Secular and Sacred?: The Scandinavian Case of Religion in Human Rights, Law and Public Space 9783666604492, 9783525604496, 9783647604497

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© 2014, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525604496 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647604497

Research in Contemporary Religion

Edited by Hans-Günter Heimbrock, Daria Pezzoli-Olgiati, Heinz Streib, Trygve Wyller In Co-operation with Hanan Alexander (Haifa), Carla Danani (Macerata), Wanda Deifelt (Decorah), Siebren Miedema (Amsterdam), Bonnie J. Miller-McLemore (Nashville), Garbi Schmidt (Roskilde), Claire Wolfteich (Boston)

Volume 15

Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht © 2014, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525604496 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647604497

Rosemarie van den Breemer, Jos¦ Casanova, Trygve Wyller (ed.)

Secular and Sacred? The Scandinavian Case of Religion in Human Rights, Law and Public Space

Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht © 2014, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525604496 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647604497

With seven figures Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data available online: http://dnb.d-nb.de. ISBN 978-3-525-60449-6 ISBN 978-3-647-60449-7 (e-book) Ó 2014, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen/ Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht LLC, Bristol, CT, U.S.A. www.v-r.de All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without prior written permission from the publisher. Typesetting by Konrad Triltsch, Ochsenfurt Printed and bound in Germany by Hubert & Co, Göttingen Printed on non-aging paper.

© 2014, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525604496 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647604497

Preface

This book is the result of a long and successful cooperation between many talented scholars, many good supporters and several generous donors. The first empirical research into the relationship between religion and human rights in Norway and Sweden was set in motion in the project ‘Religion and Human Rights’, under the direction of Johannes van der Ven (Nijmegen), with Trygve Wyller as the Norwegian coordinator. The idea of writing a book about the relationship between the sacred and secular arose in a conversation between Lisbet Christoffersen (Roskilde) and Trygve Wyller on a bus journey between Nijmegen (the Netherlands) and Amsterdam, after a conference that was part of Van der Ven’s project. The project has been ongoing ever since. Funding for the Norwegian empirical research into the relationship between religion and human rights came from the research network CulcomCultural Complexity in the new Norway, at the University of Oslo. Culcom funded the sub-project that allowed researchers at the KIFO research centre (KIFO: Botvar/Stifoss-Hansen) to carry out a questionnaire survey. During the period 2008 to 2012, the three editors held several workshops and seminars at the University of Oslo. Among other things, they included two international and interdisciplinary conferences held in 2010: ‘Religion, Value Systems and Citizenship in Late Modern Europe’ from 3 to 4 June 2010, and the conference ‘Complexity and Legitimacy : Religion, Secularity, and Values in the Polis’, from 18 to 20 November 2010. These activities were all financed through substantial contributions from the interdisciplinary research network PluRel- Religion in Pluralistic Societies, at the University of Oslo. We would like to express our warm and sincere thanks to all these important financial contributors. This kind of international and interdisciplinary research cannot be undertaken without the financial support of those who dare to take a different and new track. It is more than six years since the various activities that have indirectly led to this book were initiated. Kaia Schultz Rønsdal and Kristin Gustavsen have provided invaluable professional assistance in different parts of the process. They deserve great thanks! We are also proud to publish this book through the publishers Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, and would like to thank the editor Joerg Persch and his colleagues for excellent and professional follow-up.

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Last but not least, we would like to thank all the researchers who we have cooperated with on the sub-projects that have resulted in this book. While all of them have perhaps not been given equal focus in this book, they have all made very valuable contributions to the discussions and to the expertise required to complete the book. We hope all contributing researchers and most readers can identify with and relate to the perspectives we raise. Rosemarie van den Breemer, Jos¦ Casanova and Trygve Wyller, Oslo/Washington, June 2013

© 2014, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525604496 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647604497

Content

Rosemarie van den Breemer, Jos¦ Casanova, Trygve Wyller Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Jos¦ Casanova The Two Dimensions, Temporal and Spatial, of the Secular : Comparative Reflections on the Nordic Protestant and Southern Catholic Patterns from a Global Perspective. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Kim Knott Interrogating the Secular : A Spatial Approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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John Witte, Jr. “God is Hidden in the Earthly Kingdom:” The Lutheran Two-Kingdoms Theory as Foundation of Scandivanian Secularity . . .

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Dag Thorkildsen West Nordic and East Nordic Religiousness and Secularity : Historical Unity and Diversity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Lisbet Christoffersen Sacred Spaces in Secular (Post)-Lutheran Contexts

. . . . . . . . . . . 102

Helge ærsheim Legal Secularism? – Differing Notions of Religion in International and Norwegian Law . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123 Inger Furseth The Ambiguity of Secular and Religious Space: The Norwegian Penitentiary System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152 Rosemarie van den Breemer Graveyards and Secularism in Norway : In Search of a Fitting Category

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Knut W. Ruyter Space for Religion in Public Hospitals: Constructive Coexistence Can Be Negotiated . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197 Trygve Wyller The Undocumented Embodied: Shaping the Space Where the Sacred and the Secular Intertwine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221 P”l Ketil Botvar and Anders Sjöborg A Comparative Study of the Relation Between Religion and Human Rights Among Young People . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 236 Oddbjørn Leirvik Interreligious Dialogue and Secularity : The Secular as Non-Hegemonic Condition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 261 Johannes A. van der Ven From Divine Law to Positive Law. A Perspective from the Science of Religion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 278 Rosemarie van den Breemer and Trygve Wyller Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 312 List of Contributors

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 319

The Editors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 321 Index

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 325

© 2014, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525604496 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647604497

Rosemarie van den Breemer, Jos¦ Casanova, Trygve Wyller

Introduction

The crisis of modern Western secularity has prompted analysis of the category of the secular. The presumption that modernity would lead to religious decline and increasing privatization of religion and that this European pattern could serve as a universal template for modernization has given way to an investigation into the variety of secularities, secularizations and secularisms. Consequently, the focus has shifted to multiple secularities in a variety of national and cultural contexts, both in Europe and elsewhere. Scandinavian countries such as Denmark, Norway and Sweden are notably underresearched in this respect. In global comparisons, they are often grouped under Europe, but in European debates, they are often omitted or placed in the category of countries with established churches (such as England or Greece).1 Their distinctively Lutheran brand of Protestantism poses a challenge to our theories of secularization and our conceptions of secularity. A highly secular public (in terms of belief and practice), but a strong religious presence in their legal systems and public institutions is a characteristic of these Nordic countries. From the perspective of Protestant theology, this ambiguity has been characterized as ‘a hidden sacrality’ in the secular. More interdisciplinary research is needed, however. From the perspective of the social sciences, this ambiguity has not been addressed other than that it reveals a lack of secularity or secularization. This book raises the question of Scandinavian secularity and explores a variety of explanations or interpretations of this ambiguous reality, a situation that the authors have dubbed ‘intertwinement’.2 Combining contributions from the social sciences (law, sociology and political science) with theology and religious studies, the individual contributors to the book explore ways of coming to terms with this ambiguity from within their own disciplines. For example, from a historical, contemporary and political perspective, the book traces the formation of the early Scandinavian states and their laws and public spaces. It shows how the king 1 Exceptions are the multidisciplinary research programme at Uppsala University : Impact of Religion: Challenges for Society, Law and Democracy, which explicitly focuses on the Nordic countries. Likewise, the NOREL project (2009 – 2013) compares religious changes during the past twenty years in Denmark, Finland, Norway, Iceland and Sweden. 2 We borrow the term ‘intertwinement’ from the legal scholar Lisbet Christoffersen (2006).

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aimed to integrate the church into the existing state and (local) public institutions, thereby merging public and churchly functions. From the perspective of Lutheran theology, the contributions to the book see this intertwinement through a Lutheran lens, interpreting it as ‘a hidden sacrality’3 in the secular, which, historically, was seen as justified, because it is through secular institutions that God’s influence can be exercised. What this suggests (although some authors disagree) is that, rather than understanding the Scandinavian reality as revealing a lack of secularization,4 what we might be dealing with here is a different type of secularization or secularity : one in which a certain degree of intertwinement is key. This has implications for the international discussion of secularity. It is now widely acknowledged that the dominant narrative of secularity or secularism is heavily influenced by Protestantism (e. g. Asad, 2003), and it is against this monist notion, a wide range of publications argue, that secularism or the secular must be pluralized.5 It is much less acknowledged, however, that an important distinction should be drawn within the ‘Protestant category’ (exceptions include Kahl, 2009). As it has helped to shape the Scandinavian countries, Lutheran Protestantism is set apart from Calvinist and/or American Protestant contexts by its fundamental intertwinement between religion and secular public spheres, also at the state and political levels. Consequently, what the Scandinavian cases highlight with respect to the global discussion on secularity is that the dominant narratives of secularity and secularism6 not only fail to convince outside the West, they miss target ‘at home’, in the core of the Protestant countries. One cause of this misfit, we suggest, is not simply a diverging empirical reality, but a lack of sufficient awareness of this Lutheran variant and the implicit Catholic or American Protestant underpinnings of some of the central scholarly works on secularity and secularisation. This suggests a shifting of the focus of the international debate on the secular and the question of separation and differentiation between religion and the secular to continuing but changing forms of intertwinement.

3 See also Christoffersen, L. et al. (eds.) (2010a) Religion in the 21st Century. Challenges and Transformations Ashgate; Christoffersen, L. et al. (eds.) (2010b) Law and Religion in the 21st Century – Nordic Perspectives. Djoef Publishing. 4 Secularization understood as functional differentiation or separation of religion from the public sphere. 5 C.f. Jakobsen and Pelligrini (ed.): 2008; Warner, van Antwerpen, Calhoun (ed.): 2010; Cady and Hurd (ed.): 2010; Calhoun, Juergensmeyer, Van Antwerpen (ed.): 2011. 6 ‘The secular’ is typically understood as ‘the void’ or absence of religion, or the phase after religion’s overcoming. ‘Secularism’ typically refers to a doctrine of a strict separation between state and church and the required privatisation of religion.

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General objectives To provide an insight into this Scandinavian reality (and its internal variations) is thus the first aim of this book (limiting the analysis to Norway, Sweden and Denmark). Secondly, the book engages with some of the central scholarly works on secularization and genealogies of the secular (such as Casanova 1994 and Taylor 2007), which reveal traits of an implicitly Catholic underpinning. Might a study of the secular and the sacred as theorized and practiced from a Protestant, Lutheran theological perspective offer alternative accounts? Thirdly, from the perspective of sociology or political science, can we speak of a Scandinavian pattern of secularity and understand this inherent intertwinement between religion and secularity as a different kind of secularization rather than a lack of it? (And if seen as a different kind of secularization how does this affect our conceptual understanding of ‘nonsecularization’?)

A contextual and interdisciplinary perspective Three important scholars of religion and secularity, Jos¦ Casanova (Georgetown University, USA), Kim Knott (Lancaster University, UK) and John Witte (Emory Law, US), have developed theories and analyses of the intertwinement of the secular and the sacred. Religion (or secularity for that matter) never exists in an abstract form; it is always located within a specific history (Casanova), a designated space (Knott), or within a particular historical and dogmatic context (Witte). By combining a contextual approach as well as a variety of scholarly approaches, ranging from political science, sociology and law to religious study and theology, the book highlights the presuppositions of the secular and religion that are deeply implicated in the histories of these disciplines (Masazuwa 2005).7 Whereas religious studies and theology have traditionally had ‘religion’ as their explicit focus and can provide readings of the secular through the eyes of ‘religion’ (such as, in the case of this book, Protestant Lutheran theology), sociology, political science and law have traditionally been perceived as quintessentially secular disciplines which operate with a strict binary opposition between the secular and religion. But – as this book shows in the realms of law and human rights, for example – presumptions also prevail about law and human rights as the essence of the secular, and are complicated by the state church histories in which these laws 7 For a similar viewpoint see Cady, Linell E. And Shakman Hurd, Elizabeth. (2010) ‘An Introduction’ in Comparative Secularisms in a Global Age. Palgrave Macmillan.

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operate. Law and religion prove to be mutually involved.8 While all disciplines bear to some extent the imprint of a secular academic tradition, dialogue between different disciplines will help further unsettle standard accounts of the secular.

Approaching the secular and the sacred: Historical and spatial dimensions Central to modern theories of secularization was an understanding of the secular as a temporal condition: secularity comes ‘after’ religion has disappeared. Moreover, what Taylor has characterized as ‘subtraction theories’ of the secular, couple this temporal dimension, to a spatial one (Taylor : 2007). The secular is not only seen as the stage after the overcoming of religion, but also as the void left by the disappearance of religion. Approaching the secular along the axes of space and time is not new. The Christian category saeculum has always had a dual temporal and spatial dimension. Yet it is increasingly recognized that the particular modern connotations of secularity along these dimensions (as the ‘absence of religion’ or the ‘epoch after its overcoming’) are flawed insofar as they are upheld as the universal standard. Targeting its temporal dimension, scholars point to a ‘post-secular’ situation where religion is ‘back’ and, as Jürgen Habermas (2006) argues, requires a selfreflexive attitude from both secular as well as religious citizens in regard to their participation in the public sphere. Targeting its spatial dimension, scholars have shown that religion ‘fails’ to be absent, or to be relegated to a private sphere but is instead part of the public sphere and the state; even, for example, in a paradigmatic case of enforced secularization like Kemalist Turkey (Parla &Davidson: 2008). Alternatively, a spatial emphasis has led scholars to investigate how the body is implicated in secular formations (cf. Asad: 2003; Jakobsen & Pellegrini: 2008, 22). Looking at the secular through the category of space, in Kim Knott’s terminology ‘an operational space’, allows for a grounded and original perspective to a variety of situations or locations. Spaces can be seen as both public domains and actual physical spaces. But they can also be conceived metaphorically : the body is a space (topos), as are social relations and connections. This methodology allows one to reach under the surface of what looks like a ‘secular’ space (or ‘religious’ space) and investigate what value postions (religion or post secular) constitute it. What is the location of religion within and beyond it? This approach is particularly appropriate for a Scandinavian context (although certainly not limited to it) where the traces of 8 For an excellent volume on this topic see Taussig-Rubbo, M. (et al.) 2011.

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a Lutheran past or foundation lie often just below the surface. Furthermore, following in the wake of a spatial turn in social and cultural theory (evident in the work of, for example, Foucault, Lefebvre and Certeau) the interest for spatial approaches within religious studies and theology is promising but still of recent date. Looking at secularity “through a theological lens” (Cady : 2010, 249), we see that the Lutheran narrative of the secular is both historical and dogmatic. Historically, the Lutheran Reformation has aimed to abolish the sacred canon laws and remove legislation from the ecclesiastical body to that of the king, who was considered the only legitimate secular ruler. Dogmatically, the idea of salvation ‘by faith alone’ implied that any kind of legislation connected to the spiritual was thought to be wrong. The only way to relate to the generous God was through belief, not through legislation. Hence, the canon laws were removed and legal regulations were laid down by public authorities, kings and sovereigns, etc. In other words, legal ‘secularity’ was part of the Reformation‘s intention and part of a theological plan. The Reformation theologians had their focus on God‘s salvation of souls and viewed the ‘secularity’ of the Reformation legislation as God’s will. There is no doubt that this historical process has taken many different routes and forms in the respective Scandinavian countries. Nonetheless, the basic idea still holds, and makes for a relevant distinction between countries more dominated by Catholic traditions and those more dominated by reformed traditions. This combination of history and dogmatics characterizes the Scandinavian countries and makes them more than just locally interesting. Out of it comes a narrative of what one could call a ‘hidden sacrality’ whereby the sacred is not necessarily explicit but is implicitly present in secular institutions and legislations. The secularity is due to the will of God rather than an absence of religion.

The interdisciplinary challenge: Theology, political science, law and sociology Exploring the secular and the sacred from the perspective of different academic traditions presents some difficulties. For example, in one reading of the situation we could say that Norway and many other Protestant countries have only secular law, as opposed to Catholic countries, where sacred canon law coexists with secular civil law. In the Protestant context, the abolition of canon law in the wake of the Reformation resulted in a legal system in which both civil law and laws regulating Church affairs (church laws) were approved and – ultimately – regulated by national governments rather than by religion

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itself. From the perspective of Lutheran theology, this ‘secularity’ makes sense as another way of performing Christentum. From the perspective of political science or sociology, however, the theologian’s secularity here can hardly be called secular ; large parts of Norwegian public life are regulated by these church laws, often revealing a strong Lutheran, privileged position. So it is here that the interdisciplinary challenge starts. Do these Norwegian public spaces attest to an incomplete secularity? Religion is partly removed – but not entirely? Or should we rather see it as a different kind of (Lutheran) secularity? But then how does this affect our conceptual understanding of the secular? If secularity is ultimately always reduced to or translated as one of many other theological positions, does that imply that the secular has no independence outside the category of religion? Is it essentially ‘all a matter of religion’? Or is the notion of religion/sacred versus secular simply not (always) a useful analytical tool for analysing law and public institutions?

Definition of terms To redress the problem of different connotations of certain terms within different disciplines, the individual contributors specify their usage of terms as far as possible. To distinguish between the terms ‘secularization’, ‘secularism’, and ‘secular’, most of the contributors to this volume distinguish between ‘secularization’ as a historical and sociological process of functional differentiation, ‘secularism’ as a normative, political doctrine about state–church relations or ‘worldview’, and the ‘secular’ as a modern epistemic category (Casanova 2011). Nonetheless, these are far from mutually exclusive categories. When speaking of ‘Scandinavian secularities’ we refer to different collective and public self-understandings of a country in regard to religion or religious diversity (for example the way a goverment proclaims an offical position in regard to religion in the public sphere) or to the position of a set of actors (such as activists, human rights workers, or religious representatives) in these countries in regard to the role of religion in the public sphere or the understanding of secular law. Rather than provide a fixed definition of the secular – which would defeat the purpose of this anthology – we refer on several occasions to ‘the standard picture of the secular’ (as ‘the absence’, ‘the opposite’, ‘the overcoming of religion’), in juxtaposition to which the findings of the individual studies can be analyzed.9 ‘Religion’ in this anthology encompasses a wide variety of phenomena: organized belief communities, religion as a legal concept, identity or set of practices of a belief-community, 9 Secularisation is typically defined as: a) the inevitable process of decline of religiosity (in belief and practice); b) religion’s inevitable privatisation; and c) the increasing functional differentiation between spheres.

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values, theological doctrines, etc. Likewise, ‘sacredness’ is used differently as a term to describe a transcendent element in civil religion, the ‘specialness of the nation’, the ‘divine character of humanity’, non-negotiable beliefs or the ‘special’ function of a church building, etc. We use ‘Scandinavia’ to demarcate a group of countries including Norway, Sweden and Denmark. The term ‘Nordic’ is used by some authors interchangeably with ‘Scandinavian’, but its established meaning typically includes Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Iceland and the Faroe Islands (Øystein: 1997). Casanova’s ‘Nordic pattern’ includes a wider range of Protestant countries: Germany, the Netherlands and, potentially, also a Baltic state such as Estonia.

