Kees de Groot (1966) is a sociologist of religion and first became a member of the SISR/ISSR in 1991. He studied sociology at the University of Amsterdam and wrote a doctoral dissertation on religion and mental health care at Leiden University (1995). Subsequently, he worked as a performer, a journalist, a teacher and as a consultant for the Diocese of Rotterdam. He also studied theology and, since 2002, he is a Lecturer in Practical Theology and Religious Studies at Tilburg University. Last few years, he visited Heythrop College (London, 2014) and the MF Norwegian School for Theology (Oslo, 2015) with an Erasmus mobility grant. He has published on congregational studies, chaplaincy, spiritual centers, religion and theatre, religion and comics, and on the sociology of religion in the Netherlands. His most recent articles in English include (with Jos Pieper and Willem Putman) ‘New Spirituality in Old Monasteries?’ In Sociology and Monasticism (Brill, 2014); (with Erik Sengers) ‘Sociology of Religion in the Netherlands.’(in Sociologies of Religion (Brill, 2015); ‘Tintin as a Catholic Comic’(in Implicit Religion 2017); and ‘Bingo! Holy Play in Experience-oriented Society’ (in Social Compass, 2017). The title of his forthcoming book is The liquidation of the Church (Routledge, 2017). His current research is in the institutional dynamics of spiritual care and in the deconstruction of the relation between Catholic Social Thought and capitalism. He is the coordinator of the Master’s program Christianity & Society, former president of the Dutch Working Group for Sociology of Religion and member of the editorial board of the Dutch journal Religie & Samenleving (Religion & Society). He is also a member of the European Sociological Association, the Association for the Sociology of Religion, the International Academy for Practical Theology and the European Association for the Study of Religion.