(1) Statistics cited in Billiet, Jaak and Dobbelaere, Karel, Godsdienst In Vlaanderen Van Kerks Katholicisme Naar Sociaal-Kulturele Kristenheid (Leuven, Davidsfonds, 1976), pp. 11–28Google Scholar.

Belgium's three leading Protestant churches—the Protestant Church of Belgium, the Reformed Church of Belgium, and the Flemish Reformed Church—were joined together on January 1, 1979, under the name of the United Protestant Church of Belgium.

For a rich ethnographic study of a particular, Chasidic Jewish community in Antwerp, the Hassides Belz, see Gutwirth, Jacques, Vie juive traditionnelle (Paris, Les éditions de Minuit, 1970)Google Scholar.

(2) These phrases were used by the sociologist Robert N. Bellah to describe the Enlightenment view of religion in modern society. See Bellah, , Between Religion and Social Science, in Beyond Belief: essays on religion in a post-traditional world (New York, Harper and Row, 1970), p. 237Google Scholar.

(3) Fox, Renè C., Why Belgium? Archives européennes de sociologie/European Journal of Sociology, XIX (1978), p. 209Google Scholar.

(4) de Ghelderode, Michel, The Ostend Interviews (Entretiensd'Ostende), in de Gheldebode, Michel, Seven Plays, VolumeIGoogle Scholar. Translated from French, and with an introduction by George Hauger (New York, Hill and Wang, 1960), p. 6.

(5) The following passage is abstracted from my field notes on an interview that I conducted with Mr. J. in the Fall of 1976.

(6) The Catholic University of Louvain was founded in 1425. In 1968, as a consequence of the so-called ‘Linguistic’ or ‘Community Problem’ of Belgium, the University ‘split’ into two, autonomous, universities: the French-speaking Universitè catholique de Louvain (Louvain-la-Neuve), and the Dutch-speaking Katholieke Universiteit te Leuven. The Université catholique de Louvain has been physically moved from the community of Leuven, to Ottignies in Walloon Brabant, and to St. Lambrecht-Woluwe, where its medical faculty has been established. This opening-day exercise was held in Ottignies, one year after the Katholieke Univer siteit te Leuven celebrated the 500th anniversary of the Catholic University's founding.

(7) The phrase, objets étranges, is Ghelderode's. Fox, Renèe C., Journal intime beige/Intiem Belgisch Dagboek, Columbia University Forum, V (1962) 14–15Google Scholar.

(8) de Ghelderode, Michel, The Ostend Interviews, op. cit. p. 6Google Scholar.

(9) Ibid., pp. 14–15.

(10) Why Belgium?, op. cit. pp. 207–208.

(11) Three outstanding examples of historical Belgian buildings richly decorated with stone sculptures are the town halls of Brussels, Leuven, and Oudenaarde.

(12) I am indebted to Michel de Ghelderode for this insight. See especially his essay entitled: Les gigantesques, in de Ghelderode, Michel, Mes statues (Brussels, Louis Musin, 1978)Google Scholar. Each of the essays in this work by Ghelderode is devoted to a different statue in Brussels of which he is particularly fond, or that had special significance for him. The Musin edition of this book is a facsimile of the original, limited edition that was published in June 1943 (274 copies) by Imprimerie Laconti, for Les éditions du Carrefour.

(13) In a way, Belgian tartines are the culinary equivalents of Belgian bricks. They are symbolically associated with personal survival, and with the hope maintaining a healthy, happy, normal family life. There are as many Belgian jokes about tartines as there are about bricks. A whole series of such tartine jokes, for example, turn around the German occupation of Belgium in World War II, and the wily capacity for surviving and nourishing that Belgians who were imprisoned by Germans supposedly showed, Belgians are depicted as emerging from the jails and camps of the enemy well fed and well clothed, carrying emergency supplies of tartines—and numerous other possessions—in their hands.

(14) In both traditional and contemporaneous Belgian painting, women have been alternatively, but consistently, presented as pure, sacred, and romantic figures, on the one hand, and as voluptuous, sensual, nude, mannikin-like figures, on the other. Thispainterlyview of women—at once ‘split’ and dualistic, as are so many other aspects of Belgian culture—is highly suggestive of an imperfectly fused and reconciled woman-as-Eve, and woman as-the-Virgin-Mary double perspective. It would be interesting to further explore the imagery associated with women in Belgian painting—its content, historical and cultural origins, and its meaning.

(15) Why Belgium?, op. cit. pp. 211–212.

(16) Geertz, Clifford, Religion as cultural system, in Geertz, Clifford, The Interpretation of Cultures (New York, Basic Books, 1973), p. 120Google Scholar.