An outline of this book and underlying logic The book opens with articles written by three leading scholars who suggest theoretical frameworks to approach the intertwinement of secularity and religion from within different disciplines (sociology, religious studies and theology). The authors in this Section, ‘Approaching the secular : Historical and spatial dimensions,’ discuss secularity along the axes of time and space and provide an important reference point for the other contributors in the anthology. The remaining part of the book is structured along three ‘ostensibly secular’ and Scandinavian sites; areas of law (Section 3); public spaces (Section 4) and; human rights (Section 5). The contributors ask how religion or the sacred is visible or implicit within these sites. They seek to illustrate and clarify the different forms of intertwinement between the secular and the religious as they manifest themselves in the sites analyzed. Jos¦ Casanova, Professor of Sociology, Georgetown University, USA, suggests taking a Nordic, Protestant pattern of secularization as opposed to a Southern, Catholic one to explain the ambiguity we observe between the secular and religion in these secular Scandinavian domains. Tracing the development of two main dynamics of secularization out of medieval Christendom which gave rise to the secular religion binary, Casanova argues that the Nordic Protestant response has been to transcend this binary by blurring the boundaries between the two. The Southern, lacist version, on the other hand, has tried to maintain that boundary by privatising religion and aiming for a neutral public sphere. A third American Protestant pattern consists out of secularization without confessionalization. The contribution by Kim Knott, Professor of Religious and Secular Studies, Lancaster University, UK is methodological, not targeting the Scandinavian cases but providing a tool to approach the issue of intertwinement. Her article offers a spatial approach for interrogating ‘ostensibly secular’ spaces. She shows that secular spaces are often taken for granted and rendered

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insubstantial, while in fact they are heterogeneous, containing diverse religious, secularist and post-secularist standpoints. The article by John Witte, Jr., Jonas Robitscher Professor of Law, Emory University in Atlanta, USA, could be read as a further contextualization of Casanova’s ‘model of secularization’, or sacralization within Luther’s framework. His analysis of the impact of the Lutheran Reformation on law, through a reading of Martin Luther’s doctrine of the two kingdoms, is a historical and theological account of Casanova’s conceptual outline. It shows how processes of secularization and sacralization occur simultaneously from within Lutheran Protestantism and allow for the secular and the sacred to coexist. Like Casanova, Witte’s argument is of a general nature, and the task of teasing out the more particular ‘Scandinavian story’ is left to the authors of the remaining articles. Section three of the book ‘Law and the secular : The West Nordic story of secular and sacred’, addresses the interface between religion and law from both a historical as well as a dogmatic and contemporary perspective. Here we see illustrated the ways in which a Lutheran framework is formative for the shaping of the early modern Scandinavian states and their legal systems. And we see how this framework provides a background for the legal interpretation of religion, or notion of sacredness in public debate, today. Dag Thorkildsen, Professor of Theology, University of Oslo, Norway, situates Witte’s general Lutheran reading of secularity within the context of four Scandinavian Lutheran states, tracing the historical and dogmatic development of Lutheranism through its internal Nordic varieties. This article importantly shows the variety of secularities existing within the Scandinavian pattern, by differentiating a West Nordic pattern from an East Nordic one. Thorkildsen shows how, historically, religious confession and church order have been an important and integral part of the governing of the Nordic state and its laws. This served not only a religious, but also a political, aim. Lisbet Christoffersen, Professor of Law, Religion and Society, Department of Society and Globalisation, Roskilde University, Denmark, argues for a ‘hidden notion of sacredness’ in a contemporary debate over church asylum in Denmark. Through a case study of Iraqi asylum-seekers that hid in a church building in an attempt to avoid deportation from Denmark, she analyzes the public’s conception of this church building. Her essay importantly conveys the existence of a sacred dimension in the popular understanding of the church building, as well as a tiny opening towards sacredness in the law on church buildings, which requires respect for the church as a ‘special’ building. But while this sacredness is respected (indicating what she calls an “intertwined order of post-secularity”), an appeal to church asylum is overruled by a concern with the secular law of the land. Helge ærsheim, PhD fellow in religious studies at the faculty of Theology, University of Oslo, Norway, examines the impact of international law on Norwegian law. He explores the distinction between what is religion and what

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is not through three examples (including the registration of religious communities). He shows how drawing the line between religion and its opposite is affected by a Lutheran framework of interpretation and political expediency rather than by principled reasoning or international, legal concepts. Section four, ‘Religion and secularity in Scandinavian public spaces or institutions’, encompasses a range of interesting empirical case studies of the presence of religion in various public spaces. Here we see demonstrated the myriad ways of mutual involvement of religion and public space and the often contradictory processes of secularization and the maintenance of the privileged position of the majority faith in society. Inger Furseth, Associate Professor at the Department of Socialogy and Human Geography, University of Oslo, Norway, analyzes secular and religious space in the Norwegian penitentiary system. Relying on Knott’s spatial approach, Furseth’s analysis reveals both a process of increasing secularization as well as a privileged role for the Church of Norway in the workings of this institution. She also observes variation between individual prisons in the extent to which they provide for prayer rooms, reflecting an altered conception of secularity between the architects of the older and the more modern prison buildings. Knut W. Ruyter, Adjunct Professor Faculty of Theology, University of Oslo, Norway, investigates the role of religion in the public Norwegian hospital. Combining a spatial and historical approach that traces the Lutheran underpinning of this Norwegian institution since its inception, he explores several existing contemporary solutions for dealing with religious plurality in Norwegian hospitals. He argues for a secularity (a way of dealing with religious plurality) that can coexist with religion in one space. Rosemarie van den Breemer, comparative political scientist and PhD fellow at the Faculty of Theology, University of Oslo, Norway explores the Norwegian state’s attitude towards religion and religious diversity in the graveyard. Her analysis reveals a variety of Norwegian secularities that consist of a different interpretation amongst state and non-state actors of how to give form to religious pluriformity in the graveyard. The municipal and intertwined dimension of Norwegian state–church relations is shown to carry important political weight. Trygve Wyller, Professor of Diaconal Studies and Systematic Theology at the Faculty of Theology, University of Oslo, Norway, presents a case study from a humanitarian-based project for undocumented migrants in a Swedish church. The project itself was initiated by a philantropic group of volunteers not connected to the Lutheran Church, but it cooperates closely with the church and is located in the church building. Wyller discusses the kind of intertwinement visible in this project. The cooperation between the church and the project leads, according to Wyller, to an alternative proposal for a secular ‘law’ or a secular approach to the issue of undocumented migrants. It

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leads to a Lutheran-implicit redefinition of what the secular should be: normatively providing more space to the undocumented. Section five, ‘Human rights as appropriated within a Scandinavian context’, provides a compelling collection of articles that probe the connection between human rights and religion in the Lutheran countries: Are human rights the new civil religion in Scandinavia? How do human rights language affect interreligious dialogue in Norway? Johannes Van der Ven, Research Associate in Religion and Human Rights, Faculty of philosophy, Theology and Religious Studies, Radboud University Nijmegen, the Netherlands, approaches the relation between ‘secular’ and ‘sacred’ from the theory of functional differentiation in modern societies. In that perspective he analyses the development from divine law in the Middle Ages via natural law to positive law in our time. He argues that in today’s democratic societies the relation between religion and law is based on contingency rather than on whatever structural connection between throne and altar. Oddbjørn Leirvik, Professor of Interreligious Studies, Faculty of Theology, University of Oslo, Norway, argues that the starting point for interreligious dialogue is a shared consciousness of a non-hegemonic condition, in which no one religion can control the public sphere. With reference to empirical material drawn from organized interreligious dialogues in Norway, he discusses whether such dialogues systemically pull in the direction of a common secular language. Furthermore, he discusses the influence of human rights discourses on interreligious dialogue in the Scandinavian countries. P”l Ketil Botvar, researcher at the Centre for Church Research (KIFO), Norway, and Anders Sjöborg, researcher at the Uppsala Religion and Society Research Center, Sweden, examine the impact of religion on the attitudes towards human rights among young people. Comparing data from a survey conducted among youth in Norway and Sweden with data from four other countries in north-western Europe, they explore the relationship between religious affiliation (Muslim, Christian and nonreligious) and support for the first generation of human rights. They suggest that the limited impact of religion on the support for these principles in the Scandinavian context are related to the cohesive function that these rights have in Scandinavian public life. Might they be seen as constituting a new form of ‘civil religion’?

Focus for future research Because this anthology is the result of two conferences in 2010 and a working group on human rights and religion, all of which have an overlapping but

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slightly different theme, we have to acknowledge some limitations.10 Does it make sense to speak of a ‘Scandinavian’ or even a ‘Nordic’ model of secularity? In terms of representation, the articles in this anthology focus heavily on Norway (and omit Finland and Iceland). Generalising from these Scandinavian findings to an even more general Nordic pattern (following Casanova’s typology) is then certainly possible but would require much more comparative research. It would require comparison with other Protestant/Lutheran contexts such as Germany, as well as more Calvinist Protestant contexts such as the USA or the Netherlands. Alternatively, it could compare a Baltic state such as Estonia, where Lutheranism was enforced through Baltic–German and Swedish rule. Furthermore, the way in which a country (or actors therein) understand themselves as modern and secular is determined by the confessional legacy of the country, but of course also by other ‘secular’ factors such as the existence of social democracy, welfare state ideology, human rights politics, or (to remain with Estonia) the effect of Soviet occupation. The contributions in this anthology touch on several of these themes, but we would need more extensive comparative studies to ‘fill in’ more contours of the secular than those provided here . Finally, we should be careful to reduce the ‘Scandinavian model’ to a Protestant tradition alone. This would omit the influence of other religious groups which, importantly, have helped shape the nature of the secular, and which are in many ways the reason why we are discussing the secular in the first place. Nonetheless, this book may help set the agenda for further research. It is intended to complement existing research on religion in the Scandinavian countries with; 1) a more specific focus on secularity ; 2) with international implications for our theories on secularization and the secular ; and 3) explicit engagement between the social sciences and Protestant theology in comprehending (a part of) the Scandinavian reality.

Bibliography Asad. T. (2003), Formations of the Secular : Christianity, Islam, Modernity. Stanford University Press: Stanford California. Cady, l. E. (2010), Reading Secularism through a Theological Lens, in Cady, L. and Shakman-Hurd, E. (eds.) Comparative Secularisms in a Global Age (Palgrave MacMillan) (247 – 264). Cady, l. & Hurd, Shakman, E. (2010), Comparative Secularisms in a Global Age. Palgrave Macmillan. 10 It concerns two international interdisciplinary conferences held in 2010: “Religion, Value Systems and Citizenship in Late Modern Europe” of June 3 – 4 2010 and the conference “Complexity and Legitimacy : Religion, Secularity, and Values in the Polis”, November 18 – 20, 2010.

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Calhoun, c. & Juergensmeyer, M. & Vanantwerpen, J. (eds.) (2011), Rethinking Secularism. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Casanova, J. (2011), The Secular, Secularizations, Secularisms. In Rethinking Secularism, Calhoun, C., M. Juergensmeyer, and J. VanAntwerpen (eds.), 54 – 74. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Casanova, J. (1994), Public Religions in the Modern World. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Christoffersen, L. (2006), Intertwinement: A New Concept for Understanding Religion-Law. Nordic Journal of religion and Society. Volume 19:2 Habermas, J. (2006), “Religion in the Public Sphere” in European Journal of Philosophy (1:14) s. 1 – 25. Jakobsen, J. R. & Pellegrini, A. (eds.) (2008), Secularisms. Durham and London: Duke University Press. Knott, K. (2005), Location of Religion: A Spatial Analysis. Equinox Publishing Ltd. Løgstrup, K.E. (1997), The Ethical Demand, Notre Dame Press. Masuzawa, T. (2005), The Invention of World Religions: Or, How European Universalism Was Preserved in the Language of Pluralism. University of Chicago Press. Øystein, S. And Str”th, B. (eds.)(1997), The Cultural Construction of Norden. Oslo: Scandinavian University Press. Parla, T. And Davidson, A. (2008) Jakobsen, J. R. & Pellegrini, A. (eds.) Secularisms. Durham and London: Duke University Press. Taussig-Rubbo, M. & Yelle, R.A. & Sullivan-Fallers, W. (eds.) (2011), After Secular Law. Stanford University Press. Taylor, C. (2007), A Secular Age. Harvard University Press. Warner, M & Vanantwerpen, J. & Calhoun, C. (eds.) (2010), Varieties of Secularism in a Secular Age, Harvard University Press.

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The Two Dimensions, Temporal and Spatial, of the Secular : Comparative Reflections on the Nordic Protestant and Southern Catholic Patterns from a Global Perspective. Abstract This paper examines the changing interconnection between the temporal and the spatial dimensions of the secular. It argues that the contemporary crisis of Western secular modernity, and of the secularist philosophy of history that went with it, has opened up the space to study the heterogeneity of the secular and simultaneously forces every form of political secularism, as the doctrine that has the task of defining the proper place of religion in public spaces, to self-redefinition. The analysis is embedded in a comparative analysis of three different patterns of secularization: the Nordic Protestant, the Southern Latin Catholic and the American. The Nordic pattern is characterized by a peculiar integration of the religious and the secular, which is manifested in the fusion between church (ecclesiastical institution), state and nation. The Latin Catholic pattern of laicization is characterized by a rigid separation of the religious and the secular and by civil-ecclesiastical and laic-clerical antagonism. The United States offers a third dynamic of secularization without confessionalisation. With laicist France it shares a secular separationist model of disestablishment of ecclesiastical religion at the state level, while radicalising the Protestant model of diffusion of the religious and secular boundaries in society. The key to the American model is the dissolution of the ecclesiastical national church institution and the proliferation of the sectarian model of free voluntary religious associations without any state interference.

Introduction We would not be discussing the ‘heterogeneity of the secular’ and its spatial dimension in particular if something fundamental had not happened to its temporal dimension as it became crystallized in the concept of Western secular modernity. Theories of modern secularisation were predicated on the notion that the secular is a temporal condition that comes ‘after’ religion. Following Charles Taylor’s formulation, ‘a secular age’ is a stage of historical development that comes after a religious age once the belief in God that was previously held uniformly is no longer taken for granted. (Tylor : 2010) Within

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this temporal conception, the secular is identified with ‘unbelief,’ with the void left by the disappearance of religion. Taylor has characterized such a conception as the “subtraction theory” of the secular. I would claim that, paradoxically, it is the contemporary crisis of Western secular modernity – and the secularist philosophy of history that went with it – that opens the way to the study of the heterogeneity of the secular and that simultaneously forces every form of political secularism aimed at defining the proper place of religion in public spaces to redefine itself. In some of my recent writings I have stressed the distinction between, on the one hand, ‘philosophico-historical secularism’ as a genealogical and teleological theory of religion embedded in a particular philosophy of history that explains the genesis, development, and telos of religion, and on the other, ‘political secularism’ as a statecraft doctrine and ideology that separates the religious and the political and puts religion in its place. (Casanova: 2011a) The central thesis I want to present is that it is the contemporary crisis of ‘philosophicohistorical secularism’ that forces the reflexive redefinition of ‘political secularism’. In this respect, I want to emphasize the interconnection between the temporal and spatial dimensions of the secular. The Christian category saeculum has always had a dual temporal and spatial dimension, as is obvious by looking at the equivalent noun in any modern Romanic language dictionary. The word siglo in Spanish or siÀcle in French has three distinct connotations: two temporal (‘age’ and ‘century’) and one spatial (‘world’). The concept of ‘century’ as a specific one-hundred-year calendar unit dividing secular time as opposed to the more indefinite periodization of ‘age’ is of more recent origin. It first emerged around the year 1300, with the establishment of the tradition of jubilee years by Pope Boniface VIII, and only became firmly established in its modern secular usage in the sixteenth century. The year 1700 marks the first public turn-of-the-century celebration in Europe, a practice which became increasingly widespread and globalized in the following three centuries, culminating in the global, simultaneous end-ofyear, end-of-century, and end-of-millennium celebration in the year 2000, probably the first joint calendar celebration of global humanity (Casanova: 2001, 415 – 441). However, it is important to stress that the two older connotations of saeculum, ‘age’ and ‘world’, still survive in modern Romanic languages. Originally the pre-Christian Latin term saeculum only had a temporal connotation, that of an indefinite period of time, as in per saecula saeculorum, a term equivalent to the Greek concept of aeon. It was Augustine who turned the term into a central Christian theological category, adding to it a spatial connotation. Saeculum as first used by Augustine now referred to a temporal space, the world between the present and the parousia, the Second Coming of Christ, in which both Christians and pagans had to live together and learn to work together towards their common civic goals in the saeculum, in the City of Man (Markus: 2006). In this respect Augustine’s concept of secularity is very

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close to the post-secularist principle advanced by Oddbjørn Leirvik in ‘Interreligious dialogue and secularity’ in this volume. It is also similar to the modern meaning of a secular political sphere, that of the constitutional democratic state and that of a democratic public sphere, which are neutral with respect to all worldviews, religious as well as non-religious. Such a conception does not equate the secular with the ‘profane’, as the other of the ‘sacred’, nor is the secular the other of the ‘religious’. It is precisely a neutral space that can be shared by all who live in a society that is either multicultural or religiously homogeneous, which by definition will have different and most likely competing conceptions of what is ‘sacred’ and what is ‘profane’. This was precisely the situation in late Antiquity. Judeo-Christian monotheism had led to a de-sacralisation or disenchantment of the pagan sacred. Consequently, the Christians’ refusal to sacrifice to ‘pagan’ gods or to worship the divine emperor earned them the epithet of ‘atheists’. The Christian sacred was the pagan profane and vice versa. Augustine’s concept of ‘secular’ was not yet tied to its binary opposite, ‘religious.’ This would come about as result of the transformation of late postImperial Christianity and of Medieval Christendom. But the principle already presupposed an axial concept of ‘religion’. After all, Augustine was also the author of De vera religione, a treaty which challenged Varro’s customary tripartite Latin conceptualization of religion, or divine affairs (res divinae, into theologia mythica, theologia naturalis and theologia civilis. Varro’s distinction was borrowed from the Stoics and was built upon the Greek axial differentiation of the pre-axial sacred into mythike, physike, politike, which broke the ontological-cosmological monism of the pre-axial sacred, whereby in the words of Robert Bellah: “supernature, nature and society were all fused in a single cosmos.” (Bellah: 2005, 70) Augustine’s concept of ‘true religion’ presupposed equally what Ian Assman has defined as the axial “Mosaic distinction” between axial true religion and pre-axial idolatry, in the same way as his immanent earthly or mundane City of Man presupposed the axialtranscendent City of God.1 It is important to realize that the post-axial saeculum is not equivalent to the pre-axial ‘profane’, in the same way as the post-axial ‘religious’ is not equivalent to the pre-axial ‘sacred’. The important point to stress is that as binary terms, ‘religious’ and ‘secular’ are specific Western Christian theological categories which have no equivalent in non-Christian cultures nor even in Eastern Byzantine Christianity. It is well known that the word ‘religion’ is practically impossible to translate into a single term in classic Greek. Both the modern Greek and modern Slavic languages simply had to 1 For an elaboration of the concept of axial religion see (Casanova 2012), ‘Religion, the Axial Age and Secular Modernity in Bellah’s Theory of Religious Evolution’ in Robert N. Bellah and Hans Joas, (ed.), The Axial Age and Its Consequences (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2012), pp. 191 – 221.

