious beliefs to be important, the more one gives, in keeping with nearly all previous research’.

The studies on religion and civic engagement usually employ individual-level statistics. However, as Beyerlein and Hipp (2006: 98) have noted, to really understand the relationship between religion and civic engagement, we need to use congregation-level measures. This article focuses on the link between the congregation as a ‘spiritual network’ and civic engagement. It adds to current theories by showing the process underlying the positive relationship between religion and civic engagement: the interaction of resources at an organisational level.

Social capital

Social capital theory is an important framework for my research. Social capital has become a popular concept with many definitions, but I think the original approaches of James Coleman and Pierre Bourdieu are still analytically the most fruitful.

Coleman portrays social capital as follows:

Social capital is defined by its function. It is not a single entity but a variety of different entities, with two elements in common: they all consist of some aspect of social structures, and they facilitate certain actions of actors – whether persons or corporate actors – within the structure. (Coleman, 1988: s98).

Next to social capital, Coleman distinguishes two other forms of capital: human capital, which consists of the skills and knowledge acquired by an individual, and physical capital, which is embodied in tools, machines and other material resources (Coleman, 1988: s100). These forms are related to social capital. Human and material resources may be available in a network of relationships and can add to the value or capital of a network. We can clarify this with a simple example. Parents who are at home will probably regularly be a helpful resource for their studying son, because they will stimulate him to finish homework and to go to bed early. The capital of this relationship will increase if his parents are highly educated and can afford to pay tuition fees. The value of the student–parent relationship increases even more if the parents are acquainted with other wealthy and educated people who might provide the student with additional resources, such as money or access to elite institutions. If, on the other hand, the relationship between the student and his parents is frail or even non-existent, the student will have little or no access to his parents’ resources or the resources available in their network. Thus, availability of resources in a network influences the social capital of a relationship. Or in the words of Lin: ‘a friend’s bicycle is one’s social capital’ (2001: 56).

There is one weak spot in Coleman’s theory: Coleman exclusively focuses on how social capital empowers actors. It is, however, not difficult to imagine how resources can be used to limit people. Bourdieu (1986) offers a less positive view of social capital. He argues that resources are consciously used within a field of power. Capital is used to further one’s own goals, and to prevent others from reaching their goals. Once again we can use education as an example: wealthy parents can use their influence to put their children in good quality schools that exclude children with less affluent parents. Bourdieu also acknowledges that resources are consciously transformed into other forms of capital to further the aims of a group or individual. Buying one’s children into an elite educational institution is a strategy to secure the family’s access to physical and social capital resources in the elite network. I see Bourdieu’s realistic view as a valuable addition to Coleman’s capital theory.

I follow Coleman’s approach, adapted by Bourdieu’s insights. I define social capital as a form of capital that refers to the potential of social relationships and networks. This potential is based on the availability of other resources in the network. Which actors can actually use capital depends on their position of power in the network. In this article I use both ‘resource’ and ‘capital’. The two are similar, but slightly different. A ‘resource’ is the thing itself, e.g. a social relationship, while ‘capital’ has an added evaluative dimension; for example, a social relationship can be capital if it has value for a person. Religion also offers resources which are not covered by Coleman’s concepts of social, physical or human capital, such as theological ideals and religious views on civic engagement. For these resources I use the concept of spiritual capital. Religious resources are not independent, spiritual things residing on a transcendental plane, but they are ‘valuable assets’ in the ‘economy’ of resources (Verter, 2003: 152), similar to and often just as important as other types of resources. This is particularly apparent in this case study. I therefore use the concept of ‘spiritual capital’ to refer to the potential of these religious resources.

Civic engagement

Civic engagement is a typical example of an ‘essentially contested concept’ (Gallie, 1956a, 1956b), a concept ‘the proper use of which inevitably involves endless disputes about [its] proper uses on the part of [its] users’ (Gallie, 1956b). While there is agreement that something like civic engagement exists, there is fundamental disagreement on underlying ideals of civility and citizenship.

