Church from the future

1. What role do theological professionals—such as pastors, chaplains, and church workers—play in the church’s orientation toward the future?

This subproject focuses specifically on the spirituality of these professionals. They are appointed to play an inspiring role in the lives of the people and groups they encounter in their work environment, to foster hope and a sense of future orientation. Their own sense of vocation and inspiration plays a major part in this.

Therefore, this subproject investigates how this inspiration is sustained: what inspires our theological professionals, and what wears them down? And most importantly: what resources can we employ, and what role can supervisory guidance play, to maintain—or even enhance—the spiritual vitality of professional theologians? The research will take place in and around a course designed to generate data for this project.

The future begins in the present.

The project Church from the future explores the question of a contemporary theology of the church (ecclesiology) in the light of God’s future. A theology of the church cannot exist without being grounded in the lived reality of church life. Dreams about the church’s future too often remain just that—dreams—while the church already exists as a gift from God. This subproject seeks to do justice to the church in its present form. In the way the church exists now, the movement toward God’s future is already contained. All theological reflection on the church—whether in academic theology, church policy, or local congregations—must take seriously the church’s empirical reality.

This subproject aims to develop methods for bringing the empirical shape of the church into view and linking this to theological reflection on the church in light of God’s coming future. Understanding how the church can live toward the future begins with understanding how the church exists today. Empirical ecclesiology is therefore concerned with being church and with the question of how believers and congregations embody the gospel in the present.

The subproject explores this along three lines:

1. Developing instruments to improve knowledge about church life. How do we know what is happening in Christian communities, and how do we encourage conversations in congregations about their own church identity? Based on Australian research, the diagnostic and guiding tool Nieuw Kerkelijk Peil (NKP) has been developed in recent years. We aim to strengthen NKP by improving its validity and better understanding its impact.
2. Gaining insight into the church’s self-understanding (how congregations see themselves) and its social significance (how society views the church). To this end, new data will be collected and existing data on church life analysed. A sustainable research infrastructure for studying church life will be developed in collaboration between the church and the university.
3. Developing theory on the relationship between theological thinking about the church (ecclesiology) and empirical knowledge about actual church life. How can insight into what the church is contribute to convictions and practices expressing what the church could be in light of God’s future?

This subproject studies first-century examples of a prefigurative self-understanding of Christian communities, offering insight into the exegetical, systematic, and practical implications of viewing the church as a community that enacts the ideal future of God’s kingdom in the here and now.

Prefigurative Politics from the Margins

‘Prefiguration’ has recently gained traction in political philosophy as a concept describing how activist groups (e.g. the U.S. civil rights movement, the Arab Spring protests, the Occupy movement) embody their future ideals in the present by practising them as communities (see e.g. Van de Sande, 2023). The ideal future is, as it were, lived ahead of time. However, this field has paid little attention to religion, and none to historical religious examples. Viewing first-century Christian communities through this contemporary lens reveals how God’s imminent future took shape in their communal life amid competing ideologies with very different claims on time and destiny.

The marginality of early Christianity (the New Testament being written from the margins) connects with the situation of many churches in the Netherlands today (decline, closures, mergers). How can the gospel be linked to this marginality? Seeing the church as a foretaste of God’s future—as a community whose shared worship and life foreshadow that future—offers a hopeful theological direction: we are not the last gasps of a dying institution but the vanguard of a renewed world. Prefiguration concerns both conviction and embodiment, integrating belief and practice. It allows us to study the earliest Christian communities and to inspire contemporary ones beyond the dualism of thought and action.

Research Questions, Framework, and Subprojects

Through the study of selected New Testament texts, this subproject addresses the central question:

How can prefigurative convictions and practices in early Christianity, in light of the cultural and literary context of the time, open up ways of thinking about the nature of today’s church (ecclesiology) and its vision of the future (eschatology), in conversation with contemporary cultural developments?

The project is rooted in biblical studies but engages systematic theology as well as ancient and modern philosophy.

• The Prefiguration of God’s Future: Paul’s Letters and Contemporary Ecclesiology in Dialogue – Martine van der Herberg
• “A Time Is Coming and Has Now Come” (John 4:23): Prefigurative Community Formation as a Response to Culturally Dominant Narratives – Suzan Sierksma-Agteres

Through the concept of prefiguration, this subproject also connects to a wider interdisciplinary initiative involving researchers from four Dutch universities, the Prefiguration Collective, which meets several times a year to advance scholarship on religion and prefiguration.

A Counterpoint to the Myth of Progress: The “Not Yet”

Prefiguration—as the notion that an ideal future is both distant and already among us—offers an alternative to two dominant cultural narratives. First, it challenges the idea of progress and human control that has shaped modern discourse since the Enlightenment, influenced academia through scientism, and permeated society through (neo)capitalist systems. A prefigurative self-understanding instead points to the unrealised future: a peaceful, sustainable world cannot simply be engineered but can only be anticipated and practiced in fragmentary ways as a gift from God. The idea of experiment—central in prefigurative politics—implies failure and brokenness: the road to God’s future is not straight or uninterrupted.

