Talk:Religion in Belgium

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Why haven't any sources been cited for this article?

Why didn't you sign your post? But some sources seem to have been cited, though no inline citation for the 2004 percentages of religious demography, which conflict with other texts on Wikipedia. I'm not so sure either way but if someone could do something with that then I'd be happy! (Sbutler (talk) 18:12, 19 April 2008 (UTC))

His edit was from 2006, when I and others had not yet seen this thing. As far I can see the figures you are alluding to are the two mentioned at the start of "The Status of Recognized Denominations". The figure for Islam is more or less confirmed by the Evangelical link I added, but the Roman Catholic attendance is probably based on the yearly figures given by the Roman Catholic bishops. Two problems there: I do not know which year is meant exactly (it could be 2003 or 2004, but I cannot find the figures) and the sharp discrepancy between 8% and 4 % - there could be two reasons for this: a) in the past there has been a complaint by both secular organisations and by evangelicals that the count is usually made on a "good" week-end (the figure incorporates both Saturday and Sunday attendance) and may include non-Roman Catholics who attend a marriage, birth or funeral service or a service with chanting by a famous choir (no, I am not kidding) b) some parishes in inner towns, where a lot of Muslims live, may base their percentage of attendance not on the total population living in the parish but rather on the smaller total number of Belgian nationals living there, which means 8% of all Belgians may correspond to 4% of all inhabitants, in some parishes. I think it may actually be easier to get more recent attendance figures than to explain what actually happened in 2004. We must also be careful to compare like with like: as a result of the ethnic muslim phenomenon, the attendance rate of Roman Catholics and Muslims (but also of Jews, I think) will be comparable. The "established protestant" and orthodox attendance rate is probably a bit higher, while the evangelical one is probably much higher still: you do not become a protestant after being raised a Roman Catholic for many years to stay away from your hall or chapel. The 4% the evangelicals quote for themselves (even though they admit it is NOT an attendance rate) is probably exaggerated. 2%, with half of those attending, looks more credible to me.--Paul Pieniezny (talk) 12:10, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
Thanks Paul. I'll do some more digging. (Sbutler (talk) 13:22, 22 April 2008 (UTC))
By the way, the 4% is mentioned here: "De protestantse kerk is vanuit de historie is België zeer klein. De laatste 30 jaar is deze amper gegroeid. De groei die er was vond veelal plaats in evangelische/charismatische gemeenten. Zij zijn niet zichtbaar in de cijfers van figuur 1 maar maken zo’n 4% van de bevolking uit. Pinkstergemeenten groeien het hardst met 8% per jaar. De verhouding tussen de protestantse en de evangelische/charismatische kerken is vrij moeizaam. Het feit dat de Pinkster gemeentes als sekten worden gezien doet de situatie geen goed. De laatste jaren lijkt er wat meer wederzijds respect te ontstaan." Translated: 'The Protestant church in Belgium has always been small, due to history. The church has hardly grown during the last 30 years. The growth that was there happened mostly in the evangelical and charismatic congregations. They are not visible in the figures of graphic 1 but form about 4% of the population. Pentecostal congregations grow fastest, at an 8% yearly rate. The relationship between protestant and evangelical/charismatic churches is rtaher tedious. It is not helped by the fact that Pentecostal congregations are seen as sects. There has been growing mutual respect in recent years.' Funny, how they avoid the term "protestant" for these new congregations (even more funny, if you realizee that they now get subsidies because Belgian law now files them under "protestant"). The statistic and graphic they produced have 1.49 for "other" (I suppose meaning "other Christian") and 7.32 for "Niet verbonden" which probably means "Christian, but not linked to an established denomination". 1.49 looks rather high for what you may expect it to be: a combination of Anglican and Orthodox (though both have been steadily growing in recent years because of immigration from Central Africa and Eastern Europe) and in 2001 probably included some protestants outside the established protestant group but not linked to the evangelicals either, like Korean protestants, Kimbanguists, and little groups like Iranian (!) and Brazilian protestants ... These now belong to CACPE. The "niet-verbonden" group obviously includes a number of groups that are still out: Yehova's Witnesses and Mormons, but also and probably mainly a lot of people who were baptized Roman Catholics, have left the church, continue claiming to be Christians, but refuse to have anything to do with any church. Of course they are NOT in CACPE. Subtracting 1.5 for the evangelicals (that is based on my 2% figure, remember, some of them were alreasdy included under "other" and 1% for Witnesses and Mormons, we have about 5% Christians outside any Christian church. If you add those to the 58% that said they felt Roman Catholic, you get 63%, which you must compare to the 75% who declared themeselves "nominal Roman Catholics" in 1987. That is less than one percent loss on a yearly basis, and does not look so disastrous for the RC or unbelievable to statisticians as a decline from 75% to 58%. The same confusing phenomenon may hold for the Muslim side of the graphic: the 28% non-believers in 2001 probably included some ethic muslims already. But on that side people were not asked "do you feel a muslim but would never go to one of the existing mosques?" (Come to think of it, that question may actually induce Baha'i to answer "yes" ... ) I am rather interested in the new figures for protestants and especially for muslims, since the controversy on headscarves may have resulted in awakening dormant muslims. Immigration of muslims has almost halted, but there is clearly a strong natural increase through higher birth rates, as most of the muslim population is very young. --Paul Pieniezny (talk) 15:51, 30 April 2008 (UTC)