Many empirical studies try to circumvent this disagreement by focusing on commonly accepted civic activities such as voting and volunteering, without evaluating the civility of these activities. I follow this approach. I define ‘civic engagement’ as involvement with social organisations, institutions and contexts in the civic and public spheres of society, e.g. schools, political arenas, religious organisations and media, without judging which type of involvement with which type of organisation is the most civic. The problem with this definition is that political lobbying for the Ku Klux Klan would be considered just as civic an activity as providing food for homeless people, which runs counter to most people’s common-sense understanding of civic engagement. Of course, it is a sane strategy for empirical researchers to avoid normative discussions. Their task is to describe what is actually done, instead of how things should be done. I therefore continue to use a pragmatic, plain definition of civic engagement. However, the question of whether we can and should entirely avoid normative discussion remains. In the case study we will see that the discussion of what civic engagement means is part of the process of becoming civically engaged. In the final part of this article I will discuss what this essential ‘contestation’ on the empirical level means for our academic understanding of civic engagement.

Case study: civic engagement measured in square metres

Leidsche Rijn: mix of old and new

In 1993 the Dutch government decided to assign several areas in the western part of the country – in the provinces of North and South Holland and Utrecht – to large housing projects. These were called VINEX locations. One of the locations was the area west of the city of Utrecht, an agrarian municipality with two small villages, Vleuten and De Meern, housing roughly 15,000 people. The new suburb that is slowly growing here is called Leidsche Rijn. Residential construction started in 1999 and will be finished in 2015. Leidsche Rijn will eventually have 100,000 inhabitants, most of them (80%) coming from the city and older suburbs of Utrecht. Leidsche Rijn can be divided into three parts: an eastern part near the city of Utrecht, a western part which is being built around the two existing villages, and an extensive park roughly the size of New York’s Central Park in the middle.

The pre-existence of Vleuten and De Meern has had a particular influence on the social infrastructure that is developing in Leidsche Rijn. The area is not a tabula rasa, but rather a mix of the old and the new. In Leidsche Rijn one can see farms sitting next to apartment buildings and new roads lined with windbreaks that used to protect fruit trees. The villages always had a vibrant community life, with civil society organisations, local commerce and semi-government organisations (e.g. schools, welfare providers), many clubs for leisure activities, voluntary work, and care for elderly people, etc. There are also several schools, shops, parks, sports facilities and churches. The two villages formed an independent municipality until 2001, when the area was annexed by Utrecht. This severed the natural link between the political domain and civil society in the villages. The gradually developing social infrastructure of the suburb is more city-like and depends less on local civil society organisations to provide social services or initiate community activities. But especially in the western part, the old social infrastructure of the villages influences and transforms the developing social infrastructure as the two fuse into a new social structure.

The village churches

Vleuten and De Meern house six congregations: three Reformed, two Roman Catholic, and one conservative Free Reformed congregation. Except for the Free Reformed congregation, all the congregations are typical of mainline churches in having a traditional church life but not being very conservative in their theological views. In the following I will focus on the five mainline churches that participated in the Culture Campus.

The churches in the villages play a relatively important part in the old social infrastructure. In the past the Reformed and Roman Catholic churches initiated the building of schools, homes for the elderly, and community centres; in some of those organisations the churches are still involved. Nowadays the churches provide volunteers for social activities and organise community events, such as the celebrations on the fourth and fifth days of May commemorating the end of the Second World War. The vibrancy of church life was a consequence of the moderate growth of the villages in the second half of the 20th century. During this time many churches in other parts of the Netherlands experienced a major decline in membership, but the churches in Vleuten and De Meern remained stable because of the steady flow of new people coming to live in the villages.

In the Netherlands the parish borders of mainline churches often coincide with the municipal borders. However, when the municipality of Vleuten-De Meern was annexed by Utrecht, the same process did not take place at parish level. The congregations in the villages remained independent of the parishes in Utrecht. It is not customary in the Netherlands for a congregation to move to another location, so if people move from one municipality to another, they are expected to go to the local parish. This meant that the new neighbourhoods and their inhabitants, even those who had been members of the churches in Utrecht, came under the aegis of the village churches. Their denominational bodies expected the village churches to start projects for their new and prospective members. Although they received substantial help from their denominations, the village churches had to use their own sources of capital.

