Cultural Christians

Some of the earliest figures in this movement in the late-1980s and 1990s, such as Liu Xiaofeng and He Guanghu, were sympathetic to Christianity but chose not to associate with any local church.

[18] Similarly, former prime minister Liz Truss described herself as saying "I share the values of the Christian faith and the Church of England, but I'm not a regular practising religious person.

"[19] Thomas Jefferson, a Founding Father of the United States, considered himself part of Christian culture, despite his doubts about the divinity of Jesus.

[30] Forms of Christianity have dominated religious life in what is now the Netherlands for more than 1,200 years,[31] and by the middle of the sixteenth century the country was strongly Protestant (Calvinist).

Since the War of Independence the Catholics were systematically and officially discriminated against by the Protestant government until the second half of the 20th century, which had a major influence on the economic and cultural development of the southern part of the Netherlands.

The southern area still has original Catholic traditions including Carnival, pilgrimages, rituals like lighting candles for special occasions and field chapels and crucifixes in the landscape, giving the southern part of the Netherlands a distinctive Catholic atmosphere, with which the population identifies in contrast to the rest of the Netherlands.