(17) The Belgian conception of ‘courage’ and other basic Belgian values will be discussed in the next section of this article.

(18) ‘Why Belgium?’, op. cit. p. 224.

(19) Ibid. p. 225.

(20) Ibid. p. 226.

(21) Fieldnotes, Summer 1972.

(22) Fieldnotes, February 1972.

(23) Fieldnotes, May 1978.

(24) Why Belgium?, op. cit. pp. 215–216.

(25) For further discussion of these and associated mechanisms in the Belgian social system, see: Why Belgium?, op. cit. pp. 217–218.

(26) From a letter sent by Mgr. H. van Wayenbergh, Rector Magnificus of the University of Louvain to General von Falkenhausen, April 29, 1943. Reprinted in Appendix nof the English language edition of E. Lousse, The University of Louvain during the Second World War. Translated from French by Th. Crowley, O.F.M., Ph. D. (Bruges, Desclee De Brouwer, 1946), pp. 70–74.

(27) At different points in its history, Belgium has been occupied by Austria, France, Germany, Holland, and Spain.

(28) In addition to the National Alliance of Christian Mutualities, there is also a National Union of Socialist Mutualities in Belgium. Approximately 4,250,000 Belgians, or somewhat more than half of the Belgian population, belong to the Christian Mutualities, and the rest of the Belgian population to its Socialist counterpart, The two networks of mutualities combined represent a powerful entity in Belgian society because they provide and administer health insurance to all Belgians, and manage great funds and a double system of polyclinics to do so.

(29) This Congress, which I attended, was held in Antwerp in December 1976. Tindemans' speech was delivered on December 5, 1976.

(30) This is my own translation from the French-language text of this speech (delivered in Dutch and French), printed in La Libre Belgique (a Catholic newspaper), December 6, 1976, p. 2.

(31) As I have written elsewhere, ‘Belgium […is] a Catholic, virtually Protestant less country, which nevertheless has Protestant ethic-like work ethos [Why Belgium?, op. cit. p. 227].

Not only the Belgian outlook on work, but also some of the other features of the Belgian value system discussed in the text above resemble aspects of what sociologist Max Weber identified as the Protestant ethic (for example, Belgian conceptions of courage, bon sens, material success, rationalism, and activism, and the social, moral and metaphysical importance accorded to them).

The ‘Belgian case’ suggests that Weber may have overlooked, or at least minimized, the degree to which an equivalent of the value and belief system that he associated with Calvinistic Protestantism may also be inherent to certain forms of northern European Catholicism (Dutch and German Catholicism, for instance, as well as Belgian Catholicism).

(32) In addition to its rationalism, the approaches. philosophical and theological orientation of Louvain/Leuven can be characterized as: non-speculative, reinterpretive, Thomistic, exegetical, and interested in balancing off different philosophical and theological approaches.

(33) Ladrière, Jean, La Raison scientifique et la foi, in Bruaihe, Claude (ed.), La Confessionde la foi chrétienne (Paris, Fayard (collection Communio, 1977), p. 99Google Scholar. (My translation from the French text.).

(34) Heymans, Corneille, L'Anatomiste beige Andreas Vesalius, Le Carabin, 12 1960, 9–16Google Scholar.

(35) Ibid.

(36) It is possible that in this aspect of his portrait of Vesalius and his career, Corneille Heymans is implicitly referring to some of the difficult ‘combats’ he himself had to fight in his own scientific career—especially the accusation of being a collaborator with the Germans to which he became subject during the occupation of Belgium at the inception of World War II, just after he had been awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine or Physiology (an accusation of which he was eventually acquitted).

(37) Quoted in Willequet, Jacques, Le Roi Albert et la science, F.N.R.S. 1928–1978 (Bruxelles, Fonds national de la Recherche scientifique, 1978), p. 18Google Scholar.

(38) Jean Ladrière, La Raison scientifique et la foi, p. 107.

(39) Claude, Albert, The Coming of Age of the Cell, Science, CLXXXIX (08 8, 1975), 433–435CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

(40) Ibid. p. 435.

(41) Excerpted from a personal interview with a Belgian expert on religion.

(42) Kerkhofs, Jan, Morgen Is Er Al: Blauwdruk Voor Een Alternatieve Kerk in Vlaanderen (Tielt, Lannoo, 1976), p. 17 (Table I)Google Scholar.

(43) Ibid. p. 18 (Tables 2 and 3).

(44) Kerkhofs, Jan, Morgen Is Er Al, p. 22 (Table 6)Google Scholar.