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borrow the Latin term religia. The binary spatial distinction between ‘religious’ and ‘secular’ first emerged with the elevation of Christian monastic life as the paradigmatic form of ‘religious’ life and with the subsequent canonical differentiation within the church between the otherworldly religious or regular clergy, who inhabited the monasteries as an eschatological space that anticipated the transcendent City of God, and the secular clergy who, along with ordinary Christians, that is, the laity, inhabited this world, that is, the saeculum. Eventually, however, with the consolidation of Western Medieval Christendom and the hegemonic triumph of the Christian church, the secular became one of the terms of a dyad, religious/secular, which served to structure the entire spatial and temporal reality of Medieval Christendom into a binary system of classification separating two worlds, the religious-spiritual-sacred world of salvation and the secular-temporal-profane world. The sacredprofane and the religious-secular binary systems of classification became superimposed, and the secular now became equated with the earthly city while the religious became equated with the heavenly city. It is from this new theological perspective of Medieval Christendom that the modern meaning of ‘secularization’ emerges. To secularize means, first of all, to ‘make worldly’, to convert religious persons or things into secular ones, as when a religious person abandons monastic rule to live in the world, or when monastic property is secularised. This is the medieval Christian theological meaning of the term ‘secularization’ that may serve, however, as the basic metaphor of the historical process of Western secularisation. This historical process needs to be understood as a particular reaction to the structuring dualism between the religious and the secular world. Even in Western Europe, however, this process of secularization follows two different dynamics, which would eventually crystallize into the Nordic Protestant and the Southern Catholic patterns. The North American pattern, as I will argue later, presents a third, non-European, alternative dynamic. The first dynamic is one of internal Christian secularisation, which aims to spiritualize the temporal and to bring the religious life of perfection out of the monasteries into the secular world. It tends to transcend the dualism by blurring the boundaries between the religious and the secular, by making the religious secular and the secular religious through mutual, reciprocal infusion. This path was initiated by the various medieval movements of Christian reform of the saeculum and gained further institutionalization in and through the Protestant Reformation in all its versions, but attained its most radical and paradigmatic expression in the Anglo-Saxon sectarian-Calvinist cultural area, particularly in the United States. In the Nordic pattern, as Knut Ruyter has rightly pointed out in this book, this does not lead to differentiation between or separation of the religious and the secular but to a peculiar integration, a sharing of space, or a blending between the two. He rightly criticizes in this respect what he reads as a rigid

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theory of differentiation in my 1994 book, Public Religions in the Modern World. But in my posterior writings I have questioned the theory of differentiation and revised significantly the theory of public religion, acknowledging that my previous position was very much informed by a Catholic hermeneutic perspective. (Casanova: 2008) The second, very different and at times almost opposite, dynamic of secularization takes the form of laicization. It aims to emancipate all secular spheres from clerical-ecclesiastical control, and in this respect it is marked by a laic-clerical antagonism, which was exacerbated by the Counter-Reformation and the absolutist alliance rather than the Protestant integration of throne and altar during the ancient regime. Unlike the Protestant path, however, here in the Southern Catholic pattern of secularization the boundaries between the religious and the secular are rigidly maintained, but those boundaries are pushed into the margins, aiming to contain, privatize and marginalize everything religious while excluding it from any visible presence in the secular public sphere, now defined as the realm of lacit¦, freed from religion. This is the paradigmatic French-Latin-Catholic path of secularization, but diverse manifestations can also be found throughout continental Europe. With many variations, these are the two main dynamics of European secularisation that culminate in our secular age. In different ways, both paths lead to an overcoming of the medieval Christian dualism through positive affirmation and revaluation of the saeculum, that is, of the secular age and the secular world, imbuing the immanently secular world with a quasi-transcendent meaning as the place for human flourishing. In this broad sense of the term ‘secular’, we are all secular, and all modern societies are secular and are likely to remain so for the foreseeable future; one could almost say per saecula saeculorum (Casanova: 2013). But there is another meaning of ‘secular’ which is linked to what I call ‘philosophico-historical secularism’ whereby the secular is understood not as one of two mutually constituted binary poles (religious and secular) nor as an optional worldview (belief versus unbelief), but rather as a post-religious temporal stage. What Taylor calls the naturalization of ‘unbelief ’ or ‘nonreligion’ as the normal human condition in modern societies corresponds to the assumptions of the dominant theories of secularization, which have postulated a progressive decline of religious beliefs and practices with increasing modernization, so that the more modern a society is, the more secular (i. e. less ‘religious’) it is supposed to become. I would maintain that secularization in the sense of being ‘devoid of religion’ does not happen automatically as a result of processes of modernization; it needs to be mediated phenomenologically by some other particular historical experience. Self-sufficient secularity, that is, the absence of religion, has a better chance of becoming the normal, taken-for-granted position if it is experienced not simply as an unreflexively nave condition, as just a fact, but rather as the meaningful result of a quasi-natural process of

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development. As Taylor has pointed out, modern unbelief is not simply a condition of absence of belief, nor merely indifference; it is a historical condition that requires the perfect tense, “a condition of having overcome the irrationality of belief.” (Taylor : 2007, 269) Intrinsic to this phenomenological experience is a modern ‘stadial consciousness’, inherited from the Enlightenment, which understands this anthropocentric change in the conditions of belief as a process of maturation and growth, as a ‘coming of age’ and as progressive emancipation. For Taylor, this stadial phenomenological experience serves in turn to ground the phenomenological experience of exclusive humanism as the positive self-sufficient and self-limiting affirmation of human flourishing and as the critical rejection of transcendence beyond human flourishing as self-denial and self-defeat. In this respect, the historical self-understanding of secularism has the function of confirming the superiority of our modern secular outlook over other – supposedly earlier and therefore more primitive – religious forms of understanding. To be secular means to be modern, and, by implication, to be religious means to be somehow not yet fully modern. This is the ratchet effect of a modern historical stadial consciousness, which turns the very idea of going back to a surpassed condition into an unthinkable intellectual regression. I have argued that this secularist stadial consciousness has been a crucial factor in the widespread secularization that has accompanied the modernization of Western European societies. Europeans tend to experience their own secularization, that is, the widespread decline of religious beliefs and practices in their midst as a natural consequence of modernization. To be secular or irreligious is not experienced as an existential or historical choice, which modern individuals or modern societies make, but rather it is understood as the natural outcome of becoming modern. In this respect, the theory of secularization mediated through this historical stadial consciousness tends to function as a self-fulfilling prophecy (Casanova: 2009). It is, in my view, the presence or absence of this secularist historical stadial consciousness that explains when and where processes of modernization are accompanied by radical secularization. In places where such secularist historical stadial consciousness is absent or less dominant, as in the United States or in most non-Western post-colonial societies, processes of modernization are unlikely to be accompanied by processes of religious decline. On the contrary, processes of religious revival may accompany them. The function of secularism as a philosophy of history, and thus as ideology, was to turn the particular Western Christian historical process of secularization into a universal teleological process of human development from belief to unbelief, from primitive irrational or metaphysical religion to modern, rational, post-metaphysical secular consciousness. This philosophical-historical secularism and the teleological view of Western secular modernity associated with it have recently been questioned by contemporary processes of

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globalization which, on the one hand, have led to a de-centering of Western modernity and a certain provincialisation of Europe and, on the other hand, to a pluralisation of European societies due to new global migrations, which can no longer be conceived as homogenous, secular, post-Christian societies (Chakrabarty : 2007). It is this dual process of pluralisation of modernities at the global level and of internal pluralisation of Western European societies which in my view leads to the discovery of the heterogeneity of the secular and to the need to rethink anew everywhere political secularism as a new reconfiguration of the spatial arrangement of religion and the secular, and of the place of religion in public secular spaces. Modern sociological theories of secularization and modernization were based on an ideological and a historical theory of functional differentiation, understood as a linear process from the religiously undifferentiated Middle Ages to the present, ignoring the fact that the Westphalian system of modern territorial absolutist states was not predicated on the differentiation between church and state or on state secularization but rather on the territorialisation of Christian confessional churches and on the confessionalisation of peoples, nations and states. This process of state-led confessionalisation created religiously homogeneous societies throughout continental Europe, a homogeneously Protestant North, a homogeneously Catholic South and three biconfessional societies in between, Holland, Germany and Switzerland, with their own patterns of internal territorial confessionalisation based on confessional ‘pillars’, territories or cantons. The absolutist principle cuius regio ejus religio was not significantly altered by the shift of sovereignty from the monarch to the nation or people with the fall of the ancient regimes or with increasing massive democratisation process in the 20th century. European societies have remained religiously homogeneous societies, and the only significant change has been that from belief to unbelief. In this sense the process of European secularisation ought to be understood primarily as a process of deconfessionalization of states, nations, and individuals. But here one can also distinguish between the Nordic pattern of soft deconfessionalisation, which can best be characterized as ‘belonging without believing’, that is, secularisation without unchurching, and the more radical deconfessionalisation of the Catholic South that accompanies laicist unchurching.2 Denmark presents the paradigmatic case of a European society with one of the lowest rates of religious belief and practice accompanied by one of the highest rates of confessional affiliation in the national church, the Church of Denmark. In this respect, to be Danish, to be Lutheran, and to be secular amounts to one and the same thing. This contrasts with the Southern Catholic pattern (France, Belgium and, increasingly, Spain, but not so much Portugal or Italy) of radical secularization and laicist deconfessionalisation. 2 Grace Davie.

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The secular is understood here in drastic laicist, anti-clerical, and often antireligious terms that demand assertive unchurching. Spaniards in postFrancoist Spain who took the resisting Catholic Church to court in order to get their names erased from the church’s baptismal registry may serve as a vivid illustration of this assertive deconfessionalisation. The two different patterns of secularisation, Nordic Protestant and Southern Catholic, are related to different dynamics of deconfessionalisation, which in turn are related to the different preceding dynamics of confessionalisation of the absolutist state in Lutheran Protestant Europe and in Catholic Europe. Introducing an analytical distinction between the sacred and religion proper, or between two different kinds of religion, the Durkheimian socially sacred and religions of individual salvation may help to elucidate the main differences between the two patterns (Casanova: 2011b). In the same way as the axial breakthrough was characterised by a certain dissociation of the preaxial sacred and the new salvation religions, which led to a new relocation of the sacred, the modern process of secularisation leads to a new dissociation of the collectively sacred and the individualised religious, and to a new relocation of the sacred in the secular public sphere on the one hand and in the individualised and privatised religious sphere on the other. If one identifies religion with the socially sacred, as Durkheim does, then religion is, by definition, the system of beliefs and practices related to ‘the sacred’ which serves to unify its adherents into a single moral community, ‘the church’. For Durkheim, however, this church is coextensive with society, which in a modern context would mean ‘the nation’ rather than what we would customarily call ecclesiastical institutions or religious communities. Durkheim goes so far as to assert that “individual religion either is simply derived from group religion or is no religion at all but magic. Indeed, the presence or absence of a church is what helps to differentiate both religion and magic.” According to Durkheim, “in history we do not find religion without Church” and “there is no church of magic.” (Durkheim: 1995, 41 – 44) From this perspective the process of early modern state confessionalisation and the later process of deconfessionalisation can best be understood as processes of fusion, dissociation and relocation of the socially sacred, ecclesiastical institutions, and individualized religion. In the Nordic Lutheran pattern, notwithstanding all the significant differences between the various Nordic countries analysed in this volume, one finds a fusion of ecclesiastical institution (the Lutheran Church), the state and the nation. The church becomes an administrative unit of the secular (sacred) state, which even today still falls under parliamentary (popular-national-democratic) regulation and supervision. The socially sacred in Durkheim’s terms has been relocated to the secular sphere of the state and of the nation. As John Witte shows in this book, Luther reassembled the dualism of the Augustinian two kingdoms theory in novel ways that led to relocations of the sacred, the religious and the secular. Most importantly – and this is the key

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difference with the laicist Southern-Latin pattern – the core dualism between the religious clergy and the secular laity is dissolved by mutual infusion, so that, in Witte’s formulation, “Luther’s doctrine of the priesthood of all believers at once ‘laicised’ the clergy and ‘clericised’ the laity.” The ‘clerical’ office of preaching and teaching was secularised, becoming one secular vocation just like any other, while the traditional ‘lay’ offices now became “forms of divine calling and priestly vocation.” The ‘church’ is also radically transformed in the process. A new dualism now emerges between the ecclesiastical institution, which as a visible church is just, part of the saeculum that falls under the law of the earthly kingdom, i. e., the state, and the invisible church of the eschatological communion of the saints. In the process, the ‘true religion’, the Kingdom of God, of Love and of the Gospel, mutates into a religion of inwardness and migrates to the individual conscience, eventually giving birth to pietist movements on the margins of the ecclesiastical institution, which prepared the ground for the modern cult of the individual and the sacralisation of human rights. Secularisation or soft ‘deconfessionalisation’ in this context means: a) continued adherence to the national church, which remains under the jurisdiction of the national sovereign; b) a drastic decline in religious (ecclesiastical) beliefs (confessional faith) and practices (rituals); c) interiorisation of a modern, individual, spiritual realm which becomes the authentic space of the sacred. There are of course tensions between the three domains of the religious-secular-sacred: a) the democratic national collective (the civil religion); b) the ecclesiastical Lutheran church; and c) the individual inward conscience. But there is no radical chasm or schism between the three. The Southern Latin Catholic pattern evinces different dynamics of dissociation and relocation of the social sacred (state and nation), the ecclesiastical institution (the Catholic Church) and the religion of the individual. The process of absolutist confessionalisation is based on a close alliance between throne and altar, but the transnational structure of the Catholic Church and papal supremacy do not allow the kind of integration and fusion of the two one finds in the Nordic Lutheran pattern, even under caesaropapist Gallicanism. The secularisation of the state takes place through a radical break with the church that resists disestablishment. The schism here leads to a protracted chasm, indeed to a kind of prolonged civil war within the social sacred between a new republican laicist civil religion and the old national Catholic religion. The Latin-Catholic path of laicization is marked not by integration but by civil-ecclesiastical and laic-clerical antagonism. It maintains rigidly the boundaries between the religious and the secular, but pushes those boundaries into the margins, containing, privatising and marginalising everything religious. When it breaks the monastery walls, it will not be to bring the religious into the secular world, but to laicize them, dissolving and empting their religious content and making religious people (monks and nuns) civil and laic before forcing them into the secular world. Deconfession-

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alisation of state, nation, and individuals here means assertive anti-Catholic unchurching. Naturally, in the same way as one can point to significant differences and variations within the Nordic pattern, one can also ascertain fundamental differences within the Southern Latin pattern. Paradoxically, Italy, the land of the papacy, presents a pattern of softer deconfessionalisation and secularisation. At a time when most forms of state public laicist and secularist formations, parties and ideologies are in crisis, the non-etatist religious subculture and the internally pluralist sphere of Catholic associations and movements within Italian civil society maintain relatively high prestige and trust. The United States offers a third dynamic of secularisation, which differs from the European patterns of deconfessionalisation. While it shares some elements from both the Nordic Protestant and the Southern Catholic patterns, it also radicalises them. With laicist France it shares a secular separationist model of disestablishment of ecclesiastical religion at the state level, while radicalising the Protestant model of diffusion of the religious and secular boundaries in society. The key to the American model is the dissolution of the ecclesiastical national church institution and the proliferation of the sectarian model of independent voluntary religious associations without any state interference. A crucial fact is that the United States did not share the early modern European historical process of confessionalisation of state, nation and people. Consequently, the process of American secularization does not entail a process of deconfessionalisation or unchurching. On the contrary, secular modernisation in the United States is accompanied by religious revival and by ‘churching’, which, however, denotes affiliation to any of the many different kinds of religious denominations but not, as in Europe, adherence to a confessional, territorial church (Landeskirche). Unlike France, the United States did not need to undergo a formal process of separation of church and state, since it never had a confessional state or an established state church from which the state had to separate itself. Also, and unlike most Europeans, Americans did not need to undergo a process of deconfessionalisation from any national ecclesiastical institution, since even the established colonial churches, Congregational, Presbyterian and Anglican, remained minoritarian institutions in the respective colonies and the majority of the population remained unchurched at the time of independence. The American state was born as a modern secular state without having to undergo any process of deconfessionalisation, and the dual constitutional formula of no establishment of religion at the state level and free exercise of religion in society guaranteed the development of denominationalism as a system of free and open religious pluralism in society, based on the sectarian nonecclesiastical model of religious association. The sectarian denominational model entails freedom of religion from state

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and from church and the dismantling of all ecclesiastical institutions, thereby turning them into civil associations. It also entails a radical individualisation of religion. Moreover, American nationalism functions as the ‘American civil religion,’ a religion that, while disestablished and without any ecclesiastical institutional form, is not in conflict with ecclesiastical religion. And while it differs from any particular religious denomination, it is shared, as Tocqueville already pointed out, by all denominations in America (Bellah: 1967). Surveys of American religion reveal two persistent characteristics of the American religious system. The first is the high level of religious belief (over 90 % of the population declares a belief in God), of religious affiliation (around 80 % of the American population declares some religious denominational affiliation), and of individual and collective religious practice (over 70 % prays regularly and over 50 % participates in congregational religious services at least once a month). The second remarkable characteristic is the highly competitive and dynamic fluidity of American religious pluralism. According to the 2008 Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life Survey, more than one quarter of American adults (28 %) have switched their religious affiliation since childhood. If change in Protestant denomination is included, the number of adults who have switched their religious affiliation rises to 44 per cent (Casanova: 2011c). This is a phenomenon that is totally incomprehensible in the European confessional context, both in the Protestant North and in the Catholic South, where the only relevant changes are unchurching and confessional secularisation, not a change in religious affiliation. The modern ‘secular-religious’ system of classification which emerged out of the transformation of Western Christianity and which we tend to characterize as a process of secularisation has now become globalised, entering into dynamic transformative interaction with all non-Western systems of classification, pre-axial as well as axial. All the religio-cultural systems, Christian and non-Christian, Western and non-Western alike, are now being transformed through these global interactive dynamics. Following Charles Taylor, one can understand this process as the global expansion of the secular immanent frame. The paradox is that the globalisation of the Western European secularreligious regime leads not to the exit from religion, as was the case in Europe, but rather to all kinds of novel religious transformations, as is the case in the United States. Indeed, what characterizes the contemporary global moment is not only the fact that all forms of human religion, past and present, from the most ‘primitive’ to the most ‘modern’, are available for individual and collective appropriation Equally relevant is the fact that increasingly they must learn to coexist side by side in today’s global cities. This contemporary social fact tends to call into question all teleological schemes of religious rationalization and development, which tended to regard ‘primitive’ and ‘traditional’ forms of religion as older human cultural forms to be superseded by more modern, secular, and rational ones.

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Paraphrasing Johannes Fabian’s analysis in Time and the Other, one could say that the social scientific study of religion had been permeated by a modern, secularist, stadial consciousness that placed the social scientists ‘here and now’ in secular modernity while placing their object of study, religion, ‘there and then’, as the ‘other’ that somehow persisted as a pre-modern anachronistic survivor in a time not contemporary with our secular age (Fabian: 1983). This was the fundamental premise on which every theory of modernisation and every theory of secularisation were built. Our age of globalisation, however, is changing this perspective. Globalisation is the new philosophy of space that has come to replace the modern philosophy of history. In a sense, with globalization the spatial metaphor has begun to replace the dominant temporal-historical metaphor of Western secular modernity. Paradoxically, with its institutionalization first in the West and then globally, ensuing globalisation, the secular immanent frame becomes the very guarantor of the post-axial secular/religious system which guarantees equal, non-hierarchic free exercise of religion to all forms of religion, pre-axial, axial and post-axial. The sacralisation of human rights and the sacralisation of the right of each and all individuals to religious freedom serves as the constitutive principle of such a post-axial global pluralist religious system. Certainly, one finds around the globe a tremendous variety of secular regimes of separation of religious and political authority as well as of state management of religion and religious pluralism, along with very different patterns of majority/minority relations which are mainly structured by different forms of nationalism and by different immigration regimes. Yet the secular state management of religion is everywhere under siege, or at least in need of substantive revision, as it confronts the expansion of the principle of individual religious freedom, increasing religious pluralisation, and new transnational religious dynamics linked to immigration and globalisation. Bibliography Bellah, R. N. (2005), What is Axial about the Axial Age? European Journal of Sociology 46. Bellah, R.N, (1967), Civil Religion in America, Daedalus 96 no. 1, 1 – 21. Casanova, J. (2013), Exploring the Post secular. Three Meanings of “the Secular” and Their Possible Transcendence, in: Calhoun, C. / Mendieta, E. / Van Antwerpen, J. (ed.), Habermas and Religion, Cambridge, UK: Polity Press. Casanova, J. (2012), Religion, the Axial Age and Secular Modernity in Bellah’s Theory of Religious Evolution, in: Bellah, R. N. / Joas, H. (ed.), The Axial Age and Its Consequences, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 191 – 221. Casanova, J. (2011a), The secular, secularizations, secularisms, in: Calhoun, C. / Juergensmeyer, M. / Van Antwerpen, J.( ed.), Rethinking Secularism, New York: Oxford University Press, 54 – 74.

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Casanova, J. (2011b), Welche Religion braucht der Mensch? Theorien religiösen Wandels im globalen Zeitalter der Kontingenz, in: Holstein, B. / Jung, M. / Knöbl, W. (ed.), Das Erbe von Historismus und Pragmatismus und die Zukunf der Sozialtheorie, Frankfurt: Campus, 168 – 189. Casanova, J. (2011c), ‘The Religious Situation in the United States 175 Years after Tocqueville,’ in: Vatter, M. (ed.), Crediting God: The Fate of Religion and Politics in the Age of Global Capitalism, New York: Fordham University Press, 253 – 272. Casanova, J. (2009), The Religious Situation in Europe, in: Joas, H. / Wiegandt, K. (ed.), Secularization and the World Religions, Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 206 – 228. Casanova, J. (2008), Public Religions Revisited, in: Vries, H. de (ed.), Religion.Beyond a Concept, New York: Fordham University Press, 101 – 119. Casanova, J. (2001), Religion, the New Millennium, and Globalization, Sociology of Religion 62 (4), 415 – 441. Chakrabarty, D. (2007), Provincializing Europe: Postcolonial Thought and Historical Difference, Princeton: Princeton University Press. Durkheim, Ê. (1995), The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life. Translated and with an Introduction by Karen E. Fields, New York: The Free Press. Fabian, J. (1983), Time and the Other. How Anthropology Makes Its Object, New York: Columbia University Press. Markus, R. A. (2006), Christianity and the Secular, Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press. Taylor, C. (2007), A Secular Age, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

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Kim Knott

Interrogating the Secular : A Spatial Approach

Abstract This chapter offers a spatial approach for interrogating ostensibly secular spaces and the various beliefs and values that operate within them. It begins with a discussion of the historical entwinement and discursive pairing of the ‘religious’ and ‘secular’, and offers a dialectical strategy for identifying and analysing heterogeneous knowledge-power positions and their interrelationship. The concept of ‘secular space’ is then elaborated, and distinguished from the related notions of secularity and secularism. A strategic approach is taken to enable particular secular sites and locations to be interrogated spatially. The methodology for doing this is then set out, before being put to work on the case of a state high school and its controversy about the making of citizens. The methodology discloses a variety of values, beliefs and commitments at work among religious and citizenship educators. Despite strong feelings, interested parties are willing to negotiate, but the spatial interrogation of other contested time-spaces shows that this is not always the case. Ideological differences may become flashpoints, with intractable ‘sacred’ beliefs and values strongly articulated and contested. Seen from a spatial analytical perspective, secular spaces – often taken for granted and rendered insubstantial – are shown to be heterogeneous, containing diverse religious, secularist and postsecularist standpoints, beliefs and values which may lie dormant, may be intertwined in creative tension, negotiated and accommodated, or openly contested and opposed as non-negotiable matters of “sacred” significance.