One of these sources was the ecumenical trust that existed between most of the churches. At the time of my research the mainline congregations had been cooperating for over 30 years through a local Ecumenical Council. It was considered to be an important organisation in the religious life of the villages. The Ecumenical Council organised ecumenical services especially for mixed couples and their children, and the pastors of the different churches had regular, convivial meetings. Church members described church life as having an ‘ecumenical spirit’. Based on this ecumenical spirit, the Roman Catholic and mainline Reformed congregations decided to start a project together to shape the ‘presence of the church in the suburban area’. They named the project ‘Being Church in Leidsche Rijn’ (Kerk Zijn in Leidsche Rijn, shortened in this article to Being Church). The project was led by eight male representatives of the Protestant and Catholic village churches and one from the suburbs. All these men, except for the suburban newcomer, were ‘local influentials’ (see Merton, 1957: 387) from the villages of Vleuten and De Meern: men over 55 years of age, all with long careers in the politics, church life and commerce of the two villages. Years of investment in the relationships between the churches had produced a level of trust that made it possible to engage in such a large and uncertain project as trying to be present amidst 85,000 new people.

Being Church had two goals: (1) contributing to the development of the social life of the new suburban community and (2) building a new community of believers in the suburb. The village churches did not expect many people to be interested in organised religion. KASKI, a well known statistics bureau on church and religion, had estimated that only 2% of the new inhabitants of Leidsche Rijn would regularly attend church – a very low figure, even by Dutch standards. The churches also presumed that new people would not easily join a settled village church. Therefore, they wanted to offer something new to the new suburbanites, an opportunity to shape their faith in their own way.

Being Church engaged in two major activities. First, it strove to develop a new congregation in the eastern part of the suburb. The five congregations that make up Being Church are all located in the west of Leidsche Rijn, while most of the new houses are in the eastern part, so locating a new congregation there seemed a logical thing to do. Second, it initiated and participated in the Culture Campus initiative. The Culture Campus was intended to be a multifunctional building, where different social partners, e.g. the music school, a high school, the library and Being Church, would find a home. It is located in the western part of the suburb, right in the middle between Vleuten and De Meern. The intention of Being Church was to attract people to a new, experimental church and thereby initiate a special congregation in the Culture Campus. This project became the focal point of an intense and complex conflict within Being Church. Since this conflict clearly exemplifies how different resources are used and interact to enable and limit civic engagement, I will now focus on this initiative.

The first idea(l)s

The idea to build the Culture Campus came from the principal of the local music school in Vleuten, Bernard Sluis ¹ , in the mid 1990s. He saw the construction of the new suburbs around the village as an opportunity to realise some of his ideals with respect to music, art, spirituality and social care in society. Sluis thought that cooperation between different social organisations would bring more benefits to each organisation than could be accomplished by their acting singly. He envisioned the Culture Campus housing a full-size theatre, which could be used for acting classes, concerts by music students or high-quality Sunday worship services. The Culture Campus would offer ‘synergy’, as Sluis called it – or embody a simple equation: ‘1+1 = 3’.

At a very early stage of its development Sluis contacted the president of Being Church, Karel Vermeer, whom he knew from a local committee for social welfare. Vermeer was a well known figure in the villages’ social and church life. He was or had been the president of many other committees and organisations in the villages. Vermeer immediately became enthusiastic about Sluis’s plan. Together they asked other partners to join the initiative. The following organisations eventually participated: the local music school, an organisation for disabled people, the public library, the social welfare organisation of Vleuten and De Meern, a secondary school and Being Church. Although the Culture Campus became a joint effort by different organisations, Sluis and Vermeer remained the leaders and visionaries of the project.

It was no coincidence that Sluis asked Vermeer first to join him in the initiative. Vermeer had an excellent standing in the civil society of Vleuten-De Meern, not least in the churches. If anyone could bring different organisations to cooperate, it would be Vermeer. He also had a long professional career as a manager and director of several organisations, and, being retired, a lot of time. Vermeer and Sluis shared a vision on the role of social organisations for the welfare of the people, and for both men this vision was heavily influenced by their Christian faith. Sluis was an active Roman Catholic. He believed that organisations such as (music) schools, churches and social welfare groups essentially want the same thing: ‘In principle we all do the same things: meeting people is essential, celebration is essential, bringing people together is essential. That is a common ground that social organisations share with the churches.’ This common ground could be explored in the Culture Campus on weekdays – with students, for example – as well as on Sundays, with new forms of worship in which music and art would play an important part. Vermeer hoped that the Culture Campus would achieve two things: (1) provide a place where people could meet each other and social cohesion would be formed, and (2) provide the opportunity to establish a new kind of church, which would become an integral part of the daily social life of the suburb. He hoped that a church embedded in a network of other social organisations with high-quality worship would attract the new suburbanites. They would surely not be interested in the traditional church life of the villages ‘with one or two services of a static nature every Sunday’. This church would in itself be a contribution to society, an open community that would promote spirituality, solidarity and social cohesion.

