Author Description

This book presents an extended conversation between two men, father and son, on the very personal thoughts on religion. The father, Henk van Os, has an international reputation as an art historian and museum administrator. From 1989 to 1996 he was director of the Rijksmuseum, and for many years he appeared on Dutch television as host of a popular program called Iconoclasm. His son, Pieter van Os, is political editor at NRC Handelsblad, a leading daily newspaper based in Rotterdam. His graduate training at the University of Leiden was in political and legal philosophy. The letters began when the son observed, during an interview, that his father's professional work could not be understood without an appreciation of his "yearning for religion." The father, astonished by this comment, wrote his son a letter about it. When the son replied, a correspondence began that was at times intensely personal, yet offered a profound analysis of the contemporary crisis of Western civilization. The letters range widely. Some describe feelings aroused by tragic events suffered by their family (a terrible accident that killed a young daughter/sister and the suicide of a son/brother). Some are touching, describing their experiences at a parish church and college campus in Northampton, Massachusetts. Mainly, though, they focus on the rapidly changing role of religion in Dutch culture and public life, and the impact of these shifts on these two men. The letters are hard-hitting, sometimes blunt. Early on they realized (and were advised) that the value of these letters would depend on their willingness to be utterly candid, Henk about the sources of his evolving religious faith and its impact on his life and work, and Pieter about his deep ambivalence regarding the role of religion in public life.