Introduction This book investigates a range of ostensibly ‘secular’ sites in the Nordic context: human rights, law and public spaces. In particular, it considers the way in which religion engages with, and is situated and contested within them. In this chapter I will argue that a spatial methodology is appropriate for researching such sites, and for disentangling the engagements and contests between religion and its so-called secular host. I will begin by clarifying what I mean by the book’s key terms, ‘religion’ and

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‘the secular’, before setting out my spatial approach and explaining why it is useful in an analysis of the place of religion in public life. With reference to the study of a high school and the debate about the making of citizens, I will show how such a methodology discloses heterogeneous values, beliefs and commitments. I will end by drawing on the concept of ‘the sacred’ to consider how such differences may become flashpoints in public controversies with intractable positions and non-negotiable beliefs and values being articulated and contested.

The secular, secularism and their varieties through a spatial lens The terms ‘religious’ and ‘secular’ are historically and discursively intertwined (Asad 2003; Fitzgerald: 2007a, 2007b; Taylor : 1998, 2007; cf. Knott: 2010). Fitzgerald (2007a) identifies them as mutually conditioned, oppositional terms that were developed during the Enlightenment in a rapidly developing colonialist context. Their relationship is at the heart of the Western symbolic order, and they have been commonly used, along with other dichotomies – church and state, private and public – to signal a significant cultural and political tension, perceived by social scientists to operate differently in various European societies, and often transposed comparatively beyond Europe. [T]he religious/secular divide is a binary constitutive of modernity which cries out for radical questioning. Rather than seeing the secular and the religious as opposites, I suggest that they should be viewed as two sides of a coin, the coin itself being of peculiarly modern mint. (Jantzen: 1998,8).

Nevertheless, they are repeatedly paired in contemporary Western discourse, in the ideological encounter between religion and secularism and their various ‘culture wars’, as well as in distinguishing two counter spheres or spaces. Those who have sought to argue for shifts in the relationship between the religious and the secular, such as secularisation theorists, have tended to accept and work with substantive definitions of the two, and with a conception of progress from one (religion) to the other (the secular), and/or an institutionalised separation of the two. In practice, however, this has meant working with a substantive understanding of ‘religion’, for example as belief in God, religious adherence, or church attendance, with religion’s Other – ‘the secular’ – remaining insubstantial (Lee: 2011,32 – 54). As Asad (2003,16) noted, “[T]he secular is so much part of our modern life, it is not easy to grasp it directly”. Many of those writing about modern social shifts such as privatisation and secularisation indeed have not attempted to grasp it at all, have assumed common agreement about its nature and role, and – until recently – have left it a largely empty category, albeit one whose identity is coloured by the absence of something which has been defined substantively –

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religion (Lee: 2011,34 – 38). In the process they have nevertheless reinforced the boundary between them on the basis of both substance and history, whilst binding them together in the project of modernity. Rather than seeing the secular in relation to modern social shifts such as secularisation or pluralisation, and as the insubstantial Other to religion, I will treat it strategically, as a space to be interrogated. What do I mean by ‘secular space’? Following its conventional, popular usage, I take it to mean that public arena, made up of innumerable physical, social and cultural places, institutions, laws, disciplines, texts, communities, buildings and bodies, which has no necessary or apparent religious basis or reference. Although this definition is nominal and contingent on another concept (religion), when the term ‘secular’ is used in common European parlance the notion of religion is, in fact, often hidden. ‘Secular’ is how we commonly denote agents of the state, public institutions, common laws and modern Western nation states. It is no longer held to be necessary to stipulate their non-religiousness, as that is what we take to be their natural condition. Given the Medieval usage of ‘secular’ as temporal, “not a space, a domain, but a time” (Milbank in Pecora: 2006,2), why view it through the lens of space? First, it is academically timely to do so. The spatial turn in social and cultural theory (evident in the work of Foucault, Lefebvre, Certeau and Massey among others) has provided fertile ground for debating the nature and institutions of modernity, and their historical antecedents and consequences. Secondly, it is an appropriate approach if our aim is to understand more about the nature of ‘the secular’, how it is constituted, and the location of religion within and beyond it. Investigating entities and their relationships in terms of containment, boundaries and location requires us to ‘spatialise’ them (Knott: 2008). This act of separation – of the secular as physical, social and cultural ‘space’ and religion as a discernible and either contained or excluded ‘other’ – is not undertaken in order to press the case for a particular ideological view of the relationship between the religious and the secular, nor as an attempt to represent contemporary social and political reality. Rather the aim is to operationalize the secular as an arena that can be analysed spatially, with particular attention given to the ideological and value positions that produce and shape it. This way of thinking about ‘the secular’, as an operational space, finds support in the recent theoretical work of Lois Lee. In her thesis, Being Secular, she argues for a “stripped-down” conception of ‘the secular’ (Lee: 2011). She defines it thus: “The secular is an object or space for which religion provides a secondary reference point, point of authority or concern” (2011,208). According to Lee, in adopting and using this definition we need no longer be troubled by some of the other elements commonly drawn into a working definition of ‘the secular’, such as non-religious identities, and non-religious ideologies, orientations and practices (what Lee calls “epistemological cultures”).

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However, as I shall also discuss the social and discursive reproduction and representation of space, it is necessary to make reference to a related but different concept, ‘secularism’. If ‘secularity’ is the condition or state of being secular (as in ‘locality’ and ‘local’), then ‘secularism’, in general terms, is its ideological or theoretical expression (as in ‘localism’). But, as recent studies have illustrated (e. g. Asad: 2003; Scott and Hirschkind: 2006; Kosmin and Keysar : 2007; Fitzgerald: 2007b; Casanova: 2009; Howe: 2009; Warner et al.: 2010; Cady and Hurd: 2010), in common with other ideological formations, secularisms are multiple. Furthermore, they are not all ‘non-religious’. In his account of the exclusion of religious speech and symbols from public space, Nicholas Howe notes that the call by religious groups for public neutrality and for protection from state meddling differs sharply from the plea by “secularists of the Free-thinking stripe” for the exclusion of religion from the public domain (2009,645). To accommodate these and other ideological differences, I return to the dialectical field of the religious/secular and its force relationships that I first introduced in The Location of Religion (2005a,125; cf. Knott: 2010,121/125; Francis and Knott: 2011). Amended to accommodate two definitional issues discussed earlier – the narrowed remit of ‘the secular’, and its differentiation from ‘secularism’ – the three camps are now labelled ‘religious’, ‘secularist’ and ‘postsecularist’ (rather than ‘religious’, ‘secular’, ‘postsecular’) in order to underline their ideological character and that of the diverse belief and value positions that cluster within them. Operationally, this should help to distinguish them, as ideological positions, from those ‘secular spaces’ wherein they find expression and to which I will return later.

Figure 1: The religious/secular field and its force relationships.

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‘Religious’ and ‘secularist’ positions are represented dialectically and situated within a single field along with a third synthetic camp, ‘postsecularist’, comprising those who see the positive in both religious and secularist positions, and who move beyond rigid conformity with either one or the other. This dialectical approach leaves open the possibility that postsecularism may express a new phase of development within the field. On what basis should a belief or value position be identified as ‘secularist’ or ‘postsecularist’ as opposed to ‘religious’? That must depend upon the nature of their discourse, but broadly speaking ‘secularist’ exponents of various hues make primary reference to the separation of religion from the secular – some may be anti-religious and positioned close to the edge of the field and others may be religious and positioned in the middle of the field. ‘Postsecularists’, given the dialectical nature of this model, do not eschew secularist values or ideas but want ‘to bring religion back in’ in some capacity, for example by making space for religious groups and individuals in public decision-making or by personally advocating an openness within the secular to the spiritual, mystical or sacred dimension. Deciding where in the field of force relations any particular commentator should be positioned is an act of interpretation, not of science. In the last decade, increasing efforts have been made to fill in or populate the emptiness of ‘the secular’, by (a) those researching the nature and types of secularism, (b) those researching non-religion and/or atheism, (c) those revisiting secularisation, and (d) those investigating the relationship of religion and secular in public spaces. What emerges from a review of these studies is that ‘varieties of the secular’ can be understood in at least three different ways: 1. Heterogeneous secular states: the variety of secular nation states in operation globally, with their differing religious/secular or church/state settlements (e. g. Kosmin and Keysar : 2007; Cady and Hurd: 2010) 2. Heterogeneous secularisms: diverse ideological formations operating either within a single state or in different national settings (Howe: 2009; Warner et al.: 2010) 3. Heterogeneous religious, secularist and postsecularist positions struggling within particular secular spaces (Knott: 2005a; Knott: 2010; Knott and Franks: 2007). It is the latter that is relevant here, with the aim being to interrogate particular secular spaces in order to uncover and identify the heterogeneous beliefs, values and commitments that inhere within them. I do not, however, rule out the possibility that this variety will also include multiple secularisms as well as religious and possibly postsecularist positions.

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A spatial approach to interrogating secular space In 1960 Talcott Parsons resisted the sociological claim that institutional differentiation signalled secularisation, and argued that the social system continued to be informed by values rooted in Christianity, albeit that the mechanisms for their transmission were now secular rather than religious (Parsons: 1960). More recently, Gilliat-Ray noted that “some of the richest insights into contemporary religious life are to be found outside formal congregations, away from religious buildings and in perhaps the most ‘unlikely’ secular institutions” (2005,368; cf. Beckford: 1999). In what ways do such institutions, laws and rights discourses manifest these insights, and how does a spatial approach help us to find out? A spatial methodology allows us to look closely at an ostensibly secular place, however large or small, simple or complex, in terms of its spatial attributes and spatial relations to other objects, bodies or places. It takes seriously the idea that positions and regions in space and spatial orientation are foundational for human embodiment and cognition (Kant: 1968,36 – 43; Lakoff and Johnson: 1999). Body, mind and world are interconnected. The human body, its verticality and sidedness, the regions around it, its inside and outside are resources for the mind in the exercise of reason in the development of the concepts we use for understanding the world, our place within it, our relationships and identity. As a corollary of this, the places we produce and organise, how we represent them, separate them from other spaces, and perform and live them are built on these foundations. Interrogating secular spaces, then – whether institutions, laws or public bodies – and examining the place of religion or indeed of secularism within them calls for a spatial methodology. Such an approach is well suited to examining places as sites of contestation, and thus for analysing controversies within the religious/secular field, as ideological groups or commentators must create a space if they are to be effective, and because, as Henri Lefebvre (1991,416) argued, all struggles between such positions are spatially enacted, whether in physical, social or mental space. Played out discursively as well as in social relationships and the built environment, protagonists utilise spatial concepts and notions of boundary and territory in the process of place-making. In so doing, exponents of particular ideologies – religious and secularist, for example – draw on spatial language in order to ensure their survival (cf. Lefebvre: 1991,44). In order to show how a spatial methodology (Knott: 2005a; 2005b; 2011) can be used to interrogate secular spaces and disclose some of the heterogeneous values – religious, secularist and postsecularist – that are expressed and contested within them, I will refer in the course of this chapter

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to education, health and media, all of which are modern rational institutions based on expert systems of knowledge and bureaucratic organisation.1 In this methodology, which draws on theories of space in the work of Lefebvre (1991), Foucault (1986; 1991), Certeau (1984) and Massey (1993) among others, space is not conceptualised as abstract nor as a mere backdrop against which things happen, but is understood to be social, dynamic and productive, with the potential for reproduction and transformation. The methodology is comprised of several analytical steps, which break space down into its various characteristics: – – – – –

the body as the source and resource of space the dimensions of space (physical, social, mental) the properties of space (configuration, extension, simultaneity, power) the aspects of space (perceived, conceived, lived) the dynamic nature of space and its production (Knott: 2005b; 2011)

These provide the interpretive resources for interrogating any particular place, object or body, and for contextualising controversies that occur therein and the belief and value positions that emerge.2 In the remainder of this section these resources will be used to investigate in general the secular space of a high school. In the next, we will see what a spatial analysis within a single school reveals about controversy on the making of citizens before turning briefly to medical and media spaces.

The body as the source and resource of space The centrality of the body for social life and the cultural order was recognised in different ways by Lefebvre and Foucault, with the former stating that: “The genesis of a far-away order can be accounted for only on the basis of the order that is nearest to us – namely the order of the body” (Lefebvre: 1991,405). Foucault noted a counter tendency, that the body is more than the sum of its physical parts and biological processes, and is “the place where the most minute and local social practices are linked up with the large scale organisation of power” (Dreyfus and Rabinow: 1983,xxvi). It is the place on which discipline is imprinted: the body may reflect or represent that discipline, and may be conditioned and organised by it. Genealogically, schools bear a disciplinary relationship to earlier institu1 Education, healthcare and media systems across Europe and beyond differ considerably, so I will confine myself to the UK, though no doubt many of the basic principles will apply in other contexts. 2 Having developed this methodology in 2005, I then applied it to different spaces including representations of the hands (Knott 2005a), an English medical centre (Knott and Franks 2007), and an urban high street (Knott 2011).

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tions of education and training, including religious ones. In his discussion of docile bodies, Foucault noted that “disciplinary methods had long been in existence – in monasteries, armies, workshops. But in the course of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the disciplines became general formulas of domination” which differed from earlier ascetic and monastic regimes (1977,137). Various institutions, including schools, began to deliver these disciplines and structure their training accordingly in order to develop the individual, by drawing up tables, prescribing movement and exercises, by arranging tactics, and stressing the importance of the ‘norm’ (167). The first stage then in interrogating the secular space of the high school is to focus on the body : how has this place emerged from the body and its parts, what discourses of the body are at work within it, and how are bodies used to maintain and reproduce it? Gordon, Holland and Lahelma (2000), who draw on Lefebvre to theorise the making of school spaces, note that: Many practices in school work on and through the body […] School rules stipulate permitted and forbidden movement, and discipline in the classroom has a substantial basis in regulated bodily comportment. Moreover, disruption and resistance by students in schools often carry bodily dimensions. (2000,6).

Schools are designed and built to conform to the shape, size and needs of children’s bodies, but they are also organised to reflect previous and current notions of how young people should be educated and for what purpose. The way classrooms are set out, the spatial relationship between teachers and pupils, the social rules of corridors and the playground, and school dress codes all reflect the two-way relationship between body and order.

The dimensions and properties of space Schools, like other sites, are physical, social and cultural spaces – “mental spaces” as Lefebvre put it (1991,11). When analysing spatially, we are not obliged to focus solely on one area of human activity or the natural environment, but may think in terms of any body, object or community as gathering together all these dimensions within a single ‘place’. When we investigate a school, whether it be its reception area, classrooms, pupil/teacher relationships, or school signs and noticeboards, we should be aware of how it envelopes these three interconnected dimensions of physical space, socially constituted space, and imagined, mentally conceived space (cf. Gordon et al.: 2000,18 – 19). It is not a single space, then, but a cluster of heterogeneous, contested and overlapping spaces. This multi-dimensionality exemplifies the first of four ‘properties’ of space (Knott: 2005a; 2005b): the first being ‘configuration’, the capacity of spaces to gather or hold things together (Heidegger : 1993). The term ‘space’, as a

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linguistic construct, is often used to signify containment – an arena in which various things are placed or events happen. Any particular space, or ‘place’, is the sum of smaller units – objects, relationships and representations of various kinds. School websites provide a good example, the website being a public representation of the school as an institution, community and ethos. It brings together the school’s mission statement, its principles and objectives, official information such as the school calendar, examination results, inspection reports, names of governors and key staff, curricular information, news about open days and school trips, photographs and videos, and links to other websites. This is an important aspect of the public image of the school, a configuration of statutory data, useful information and ‘good news’ about it. Like all such websites, it tells the official story. Configuration is one of four properties first noted by Foucault in his 1967 lecture on space, Des espaces autres (Foucault: 1986), the others being extension, simultaneity and power, the latter of which runs through all Foucault’s deliberations on space. Extension and simultaneity refer to the diachronic and synchronic characteristics of space (Massey : 1993; Knott: 2005a), and reveal its dynamism. Any place – whether a natural landscape or the secular space of a school – is more than its present face and configuration, though this is the face that reveals itself to us most emphatically. It is also its past, both in terms of its earlier forms and the events that took place in that location. Both Lefebvre and Certeau comment on this, Lefebvre (1991,37) referring to an “etymology of locations”, and Certeau (1984,200) to the stratification of places, providing also the image of place as “palimpsest” (1984,201), where ideas are written, overwritten, erased and annotated. What culture and ideology are currently expressed by the school in its outward representations? And what previous regimes does it refer to or replace? Has there been an attempt to erase the past or is it celebrated in the building, or captured in the school’s mission statement or narratives of its history and traditions? The current face of state high schools in England is apparently secular, but religion is never far from the surface. A national system of state education was legally established in the Education Act of 1870, some sixty years after the Church of England committed itself to open a church school in every parish for the moral and scriptural education of all (National Society). Despite a campaign at the time by those in favour of a solely ‘nondenominational’ education as it was then called,3 the Act was concessionary in ensuring state provision of both nondenominational and denominational schools and thus including many existing church schools within its remit. Denominational schools – the minority – soon included those established by the Church of England, the Roman Catholic Church, other Christian denominations and the Jewish community. After vigorous public debate about the appropriateness of ‘faith schools’ more than a century later, 3 John Stuart Mill (1849), however, was explicit in referring to it as ‘secular education’

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the opportunity to provide them was opened up to Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs in association with local education authorities where there was a clear local demand (Parker-Jenkins et al.: 2004).4 In addition to their diachronic extensions, places exist simultaneously with others of the same kind, as well as being interconnected with a variety of others locally, nationally and globally. Returning to the example of the school website, it is unofficially regulated and overseen by the local education authority, and is probably informed by the contents and design of other school websites. It is accessible globally, though it is likely that the principal arena of interest is local, composed of current and prospective parents, and to a lesser extent children and other users. Many schools will have arrangements with their ‘feeder schools’ and these links may be made explicit on the website. Furthermore, it is not unusual for schools to ‘twin’ with or to develop connections with similar schools across the globe. Attentiveness to the way in which spaces of all kinds are infused with, and generated and transformed by power – the fourth of the spatial properties – is essential to understanding the dynamism of an organisation like a school. By ‘power’ I mean social and knowledge power that may be used formally or informally, coercively or subversively, for discipline, survival or liberation, and in struggles for empowerment, identity or mastery, whether large- or small-scale, all highly relevant to the school situation, and to the pupils and teachers within it. As with extension and simultaneity, the spatial property of power is fundamental to what Lefebvre referred to as “the production of space”. In distinguishing between the study of “things in space” and the process of spatial production and reproduction (1991,37), he stressed the role of both knowledge-power and social struggle in its formation. In this case what is produced is not only the socio-spatial space of a school, but also pupils as citizens. As we shall see shortly the power to make citizens is not monolithic. What kinds of citizens are to be created and how this is to be done is contested by different groups within and beyond the school, by the state through the curriculum it sets, by the school’s governors in the rules they lay down, by teachers of different subjects, and by pupils themselves.

The aspects and dynamics of space Writing about the production of space, Lefebvre differentiated three aspects or modes according to how it is perceived, conceived and lived (1991,33, 38 – 40; 4 It should be noted that, in addition to these state-funded faith schools, there are also privatelyfunded and run religious schools in England.