Fight over square metres

The project of Sluis, Vermeer and the others set off smoothly. After much preparation and meetings with the partners, architects and planners, a report was published, with ambitious aims: ‘The Culture Campus will create conditions to make integration, spirituality and meeting of the people in Leidsche Rijn possible.’ The churches were assigned a prominent place in the plans, with their own church hall of about 1000 square metres at the entrance to the campus. The village churches, however, reacted negatively to the proposal, basically on the grounds that the participation of the churches would prove to be too expensive. The Roman Catholic parish of Vleuten remarked that they did not want a full-fledged church in the Culture Campus. They preferred a small chapel for ‘meditation and silence’. In the following months a long process of negotiation took place on the extent of participation, measured in square metres.

In a second report on the Culture Campus project, published in mid 2001, the churches’ share had decreased to 250 square metres. This report was first accepted in a meeting of the Ecumenical Council, but later the Reformed Church of Vleuten reconsidered this decision and proposed a share of 75 square metres. Three of the other churches endorsed this proposal. One of the Reformed congregations proposed an alternative plan with a hall of 140 square metres. The Roman Catholic congregation of De Meern offered to accept the 140 square metres proposal provided that the space would not be used for a church, but for a centre for social and cultural activities. After some deliberation all the churches finally decided to stick to a share of 75 square metres, which was to be used for small religious meetings and a pastor’s office.

In June 2002 all partners in the Culture Campus had to sign an ‘intention agreement’, which specified who would participate and to what extent. As the date of the signing drew near, the village churches began to raise new objections to the project. At the end of May the churches again discussed their participation in the Culture Campus in a meeting of the Ecumenical Council. During the meeting great confusion arose. The first part of the evening was taken up by a discussion on current ecumenical cooperation. There were large differences between the churches, which greatly affected their cooperation in the Culture Campus project. After almost an hour of talking, the churches concluded that more discussion was needed and that the parameters of ecumenical cooperation had to be re-examined. Then the subject of the Culture Campus was discussed. Several local church leaders complained that the long-term consequences of financing 75 square metres were still not clear. Vermeer, who was obviously annoyed by the leaders, replied that all was clear and calculated, and delivered a pitch on the opportunity that the Culture Campus would offer for ecumenical cooperation and service to the community. But Vermeer’s plea was largely ignored and the ensuing discussion centred on the number of square metres the church hall should occupy. The session finally ended without a decision being made. A few weeks after the meeting, the church council of the Reformed Church of Vleuten announced that it wished to cancel the whole project. They feared that they would assume liability for the financial risks, since they would officially sign the agreement on behalf of the other churches. Only after the reassurance of the other churches that they would not let the church of Vleuten down in case of financial problems did Reformed Vleuten reluctantly agree. A few days later the intention agreement was finally signed by all participants, including the member churches of Being Church.

What actually happened

At first sight the conflict within the churches about the Culture Campus seems a simple fight about money. The churches of Vleuten and De Meern were doing relatively well, but they were not wealthy: the leaders saw no room for the ‘cathedral in the air’ that Vermeer and Sluis were dreaming of. The village churches experienced the effects of secularisation: they hoped that new inhabitants would fill their own empty pews, instead of half filling new church buildings. The conflict seemed to be the normal clash between visionary idealists and realistic church leaders who keep their hands on their wallets.

