Ecclesiology in a Nordic Context: Challenges of Particularity and Coherence. Introduction by Professor Ninna Edgardh, Uppsala Religion and Society Research Centre, Faculty of Theology, Uppsala. Dear friends and colleagues, on behalf of the organizing committee I wish you warmly welcome to Uppsala University and to this symposium. For two days we will ponder questions about the Christian church and more specifically the role of research in relation to the task and mission of Christian churches. Which theories and methods may be of help in researching ecclesial bodies? How do we deal with the particularities of these bodies and the societies in which they are embedded? What coherences might help us identify this something, that we call church, in the midst of all these particularities? The aim of our gathering is to contribute to further theoretical development of the research area and to the initializing of new research projects. In this short talk I will introduce you to some Nordic and Swedish particularities, which I will illustrate with some quotes from an interview study I am presently involved in. First a word of welcome to the land of woods and lakes. Sweden is larger than Germany, but a little smaller than France, with about 10 million human inhabitants. 1
A hundred years ago we were only a few million. Sweden was a poor country and more than one million Swedes emigrated during the second half of the 19 th century and the first decade of the 20 th century, mainly to the US, as you may recognize from the popular musical Kristina from Duvemåla, by Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus, based on the novels by Vilhelm Moberg. Today however, Sweden is among the 15 richest countries in the world and the flow of migration is going the opposite way. Last year about 80.000 asylum seekers came to Sweden. This autumn we have seen an unprecedented rise in those figures, which constitutes considerable strain on the system. When you walk around Uppsala these days, you are bound to meet some of the EU-migrants coming to Sweden. The beggars you meet are mainly of Roma origin, from Romania, where they are object of severe discrimination. You will hear more about their situation tonight, when we will also experience the rich cultural heritage of Roma people. A lot of Swedes volunteer to help, both refugees and beggars, not least through faith-based organizations and Christian parishes. The situation also create fear and hostility, mainly channeled through social media. But it doesn t stay there. Last week we experienced the brutal killing of school children of foreign origin. Refugee camps have been burned and beggars are sometimes violently attacked. The right-wing populist party, called the Sweden Democrats, got 13 percent of the votes in the election last year, and 2
has grown since. The party even got 6 percent of the votes in the last election for the church synod. Up until the 1950s, when religious freedom got protection in the law, almost every Swedish citizen belonged to the state church. Today however, one fifth of the Swedish population are immigrants themselves, or have at least one parent being born outside of Sweden. To be a Swede is no longer equated with having grown up in Sweden and thus obviously not with being a member of the church. For many Swedes, however, being a member of the church an then we are talking about the Church of Sweden - is somehow taken for granted, as illustrated by the surprise of one of our interviewees, when confronted with the question if he belongs to any religious community: I: Do you belong to a church or religious denomination? IP: No I: Did you grow up in any religious tradition? IP: Or, rather, I belong to, am a member of the church, one does belong I: One does belong to the church? IP: Yes, I guess I am a member of the Church of Sweden, but I am not active and go there. I: No, exactly. But you do pay a church fee? IP: Yes, I do, and I guess that is the only thing The person first denies belonging to a church or religious denomination, then corrects himself, admitting that he does belong, as one does, including paying the fee for being a member, but that is the only thing 3
We do not registrate religious belonging in Sweden, but through the organization distributing state support to faith communities we have access to some statistics. About 7 percent of the population belong to other faith communities than Church of Sweden, most of them Christian. The largest are the Orthodox and Oriental churches (together 130.000), the Uniting church (130.000), the Pentecostals (110.000), the Catholics (105.000) and the Evangelical Free Church (48.000). We also have a small group of practicing Muslims in Sweden, and a much larger group of several hundred thousand with a Muslim background, but not practicing, a figure that match the figure for the Church of Sweden better in comparison. In spite of a growing diversity, there are some traits typical of Swedish 20 th century mentality. These traits in 2006 made the researchers Lars Trägårdh and Henrik Berggren ask whether Swedes are even human. 1 We are, the authors concluded, but of quite a peculiar sort, combining a high degree of individual autonomy with a strong sense of social solidarity. This moral logic has been institutionalized in Sweden through a radical alliance between the individual and the state, by the authors called statist individualism. This alliance liberates the individual from the ties of dependency in relation to family and charities. Instead a dependency has been developed in relation to the public authorities, in which Swedes show have an unusually high trust. This is a social contract, they argue, that differs dramatically from those of other modern Western democracies. 1 Henrik Berggren & Lars Trägårdh: Är svensken människa. Gemenskap och oberoende i det moderna Sverige. (Stockholm: Norstedts, 2006). 4
When a second edition of the book was published in 2015 an additional chapter was included, filling what the authors saw as a serious lacuna. In the preface they write: With our cheeks turning red in embarrassment we have come to realize that we are guilty of one of the most common errors of the majority culture in this country: to believe that Swedish political culture is unaffected by faith convictions. The new chapter thus deals with the close alliance between the state and the Lutheran church, which was still at work during most of the 20 th century and which in fact had great impact on the creation of the Swedish welfare state, folkhemmet, the home of the people. In fact, in parallel with the development of the Swedish folkhem, the idea of the folk-church was constructed, constituting what the authors described as a laid back and wide fellowship, with room for almost everyone and with few and small demands on the individual. I think that characterization of the church is still relevant. But what is interesting is that the authors by the inclusion of the new chapter try to show how church and society in Sweden has developed in parallel, so that the development of the one cannot be explained excluding the other. That is a rather important step in an academic culture where we too often look at things separated from each other, and not least when it comes to religion. Secular historians and sociologists have often been blind to religion but I think we have to be a bit self critical too and admit that theologians have often neglected the societal aspects. 5
