Paper short abstract:

This paper investigates the ways in which religion and secularity, popular culture and ritual and heritage and sacralization interact in contemporary Dutch performances of passion plays. Particular emphasis is placed on the role of secular-religious affects in national identity formations.

Paper long abstract:

Since 2011, 'The Passion', an annually recurring televised performance of the last days of Christ draws millions of viewers. Simultaneously, each Easter, hundreds of thousands of people go to church to participate in or listen to performances of Bach's Mättheus Passion.

This increasing popularity of religiously-themed performances stands in apparent contrast with the secular self-image of Dutch society. Research done into the motivation of people to participate in these performances show a plurality of reasons, but conversion or faith-based participation are not among the majority reasons. As a result, passion performances are often seen as 'nothing more' than cultural enjoyment. In a frequently heard criticism, the many people for whom Easter or Christmas are the only times they would participate in religiously-themed processions or places, are seen as mere consumers of a cultural tradition which has little to no link with 'actual' religion.

Yet, from an updated perspective these divisions between enjoyment of cultural heritage and religion are a lot more complicated. This paper suggests approaching the secular passion of the Passion against the backdrop of a complex series of identifications in which heritage and religion, sacralization and secularization, and ritual and popular culture are important and by no means mutually exclusive ingredients.

This paper explores the conceptual challenges in doing ethnographic fieldwork against this backdrop. And, what conceptual innovations are needed to understand these phenomena? In what terms do people describe their participation in passion performances? What secular emotions does the passion create?