This scenario goes a long way to explain what happened, but there were other factors besides lack of money. First of all, there were several reasons to support the building of new churches. The projected 80,000 new inhabitants in Leidsche Rijn would put a serious strain – to put it mildly – on the churches’ capacity, even if only 2% were to attend church regularly. Furthermore, several of the churches in the area were far from empty. For example, the Protestant church of De Meern was already completely filled every Sunday thanks to the influx of new inhabitants. The Culture Campus was a perfect opportunity to build a new church. It was relatively cheap and in a prime location, near other social and cultural organisations. Even more importantly, within a few years there would be no space left for a church in the entire area of Leidsche Rijn. Second, the churches had money. The Protestant Church of De Meern had recently sold a building. Moreover, the churches had a substantial amount of property (e.g. the old church buildings), which could also be sold to subsidise the new construction. The claim that the Culture Campus plans were too expensive was not so much a financial statement as a statement about priorities. So what really happened?

Status quo on two levels: geographic and theological boundaries

A major force in the decision-making process was the drive to maintain the status quo that had existed for years between the village churches. This status quo existed on two levels: a theological and a geographic level. There were symbolic boundaries that could not be crossed without threatening the status quo.

Although there were good reasons for all the churches to construct a new building together, the capacity problems were most acute for the churches in De Meern. But the Culture Campus was to be built on land within the boundaries of the parishes of Vleuten. Moreover, the financial situation of the Vleuten congregations was less sound. Although geographic distinctions should officially not have played a part, in practice they did. The churches of De Meern could not independently build a church on Vleuten’s territory. They needed the support of the Vleuten congregations. When this was not granted, they did not want to push their interests too much, and instead chose to respect the status quo.

The Protestant and Roman Catholic churches were able to cooperate well in the Ecumenical Council and the Being Church project. This, however, did not mean that there were no differences between the churches. An important difference with a direct bearing on the Culture Campus and the Being Church project was a difference in ideas as to what constitutes a church and – related to that – what the sacraments are. Basically there were two views, which I will name the Community Model and the Sacramental Model. The Protestants of Vleuten and De Meern adhered to the former model. They saw a church essentially as a group of people who form a community of worship. Sacraments are expressions of the community of believers, designed to build the faith of the believers and the bonds of love between them. The Protestants were more inclined to call a group of believers a church and grant them a measure of independence. Most of the Roman Catholics of Vleuten and De Meern adhered to the Sacramental Model: they argued that a church exists where the sacraments are delivered. Not every group of Christians coming together can rightly be seen as a church. There is room for different groups; they cannot, however, be called independent. All groups must ultimately be joined in one sacramental body, which is the local parish of Leidsche Rijn and ultimately the Roman Catholic Church as a whole. These views on what constitutes a church have a direct bearing on the sacraments. In the Community Model there is more room to experiment with the sacraments. If a community of believers decides to make changes to the liturgy or to interpret sacraments differently, it can do so because it is independent. In the Sacramental Model of the community no such changes can be made, as these would sever it from the sacramental body. Although in Vleuten and De Meern some Roman Catholics adhered to the Community Model, the pastor of De Meern consistently promoted the Sacramental Model and was backed up by the Diocese.

The two models differ in their evaluation of the part that a church should play in society. The Community Model focuses on the role of the community of believers in society. The church has to be the salt of the earth, doing good works for others. These deeds are not necessarily religious in nature: the material, social and spiritual well-being of others is the core issue. This does not mean that the religious character of the church is downplayed. The worship services are at the heart of the community so as to inspire its members to be civically engaged. The Sacramental Model sees it differently: the religious function of the church is its main contribution to society. The church provides spiritual care for people by baptising people, providing the Eucharist, and teaching the principles of the faith. The social functions of the church are also important, but secondary to its primary, religious function.

These differences between views on the social role of a church and the sacraments had a great influence on the participation of the churches in the Culture Campus project. Karel Vermeer and Bernard Sluis had based their ideas on the Community Model. The group of believers that would become a part of the Culture Campus would independently develop new forms of worship; they would become one community, if possible even a single church, of Protestants and Roman Catholics. The Protestants raised no fundamental objections to the development of such a new church. The Roman Catholics, however, objected to this from the start of the project, although never openly. They never wholeheartedly supported the Culture Campus but felt committed to the ecumenical cooperation in the villages, and would not risk this cooperation by completely withholding support. The Protestant Church, on the other hand, did not wish to put pressure on the Roman Catholics. The result was a compromise that did not really fulfil the wishes of any of the churches involved. There are other examples in the case narrative that point to the status quo situation, in particular the remarkable confusion about numbers and the constantly shifting share in terms of square metres. These changes were not inspired by new insights about what was needed for the presence of the Church in Leidsche Rijn, but instead revolved around an evaluation of what is possible within the churches’ framework. It is interesting to note that the arguments in support of church building were not so much rejected in the decision-making process, but never even appear to have been discussed, at least not publicly during the ecumenical meetings. The same goes for the differences between Roman Catholics and Protestants. Almost on the eve of the definitive decision on the church’s share, the parties finally appeared to become aware of the big differences between them. Although they had evidently known about the differences all along, an open discussion of their consequences for the project had never taken place.