(45) Informissi Bruxelles, August 1978, 1.

(46) See Dobbelaere, K. and Billiet, J., Community Formation and the Church, in Caudbon, M. (ed.), Faith and Society (Gembloux, J. Duculot, Bibliotheca Ephemeridum Theologicarum Lovaniensium XLVII, 1978), p. 228Google Scholar; also Roman Catholic Church and Europe: some aspects, Pro Mundi Vita Bulletin, LXXIII (07–08 1978), p. 13Google Scholar.

(47) Dobbelaere, K., Billiet, J. and Creyf, R., Secularization and Pillarization: a social problem approach, in Matthes, Joachim, Wilson, Bryan R. et al. . (eds), The Annual Review of the Social Sciences of Religion, Vol. II (The Hague, Mouton, 1978), p. 101Google Scholar.

(48) Dobbelaere, Billiet and Creyf, Secularization and Pillarization, p. 107.

(49) J. Billiet and K. Dobbelaere, Godsdienst in Vlaanderen, op. cit., passim.

(50) Dobbelaere, , Billiet, and Creyf, , Secularization and Pillarization, op. cit. p. 97Google Scholar and passim.

(51) Ibid.

(52) Eugeen Roosens, Des fous dans la ville? Gheel etsa thérapie séculaire. Translated from Dutch by Maddy Buysse and Jacques Dumont, in collaboration with the author (Paris, Presses universitaires deFrance/Perspectives Critiques, 1979). The Dutch language version, Geel, Een Unicum in de Psychiatrie, was published in 1977 (Antwerp/Amsterdam, Uitgeverij de Nederlandsche Boekhandel)Google Scholar.

(53) Roosens, , Des fous dans la ville?, p. 40Google Scholar.

(54) Ibid. p. 50.

(55) Ibid. p. 54.

(56) Ibid. pp. 29–37.

(57) Ibid. p. 22.

(58) Why Belgium?, op. cit. pp. 224–225.

(59) For names and descriptions of some of these new groups, see Dobbelaere and Billiet, Community-Formation and the Church, op. cit., and Billiet, and Dobbelaere, , Godsdienst In Vlaanderen, op. cit. pp. 23, 38–43, 68, and 93–98Google Scholar.

(60) Roman Catholic Church and Europe, op. cit. p. 13Google Scholar.

(61) The four shrines in Belgium most frequently visited are Beauraing and Banneux in Walloonie, and Scherpenheuvel and Oostakker in Flanders. The most popular pilgrimage that Belgians make outside the country is to Lourdes. Not only in Belgium, but in other European countries as well, such pilgrimages have increased.

For this information on pilgrimages, and for the data in the text above concerning Catholic school enrollment, baptism, burial, and divorce, I am indebted to Jan Kerkhofs, S.J., Secretary General of Pro Mundi Vita (personal communication).

(62) Dobbelaere, , Billiet, and Creyf, , Secularization and Pillarization, op. cit. p. 19Google Scholar.

(63) This kind of dichotomizing and box-making is a fundamental part of allaspects and levels of social organization in Belgium.

I am indebted to Mr. Georges van denAbeelen, General Advisor to the Fédération des Entreprises de Belgique/Verbond vanBelgische Ondernemingen, for pointing out to me that these structural characteristicsare so basically and encompassingly Belgian that they have shaped the country's topography in ways that distinguish it from all surrounding territories. Mr. van den Abeelen provided me with a reproduction of a satellite photograph of a portion of the earth extending from southern Sweden to Nigeria, taken in 1978 by the U.S. Air Force's Defense Meteorological Satellite Program, in which ‘diamond-shaped Belgium is immediately recognizable by the precise lines ot its geometric form’. This satellite photo was first published at the end of July 1978 in Croft, Thomas A., Nighttime images of the earth from space, Scientific American, CCXXXIX (1978), 86–96CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

(64) Geertz, Clifford, Religion as a Cultural System, op. cit. p. 94Google Scholar.

(65) My sociological perspective on religion has been significantly influencedby the theoretical and empirical work of Émile Durkheim, Max Weber, Sigmund Freud, and Talcott Parsons; by the monographs of E.E. Evans-Pritchard, A.R. Radcliffe-Brown, and Bronislaw Malinowski; and by the writings of Robert N. Bellah, Willy De Craemer and Clifford Geertz. In addition, my thirty years of experience as a crosi-culturally-oriented field worker in a number of American, Continental European, and Central African contexts, have shaped my outlook on patterned similarities and differences in the way that religion manifests itself in various social and cultural settings, and contributed to my understanding of the macro-implica-tions of religion—its societal and worldas view import.