Christina Bickel, Religion im Werk von Maarten ‘t Hart. Eine narratologische Untersuchung in praktisch-theologischer Perspektive, Leipzig (Evangelische Verlagsanstalt) 2022, 321 pp., ISBN 978-3-374-06946-0 (Series Hermeneutik und Ästhetik 5), 88,00 €.

This book, originally accepted as a doctoral thesis for practical theology by the Marburg theological faculty in Germany, deals with the transformative power of literature about religion within the context of western secular societies. To explore this topic, Bickel focuses on the œuvre of a famous Dutch author, Maarten ‘t Hart, whose books have been very popular for decades in both the Netherlands and Germany and have won a number of prestigious awards. ‘t Hart declared himself to be an agnostic, struggling all through his life to overcome the narrow-minded and bigoted Dutch Calvinist religiosity imposed on him in his youth, especially by his father. Bickel attempts to reconstruct main parts of ‘t Hart’s novels as an attempt to transform religion within a secular age; her study can be identified at the intersection between practical theology, homiletics, and literary studies. The book is likewise an intercultural experiment, reading a Dutch body of literature through the lenses of a German academic.

The book consists of eleven parts, with the structure of the study displaying a clear and logical sequence of steps. After introducing the research interest, Bickel gives an outline of her method, which she terms a “narratological analysis”. After a very short overview of the content of all the novels, she opens the panorama of previous researchers’ studies on ‘t Hart’ books. The last three chapters present in-depth analyses of characteristics and particular aspects of poetic strategies. To develop the hypothesis of literary transformation, the study clarifies the concept of religion within and beyond the scope of theology. She then reconstructs the poetic strategy of the author ‘t Hart, who presents himself as an “artificial narrator.” (thus not the existing Marten ‘t Hart). The most detailed chapter deals with a brilliant analysis of ‘t Hart’s 1993 book The Rage of the World (Dutch original “Het Woeden der Gehele Wereld”), which tells a story about a murder that took place some ten years after the German occupation of the Netherlands during the Second World War. The concluding chapters compare this analysis with other novels of ‘t Hart and draw lines from novelistic fantasy to the task of preaching.

Bickel’s book presents a courageous intercultural enterprise: a German theologian meets a Dutch author who all through his life tried to get rid of religion – at least of religion in the compulsive shape of his youth. In the process, she tries to convince her theologically interested readers that theology might learn something from this literary struggle for their own task of passing on the gospel in a secular culture. She highlights poetic language, by means of ‘t Hart’s books, as a non-doctrinal way to present not only bits of wisdom, but an extensive world view. Based on this reconstruction of literature, Bickel’s practical theological consequence describes preaching not as transmission of eternal truth, but as an entertaining stimulus for people to find their own way through life.

In my view, Bickel’s thesis is bottom-heavy. It takes a rather long way through the text (and the 1119 footnotes!) to come to the jewels and treasures. However, the reader’s patience will be rewarded. The most inspiring part is her analysis of ‘t Hart’s 1993 masterpiece. In this extensive section of the book, Bickel convinces readers of the unique power of ‘t Hart’s literature, following his use of irony and sense of humor, and his decisive strategy of using language for inexact and ambiguous expressions. At the same time, she gives a strong warning to readers (and especially to theologians as readers!) to resist any dissolution of enigmatic and shimmering metaphors into definite propositional language.

This way of cautiously interpreting ‘t Hart prevents Bickel from giving a dull answer to her main thesis about the transformation of Calvinist religion. In her construal, the writer does not simply dissolve the former black piety into secularized immanence. Instead, by means of combining biblical motives with everyday metaphors (like ice skating), the interpretation of life remains floating and ambiguous, driving readers to their own answers.

Readers who are familiar with Dutch church and culture through the last four hundred years might miss the more detailed theological and political reconstruction that Bickel more or less counts under the denominator of “Calvinism” or “Calvinist experiential world”, actually giving a quite diverse and heterogenous mix of elaborated orthodox theology and popular piety. On the other hand, readers who are familiar with ‘t Hart’s literature and biography will perhaps be interested to read a bit more about the novelist’s self-contradictory (and sometimes even uninformed) critique of religion and his way of dealing with the Dutch Protestant heritage.

However, this is not Bickel’s main interest. She cares more for literary than for biographical aspects. And this indirectly gives readers insights into the power of religion. By means of literary analysis she opens our view to the different facets of religion, going from biblical narratives to Catechetical doctrines and to post-Christian poetic approaches to the world and to collective cultural patterns. Her book might stimulate readers to compare ‘t Hart’s attempts at the literary transformation of traditional biblical language with other equally popular Dutch authors (not least Jewish ones like Harry Mulisch). Thus my conclusion is this: practicing literary creativity is an excellent step on the way to become a good theologian.