The civic engagement of Being Church was greatly influenced by the logic of the status quo, with its clear dos and don’ts and its tendency to compromise. With its collection of resources Being Church made it possible for the churches to achieve more than they could on their own. The project, however, was restricted by the interests of the stakeholders, the churches of Vleuten and De Meern. Being Church was not allowed to realise its potential, because it wished to invest the churches’ capital in an ecclesiological experiment that fell outside established theological and geographical boundaries and put pressure on the existing relationships between churches. Ironically, the Culture Campus project threatened the same status quo that made Being Church possible. The symbolic boundaries quite literally limited how much capital – human, social, spiritual, and physical – was invested in the Culture Campus.

The outcome

After signing the intention agreement in 2002, the churches became less involved in the Culture Campus. This was a consequence of the project moving toward the building phase – the builders took over. It was also a reflection of the limited number of square metres that the churches decided to occupy. Karel Vermeer left the project group. The Culture Campus is now completed. Information about church activities on the Culture Campus is linked to the website of the Protestant Church in Vleuten. The original ecumenical character of the project has disappeared.

Analysis

Two main conclusions emerge from the case. First we can conclude that the churches provided their members with many different resources to stimulate commitment to society, such as social capital (relations), financial capital (money) and human capital (volunteers and expertise). And, in the end, the churches did invest in the Culture Campus. So the case confirms the importance of both the spiritual and the network character of churches, which previous studies on the relationship between religion and civic engagement have highlighted. But – and this is the second conclusion – the churches were by no means perfect platforms for civic engagement. The story of Leidsche Rijn is also a story of a declining church presence, from an initial 1000 to a mere 75 square metres. What then does this case teach us about the relationship between religion and civic engagement?

Process and result

The result of the case may have been positive; the process that led to the Culture Campus was not. The participation of the churches could have been much greater. The churches decided not to invest many resources in the Culture Campus. This case exemplifies a Bourdieuan process of conflict, with non-optimal results and at least a non-linear relationship between the availability of resources and the resulting civic engagement. Most of the studies that investigate the relationship between religion and civic engagement use quantitative methods that do not present the process but only the result – which is often positive. Qualitative studies are much more aware of the non-civil side of social capital and the power struggle during the process of engagement with society.

In terms of our study of religion and civic engagement this means that we should be wary when using the concept of social capital. Often social capital is understood as a resource with positive effects for individuals, generally expressed in terms of ‘the more social capital the better’. This is, for example, the approach taken by Robert Putnam (2000) in Bowling Alone. Putnam draws conclusions about the declining stock of social capital of an entire nation by researching the resources and civic engagement of individuals. He has been criticised for this ‘adding and subtracting’ of incompatible elements (notably by Greeley, 1997, 2001) and my case study confirms the difficulty of this approach. People use resources in different, conflicting ways. The clearest example is the way in which the social capital generated by the ecumenical trust between the churches both enabled and limited the civic engagement of its members. Studies of religion and civic engagement should not be overly positive about social and other forms of capital. They should take heed of Bourdieu’s insight that people fight over resources for conflicting goals. Even a phenomenon such as ‘trust’, which is often used as a proxy for social capital, proved to have ambiguous results: the trust between the village churches in effect limited Being Church plans to cross new borders.

