90 International Bulletin of Missionary Research, V ol. 37, No. 2 Colin Godwin has served in Europe and Africa in ministries of evangelism and leadership training. Currently Africa Team Leader for Canadian Baptist Ministries, he is the author of Baptizing, Gather- ing, and Sending: The Signifcance of Anabaptist Approaches to Mission in the Sixteenth-Century Context (Pandora Press, 2012). —colingodwin@gmail.com S ociologists of religion and casual observ- ers alike have noted the steady decline of institutional religion in continental Europe. Belgium has been no exception to this trend, and while the schools, hospitals, labor unions, and political parties that were linked to the Roman Catholic Church insulated the devout for a time, secularism seems to have ultimately won out. 1 Attendance at Mass plummeted in the 1970s, and many Catholics left the church, devoting more of their energy to economic pursuits than to God and church. 2 Although not as secularized as the British, Bulgarians, Czechs, or Swedes, Belgians were already among the more secular- ized Europeans studied by Loek Halman and the European Values Study group in 1990. 3 It is a mistake to assume, however, that this loss of power of institutional Catholicism means that Belgian Christianity has retreated on all fronts. While Belgium may be considered to be “post-Catholic” in its overall religious orientation, younger Protestant movements have demonstrated strong growth in the last decades of the twentieth century and into the twenty-frst. If you met a committed churchgo- ing Belgian in the 1960s, most likely that person would have been Roman Catholic. Today, that person is very likely Pentecostal and of foreign descent. The number of Protestant churches has grown signifcantly over the last several dec- ades, almost doubling since 1980. 4 In addition, some of the largest Protestant churches in Belgium today were started after 1980. Church membership statistics are more diffcult to establish. In 1980, on the basis of school regis- tration statistics and church membership rolls from 190 churches, historian Emile Braekman estimated the number of Protestants in Belgium to be between 90,000 and 100,000. By 2010, the number of Protestants in Belgium was estimated at 150,000, with the largest population percent- age (6%) in Brussels. 5 Although membership statistics for all the churches are not available for 2012, it can be estimated that between 1980 and 2012 Protes- tants have grown from a little less than 1 percent of the Belgian population to closer to 2 percent, with the highest percentages in Brussels. This is surprising and unexpected growth, however it The Recent Growth of Pentecostalism in Belgium Colin Godwin is assessed. In contrast, the total Belgian population has shown only slight growth over the same period, from 9.9 million in 1980 to 10.4 million in 2012. Foreign Infuences Belgian Protestantism has experienced steady growth from 1830, the date of Belgian independence. This growth has been in sev- eral major waves and has almost always been dependent on a missionary force coming from outside of Belgium: the Baptists in Belgium originated as part of a French work, the Reformed Church originated with an expatriate Dutch population left in Table 1. Belgian Protestant Churches, 1830–2012, Listed by Denomination Denomination 1830 1865 1909 1940 1980 2012 Union of Churches 16 16 26 24 Belgian Evangelical Missionary Church 19 42 46 Reformed Church 2 5 Silo Mission (Flemish) 8 8 Methodist Church 20 [In 1979 the preceding churches merged as:] United Protestant Church of Belgium 104 106 Other churches affliated with the U.P.C.B. 32 Foreign churches 5 6 9 16 31 27 a Brethren 2 12 35 40 43 Liberal Protestant Church (Brussels) 1 2 1 1 Salvation Army 11 12 13 10 Seventh-day Adventists b 4 13 27 28 Union of Baptists in Belgium 3 5 13 17 Other Baptists 1 1 6 5 Assemblies of God 11 38 26 Belgian Evangelical Mission 33 29 22 Lutheran 2 3 Evangelical Free Churches 33 53 Independent Churches 11 85 Mennonites 3 2 Union of Pentecostal Churches 11 85 Other Pentecostals 20 50 Antioch 81 Flemish Reformed Church 7 Free Methodists 3 Life and Light Mission (Gypsy Mission) 4 Total 21 43 119 231 382 690 Source: The most recent statistics come from the yearbooks of the Administrative Council of Protestant and Evangelical Religion in Belgium, which since 2003 has been the offcial intermediary between all Protestant churches and the government (see www.cacpe.be/ index.php?page=annuaire_f; accessed on October 31, 2012). In addition, see the statistical resources cited in endnote 4. a The fgure for foreign churches in 2012 includes only Anglican churches (13) and the churches of the Italian-speaking Chiese Cristiane Italiane nel Nord Europa (14). b For fgures on Seventh-day Adventists in Belgium, see Georges Vandenvelde, 100 Ans d’adventisme en Belgique et au Grand-Duché du Luxembourg, Spécial Centenaire (Brussels: Fédération Belgo-Luxembourgeoise des Églises Adventistes du Septième Jour, 1996), 2–15. Between 1980 and 1993, three churches were closed, after which new churches were opened in Brussels, notably the English language International Church in 1994.