Church & State – The Nordic
Situation
Contribution to
Nordisk Systematiker konferens,
Reykjavik Jan 2013
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A place for people to gather
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Gathering people in a place
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Church/state Relations in the Nordic:
West
• Also executive & judiciary
powers with secular bodies
• The church is the local
church – the national
church is part of nationbuilding-bodies
• Theological normative
grounds? Societal grounds?
Grundtvig?
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East
• Internal hierarchy & internal
executive and judiciary
power survived reformation
• The church as a body to be
identified survived and has
been renewed (arch-bishop,
synod 1860’es)
• Theological normative
grounds? Societal grounds?
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Church/state positions in the Nordic
Periphery
The role of the church
ministers as well as local
church members to societal
changes (reformation –
enlightenment – democracy –
independence):
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Centre
Church ministers as civil
servants for the state, used to
change the norms and
practices of the population
(reformation – enlightenment
– democracy –
(independence))
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Church/state competences in the
Nordic (historical models)
West
CENTRE
The state supports the individual
through establishing (church)
institutions and secures a
minimum of ecclesiastical power
through systems of civil servants
PERIPHERI
The individual/local group
establishes the church and the
state shouldn’t mix itself up into
that, just send the priests
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East
CENTRE
State and church support each
other through mutual
recognition of hierarchical
powers over the people
PERIPHERI
The people establishes
organisational power over the
church as resistance towards
state powers
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Challenges to the Nordic
welfare-state-(church)-model
Monopoly - coherence
• Normative function of
majority system
• State hierarchy to
protection of individuals
• Individualisation
• Broad range of normative
suggestions within one
institutional setting
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Globalisation – (Post)-Secularity
• Global competition – global
market
• Pluralisation
• Confessionalisation
• Chosen identity/ies
• Dis-solution leads to reorganisation of hierarchies,
also religious leadership is
reorganised on the global
market
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Converging changes in church-staterelations in the Nordic:
• Dis-establishment as either folkekirke (I, FO, N?) or
majority church (S, F)
• Economy: state pays for folkekirke (I); for all religious
communities (N); contributes to economy in religious
organisations supporting democratic values (S); contributes
to folkekirker (F); contributes partially to folkekirke (DK)
• Independent leading body as executive (F, S, I) vs
delegation of powers from government (N, DK)
• Following law of the land (DK, I, N) vs independent
legislative body (S, F)
• Using courts of the land (DK, I, N) vs independent ADRinstitutions (S, F)
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Danish government committee on the
governance structure of folkekirken
• Of folkekirken? Or in? or around?
• ‘and as such supported by the state’ vs state
powers in full control
• Locus of governance decisions – national,
diocese, deanery, congregation
• Presence – any village vs mega-churches
• Congregational structures and competences
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3. December 2000 (Jelling/DK)
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Place of Heavenly Peace, Beijing (2010)
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Church & State - & other Religious
Communities in the Nordic
• Normative/historical: civil religion
• The ‘other’ as the hidden signifier
• Numbers
• Principal equality vs principal freedom
• Practical Functions: cemeteries (libraries, schools)
• Same or different legal/executive/judiciary
structures in relation to the state: religions as
collective entities
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‘The holly Lutheran church of westreykjavik: Neskirkja’ (wikimapia.org)
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Hallgrimskyrkjan – ‘a Lutheran parish
church in Reykjavik’ (wikipedia.org)
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The 21st century questions:
From Church and State To Religion & Power
Which from you demands normative theories on
law, power, structure, institutions etc – not only in
regard to religious organisations, but in regard to
the societies we live in
In a globalized post-secular world of competition
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