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Knott 2005a, 35 – 58). These he referred to as “spatial practice”, “representations of space” and “representational spaces” (1991,33). The first of these, the way in which space is generated, used and perceived by people in everyday life, is tacit, a matter of common sense, not formally reflected upon. Spatial practice has its own logic, at the generative centre of which lies the body (cf. Certeau: 1984,97 – 101). It incorporates a repertoire of gestures, bodily movements and behaviours which may take account of the physical and social spaces in which they occur, but which are only partially disciplined by them. How students and teachers get from classroom to playground, the gestures they make – polite or impolite – to one another, the hands raised in answer to a question, and the way in which they identify and mark their own spaces inside or outside the school are all examples of habituated spatial practice. In their discussion of the “official school” and the school’s buildings, Gordon et al. (1991,38) illustrate Lefebvre’s second aspect, conceived space, those dominant, theoretical, often technical, representations of space that are produced by planners, architects, theorists and managers. Late-nineteenthcentury school buildings, for example, “incorporated a hierarchical concept of teaching and learning, and symbolised the separation between school and society. […] The buildings and their layout are rigid, and pose limitations for the type of activities that can take place there” (Gordon et al.: 2000,138). Such spaces are expressions of ideology. They are not limited to the built environment, though this is certainly one of the principal means by which the dominant order may assault our senses. They include the many ‘mental spaces’ which regulate the school: educational legislation, government league tables and targets, school mission statements, prospectuses, curricula, textbooks, teaching materials and methods. But what of the third aspect of lived space? A representational space, as distinct from those we have just considered, is: “directly lived through its associated images and symbols” (Lefebvre: 1991,39). It is experienced by creative and political actors who make imaginative and symbolic use of space in order to realise the possibility of resisting the power of a dominant order, regime or discourse. Whilst Lefebvre foregrounded examples of politicallyinspired carnival and performance and underground resistance, in a school context it would be those informal and innovative spaces created by and for young people or teachers which liberate them from the weight and limitations of the official school. The school’s routinised, organisational framework, embodied in school rules and timetables, is also an arena for enactment, creative ritualisation or redefinition as well as of habituation. In spatial praxis, organisationally defined space is surveyed and regulated, but this control is also negotiated, challenged, ignored or reinvented in bids for autonomy and independence (Gordon et al.: 2000,137).

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Lefebvre recognised that neither producers nor users of space could be fully conscious of the production process or its causes and effects. Thus, in the case of a secular high school, a variety of forces and disciplines are at work in forming it as a space that necessarily exceeds the understanding – however well informed – of any individual who works or studies there. This spatial analysis uncovers some of these forces and disciplines – though there will be others that remain obscure – with the aim of learning more about the present space of the school and the process that produced and continues to produce it. (Lefebvre 1991,37)

The making of citizens: Religious education and citizenship education in a state high school When Myfanwy Franks and I undertook a study of two public institutions in 2004–2005 our aim was to use a spatial analysis to uncover the location of religion in contemporary secular spaces.5 Our ethnographic research uncovered those areas in the life of a high school and medical centre that were contested and as a result of which beliefs and values surfaced. Whilst looking for religion, what we found was a range of different but interconnected positions, few wholeheartedly religious and the majority secularist or even postsecularist. Religion was often referred to by various commentators and used metaphorically, sometimes to build arguments or critique opponents. Beliefs and values were contested, and it was evident than they were sometimes deeply held and non-negotiable, even ‘sacred’. In our examination of the school, it was through controversies about the making of citizens that different beliefs and values were disclosed. These controversies were not of the kind to disrupt the normal progress of school relationships or activities: as we will see, they were disagreements about principles and practices rather than fights about intractable differences. In their study of education and citizenship in English and Finnish schools, Gordon, Holland and Lahelma state that: Schooling is a national project and a practice of the state, preparing young people for adulthood. […] But generally in national education systems children and young people are addressed as adults-to-be who need to be raised and educated to be “proper” citizens able to exercise their rights, duties and responsibilities in acceptable ways. (2000,9 – 12) 5 ‘Locating religion in the fabric of the secular: An experiment in two public sector organisations’ (AHRB B/IA/AN5276/APN17687) ran from May 2004 to April 2005 with Kim Knott as Principal Investigator and Myfanwy Franks as Senior Research Fellow.

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Individual schools enact this in a variety of ways, some laid down by national or local policy – such as issues of school governance, management, employment, training, assessment, equality and diversity – and others particular to the school, such as ethos, mission, and statements on behaviour, dress and bullying. As part of the process of producing citizens, schools educate children in subjects deemed by the state to be more or less important for the formation of a rounded adult, favouring literacy, numeracy and science with the status of other subjects a matter for regular public debate and sometimes political intervention. The two that were the focus of our research were religious education (RE) and citizenship education (CE). Our spatial approach uncovered a wary relationship between the two subject to the pressures on time and space in the school timetable, human and teaching resources and infrastructure. First, let me set this within the context of the national situation. Religious education of a nondenominational character (but assumed to be Christian) was stipulated as part of the curriculum from the Education Act of 1870. When a mandatory national curriculum was established in the Education Act of 1988, RE was not one of the ten subjects with a specified curriculum, targets and assessments, but rather a compulsory subject to be determined locally by the education authority with advice from an advisory committee representing local religious constituencies. Christianity was recognised as the predominant religion in Britain, but other principal religions were also included. From 2004, this local approach was supplemented with national expectations for RE teaching and learning and guidance for teachers (revised in 2010; RE Directory). Citizenship education was first introduced as a cross-curricular theme in 1990, and – following a commissioned report for the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority – was reintroduced and strengthened in 2000, being made a statutory subject in 2002. In its three strands: it includes a considerable body of knowledge to enable pupils to become politically literate […] seeks to develop pupils’ skills of inquiry and communication, through discussion and debate […] and seeks to develop pupils’ skills of participation and responsible action, enabling them to take part in active citizenship through involvement in community activities, such as volunteering. (Watson: 2004,260)

Schools can opt to teach CE as a separate subject or can include it in their provision of other subjects, such as geography, history and RE. Additionally, information about religions, religious identities and religious as well as national and ethnic diversity should be covered within a programme of teaching about citizenship. RE then could theoretically be delivered within CE, or vice versa; one could colonise the other, thus overpowering and emasculating it. Hence the controversy. This plethora of competing interests and ambiguity about the position and future of RE and CE produced a situation nationally in which protagonists on

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both sides argued for the priority of their own interests – broadly but not exclusively secularist exponents promoting CE and religious ones RE. Robert Jackson summarised the anxiety for RE in the title of his 2003 article: “Citizenship as a replacement for religious education or RE as complementary to citizenship education?” Responding to the case made by Hargreaves in 1994 that “in a secular and plural society, religion can no longer be the basis of a socially cohesive civic education” and that RE should be replaced in secular schools by CE, Jackson disputed the idea that modern schools were predominantly ‘secular’, and argued the case for RE with its more informed understanding of the nature of modern plurality and intercultural communication in global context (Jackson: 2003,70). How did this controversy play out in our high school? What did our spatial analysis uncover? As one might expect in an ostensibly secular state school, there were no identifiable religious symbols in the public areas though evidence of pupils’ active and empathetic citizenship could be found. By contrast, the classroom space of RE was marked by a cross, paintings of the crucifixion, and pictures of celebrity Christians. This classroom seemed like a ghetto of formal religiosity within an otherwise non-religious setting. It was clear from the physical space, but also from the social roles and school curriculum, that RE was relatively well established. Nevertheless, the Head of Religious Education was keen to raise the profile of the subject, which she saw as potentially under threat from CE. “I don’t want the Citizenship course to take over what we do in RE”, she said.6 It was something that could largely be incorporated within RE: “We’ve been audited so we can cover citizenship that way. RE does cover a lot of it [and] I think we do a lot more effectively than if it had just been a subject delivered by any teacher.”7 Requirements within CE for debate, participation and responsible action were being met, she said, by an RE programme on global awareness in which pupils were encouraged to respond personally to events such as 9/11 and the Madrid bombing, and to communicate with those in schools directly affected by such tragedies. In moving acts of empathy and compassion, pupils had produced creative work and books of condolence, extending themselves affectively beyond curriculum commitments. An attempt was made by pupils, supported by teachers, to live through creative representational spaces and not be bound solely by the formal demands of the curriculum. There could be no doubt, however, of the religious interpretation given to this by the Head of RE: [T]hrough world events experiences, where they have been more in touch with their spirituality […] I recognise there is a need for this in today’s world […] I’ve tried to instil in the kids that this is a form of a prayer. A prayer isn’t just about traditional 6 Interview, April 2005. 7 Interview, April 2005.

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prayer even though there is a need for that. You know this is a prayer in a different sense […] the kids are aware that it is a prayer. They accept it is as well.8

Meanwhile, the new Head of Citizenship’s task was to forge a place for citizenship within existing school subjects (Personal and Social Education (PSE), History and Geography, as well as RE). Her struggle was to get CE and its ambitious agenda taken seriously by teachers who already had a full workload, their own interpretations and ways of doing things. She was setting up a school council, with pupil elections, and aimed to establish CE objectives and targets within pupils’ planners, and to bring about a new space of action and reflection on citizenship issues. Describing how CE could be delivered through RE, she said: “Citizenship is knowing what I believe and what’s out there. So when I’m teaching them I say this is what Christians believe and they’re like ‘Well I disagree’. ‘Well what made you disagree?’ You know. It’s developing those kind of ideas.”9 The focus here was on critical distance and debate, in order to improve pupils’ ability to formulate and argue from their own beliefs, and to help them appreciate the positions of others. So, from the perspective of RE, the physical space reflected the dominant position of Christianity, whilst teaching on global citizenship issues was spiritualised. From the viewpoint of CE – whose space was not yet established and was at the mercy of teachers delivering the broader humanities curriculum – religion was understood in secularist terms as a plurality of equivalent beliefs and identities to be debated by pupils. The two approaches were held in uneasy tension, with RE – perceived as under threat – incorporating some of the requirements and content of CE. The situation was one of accommodation rather than outward contestation, but the two perspectives reflected ideological differences that had the potential to flare up in future. Simultaneously, struggles in other schools reflected differences as well as power issues over time and space in the timetable and school environment for RE and CE. Watson (2004,271) captured the diversity of views in the following comments from RE teachers about CE: “A waste of time and politically motivated.”; “I do not think that citizenship should be taught within the RE curriculum – it clouds the issues that should be taught in RE.”; “I hope citizenship does not replace or oust RE from the curriculum.”; “No problem, lots of overlap.” These issues were also debated by a wider public, as suggested by the following contributors to Muslimyouth.net: Tasneem: I am very much in support of citizenship education in schools […] Citizenship teaches children about their rights and responsibilities […] with them being violated in many countries, muslims are often the first to stand up and 8 Interview, June 2005. 9 Interview, May 2005.

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complain (think guantanamo), but how many muslims are actually aware of their human rights and what could be the reason for not wanting your child to know theirs? Jez: I do not regard Citizenship as ideologically neutral […] Islam is an ideology with a full set of separate values and norms totally distinct from any other ideology […] So naturally a person who accepts the values of the citizenship class will view Islam as an ideology with deep suspicion. Q: Would you want your child to attend citizenship classes? Jez: No because I don’t want them to adopt the values of another ideology.

Young people themselves clearly had different perspectives on CE and, in this case, its relationship to Muslim interests. Controversy was not limited to ideological differences between teachers representing different religious and secularist interests, but could be found within a single religious community. Advocates of the two subjects continue today to assert their own distinctive offerings, struggling for time and space in the timetable and anxious about their futures, although some – generally those of a postsecularist or moderate religious/secularist persuasion – press for the presence of both in a mature curriculum (English Baccalaureate and threat to both RE and CE). A spatial analysis of the place of religion within the ostensibly secular space of the school revealed different opinions on the making of citizens through the delivery of religious and citizenship education. Different beliefs and values emerged in the expression of these views, including the importance of empathy, spirituality, prayer, democratic participation, identity and the value of expressing and debating one’s own beliefs. Whilst all of these were articulated in a secular setting, they were not all secularist values, with some being overtly religious and others arguably postsecularist (e. g. spirituality, empathy, debating own beliefs). The religious/ secular field depicted here is a site of multiple value positions that coexist in tension and that, as we have seen, sometimes struggle either to produce or secure a space where they can establish themselves and from which they can express their interests (see Figure 2).

The secular, values and the sacred This heterogeneity of values was also observed in our work on an English medical centre (Knott and Franks: 2007), in which we focused on the two controversies of the doctor/patient relationship and the introduction of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM). We noted that a key factor running through these controversies was the Enlightenment-inspired secularist preoccupation with proof or evidence. None of the medical staff we spoke to denied its importance, but they variously tempered their acceptance

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Figure 2: The religious/secular field: Heterogeneous positions on RE and CE.

Figure 3: The religious/secular field: Secularist and postsecularist positions.

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of it with reference to other values, such as holism, autonomy, well-being, professional judgement, patient (or consumer) agency, and the art of medical practice. We suggested that some of these values conformed more closely to a secular modernist perspective (the importance of evidence, autonomy and professional judgement); others emerged rather as post-secularist values (holism, well-being, patient agency, the art of medicine) allied with latemodern ‘spirituality’ as opposed to either wholly secular or wholly religious interests. How one assesses the relationship between these apparently secular values and those of contemporary religions or their forebears depends on the way one understands both the dynamic relationship between religion and the world and the process of secularisation. If new secularist or postsecularist values are to the fore in modern medical practice, is this evidence of the retreat of their religious counterparts from the public domain, or is their expression itself an attempt by individual medical practitioners to make sense of those same issues previously associated with Christianity – the pursuit of truth, uncertainty about the future, faith and knowledge, body and spirit, health and destiny, human frailty and the life course? Is what we have here a continuity of concerns in the changing context of social and institutional differentiation? In these cases – of the making of citizens, the doctor/patient relationship and the controversy of CAMs – the issues continued to be negotiated by staff without being finally resolved. In other cases, as we know, divergent opinions can represent such deeply held differences that negotiation is just not possible (e. g. in the case of intelligent design versus evolution in US public schools, or on the ethical issue of abortion). What the young Muslim critic of citizenship education made clear was that, for some, CE represents a secularist ideological space that runs counter to their own religious position. This particular fault line, like others witnessed in these studies, has the potential to flare up, but for various reasons this has been avoided so far. How one identifies and positions the values operating in contemporary public spaces – as avowedly secularist, religious, or postsecularist – is arguably of less significance than the fact that it continues to be in disputes and controversies that they are unearthed. Whilst on many occasions professionals’ views remain dormant or, if voiced, are tractable, with disputes being successfully resolved, on other occasions, their values and beliefs turn out to be deeply held and non-negotiable. Finally, then, let me draw on my diagram again to illustrate this very point with reference to The Satanic Verses controversy of 1989 – 90 during which opposing ideological positions were articulated forcefully (Knott: 2010; Francis and Knott: 2011). Strong Muslim positions were pitted against equally vociferous secularist ones in a discursive struggle fought out in the public media. With exponents on both sides of the argument drawing on the language

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of the ‘sacred’ to represent the importance and non-negotiability of their case, they repeatedly referred to the gulf or boundary between their positions. Such boundaries can lie dormant, invisible to outsiders, until they are threatened with transgression – as in this case when the deeply held but quietly expressed strength of feeling around the sanctity of the Prophet Muhammad was suddenly challenged and Muslims rose up in protest. Their response led liberal secularists to come out in defence of Salman Rushdie and his freedom as an author to express himself. In short, secularists realised the sanctity of their own position.

Figure 4: The religious/secular field and The Satanic Verses controversy.

This understanding of ‘the sacred’, unlike the religious/secular distinction, is not a construct of modernity, and indeed “cuts across the modern religionsecular dichotomy” (Fitzgerald: 2007,108). The final diagram reflects this (see Figure 5): it shows that attributions of ‘the sacred’ appear everywhere in the field, in all camps – whether secularist, religious or post-secularist. The claim that one’s position is non-negotiable can be made by any exponent, according to the beliefs and values inherent in the worldview to which they subscribe (Antonnen: 2000). When such a position is strongly articulated – when a sacred boundary is transgressed – then differences are realised, dichotomous stances become apparent, and battle-lines are drawn. Secular spaces – often taken for granted and conceived of as insubstantial, “hard to grasp”, as Asad said – are far from homogeneous. Seen from the perspective of beliefs and values, they are heterogeneous, containing various religious, secularist and postsecularist positions which may lie dormant, may

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Figure 5: The religious/secular field and attributions of ‘the sacred’.

exist in creative tension, may be negotiated and accommodated, or openly contested and opposed. They may have the capacity to become intractable matters of ‘sacred’ significance to those who hold them.

Bibliography Asad, T. (1993), Genealogies of Religion: Discipline and Reasons of Power in Christianity and Islam, Baltimore and London: John Hopkins University Press. Asad, T. (2003), Formations of the Secular : Christianity, Islam, Modernity, Stanford CA: Stanford University Press. Beckford, J. A. (1999),The politics of defining religion in secular society : From a taken-for-granted institution to a contested resource, Studies in the History of Religions 84, 23 – 40. Cady, L. E. / Hurd, E. S. (ed.): (2010), Comparative Secularism in a Global Age, New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Casanova, J. (2009), The secular and secularisms, Social Research 76, 1049 – 66. Certeau, M. De. (1984), The Practice of Everyday Life, Berkeley : University of California Press. Dreyfus, L. / Rabinow, P. (1983), Michel Foucault: Beyond Structuralism and Hermeneutics, New York and London: Harvester Wheatsheaf. Fitzgerald, T. (2007a), Discourses on Civility and Barbarity : A Critical History of Religion and Related Categories, Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. Fitzgerald, T. (2007b), Introduction, in: FITZGERALD, T (ed.) Religion and the Secular : Historical and Colonial Formations, London and Oakville, CT: Equinox, 1 – 24. Foucault, M., (1977) [1975], Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, London: Penguin.

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Foucault, M., (1986) [1967], Of Other Spaces (Des espaces autres), Diacritics 16:1, 22 – 27. Foucault, M., (1991) [1984], Space, knowledge and power, in: Rabinow, P. (ed.), The Foucault Reader: An Introduction to Foucault’s Thought, London: Penguin, 239 – 56. Francis, M. And Knott, K. (2011), Return? It never left. Exploring the “sacred” as a resource for bridging the gap between the religious and the secular, Islam and Religious Norms in the Public Sphere, http://rps.berkeley.edu/berkeley_2010_ workshop. Gilliat-Ray, S. (2005), “Sacralising” sacred space in public institutions: A case study of the prayer space at the Millennium Dome, Journal of Contemporary Religion 20, 357 – 72. Gordon, T. / Holland, J. / Lahelma, E. (2000), Making Spaces: Citizenship and Difference in Schools, Basingstoke: Macmillan. Hargreaves, D. (1994), The Mosaic of Learning: Schools and Teachers for the Next Century, London: Demos. Heidegger, M. (1993) [1951], Building, Dwelling, Thinking, in: KRELL, D. F. (ed.), Martin Heidegger : Basic Writings, London: Routledge, 425 – 31. Howe, N. (2009), Secular iconoclasm: purifying, privatizing, and profaning public faith, Social and Cultural Geography 10:6, 639 – 56. Jackson, R. (2003), Citizenship as a replacement for religious education or RE as complementary to citizenship education? in: JACKSON, R. (ed.), International Perspectives on Citizenship, Education and Religious Diversity, London and New York: Routledge, 67 – 92. Jantzen, G. (1998), Becoming Divine: Towards a Feminist Philosophy of Religion, Manchester : Manchester University Press. Kant, I. (1968) [1768] Concerning the ultimate foundation of the differentiation of regions in space in: Kant: Selected Pre-Critical Writings and Correspondence with Beck [translation and introduction by G. B. Kerferd and D. E. Walford], Manchester : Manchester University Press / New York, Barnes and Noble. Knott, K. (2005a), The Location of Religion: A Spatial Analysis, London / Oakville, CT: Equinox. Knott, K. (2005b), Spatial theory and method for the study of religion, Temenos: Nordic Journal of Comparative Religion 41:2, 153 – 84. Knott, K. (2008), Inside, outside and the space in-between: Territories and boundaries in the study of religion, Temenos: Nordic Journal of Comparative Religion 44:1, 41 – 66. Knott, K. (2010), Theoretical and methodological resources for breaking open the secular and exploring the boundary between religion and non-religion, Historia Religionum 2, 115 – 133. Knott, K. (2011) [2008], Spatial theory for the study of religion, Religion and Place, Wiley virtual issue on the geography and sociology of religion, http://eu.wiley. com/WileyCDA/Section/id-610471.html Knott, K. / Franks, M. (2007), Secular values and the location of religion: A spatial analysis of an English medical centre, Health and Place 13:1, 224 – 37.