But if we may then settle with Swedes being human, maybe they are a people without God? That seems to be the claim made by the historian of religion David Thurfjell in the book he published this year. 2 What leads Thurfjell to this hypothesis is the strange combination of beliefs and practices upheld by many Swedes. They keep their membership in the church, they keep to celebrating Christmas and Easter, and might even go to church then, they baptize their children and bury their dead in church, but they don t go to worship regularly. They have a belief in something larger than what we see around us, some kind of spirit or life force, but not in a personal God. They do pray, at least occasionally, but they do not regard themselves as Christians or religious. How do they fit that together? Let me illustrate with a quote from my own study: The church of Sweden is like something positive for me still, although I am not believing myself - - - I wouldn t leave because I think it is important that it exists - - - in general it is something positive for many. And gives good answers on questions that fits with the values of society. David Thurfjell s arguments actually fits well with those of Trägårdh and Berggren, but complements them. The wide idea of the folkchurch is central to his claim, the folkchurch not being primarily a theological concept, but a mentality, a way of being Christian which is not new, but quite traditional in a country where being a good person and a good Christian was for a long time one and the same thing and did not necessarily entail much of individual religious practice. 2 David Thurfjell. Det gudlösa folket. De postkristna svenskarna och religionen. (Stockholm: Molin & Sorgenfrei Akademiska 2015). 6
This attitude has survived in the folkchurch, but the secular winter of the last century has had a price for the church, which lost its monopoly to define what it means to be Christian. So people stay, but they don t see themselves as Christians. One of Thurfjell s main points is that the very definition of being Christian, and religious, was overtaken, already a century ago or more, by the revival moments, who had a much more demanding and narrow understanding of Christian faith than the state church. It is their definition of Christianity that the secular humanists have argued against and it is this definition that members of the church wish to disassociate themselves from. The process was fuelled by the public schools taking over the basic teaching of Christian faith, placing Christianity alongside the other world religions as one possible option for the autonomous individual. The result is, Thurfjell argues, that the church is faced with quite a hopeless task. The church is still organized look at the church buildings - after a society that no longer exists and it has lost its interpretative power over its own native tongue. Let us now turn to some other interpreters of the Swedish situation. The idea of Sweden as the different country was launched some ten years ago 7
by the late sociologist of religion professor Thorleif Pettersson, who was deeply involved in the World Values Survey. 3 The results are as you know commonly presented in the shape of a cultural map of the world, the last one presenting the 6 th wave of the study. 4 A move upward on the map reflects a shift from so called Traditional values towards Secular-rational values. Traditional values means according to the WVS emphasizing the importance of religion, close ties between parent and child, deference to authority and so called traditional family values. In wave after wave of studies we find Sweden at the other end of that spectrum, embracing what is called Secular-rational values. The other axis signify on the left side Survival values, which implies primarily economic and physical security. Such values often appear together with an ethnocentric outlook and low levels of trust and tolerance towards others. Again we find Sweden at the other end, dominated by Self-expression values prioritizing things like the care of the earth, tolerance of differences and gender equality. Now the parameters behind this map, created by Ronald Inglehardt and Christian Welzel, are hardly neutral. The move towards the upper right corner is presented as positive, and connected to liberating people from the bonds of religion. This is the way to go for the world. 3 Thorleif Pettersson & Yilmaz Esmer. Vilka är annorlunda? Om invandrares möte med svensk kultur, Integrationsverkets rapportserie 2005:03, (Norrköping: Integrationsverket, 2005). 4 http://www.iffs.se/world-values-survey/. 8
To be in the upper right corner is to be secular as contrasted to religious. But what does that mean for the church whose members embrace these values? Such questions lie behind the project I have presented you with some quotes from. In order to get a bit under the surface of the anti-religious bias of the cultural map, we interview young parents in Sweden on WHY they respond as they do, a type of question which is not possible to pose in the quantitative surveys. So let us look at a few more data from the WVS concerning the beliefs of Swedes. According to the survey 41 percent of the Swedes say they believe in God, 30 percent say they worship at least once a year, 31 percent see themselves as religious and 35 percent say that they pray at least once a year. In the words of one of our interviewees this type of belief pattern is expressed like this: I think churches are nice and very peaceful so sometimes when I pass a church I go in But...I do not go to any services. The church is there for people in need open for everyone a lot of people find comfort by going to church and feel some kind of belonging. In this way I think the church fills an important function. This person is baptized and confirmed, but not particularly religious, she says. But she and her husband has seen to that their son is baptized: Baptism is for me to celebrate that he has come into existence. Then baptism is that he becomes a member of Church of Sweden and then also, that it is what you do - - - Then he will choose when he is older what he wants to do or not. 9
In the survey people are also asked what they mean by being religious. Six percent says being religious means following religious norms and practices, contrasted to the 89 percent who says that it means doing good to other people. 13 percent says it is about making sense of life after death, while 78 percent thinks it it about making sense of life in this world. With the words of one of our interviewees this world view is explained like this: This thing with tolerance and fellowship what Jesus stood for in a way. That is what I see as important, even if I would not call myself a Christian. --- I do not believe in God, that is too abstract for me. I believe more in what is close and that, in a way, live according to the values, but close to me and then in a way you find yourself close to Christian values, that I think the church and Christianity should be. Well, that was a short introduction to what might be moving under the surface of woods and lakes. Most welcome to Sweden and to this symposium! 10