World Cup Churches: 4. Netherlands

 It's World Cup year - taking place in November/December in Qatar instead of the Northern Hemisphere summer as it has always previously done.  Heading round the 32 qualifying countries I will pick out one church in each one.  I am not going to choose only churches that are to my liking.  This is a exploration not a recommendation! To see all in the series select the label World Cup Churches.

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We've arrived in the Netherlands and here I come to a country in which I have visited several churches.  The one I've chosen is already perhaps the most famous in the country but I have chosen it because of the amazing setting in which it finds itself.

Amsterdam's 'Old Church' (Oudekerk) is predictably its oldest and in the old city centre surrounded by the canals for which Amsterdam is famous.  Inside it has the characteristics of a Protestant Church, with an austere simplicity (though it was not always like this as it predates the Reformation.

As a port city Amsterdam has rarely been a shining example of humanity at its very best.  That's what I like about the Oude Kerk.  Its whole history is a struggle to bear testimony in the sea of sorrows and sins in which it is located.  The Reformation brought it into cleaner times indoors - previously it had been like a rowdy town square.  Yet today it is situated in the bizarre surrounds of the famed Red Light District where windows are displaying gyrating topless dancers.

I doubt there is any other street on earth where if you look one way you see an old church and turn 180 degrees and see a topless dancer on any and every night.

I have thought, on visiting this church, that it is on the one hand as badly placed as a church can be and yet, in reflecting on the way our Lord mixed in society, possibly located exactly where a church should be.

World Cup Churches 3. Senegal

It's that year again - the World Cup.  Scheduled every 4 years this year it is in Qatar,  Qatar is very hot so it will take place in November instead of the Northern Hemisphere summer as previously.  This gives me nice time to head round the 32 qualifying countries and this time I want to pick out one church in each one.  I am not going to choose only churches that are to my liking.  This is a exploration not a recommendation! To see all in the series select the label World Cup Churches.

Senegal's churches are found mostly along its coast, the part of the land in which various colonials made their homes.  This is often a sad story, however, of the ultimate exploitation of any people - human slavery.  Today there is a significant, but small Christian presence in a largely Muslim nation.  Today the Christian presence is itself African.

On the very edge of Atlantic Senegal is a (Catholic) Church in an astonishing setting which I remember reading about some time ago.  The church in Fadiouth.

Fadiouth is no ordinary island.  It is made up of clam shells.

And there on the island is a church - itself and its graveyard made largely of shells too.

Though it is a construction phenomenon in a unique setting, perhaps the deeper and happier fact of the island is that it is, rarely for west Africa, a close-knit community where heritage Christians and heritage Muslims co-exist in proper peace - sharing life together as well, not merely putting up with each other tolerantly.  

If only that were true for larger parts of the the continent and the wider world.