Traditionele onkerksheid in Drente. Over het sociologisch onderzoek van kerksheid en onkerksheid

Samenvatting

Traditional non-church-attendance in Drente; on the sociological study of churchattendance. In the first part it is shown that in Dutch sociology of religion, students studying the relation between man and church, tacitly and in some cases erroneously, postulate ubiquitous normative church-attendance. This postulate is probably based on a bias: most sociologists who study these phenomena are themselves deeply involved in churchlife and tend to see non church-attendance as abnormal, as a social problem rather than a sociological one. The result is that research into the causes of non-church-attendance is nearly exclusively centered on the „exceptions” even if these persons, unnoticed by the sociologist, act strictly according to the norms of their own group. This situation implies almost automatically the possibility of ad hoc explanations, because the sociologist is unaware of the fact that a certain cause, held responsible for non-church-attendance, holds equally well for those who go to church. This is escapable only by rigorous comparison between those individuals who attend church and those who do not. Part two gives data based on fieldwork in a Drents rural community where church-attendance is not customary. Individuals who occupy a position in church however are expected to go. These individuals are chosen on a basis of general ability and attend church regularly. After they have filled their term, they do not enter church anymore.