The role of capital

Taking the above warning seriously, we can still conclude that in the end the churches in Leidsche Rijn and their members were civically engaged. What role then did capital play? There are many examples of the existence of different forms of capital in this case. Social capital is apparent in a man like Vermeer, who had the contacts and relationships necessary to participate in a project such as the Culture Campus. Human capital was available in the many people who devoted their skills and time to the project, physical capital in the money that the churches eventually invested in the Culture Campus. Theological ideas and ideals formed the backbone of the available spiritual capital. In particular the ideals of ecumenical cooperation and civic engagement motivated action or were used as a basis for decisions affecting others.

However, we cannot say that one resource in particular proved to be the decisive factor for civic engagement. The combination of resources was crucial for Being Church’s civic engagement. If, for example, the churches had not been related to other organisations, they would not have been invited to participate in the Culture Campus. On the other hand, no matter how much social capital the churches had, if they had not had money, they could not have contributed in the first place. And, if Vermeer had been too busy using his human resources for other purposes and had declined Sluis’s invitation to cooperate, it is unlikely that the churches would ever have been involved at all. Several conditions had to be met before the churches started to participate. Sherlock Holmes, the famous detective in the Conan Doyle novels, always insisted that three conditions had to be met to identify someone as a likely suspect in a murder case. He or she had to have the motive, the opportunity and the murder weapon. If someone met only one, or even two of the three conditions, this person was unlikely to have committed the murder. A similar principle may explain the positive relationship between active religious participation and civic engagement.

This brings us to a second point: civic engagement is lived or performed within a congregational network. This may seem a cliché, but I think it is important for our understanding of the relationship between religion and civic engagement. The congregational network that I described in the Leidsche Rijn case is, in terms of congregational settings, quite unremarkable: in most congregations across the world a similar mix of social, spiritual, human and physical capital can be found. But if we compare congregations with other organisations, the mix of resources found here is quite remarkable, maybe even unique. Other organisations may have one or two forms of capital available, but not this combination of many forms. Business companies, for example, may have a lot of physical capital (money) or human capital (well educated, skilled workers) but they usually do not have a mission to enhance the well-being of society, or provide their workers with many options to volunteer, although this may be changing with the current interest in corporate social responsibility. There are numerous civil society organisations with a mission in society, but many are either small groups of highly motivated volunteers which, unlike churches, do not have a large reservoir of non-volunteers or large professional organisations (the so-called ‘cheque book charities’), which have many material and human resources but are not central to individuals’ daily life.

This last remark adds another dimension to our discussion. Much of what we usually call ‘civic engagement’ is lived on a local level, in the concrete lives of individuals. Congregations are directly connected to the practices and ideals of everyday life. At the same time congregations are usually directly connected to civic life, on local and other levels of society. There are few organisations as capable of bridging the individual’s world and the civic domain as congregations. The congregations in Leidsche Rijn were definitively connected to the individuals’ daily lives and the local civic and political arenas. The people involved in Being Church started to work on Leidsche Rijn in a very early phase. The process of thinking about the Culture Campus started in 1996, three years before the first house was built. Even in the secularised environment of Leidsche Rijn, Being Church was one of the first non-government organisations to settle in the new suburban areas. It was also one of the largest non-subsidised, non-commercial organisations: it had over a hundred volunteers and several full-time professionals, two of whom were specifically appointed to work in the suburbs. Of course, this resulted from the capital accumulated over the decades in Vleuten and De Meern. The question for the future will be whether the churches of Leidsche Rijn will continue to accumulate capital and whether they will be able to continue to play an important part in civic life, either as organisations or as a bridge for individual civic engagement. However, my main point that congregations are remarkable concentrations of capital is illustrated by the Leidsche Rijn case.

Definition of civic engagement

I brought up some problems with regard to the definition of civic engagement in the introductory paragraph. Let us return to this question: what exactly is civic engagement? The two models of ecumenism provided two conflicting models for civic engagement. I treated the involvement with the Culture Campus as civic engagement. However, in the minds of the opponents of the Culture Campus, participation in the project would hamper the mission of the churches to provide religious functions for the community and could therefore be seen as a reduction in civic engagement. How can we say anything academically sound about the civic engagement of these people, if they themselves are so divided on what civic engagement entails?