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Kosmin, B. A. / Keysar, A. (ed.) (2007), Secularity and Secularism: Contemporary International Perspectives, Hartford, CT: Institute for the Study of Secularism in Society and Culture. Lakoff, G. And Johnson, M. (1999), Philosophy in the Flesh: The Embodied Mind and its Challenge to Western Thought, New York: Basic Books. Lee L. (2011), Being Secular : Towards Separate Sociologies of Secularity, NonReligion and Epistemological Culture, unpublished PhD thesis: University of Cambridge. Lefebvre, H. (1991) [1974], The Production of Space, Oxford and Cambridge, MA: Blackwell. Massey, D. (1993), Politics and space/time, in: KEITH, M. / PILE, S. (ed.), Place and the Politics of Identity, London: Routledge, 141 – 61. Mill, J. S. (1849), Speech on Secular Education, http://utilitarian.org/texts/education. html, accessed 11 April 2012 Parker-Jenkins, M. / Hartas, D. / Irving, B. A. (2004), In Good Faith: Schools, Religion and Public Funding, Aldershot: Ashgate. Parsons, T. (1960), Some comments on the pattern of religious organization in the United States, in: Parsons, T., Structure and Process in Modern Society, New York: Free Press. Pecora, V. P. (2006), Secularization and Cultural Criticism, Chicago: Chicago University Press. Scott, D. / Hirschkind, C. (ed.) (2006), Powers of the Secular Modern: Talal Asad and his Interlocutors, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Taylor, C. (1998), Modes of secularism, in: Bhargava, R. (ed.), Secularism and Its Critics, New Delhi: Oxford University Press. Taylor, C. (2007), The Secular Age, Cambridge, MA / London: Belknap Press / Harvard University Press. Warner, M. / Vanantwerpen, J. / Calhoun, C. (ed.), (2010), Varieties of Secularism in a Secular Age, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Watson, J., (2004), Educating for citizenship: the emerging relationship between religious education and citizenship education, British Journal of Religious Education 26:3, 2004, 259 – 27

Websites Muslim Youth, www.muslimyouth.net, accessed 13 April 2012. National Society for Promoting Religious Education (Church of England), http://www. churchofengland.org/education/national-society.aspx, accessed 11 April 2012. The RE Directory, http://www.theredirectory.org.uk/overview.php, accessed 12 April 2012.

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John Witte, Jr.

“God is Hidden in the Earthly Kingdom:” The Lutheran Two-Kingdoms Theory as Foundation of Scandivanian Secularity Abstract Martin Luther’s signature “two kingdoms” teaching of the sixteenth century was an early and innovative theory of secularization that lies at the heart of historical Scandinavian culture. Defying the organic medieval models of Western Christendom, Luther separated the heavenly and earthly kingdoms, the saint and the sinner, faith and reason, church and the state, Gospel and the Law, as well as the spiritual and secular uses of law, government and authority. Though God is separated from day-to-day life, Luther wrote, God is still hidden in the earthly kingdom” and can be seen through various “masks,” “mists,” and “mimes.” Though the visible church is separated from the state and other institutions, religion remains pervasive in the common callings of every person to be God’s prophet, priest and king in every vocation and location of life. Luther’s two kingdoms theory is a complicated and controversial part of this thinking, but it is worth re-exploring today as pluralistic Scandinavia faces strong new pressures of both sacralisation and secularisation and seeks to discern anew “the hidden sacrality of the secular.”

Introduction Jos¦ Casanova has shown that the modern process of secularization has at least three dimensions: (1) the separation of the economic, scientific, and governmental spheres from the religious sphere of the church and the specialization of religion within its own sphere; (2) the decline of religious belief and practice in an ethnic community or political nation, often accompanied by the rise of science and technology as a more reliable guide; and (3) the privatization of religion. Casanova warns us, however, against confusing “the historical processes of secularization proper with the alleged and anticipated consequences which those processes were supposed to have upon religion.” The differentiation and specialization of institutional spheres of religion and non-religion do not necessarily coincide with or require the decline or privatization of religion (Casanova: 1994, 19; 2013, cf. Taylor: 2007, 423). Kim Knott and other contributors to this book concur in this latter judgment.

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They show how even modern purportedly secularized Western societies retain important sacred or religious dimensions (cf. Knott: 2005; 2013). These religious phenomena are not only contained within the privatized sanctuaries of conscience, or the specialized settings of worship where secularization theorists would expect to find them. Religion is also present in all kinds of spaces and specialties that would seem to be hermetically and hermeneutically closed to religion – in state schools, hospitals, cemeteries and prisons, in state legislatures, courts, and tribunals, in the discourses of human rights, public policy, and public health alike (cf. Van der Venn: 2013; cf. Van der Breemer : 2013; cf. Furseth: 2013; Ruyter : 2013; ærsheim: 2013). Indeed, our public life altogether, Tryvge Wyller and Rosemarie van den Breemer show, is suffused with religious values, beliefs, rituals, methods, and frameworks – sometimes hidden, sometimes syncretized, sometimes masquerading under other labels, but all vitally important to communal identity, integrity, and function. This book endeavours to map and measure this “hidden sacrality of the secular” in various Nordic countries, whose processes of secularization and sacralisation do not fit easily into conventional secularization models. After all, this region – long known as Europe’s leader of secular culture, social experimentation, and innovative social welfare – has until very recently maintained an established Lutheran church and a public school curriculum bent on perpetuating its traditional religious and moral norms and habits (van den Breemer : 2013; Wyller : 2013). This religious substratum has provided a powerful but often forgotten foundation to the communal harmony and individual happiness of Nordic lands that have long been the envy of the world. To be sure, Scandinavia has known conflicts – between Swedes and Danes, Eastern and Western Nordic Lutherans, Catholics and Protestants, Christians and non-Christians – that sometimes yielded violence and bloodshed in centuries past (cf. Thorkildsen: 2013). These old tensions have been replaced with striking new tensions between established churches and religious freedom for all, between national sovereignty and European integration, between the social welfare state and global capitalism, between comfortable Nordic customs and the challenges of new immigrants, particularly Muslims who have arrived in impressive numbers and are making strong new demands. Just as they are embarking on new campaigns of separating church and state today, Nordic countries are struggling to find new spaces and places to nurture the religious resources that have been so vital to the preservation of Nordic culture (cf. Christoffersen et al.: 2010). In this chapter, I would like to explore some of the Lutheran sources of traditional Nordic culture – in particular the original vision of Martin Luther (1483 – 1546) set out in his ‘two-kingdoms theory.’1 This, I submit, was an early and innovative theory of secularization whose insights can still be useful for 1 This balance of the chapter is excerpted and updated from Witte: 2002, which includes detailed citations to the literature.

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the modern Nordic project of discerning “the hidden sacrality of the secular.”2 Defying the organic medieval models of Western Christendom, Luther separated the heavenly and earthly kingdoms, the church and the state, the Gospel and the Law, the spiritual and civil uses of law, government and authority. Though God is separated from day-to-day life, Luther wrote, “God is still hidden in the earthly kingdom” and can be seen through various “masks,” “mists,” and “mimes”.3 Though the visible church is separated from the state and other institutions, religion remains pervasive in the common callings of every person to be God’s prophet, priest and king in every vocation and location of life. Luther’s two-kingdoms theory is a complicated and controversial part of this thinking. But it is worth re-exploring even today – indeed especially today – as Lutheran Scandinavia faces strong new pressures of both sacralisation and secularisation.

Theory of being Luther was a master of the dialectic – of holding two doctrinal opposites in tension and of exploring ingeniously the intellectual power of this tension. Many of his favorite dialectics were set out in the Bible and well-rehearsed in the Christian tradition: spirit and flesh, soul and body, faith and works, heaven and hell, grace and nature, the kingdom of God versus the kingdom of Satan, the things that are God’s and the things that are Caesar’s, and more, (cf. O’Donovan: 1996, 82 ff.,193 ff.). Some of the dialectics were more distinctly Lutheran in accent: Law and Gospel, sinner and saint, servant and lord, inner man and outer man, passive justice and active justice, alien righteousness and proper righteousness, civil uses and theological uses of the law, among others. Luther developed these dialectical doctrines separately between 1515 and 1545 – at different paces, at varying levels of detail, and with uneven attention to how one doctrine fitted with others. He and his followers eventually jostled together several doctrines under the broad umbrella of the two-kingdoms theory. This theory came to describe at once: (1) the distinctions between the fallen realm and the redeemed realm, the City of Man and the City of God, the Reign of the Devil and the Reign of Christ; (2) the distinctions between the sinner and the saint, the flesh and the spirit, the inner man and the outer man; (3) the distinctions between the visible church and the invisible church, the church as governed by civil law and the church as governed by the Holy Spirit; (4) the distinctions between reason and faith, natural knowledge and spiritual 2 For an interesting recent book that distills the modern debates about whether the Lutheran Reformation was a movement of ‘secularisation’ or ‘Christianisation’, see Johnson and Maxfield 2012. See also a recent collection in Mäkinen 2006. 3 See sources in Witte 2005

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knowledge; and (5) the distinctions between two kinds of righteousness, two kinds of justice, two uses of law. When Luther and his fellow reformers used the two-kingdoms terminology, they often had one or two of these distinctions primarily in mind, sometimes without clearly specifying the same. Rarely did all of these distinctions come in for a fully differentiated and systematic discussion and application. The matter was complicated even further because both Anabaptists and Calvinists of the day eventually adopted and adapted the language of the two kingdoms as well – each with their own confessional accents and legal applications that were sometimes in sharp tension with Luther’s and Lutheran views (cf. Friedmann: 1973, 38 ff.; cf. van Drunen 2010). It is thus worth spelling out Luther’s understanding of the two kingdoms in some detail, and then drawing out its implications for law, society, and politics. First and foremost for Luther, the two-kingdoms theory was an ontology, a theory of the twofold nature of being or reality. In his early writings, Luther often described this in the familiar Augustinian terms that he had learned in the monastery. Augustine’s City of God was the perfect heavenly kingdom in the life hereafter. It was already experienced but not yet fully realized by Christians who sojourn in the City of Man, in this earthly kingdom of space and time (Pelikan et al.: 1955 – 1968, 45:88 – 92, 104 – 108; 1955 – 1968, 46: 242 – 243; Luther : 1883 – 1987, 36:385; 1883 – 1987, 45: 252 ff.; Luther : 1912-, 6, No. 7026.). Sometimes, Luther described this distinction in the grand terms of the Bible – as the kingdom of God and the kingdom of Satan locked in perennial battle for the souls of humankind until the second coming of Christ and the ultimate overthrow of the Devil (Ibid).4 Sometimes, Luther focused on the contrast between two classes of citizens in the world – Christians who have accepted the lordship of Christ in the heavenly kingdom and non-Christians who submit only to the authorities of the earthly kingdom (Pelikan et al.: 1955 – 1968:109, 23:316 – 319, 36:385). These were quite different renderings of a basic ontological dualism, but they often came tumbling out together in Luther’s torrential prose. For example, in a famous passage from 1523, Luther wrote: Here we must divide the children of Adam and all mankind into two parts, the first belonging to the kingdom of God (reych Gottis), the second to the kingdom of the world (reych der welt). Those who belong to the kingdom of God are all true believers who are in Christ and under Christ, for Christ is king and lord in the kingdom of God. […] [T]hese people need no worldly law or sword. If all the world were composed of real Christians, that is, right believers, there would be no need for or benefits from prince, king, lord, sword, or law. They would serve no purpose, since Christians have in their heart the Holy Spirit, who both teaches and makes them to do injustice to no 4 Luther writes: “Man’s will is like an animal standing between two riders. If God is the rider, man goes and wills where God goes. […] If Satan is the rider, man wills and goes where Satan goes.” (Luther : 1883 – 1987, 18: 635).

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one, to love everyone, and to suffer injustice and even death willingly and cheerfully at the hands of anyone […] All who are not Christians belong to the kingdom of the world and are under the law. There are few true believers, and still fewer who live a Christian life, who do not resist evil and indeed themselves do no evil. For this reason, God has provided for them a different government (Regiment) beyond the Christian estate (Stand) and kingdom of God. He subjected them to the sword so that, even though they would like to, they are unable to practice their wickedness, and if they do practice it they cannot do so without fear or with success and impunity […] God has ordained two governments: the spiritual (geystliche), by which the Holy Spirit produces Christians and righteous people under Christ; and the temporal (welltliche), which restrains the non-Christian and the wicked (Luther : 1883 – 1987, 11:249 – 252).

As this quotation reveals, Luther believed that the two kingdoms (Reiche) were ruled by two authorities or governments (Regimente, Stände). In his early years, Luther viewed these two authorities primarily through his favorite binocular of the Law and the Gospel (cf. Luther : 1883 – 1987, 40:486). The earthly kingdom was governed by Law. The heavenly kingdom was governed by Gospel. Both the Law and the Gospel were ultimately forms of God’s authority and revelation. But they had to be carefully distinguished (cf. e. g., Luther : 1912-, 1, No. 590; Pelikan et al.; 1955 – 1968, 54:105 – 107). The Law was an authority of the sword; it brought coercion, bondage, and restraint. The Gospel was an authority of the Word; it promised love, freedom, and charity. In this world of space and time, both these authorities ruled concurrently, and a Christian believer needed to submit to each, and to resist their conflation. Paul says in I Timothy 1[:9]: “[T]he Law is not laid down for the righteous but for the lawless.” Why is this? It is because the righteous man of his own accord does all and more than the Law demands. But the unrighteous do nothing that the Law demands; therefore, they need the Law to instruct, constrain, and compel them to do good. […] In the same way a savage wild beast is bound with chains and ropes so that it cannot bite and tear as it would normally do, even though it would like to; whereas a tame and gentle animal needs no restraint, but is harmless despite the lack of chains and ropes […] If anyone attempted to rule the world by the Gospel and to abolish all earthly law and sword on the plea that all are baptized and Christian, and that, according to the Gospel, there shall be among them no law or sword – or need for either – […] he would be loosing the ropes and chains of the savage wild beasts and letting them bite and mangle everyone […] For this reason one must carefully distinguish between these two authorities. Both must be permitted to remain; the one to produce righteousness, the other to bring about external peace and prevent evil deeds. Neither one is sufficient in the world

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without the other. No one can become righteous in the sight of God by means of the earthly government, without Christ’s spiritual government. Christ’s government does not extend over all men; rather, Christians are always a minority in the midst of non-Christians. Now where earthly government or law alone prevails, there sheer hypocrisy is inevitable, even though the commandments be God’s very own. For without the Holy Spirit in the heart no one becomes truly righteous, no matter how fine the work he does. On the other hand, where the spiritual government alone prevails over land and peoples, there wickedness is given free rein and the door is open for all manner of rascality, for the world as a whole cannot receive or comprehend it (Ibid.).5

As this quotation reveals, in this early period, Luther tended to conflate (1) the theological category of Law – the Old Testament dispensation of God that antedated the Gospel, with (2) the political category of law – the positive laws promulgated by the magistrate. The law of God and the law of the magistrate were both part of the government of the earthly kingdom, and Luther at first did little to distinguish between them. The dangers of this early position soon became apparent. For Luther, in this early period, also tended to conflate the image of the earthly kingdom as the evil realm of the Devil with that of the earthly kingdom as the political realm of the magistrate. This double conflation led the early Luther dangerously close to intimating that not only the law of the magistrate but also the law of God was part of the earthly kingdom of the Devil. Add Luther’s repeated and bitter attacks on Mosaic law, canon law, and Roman law alike, and it was easy to see how Luther’s early theory could lead an earnest follower straight into antinomianism – into wholesale rejection of all law in favor of the freedom of the Christian Gospel. By the late 1520s, Luther thus moved to a more nuanced view of the temporal government that governed the earthly kingdom. Luther’s earlier Augustinian picture of the earthly kingdom as the fallen and formless City of Man under the reign of the Devil faded into the background. To the foreground came Luther’s new picture of the earthly kingdom as the natural realm, once a brilliant and perfect creation of God, but now darkened and distorted by the fall into sin. Despite the fall, however, God in his grace had allowed the earthly kingdom to continue to exist. God had also allowed the various natural laws and natural orders to continue to operate. Luther referred many times to the natural laws of marriage and family, property and business born of God’s primal command to Adam and Eve in Paradise: “Be fruitful and multiply, replenish the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over [it].” (Pelikan et al.: 1955 – 1968, 1: 69 ff., quoting Gen. 1:28). Luther also pointed to the natural laws on the proper worship and honor of God, on coveting and homicide, on evidence and judicial procedure adumbrated in God’s primal confrontation with Cain immediately after Paradise (Pelikan et al.: 1955 – 1968, 1:259 ff.). For 5 See also (Pelikan et al.: 1955 – 1968, 9:136).

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Luther, each of these natural laws, created by God, continued to govern the earthly kingdom after the fall into sin. Not only the natural laws, but also the natural orders of creation continued to govern after the fall into sin. “God has ordained three orders or governments [hierarchias/Regimente] to embody, elaborate, and enforce natural laws in the earthly kingdom, Luther wrote in 1539: “[T]he household, the state, and the church,” or the ordo economicus, ordo politicus, and ordo ecclesiasticus as he put it elsewhere (Luther : 1883 – 1987, 39/2:42; cf. Pelikan et al. 1955 – 1968, 3:217; 1955 – 1968, 3:217; 1955 – 1968, 37:364 ff.; 1955 – 1968, 41:177 ff.).6 The first government (Regimente) is that of the home, from which the people come. The second is that of the ‘state’ (civitas), that is, the country, the people, princes, and lords, which we call the temporal government. These [two governments] embrace everything – children, property, money, animals, and so on. The home must produce, whereas the city must guard, protect, and defend. Then follows the third, God’s own home and city, that is, the church, which must obtain people from the home and protection and defense from the state. These are the three hierarchies ordained by God, […] the three high divine governments, the three divine, natural, and temporal laws of God (Luther 1883 – 1987, 50:509).

All three of these orders, governments, or estates, Luther insisted, represented different dimensions of God’s authority and law in the earthly kingdom. All three stood equal before God and before each other in discharging their essential natural tasks. All three were needed to resist the power of sin and the Devil in the earthly kingdom. All three deserved equally the obedience of those under their authority. All three were essential to the preservation of life and law, order and obligation in the earthly kingdom. All three not only exercised the justice and wrath of God against sin, but also anticipated the more perfect life and law of the heavenly kingdom.7 As Luther put it: “God wants the government of the earthly kingdom to be a symbol of […] the heavenly kingdom, like a mime or a mask.” (Luther : 1883 – 1987, 51:241). This ‘three-estates theory’ (drei Ständelehre) became one of Luther’s signature contributions to the early differentiation of the church, state, and family spheres, which Casanova calls a first step in the “secularization process.” (cf. Casanova 1994; cf. Maurer: 1970). It provided Luther with a considerably more nuanced and positive theory of earthly law and government than some of his earlier statements had allowed. His ontological picture of the world remained a basic dualism between a lower earthly kingdom and a higher heavenly kingdom. But the earthly kingdom was now much more 6 For anticipations of this doctrine in Luther’s earlier writings, see Cranz: 1959, 153 – 178. 7 See Pelikan et al.: 1955 – 1968,13:169: “These divine stations and orders have been established by God that in the world there may be a stable, orderly, and peaceful life, and that justice may be preserved. […] For if God had not Himself instituted these stations and did not daily preserve them as his work, no particle of right would last even a moment. […] [T]hese divine stations continue and remain throughout all kingdoms, as wide as the world and to the end of the world.”

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clearly a realm of divinely-ordained authority and law, albeit perennially distorted by sin. And the earthly kingdom was naturally subdivided into three orders of domestic, political, and ecclesiastical authority, each called to embrace and enforce God’s law, and each empowered to prohibit and punish human sin.

