Sint-Martinuskerk, Den Haag

Sint Martinuskerk in The Hague is an attractive, well-proportioned Roman Catholic church situated in a leafy suburb of the city, close by the Zuidvliet (canal). Many of the comfortable houses close by sported flag poles from which Dutch flags flew and happy sounding children shrieked and hollered from swings in parks. It could almost have been in an archetypal English village, rather than a major European city.

I was passing St Martin's, walking from the nearest train station to a school half a mile away, which was the hired premises of an English-speaking evangelical church. Although the school was modern and clean, and well suited for plain, Bible-based worship, it could not compete in beauty with the rather grand steeple and neo-gothic of the Catholics.

Biblical Christianity needs no grand buildings or lavish furnishings. Let others build cathedrals or concert venues with plush platforms and stage lighting. For the evangelical, it is the message which is stunningly beautiful, not the wrapping paper.

Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe Me, the hour is coming when you will neither on this mountain, nor in Jerusalem, worship the Father. You worship what you do not know; we know what we worship, for salvation is of the Jews. But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for the Father is seeking such to worship Him. God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.” John 4:21-24, NKJV