One solution is to say that involvement with the Culture Campus is truly civic engagement because it is a form of bridging with other types of social organisations. Reserving resources for one’s own church community would then be interpreted as being less civically engaged. This is a strategy that we often see in studies using Putnam’s distinction of bridging and bonding social capital, where bridging capital is conceptualised as a higher form of capital with more beneficial consequences for democratic society. However, note that we are already moving towards a normative discourse, in which we as scholars become the judges of what ‘other’, ‘higher’ and ‘beneficial’ are. Another, much applied solution is to argue that only investing in secular social activities can be accepted as civic engagement. There is a strong tradition in social philosophy that allocates religious activities to the private domain, but it is both a contested (see Weithman, 2002; Habermas, 2006) and a strongly normative position.

My solution is to acknowledge the involvement of both sides as civic engagement. This is in line with the good old Tocquevillian tradition of admiring the habits of the heart, the intention and the willingness of citizens to engage in a process to decide how their money and time can best be spent to the greater benefit of society. This process can be messy and uncivil, but at least the intention and the involvement are laudable. This solution is reminiscent of Charles Taylor’s model of civil society (see Taylor, 1995: 204ff), which consists of ‘communities of common understanding’ with conflicting views on the common good. The fact that these communities connect people to the process of decision-making in a democracy is what makes them civil, not a fixed standard of civility.

This does not solve the dilemma that I identified in the introductory paragraph, viz. that taking no sides may dissatisfy a common-sense understanding of civic engagement. I do not think that it is necessary for empirical researchers to take a normative position in this debate. Academics, however, should show that they acknowledge what the people they study think about civic engagement. First of all in the name of modesty: who are we to have the last word on what civic engagement is? We cannot just devise our own definitions of civic engagement, while ignoring the heated discussions on the empirical level. Second, the debate on the definition of civic engagement is part of the way in which civic engagement ‘actually works’. It is incorrect to say that in Leidsche Rijn some people strive for more civic engagement and other people for less. No, the content of what civic engagement entails is under discussion. The choices people make in this discussion quite strongly influence how they express their civic engagement. To understand the actual empirical dynamic, the researcher must be aware of the essential contestedness of the concepts used. This takes Gallie’s understanding of ‘essential contestedness’ a step further: the debate takes place not only in the academic world, but also on the empirical level.

Conclusions and suggestions for further research

The case study presented in this article gives insight into the dynamic underlying the positive relationship between religion and civic engagement. Research into this relationship should be aware of the importance of congregational networks. These supply individuals with material, social and spiritual resources. The combination of these different forms of capital proved to be crucial for the particular form and extent of engagement with society. The churches formed the access points to these resources. We can see religious congregations as places with a unique concentration of forms of capital, which may be very important to the concrete, daily lives of citizens and their civic engagement. However, the available capital had an ambiguous influence on civic engagement. There is no straightforward relationship between religion and civic engagement, because capital proved to be an enabling and a limiting force and because civic engagement is also on the empirical level a contested concept.

For studies on the relationship between religion and civic engagement this means that there should be an awareness of the underlying processes that may involve multiple factors. Many studies use only individual-level data, such as individual membership in organisations, or beliefs in certain theological concepts. It would be interesting to measure the role of particular organisations in the civic engagement of individuals. For example, do congregations that regularly preach about the obligation of the believer to be an active citizen have a greater impact on civic engagement than other organisations? I would welcome quantitative studies that compare congregational-level data with individual-level data. I would also welcome studies that offer a more sustained comparison of how religious and other types of organisation bridge the everyday life of individuals and the civic and political domains.

There is one other approach that may strengthen our understanding of this relationship. I have not focused on the effect of religious rituals on civic engagement, but some of the things that I saw during my research made me wonder how important these are. Religious rituals are mechanisms that produce and reproduce forms of capital, such as social cohesion or communitas, as Victor Turner named it. Rituals may be a ‘missing link’ in explaining the importance of regular church attendance and civic engagement. In ritual, civic engagement is framed as a religious duty in a communal setting; it may instil the strong emotional motivation that is needed to step over the threshold to civic engagement. Nancy Ammerman noted in Congregation and Community: ‘One of the reasons congregations hold such a key position [in civic life] must surely be their linking of moral virtue with sacred presence. … They are spaces where “ought” is put in cosmic perspective.’ (Ammerman, 1997: 368). Further ethnographic research on this link between sacred ritual and civic engagement may result in new insights.