Theory of the person The two-kingdoms theory was not only an ontology, a theory of the twofold nature of reality. It was also an anthropology, a theory of the twofold nature of the Christian person. All persons in Christendom, Luther argued, share equally in a doubly paradoxical nature. Each Christian is at once a saint and a sinner, righteous and reprobate, saved and lost – simul iustus et peccator (Pelikan et al.: 1955 – 1968, 31:344 – 347, 358 – 361; cf. 1955 – 1968, 12:328; 1955 – 1968, 27:230 ff.; 1955 – 1968, 32:173; Luther 1883 – 1987, 31/2:21, 492, 552). At the same time, each Christian is at once a free lord who is subject to no-one, and a dutiful servant who is subject to everyone. Every Christian “has a twofold nature,” Luther argued in expounding his famous doctrine of simul iustus et peccator. We are at once body and soul, flesh and spirit, sinner and saint, “outer man and inner man.” These “two men in the same man contradict each other” and remain perennially at war (Pelikan et al.: 1955 – 1968, 31:344). On the one hand, as bodily creatures, we are born in sin and bound by sin. By our carnal natures, we are prone to lust and lasciviousness, evil and egoism, perversion and pathos of untold dimensions (1955 – 1968, 31:344, 358 – 361; cf. 1955 – 1968, 25:120 – 130, 204 – 213). Even the best of persons, even the titans of virtue in the Bible – Abraham, David, Peter, and Paul – sin all the time (1955 – 1968, 19:47 – 48; 1955 – 1968, 23:146). In and of ourselves, we are totally depraved and deserving of eternal death. On the other hand, as spiritual creatures, we are reborn in faith, and freed from sin. By our spiritual natures, we are prone to love and charity, goodness and sacrifice, virtue and peacefulness. Even the worst of persons, even the reprobate thief nailed on the cross next to Christ’s, can be saved from sin. In spite of ourselves, we are totally redeemed and assured of eternal life (1955 – 1968: 31:344 – 354, 368 – 377). It is through faith in the Word of God, Luther argued, that a person moves from sinner to saint, from bondage to freedom. This was the essence of Luther’s doctrine of justification by faith alone. No human work of any sort – even worship, contemplation, meditation, charity, and other supposed meritorious conduct – can make a person just and righteous before God. For sin holds the person fast, and perverts his or her every work. “One thing, and only one thing, is necessary for Christian life, righteousness, and freedom,” Luther declared. “That one thing is the most holy Word of God, the Gospel of Christ.” (1955 – 1968: 31:345). To put one’s faith in this Word, to

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accept its gracious promise of eternal salvation, is to claim one’s freedom from sin and from its attendant threat of eternal damnation. And it is to join the communion of saints that begins imperfectly in this life and continues perfectly in the life to come. But a saint by faith remains a sinner by nature, Luther insisted, and the conflict of good and evil within the same person remains until death (Pauck: 1961, 120; cf. Pelikan et al.: 1955 – 1968, 23:146; 1955 – 1968, 12:328 – 330; 1955 – 1968, 8:9 – 12). This brought Luther to a related paradox of human nature – that each Christian is at once a lord who is subject to no-one, and a priest who is servant to everyone. On the one hand, Luther argued, “every Christian is by faith so exalted above all things that, by virtue of a spiritual power, he is [a] lord.” (Pelikan et al.: 1955 – 1968, 31:354) As a redeemed saint, an “inner man,” a Christian is utterly free in his conscience, utterly free in his innermost being. He is like the greatest king on earth, who is above and beyond the power of everyone. No earthly authority –whether pope, prince, or parent – can impose “a single syllable of the law” upon him (1955 – 1968, 36:70; cf. 1955 – 1968, 31:344 – 346). No earthly authority can intrude upon the sanctuary of his conscience; can endanger his assurance and comfort of eternal life. This is “the splendid privilege,” the “inestimable power and liberty” that every Christian enjoys (1955 – 1968, 31:355 – 358) On the other hand, Luther wrote, every Christian is a priest, who freely performs good works in service of his or her neighbour and in glorification of God (1955 – 1968, 31:355 – 356; cf. 1955 – 1968, 36:112 – 116, 138 – 140; 1955 – 1968, 40:21 – 23; 1955 – 1968, 13:152; 1955 – 1968, 39:137 – 224 “Christ has made it possible for us, provided we believe in him, to be not only his brethren, co-heirs, and fellow kings, but also his fellow priests,” Luther wrote. And thus, in imitation of Christ, we freely serve our neighbours, offering instruction, charity, prayer, admonition, and sacrifice 1955 – 1968, 31:355; cf. 1955 – 1968, 36:241). We abide by the law of God so far as we are able so that others may see our good work and be similarly impelled to seek God’s grace. We freely discipline and drive ourselves to do as much as good as we are able, not so that we may be saved but so that others may be served. We live so far as we are able the life of the Beatitudes, the virtues of poverty, meekness, humility, mercy, and peacefulness (1955 – 1968, 45:87). “A man does not live for himself alone,” Luther wrote, “he lives only for others.”(1955 – 1968, 31:364 – 365; cf. 1955 – 1968, 51: 86 – 87) The precise nature of our priestly service to others depends upon our gifts and upon the vocation in which God calls us to use them (1955 – 1968, 38:188; 1955 – 1968, 28:171 – 172). But we are all to serve freely and fully as God’s priests. Such are the paradoxes of human nature, Luther believed. We are at once sinners and saints; we are at once lords and servants. We can do nothing good; we can do nothing but good. We are utterly free; we are everywhere bound. The more a person thinks himself a saint, the more sinful in fact he becomes. The more a person thinks herself a sinner, the more saintly she in fact

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becomes. The more a person acts like a lord, the more he is called to be a servant. The more a person acts as a servant, the more in fact he has become a lord. This is the paradoxical nature of human life. Luther’s first distinction between the saint and the sinner tracked closely his ontological distinction between the City of God and the City of Man, the reign and realm of Christ versus that of the Devil. Sinners are earthly citizens; saints are heavenly citizens. Every Christian is both a sinner and a saint. Every Christian is a citizen of both the earthly and the heavenly kingdoms. Earthly citizenship comes with birth. Heavenly citizenship comes through faith. Luther’s second distinction between free lord and priestly servant did not track his ontological distinctions so neatly. In one sense, this lord–priest distinction was a description only of the Christian saint, only of a person as member of the heavenly kingdom. Both lordship and priesthood after all were qualities of the Christian believer, the party who had been justified by faith, and had so become a citizen of the heavenly kingdom. As lord, such a heavenly citizen was utterly free from the strictures and structures of the law of the earthly kingdom. As priest, he or she was utterly free to do good works for neighbours, even if such works could never fully comply with God’s Law. In another sense, however, the lord–priest distinction did track the twokingdoms distinction. To be a lord was to be above everyone in the earthly kingdom, to be “an inner man,” to “live for oneself alone,” to have the assurance and luxury of being in utter community and compability with God, above the sinful din of the earthly crowd. To be a priest, however, was to be servant to everyone – in the heavenly and the earthly kingdoms alike. It was to be an “outer man,” a “person for the sake of others” – not least those sinful non-believers of the earthly kingdom who will see in this service a reflection of and an invitation to a saintly Christian life in the heavenly kingdom. Luther’s doctrine of the priesthood of all believers did not connote a priesthood only to believers; it connoted a priesthood by believers, both to fellow believers in the heavenly kingdom and to non-believers in the earthly kingdom – in imitation of Christ’s priestly service on earth. As Luther put it: “The fact that we are all priests and kings means that each of us Christians may go before God and intercede for the other, asking God to give him his own faith.” (Luther 1883 – 1987, 10.3:108). Thus a Christian believer, in discharging the services of the priesthood of believers, inevitably moved between the heavenly and the earthly kingdoms.

Theory of the church Luther’s two-kingdoms theory also drew to itself an ecclesiology, a theory of the twofold nature of the church. Parts of this ecclesiology we just saw foreshadowed in Luther’s discussion of a Christian as a saint of the heavenly kingdom and a priest of the earthly kingdom. Other parts of this theory we saw

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earlier in Luther’s description of the church as one of the three natural orders of the earthly kingdom, and in his gradual acceptance of the early Catholic canon law as a legitimate norm for organising the visible church.8 Luther distinguished the invisible church of the heavenly kingdom from the visible church of the earthly kingdom. For Luther, the “invisible church” was the communion of saints (communio sanctorum). By communio, Luther meant a congregation or assembly of parties who were committed to the mutual sharing of all things and experiences in this life, not least Christ himself (Luther : 1883 – 1987, 7:219; 1883 – 1987, 10/2:89; 1883 – 1987, 28:149). By sanctorum, Luther meant primarily all those sinners who had accepted Christ in faith and had so become saints. To be a saint was to be in community with other living persons who had accepted Christ in faith. It was also to be in communion with Christ and with all Christian believers who had died and had come into more perfect communion with Christ – those “saints in heaven” described so graphically in the Bible’s Revelation of St. John (cf. Pelikan et al.: 1955 – 1968, 35:389 – 411). The communion of saints thus began imperfectly in this life and continued perfectly in the life to come. The true church of the heavenly kingdom began temporally in this world of space and time, and continued eternally in the new world beyond space and time. The invisible church was a community of faith, hope, and love, Luther argued (Luther 1883 – 1987, 6:131). It featured a pure spiritual fellowship, a perennial ethic of mutual sharing and caring, each party ministering to the other in accordance with his or her special gifts (1883 – 1987, 10/3:407 ff.; 1883 – 1987, 17/2:255). It was “the most divine, the most heavenly, the noblest fraternity, […] the community of holiness in which we are all brothers and sisters, so closely united that a closer relationship could not be conceived. Herein we have one baptism, one Christ, one sacrament, one food, one Gospel, one faith, one spirit, one spiritual body, with each person being a member of the other.” (1883 – 1987, 2:756). While this spiritual church remained an aspirational ideal for the world, it could only be seen “through a glass darkly,” and only then by the keenest eyes of faith. “The church is indeed holy, but it is a sinner at the same time.” (1883 – 1987, 40/1: 197). In the earthly kingdom, Luther wrote, “the church is absconded, the saints are hidden.”(1883 – 1987, 18:652) “Just as that rock [Jesus Christ], sinless, invisible and spiritual, is perceptible by faith alone so perforce the church is sinless, invisible and spiritual, perceptible by faith alone.” (1883 – 1987, 7:710). The actual church of the earthly kingdom is only a shadow of this shining ideal, Luther argued, but dependent upon this ideal church like a shadow is dependent upon light for its being and form. The earthly church is comprised of both saints and sinners. Some are true believers, some are just imposters. Sometimes the true believers behave as saints, other times they behave as sinners. Thus God has established a visible church, as one of the orders of the 8 On this, see Witte 2002, chaps 1 – 4.

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earthly kingdom. God has called this church to dispense his unique “gifts” to the earthly kingdom – the preaching of the Word, the administration of the sacraments, the discipline of the keys. All Christians, as members of the priesthood of all believers, have a general responsibility to help dispense these gifts. But from within the universal priesthood of believers, God also calls some to be the “priests” of the church – pastors, teachers, sextons and other church officers. These priests of the earthly church enjoy no special status in the earthly kingdom: like the parent and like the prince, they simply have a distinctive office, neither more nor less important to God than other offices in the earthly kingdom. It was the responsibility of these priests, in tandem with the other earthly officers and orders, to see that the earthly church remained true to its office and faithful to its calling (cf. Pelikan et al.: 1955 – 1968, 40:325 – 347; 1955 – 1968, 41:3 – 178; 1955 – 1968, 38:188 ff.). This included adopting and adapting early canon law norms to structure and organize the visible church. It also included adopting and enforcing moral codes for both the officers and members of the church.

Theory of knowledge Luther’s two-kingdoms theory also drew to itself an epistemology, a theory of two sources and forms of knowledge. In his early years, Luther often described this in his favourite language of Law and Gospel. The knowledge of the Law brought death, the knowledge of the Gospel brought life. The truth revealed by the Law is that we all are sinners. The truth revealed by the Gospel is that we all can be saints. To move from sinner to saint, from death to life, from the earthly kingdom to the heavenly kingdom required earnest cultivation and application of the knowledge of Christ taught in the Gospel.9 In his later years, Luther also came to describe this epistemological distinction in terms of faith versus reason, of revealed knowledge versus hidden knowledge. In the heavenly kingdom, Luther argued, God reveals himself directly through the Bible and through the Christian conscience. God’s Word and will are utterly clear to all those who have true faith. In the earthly kingdom, however, God is hidden, shrouded by the sin that has fallen over this kingdom. God is the “absconded God” (deus absconditus), whose truth and knowledge are revealed and known only through “masks” (larvae). One such set of ‘masks,” Luther argued, is a person’s natural reason (Pelikan et al.: 1955 – 1968, 1:66 ff.). Luther wrote: “God has placed human earthly life under the dominion of natural reason which has enough ability to rule physical things. Reason and experience together teach […] how to do 9 This is the central thesis of Luther’s Commentary on Galatians (1535), which argument he summarised in (Pelikan et al.: 1955 – 1968, 26:4 – 12).

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everything else that belongs to sustaining life here on earth. These powers have been graciously bestowed by God upon human reason. God has seen to it that even the heathen is blessed with the gift of reason to help him live his daily life.” (Luther 1883 – 1987, 16:353).10 Cultivation of one’s natural reason, however, Luther went on, not only enables us to survive in the earthly kingdom but also to prepare ourselves for the heavenly kingdom. “The light of reason is everywhere kindled by the divine light,” Luther declared; “The light of reason is a part and beginning of the true light provided it recognizes and honors him by whom it is kindled.” “For wherever reason goes, there the will follows. And wherever the will goes, there love and desire follow.” (Pelikan et al.: 1955 – 1968, 52:57, 79). But the devil, too, is hidden in human reason and will, and distorts the natural knowledge and truth that God has implanted. Therefore, a person must not think that by willing to do good or by reasoning to find God, he or she will be able to move from the earthly kingdom to the heavenly kingdom to attain salvation (Luther : 1883 – 1987, 7:73; cf. 1883 – 1987, 39:374; 1883 – 1987, 40:42, 66). Faith alone brings salvation. Human reason and human will are always bound by sin – a point Luther pressed with great alacrity in his debate with Erasmus over the “bondage of the will.” (Pelikan et al.: 1955 – 1968, 33:295 ff.). “Reason when illuminated [by the Holy Spirit] helps faith by reflecting on something, but reason without faith is not and cannot be helpful.” (Luther : 1912-, 1, No. 71; Pelikan et al.: 1955 – 1968, 54:71) A second set of ‘masks’ through which the hidden God can be partly seen in the earthly kingdom are the various offices of authority in the earthly orders of household, church, and state. These offices not only rule the earthly kingdom on God’s behalf, as we saw: these authorities also communicate God’s truth and knowledge, God’s word and will, so far as they are able (1955 – 1968, 26: 64 – 96; 1955 – 1968, 14:114; 1955 – 1968, 24:67). “[T]he magistrate, the emperor, the king, the prince, the consul, the teacher, the preacher, the [parent] – all these are masks [of God],” Luther argued. God wants us to “respect and to acknowledge” them as His creatures and His teachers. These authorities are competent to teach much that is needed for life in the earthly kingdom, and a rational person would do well to heed their instruction. “But when the issue is one involving religion, conscience, the fear of God, faith, and the worship of God, then we must not fear or trust any [such earthly] order or look to it for consolation or rescue, either physical or spiritual.” This would “offend God,” and be a “denial of His truth.” (1955 – 1968, 26:95 – 96). A third set of ‘masks’ by which the hidden God is partly revealed is the conscientious work of Christian believers in the earthly kingdom. It is the duty of Christians of all sorts “to work the work of God in the world,” Luther argued (Luther : 1883 – 1987, 31/1:437; 1883 – 1987, 40/3:271 ff.). As citizens of the earthly kingdom, Christians were not to withdraw ascetically from the “things of the world,” abstaining from its activities and institutions as certain 10 Using translation in Lindberg 2001, 49 – 78, at 56. See further Lazarus 2001.

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Anabaptists of the day taught (1883 – 1987, 21:342 ff.). Rather, Christians were to participate actively in these earthly institutions and activities, to confirm their natural origin and function, and to use human will and reason, however defective, to do as much good and to attain as much understanding as possible. “God himself ordained and established this earthly realm and its distinctions,” Luther wrote. “[W]e must remain and work in them so long as we are on earth.” (1883 – 1987, 32:390).

Theory of righteousness Finally, the two-kingdoms theory drew to itself a soteriology, a theory of two forms of justice or righteousness and two corresponding uses of the law. We have already seen the heart of Luther’s doctrine of justification by faith alone: sinners become saints, earthly citizens become heavenly citizens only through faith in Christ, Luther insisted. No human works, however seemingly meritorious, will earn a person salvation. Luther’s discussion of two forms of righteousness and two uses of the law presented another dimension of this cardinal teaching, but now with an eye to explaining how and why good works might still be useful. Earthly righteousness, Luther taught, “the righteousness of law or of works,” is a natural righteousness whose norms, though ordained by God at creation, are perceived and carried out by the reason and will of sinners. This, Luther variously called “active,” “proper” “political” or “civil” righteousness. While this form of righteousness has no effect on one’s citizenship in the heavenly kingdom, it does help to improve one’s citizenship in the earthly kingdom. Earthly life for oneself and for all others is more livable and tolerable if a person does good, rather than evil. Heavenly righteousness, by contrast, “the righteousness of the Gospel or of faith,” is a spiritual righteousness in which God alone acts. By grace, God inspires faith in a person’s heart, and then by grace God responds to their faith, delivering them from sin and forgiving them. Luther thus variously called this a form of “passive,” “alien,” or “foreign” righteousness (Luther : 1883 – 1987, 1:293 ff.; Pelikan et al.: 1955 – 1968, 5:213 ff.; 1955 – 1968, 12:328 ff.; 1955 – 1968, 31:297 – 306). Luther summarized: We set forth two worlds, one of them heavenly and the other earthly. Into these we place two kinds of righteousness, which are distinct and separate from each other. The righteousness of the Law is earthly and deals with earthly things; by it we perform good works. But as the earth does not bring forth fruit unless it first has been watered and made fruitful from above […] so also by the righteousness of the Law we do nothing even when we do much; we do not fulfil the Law, even when we fulfil it. Without any merit or work of our own we must first be justified by Christian

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righteousness, which has nothing to do with the righteousness of the Law or with earthly and active righteousness. But this righteousness is heavenly and passive. We do not have it of ourselves; we receive it from heaven. We do not perform it; we accept it by faith, through which we ascend beyond all laws and works (Pelikan et al.: 1955 – 1968, 26:8).

The corollary to this doctrine of the two forms of righteousness was the doctrine of the two uses of the law.11 Once it is granted that salvation does not depend upon the works of the Law, the question arises: Why does God continue to maintain the law of God and the law of the magistrate? What are, from God’s point of view, its “uses” in the life of the earthly kingdom? Luther set forth two uses of the law, and touched on a third. One use of the law, Luther argued, is to restrain people from sinful conduct by threat of punishment.12 Luther called this the “civil” or “political” use of the law. God wants even the worst of sinners to observe the law – to honor their parents, to avoid killing and stealing, to respect marriage vows, to testify truthfully, and the like – so that “some measure of earthly order, concourse and concord may be preserved.” (Luther : 1883 – 1987, 10:454; cf. 1883 – 1987, 11:251). Sinners, not naturally inclined to observe the law, may be induced to do so by fear of punishment – divine punishment as well as human punishment. “Stern hard civil rule is necessary in the world,” Luther wrote, “lest the world be destroyed, peace vanish, and commerce and common interest be destroyed.” (1883 – 1987, 15:302). He emphasized that to maintain order it is important that there be precise legal rules, not only to deter lawbreakers but also to restrain magistrates from their natural inclination to wield their powers arbitrarily (Luther : 1912-, No. 3911). This first use of the law applied both to the law of God and to the law of the magistrate. It induced in earthly citizens a ‘civil’ or ‘political righteousness,’ a justice of law. A second use of the law is to make people conscious of their duty to give themselves completely to God while at the same time making them aware of their utter inability to fulfil that duty without divine help. Luther called this the “theological use” of the law. The law in this sense serves as a mirror in which a sinner can reflect upon his depravity and to see behind him the beckoning hand of a gracious God ready to forgive him and welcome him into the heavenly kingdom. Through the law the sinful person is induced to acknowledge his sin and to seek God’s gracious forgiveness (see e.g. Luther id.: 1883 – 1987, 40:481 – 486). Here Luther relied on St. Paul’s explanation of the significance of the law – to make persons conscious of their inherent

11 On the uses of the law in Luther and Lutheran thought, see detailed sources and discussions in Engelbrecht 2011. 12 Luther generally spoke of the “civil use” as the “first use of the law,” and the “theological use” as the “second use of the law,” though the latter was the more important to him. Cf. Luther 1883 – 1987, 10:454 ff.; 1883 – 1987, 40:486 ff.