Hope in the Face of Doom: The “Already”

At the same time, prefiguration corrects the opposite narrative of decline and apocalypse. In the Netherlands too, it is no longer certain that children will fare better than their parents, and climate change has placed the very notion of human future on the planet in question. This leads to despair and growing mental distress, especially among younger generations. Prefiguration counters this with the conviction that God’s new world can already be made present in small ways. Every act that embodies unity across divisions, sustainability, justice, and harmony with creation is meaningful. In these marginal embodiments of the ultimate ideal, that ideal itself becomes present—the future is drawn into the present.

1. Subproject Paul: Apocalypse and Community Formation

Recent Pauline scholarship has emphasised the apocalyptic dimension of Paul’s thought: Christ’s inbreaking into history and victory over the powers of Sin and Death that rule the world (e.g. Rom. 6–7; 1 Cor. 7:29–31). Prefiguration connects this first-century perspective with the lived ethical and communal dimension: how was life in this “contracted time” (1 Cor. 7:29) to be embodied in communities? What does the image of the body mean for communal life in Romans 12:2–21? How did believers relate to the world around them and to one another, and how central was the future vision to that (Rom. 13:11–14)? What links exist between ecclesiology and eschatology? And how are these dynamics of time, community, and individuality taken up by modern thinkers such as Moltmann and Agamben?

This PhD subproject is carried out by Martine van der Herberg and supervised by Suzan Sierksma-Agteres, Edward van ’t Slot, and Annette Merz.

2. Subproject John: An Inbreaking Kingdom as Heterotopia

Among biblical scholars, the Gospel of John is known for its realised eschatology: eternal life is available now for those who believe. Yet it also contains apocalyptic and future-oriented elements, such as references to the “last day.” It is often thought to be less critical of Roman power, since Jesus declares that his kingdom “is not of this world” (John 18:36). At the same time, the Gospel and letters of John are widely understood to emerge from a distinct early Christian community—or at least from an author with a particular vision for such a community—characterised by sharp contrasts between “us” and “them,” light and darkness, above and below.

A prefigurative perspective sheds new light on these themes. It invites reflection on how the Gospel envisions the relationship between community and power. Forming a heterotopia—an alternative social space—entails both resistance and adaptation, for the new is shaped within the shell of the old. The kingdom originates beyond this world but is sent into it (John 17:18).

Prefiguration can also nuance the perception of strict dualism in the Gospel. Though God’s future is radically different, it is not merely anticipated but demonstrated to others. This allows for a more complex understanding of Johannine ecclesiology and ethics that resonates with contemporary interpretations of porous or diffuse community boundaries. Finally, the Gospel’s literary strategy itself can be read as prefigurative: the biography of Jesus becomes a prefiguration of the community that bears his name.

Researchers

Key publications

• Sierksma-Agteres, S.J.M. “‘The Time Is Near’: Appropriating the Future in Biblical Periods of Crisis.” Wapenveld 75, no. 1 (2025): 14–23.

More publications on the Pure research portal

This project focuses on faith communities that have deliberately chosen to form reciprocal relationships with people in socially vulnerable positions. Their diaconal work is thus marked by encounter and mutuality. Those involved are convinced that it is essential for the church to walk alongside people in vulnerable circumstances. In practice, however, it often proves difficult to articulate why this is so—the available theological vocabulary is insufficient.

Following the principles of diaconal presence, this study employs a Theological Action Research approach. People from both socially vulnerable and more stable positions together explore what language best expresses the practice of diaconal presence. The research examines what this means for the initiative itself and what perspectives it offers for shaping a twenty-first-century ecclesiology.

Shared responsibility

The faith formation of children and young people is one of the core tasks of the Christian congregation. But the church does not carry this task alone. Parents, teachers, youth leaders, grandparents, camp leaders, influencers, and ministers all contribute to it. In practice, this collaboration proves to be complex. Different ideals, expectations, and ways of believing come together. Moreover, many of these (co-)educators do not know one another. How can the church play a connecting and guiding role within this dynamic?

Aim of the research

This study seeks to contribute to a renewed self-understanding of the church in its role in the religious formation of children and young people. It focuses on the question of how churches collaborate with others in this process. We examine which ideals shape this collaboration and how the network surrounding children and young people in the Protestant Church in the Netherlands takes shape with regard to religious formation. In doing so, we aim to foster shared responsibility and strengthen cooperation.

Research method

This research consists of two phases. In the first phase, we seek to understand and explain the dynamics among the adults involved in the faith formation of children and young people. To this end, we map the networks of various children and teenagers and ask these networks about their educational ideals and their awareness of the dynamics with co-educators. The second phase involves participatory action research. Within Communities of Practice, educators explore how, in all their diversity, they can strengthen one another or collaborate effectively.

Researchers