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sinfulness and to bring them to repentance.13 Luther sometimes put this in harsh terms: “The true office and the chief and proper use of the law is to reveal to man his sin, blindness, misery, wickedness, ignorance, hate, contempt of God, death, hell, judgment, and the well-deserved wrath of God…. When the law is being used correctly, it does nothing but reveal sin, work wrath, accuse, terrify, and reduce minds to the point of despair.” (Luther : 1883 – 1968, 40:481). From out of the depths of this despair, the sinner will cry to God for forgiveness and salvation. This second use of the law applied primarily to the law of God, though the laws of a true Christian magistrate could have the same effect. It induced in persons a “passive righteousness,” a justice of faith, a recognition that one is entirely helpless in his own pursuit of heaven, and needs only have faith in God’s grace to be saved. Luther also touched lightly on a third use of the law. This use, grounded in St. Paul’s discussion of the law as “our teacher to bring us unto Christ” (Galatians 3:24), became known in the Protestant world as the “educational” or “pedagogical” use of the law.14 Law, in this sense, serves to teach the faithful, those who have already been justified by faith, the good works that please God. Luther recognized this concept without explicitly expounding a doctrine of the third use of the law. He recognized that those who are justified by faith remain sinful and in need of God’s constant instruction through the law. He recognized that sermons, commentaries, and catechism lessons on the many Old Testament passages on law are directed, in no small part, to teaching the faithful the meaning of God’s law.15 He wrote cryptically early in his career of the “threefold use of the law.”16 Later, in his Table Talk, he distinguished between “written law,” “oral law,” and “spiritual law” and then wrote, that the spiritual law “touches the heart and moves it, so that a man not only ceases to persecute, but […] desires to be better.” (Hazlitt: 1848, 135 – 136; cf. Luther : 1883 – 1987, 38:310). It is clear that, for Luther, law could serve not only as a harness against sin and an inducement to faith but also as a teacher of Christian virtue. But Luther never systematically expounded a third use of the 13 See esp. Romans 7:7-25; Galatians 3:19-22 and discussion in Luther : 1883 – 1968, 16:363-93. 14 See sources and discussion in Witte: 2005, 263 – 94. 15 In his Large Catechism (1529), which he described as “a set of instructions for the daily lives of Christian believers,” Luther devoted more than fifty pages to exegesis of the Decalogue, concluding that “outside of the Ten Commandments, no work can be good or pleasing to God, however great or precious it may appear in the eyes of the world.” (Triglott Concordia 1921, 670 – 671). He included a similar exegesis in his Treatise on Good Works (1520), (Luther : 1883 – 1987, 6:196 ff.), and his Disputations Against the Antinomians (1539), (Pelikan et al.: 1955 – 1968, 47:99 ff.). 16 In his 1522 Commentary on Galatians 3, Luther spoke of “threefold use of the law” (drey wysse am brauch des gesetz), though in this tract as well as his 1531 Commentary on Galatians, he focused only on the civil and theological uses of the law (Luther: 1883 – 1987,10/1:449, 457). Martin Bucer, in his 1525 Latin translation of Luther’s sermon, rendered Luther’s German phrase as triplex usus legis, a Latin phrase that other reformers adopted (Luther : 1883 – 1987,10/ 1:457 n.2).

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law in ways that Philipp Melanchthon, John Calvin, and many Protestant theologians and jurists did after 1535.17

Implications for theories of law, politics and society This elegant dialectical theology provided the framework for several fundamental reforms of traditional theories of society, politics, and law in the German and Scandavian lands where Lutheran theology become influential. Social Implications Luther’s two-kingdoms theory was a rejection of traditional hierarchical theories of being, authority, and society. For centuries, the Christian West had taught that God’s creation is fundamentally hierarchical in structure – a vast chain of being emanating from God and extending down through the various kingdoms of humans, animals, plants, and physical things. In this great chain of being, each creature found its place and its purpose, and the whole creation found its natural order.18 And in this chain of being, human society found its natural order and hierarchy. It was thus simply the nature of things that some persons and institutions were higher on this chain of being, some lower. It was the nature of things that some were closer and had more access to God, and some were further away and in need of greater mediation in their relationship with God. This was one basis for traditional arguments of the superiority of the pope to the emperor, of the clergy to the laity, of the canon law to the civil law, of the church to the state. It was also one basis for the hierarchical doctrine of purgatory and paradise depicted so graphically in Dante’s Divine Comedy – id. that vast hierarchy of purgation and sanctification that a confessed sinner slowly ascended in the afterlife in pursuit of recommunion with God. Luther’s two-kingdoms theory turned this traditional ontology onto its side. By separating the two kingdoms, Luther highlighted the radical separation between the Creator and the creation, and between God and humanity. For Luther, the fall into sin destroyed the original continuity and communion between the Creator and the creation, the tie between the heavenly kingdom and the earthly kingdom. There was no series of emanations of being from God to humanity. There was no stairway of merit from humanity to God. There was no purgatory. There was no heavenly hierarchy. God is present in the heavenly kingdom, and is revealed in the earthly kingdom primarily through “masks.” Persons are born into the earthly kingdom, and have access to the heavenly kingdom only through faith. 17 See further Witte 2005, 263 – 294. 18 See Lovejoy 1933. On the legal and ecclesiological implications of this ontology, see Tierney 1982, 8 ff.; Tierney 1998, 98 ff.

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Luther did not deny the traditional view that the earthly kingdom retains its natural order, despite the fall into sin. There remained, in effect, a chain of being, an order of creation that gave each creature, especially each human creature and each natural institution its proper place and purpose in this life. But, for Luther, this chain of being was horizontal, not hierarchical. Before God, all persons and all institutions in the earthly kingdom were by nature equal. Luther’s earthly kingdom was a flat regime, a horizontal realm of being, with no person and no institution obstructed or mediated by any other in access to and accountability before God. Second, and related, Luther’s two-kingdoms theory turned the traditional hierarchical theory of human society onto its side. For many centuries, the Church had taught that the clergy were superior to the laity. The clergy were, to adapt Luther’s language, special officers of the higher heavenly realm of grace, while the laity were simply members of the lower earthly realm of nature. As members of the higher heavenly realm, the clergy had readier access to God and God’s mysteries. They thus mediated the channel of grace between the laity and God – dispensing God’s grace through the sacraments and preaching, and interceding for God’s grace by hearing confessions, receiving charity, and offering prayers on behalf of the laity. In this sense, the lowliest cleric was superior to the noblest emperor. All the clergy, from the lowliest parson to the greatest pope, were exempt from earthly laws, taxes, and other duties, and foreclosed from earthly pursuits such as marriage and family life. Luther rejected this traditional social theory. Clergy and laity were fundamentally equal before God and before all others, he argued. Luther’s doctrine of the priesthood of all believers at once “laicized” the clergy and “clericized” the laity. It treated the traditional “clerical” office of preaching and teaching as just one other vocation alongside many others that a conscientious Christian could properly and freely pursue. He treated all traditional “lay” offices as forms of divine calling and priestly vocation, each providing unique opportunities for service to one’s peers. Preachers and teachers of the visible church must carry their share of civic duties and pay their share of civil taxes just like everyone else. And they could and should participate in earthly activities such as marriage and family life just like everyone else (cf. Witte: 2011, 113 – 158). Luther expanded on this natural egalitarianism with his robust understanding of the Christian “calling” (Beruf) or “vocation” (vocatio). Every “good, decent, and useful” occupation in which a Christian conscientiously engages should be treated as a Christian vocation, Luther believed. Each vocation was an equally virtuous and effective calling of God, though none was a pathway to salvation (Pelikan et al.: 1955 – 1968, 46:93 ff.). Both the carpenter and the prince, the mineworker and the judge, the housewife and the banker should accept their Christian responsibility to perform their tasks conscientiously and, so far as possible, in the service of God and

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others.19 Public officials, in particular, Luther argued, have a special calling to serve the community. This calling might require them to adopt a Christian social ethic that differs from a Christian personal ethic. A Christian’s duty in his direct relationship with God “as a private person, a person for himself alone,” is to love his enemy and to suffer injustice and abuse from his neighbour without resistance and without revenge. As a public person, serving in such offices as the military or the judiciary, however, a Christian might well be required to resist his neighbour and to avenge injustice and abuse, even to the point of violence and bloodshed (Pelikan et al. 1955 – 1968, 21:108-115; 1955 – 1968, 46:93 – 99). Luther did not press his natural egalitarianism to communitarian extremes. He saw no incompatability between insisting on the equal status of all persons and vocations before God, and accepting the ample disparities in wealth, power, privilege, and respectability among persons and positions in daily life. Some are more blessed, some less so. Some work harder, some play more. Some enjoy goods, some spurn them. Some start with noble inheritances, some start with nothing. Some vocations require more pageantry and property than others. None of these empirical disparities, however, changes the normative reality of human equality before God. Political Implications: Luther’s two-kingdoms theory also turned the traditional hierarchical theory of spiritual and temporal authority onto its side. For centuries, the Church had taught that the pope is the Vicar of Christ, in whom Christ has vested the “plentitude of his power.” This power was symbolized in the “two swords” discussed in Luke 22:38 – the spiritual and the temporal swords. Christ had handed these two swords to the highest being in the human world – the pope, the Vicar of Christ. The pope and his clerical delegates wielded the spiritual sword, in part by establishing canon law rules for the governance of all of Christendom. The pope, however, was too holy to wield the temporal sword. He thus delegated this sword to those authorities below the spiritual realm: emperors, kings, dukes, and their civil retinues. These civil magistrates were to promulgate and enforce civil laws in a manner consistent with canon law and other Church teachings. Under this two-swords theory, civil law was by its nature inferior to canon law. Civil jurisdiction was subordinate to ecclesiastical jurisdiction. Political authority was subordinate to clerical authority.20 Luther rejected this hierarchical view of government. For Luther, the earthly kingdom featured three natural forms and forums of government: the domestic, ecclesiastical, and political, or, in modern terms, the family, the church, and the state. These three institutions stood equal before God, and were each called directly by God to discharge complementary tasks in the 19 See detailed sources and discussion in Wingren 1957. 20 On medieval formulations, see von Gierke 1958, 7 – 21; Lewis, E. 1954, 2:506 – 538 and key documents in Tierney 1964; Field 1998.

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earthly kingdom. The family was called to rear and nurture children, to teach and to discipline them, to cultivate and exemplify love and charity within the home and the broader community. The church was called to preach the word, to administer the sacraments, to discipline their wayward members. The state was called to protect peace, punish crime, promote the common good, and to support the church, family, and other institutions derived from them. Not only were these three estates equal rather than hierarchical in authority, status, and responsibility, Luther argued: only the state had legal authority – the authority of the sword to pass and enforce positive laws for the governance of the earthly kingdom. Contrary to the two-swords theory, Luther emphasized that the church was not a law-making authority. The church had no sword. It had no jurisdiction. It had no business involving itself in the day-to-day administration of law or in the vesting of magistrates in their offices. The church’s ministry and mission lay elsewhere. To be sure, each local church needed internal rules of order and discipline to govern its members and officers, and external legal structures to protect its polity and property. But it was up to the local magistrate to pass and enforce these ecclesiastical laws, in consultation and cooperation with the local clergy and theologians. And, to be sure, church officers and theologians had to be vigilant in preaching and teaching the law of God to magistrates and subjects alike, and in pronouncing prophetically against injustice, abuse, and tyranny. But formal legal authority lay with the state, not with the church (Pelikan et al. 1955 – 1968, 45:105 ff.; 1955 – 1968, 36:106 ff.). Luther was more concerned with the function than with the form of the state. Luther had, at first, hoped that the emperor would endorse the Reformation, and accordingly included in his early writings some lofty panegyrics on the imperial authorities of the Holy Roman Empire of his day and of the Christian Roman Empire of a millennium before. When the emperor failed him, Luther turned at various times to the nobility, the peasantry, the city councils, and the princes, and in turn wrote favourably about each of them, and then sometimes unfavourably when they failed him.21 Luther ultimately did not care if the rulers were Christians, let alone Lutherans, so long as they ruled fairly and left the church and its members free to do their callings. “It is not necessary for the emperor to be a saint. It is not necessary for him to be a Christian to rule. It is sufficient for the emperor to possess reason.” (Luther : 1883 – 1987, 27:418). Luther’s political teachings must be read in their immediate political context, however, and not used to paint Luther as a theorist of political absolutism, or elitist oligarchy, or constitutional democracy. Luther had no firm theory of the forms of political office. He did not sort out systematically the relative virtues and vices of monarchy, aristocracy, or democracy. He spent very little time on the thorny constitutional questions of the nature and 21 See variously, K. Tr{dinger: 1975.

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purpose of executive, legislative, and judicial powers, let alone finer questions of checks and balances, judicial review, and other such questions that occupied other sixteenth-century Protestant and humanist writers (cf. Skinner : 1978; Witte: 2007, chaps 2 – 5). These were not Luther’s primary concern. Luther was more concerned with the general status and function of the political office – both before God and within the community. On the one hand, Luther believed, the magistrate was God’s vice-regent in the earthly kingdom, called to elaborate and enforce God’s Word and will, to reflect God’s justice and judgment on earthly citizens. The magistracy was, in this sense, a “divine office,” a “holy estate,” a “Godly calling,” within the earthly kingdom. Indeed, the magistrate was a “god” on earth, as Psalm 82:6 put it, to be obeyed as if God himself (cf. Pelikan, et al. 1955 – 1968, 2:139 ff.; 1955 – 1968, 13:44 ff.; 1955 – 1968, 44:92 ff.; 1955 – 1968, 45:85 ff.; 1955 – 1968, 46:237 ff.). “Law and earthly government are a great gift of God to mankind,” Luther wrote with ample flourish. “Earthly authority is an image, shadow, and figure of the dominion of Christ.” Indeed, “a pious jurist” who served faithfully in the Christian magistrate’s retinue is “a prophet, priest, angel, and savior […] in the earthly kingdom.”(Luther : 1883 – 1987, 30/2:554). The magistrate and his retinue not only represented God’s authority and majesty, however. They also exercised God’s judgment and wrath against human sin. “Princes and magistrates are the bows and arrows of God,” Luther wrote, equipped to hunt down God’s enemies in the earthly kingdom (Pelikan et al.: 1955 – 1968, 17:171). The hand of the Christian magistrate, judge, or soldier “that wields the sword and slays is not man’s hand, but God’s; and it is not man, but God, who hangs, tortures, beheads, slays, and fights. All these are God’s works and judgments.” (Luther : 1912 – 19:626; cf. Luther 1883 – 1987, 6:267; Pelikan et al.: 1955 – 1968, 45:113; 1955 – 1968, 46:95 ff.). On the other hand, Luther believed, the magistrate was the “father of the community” (Landesvater, paterpoliticus). He was to care for his political subjects as if they were his children, and his political subjects were to “honor” him as if he were their parent (Luther : 1883 – 1987, 30/1:152 ff.; Pelikan et al.: 1955 – 1968, 13:58 ff.; 1955 – 1968, 44:81 – 99). This was the essence of the ordo politicus, of the political authorities and their subjects that comprise “the state.” Like a loving father, the magistrate was to keep the peace and to protect his subjects from threats or violations to their persons, properties, and reputations (1955 – 1968, 13:44 ff.; 1955 – 1968, 45:88 ff., 103; 1955 – 1968, 46:225 ff.). He was to deter his subjects from abusing themselves through drunkenness, sumptuousness, prostitution, gambling, and other vices (1955 – 1968, 44:95 ff., 212 ff.; 1955 – 1968, 46:94 ff.). He was to nurture and sustain his subjects through the community chest, the public almshouse, the state-run hospice. He was to educate them through the public school, the public library, the public lectern. He was to see to their spiritual needs by supporting the ministry of the locally established church and by encouraging their attendance

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and participation through the laws of Sabbath observance, tithing, and holy days. He was to see to their material needs by reforming inheritance and property laws to ensure more even distribution of the parents’ property among all children. He was to set an example of virtue, piety, love, and charity in his own home and private life for his faithful subjects to emulate and to respect. The Christian magistrate was to complement and support the God-given responsibilities of parents and family members for their children and dependents, without intruding on the paternal office. And he was to support the preaching and sacramental life of the local church without trespassing on the ecclesiastical office, let alone that of the invisible church of the heavenly kingdom (1955 – 1968, 45:83 – 84, 104 – 113; cf. 1955 – 1968, 36:106 – 117).22 These twin metaphors of the Christian magistrate – as the lofty vice-regent of God and as the loving father of the community – described the basics of Luther’s political theory. For Luther political authority was divine in origin, but earthly in operation. It expressed God’s harsh judgment against sin but also his tender mercy for sinners. It communicated the law of God but also the lore of the local community. It depended upon the church for prophetic direction but it took over from the church jurisdiction, law-making power over marriage, education, poor relief, and other earthly subjects traditionally governed by the Church’s canon law. Either metaphor standing alone could be a recipe for abusive tyranny or officious paternalism. But both metaphors together provided Luther and his followers with the core ingredients of a robust Christian republicanism and budding Christian welfare state. Legal Implications. Luther’s two-kingdoms theory effectively “flattened” the traditional hierarchical theories of being and order, of clergy and laity, of ecclesiastical and political authority. His earthly kingdom was a horizontal realm with each person, each order, and each official called directly by God to discharge discrete offices and vocations. What kept this earthly kingdom and its activities intact, Luther believed, was the law of God, and its elaboration by earthly authorities and subjects. Luther defined the law of God as the set of norms ordained by God in the creation, written by God on the hearts of all persons, and rewritten by God on the pages of the Bible. Luther called this variously “the law of nature,” “natural law,” “divine law,” “Godly law,” “the law of the heart,” “the teachings of conscience,” “the inner law,” among others.23 His main point was that God’s natural law set at creation continued to operate after the fall into sin, and that it provided the foundation for all positive law and public morality in the earthly kingdom. Natural law was another one of those “masks” of God in the earthly kingdom. 22 See further discussion and sources in Witte: 2002, chap. 4 – 7. 23 See the collection of quotations in Beyer : 1935. and fuller sources from Pelikan et al.: 1955 – 1968 and Luther: 1883 – 1987 in Porter : 1974. Among numerous studies, see esp. Heckel 2010; Raunio: 2006

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The natural law defined the basic obligations that a person owed to God, neighbour, and self. The clearest expression of these obligations, for Luther, was the Ten Commandments, which God inscribed on two tables and gave to Moses on Mt. Sinai. The First Table of the Decalogue set out basic obligations to honour the Creator God, to respect God’s name, to observe the Sabbath, to avoid idolatry and blasphemy. The Second Table set out basic obligations to respect one’s neighbour : to honour authorities, and not to kill, commit adultery, steal, bear false witness, or covet (cf. Pelikan et al.: 1955 – 1968, 44:15 – 114; TC 581 – 677). Luther believed this to be a universal statement of the natural law binding not only on the Jews of the Old Testament but on everyone. “The Decalogue is not the law of Moses […] but the Decalogue of the whole world, inscribed and engraved in the minds of all men from the foundation of the world.” (Luther : 1883 – 1987, 39/1:478). “[W]hoever knows the Ten Commandments perfectly must know all the Scriptures, so that, in all affairs and cases, he can advise, help, comfort, judge, and decide both spiritual and temporal matters, and is qualified to sit in judgment upon all doctrines, estates, spirits, laws, and whatever else is in the world.” (TC 573). And again: “[A]lthough the Decalogue was given in a particular way and place and ceremony, […] all nations acknowledge that there are sins and iniquities.” (Luther : 1883 – 1987, 39/1:540; cf. 1883 – 1987, 18:72; 30:192). Knowledge of this natural law comes not only through revealed Scripture, Luther argued, but also through natural reason – another one of those “masks” by which the hidden God is partly revealed in the earthly kingdom. Luther built on St. Paul’s notion that even the heathen have a “law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness” to a natural knowledge of good and evil (Rom. 2:15). Every rational person thus “feels” and “knows” the law of God, even if only obliquely. The basic teaching of the natural law “lives and shines in all human reason, and if people would only pay attention to it, what need would they have of books, teachers, or of law? For they carry with them in the recesses of the heart a living book which would tell them more than enough about what they ought to do, judge, accept, and reject” (1883 – 1987, 17/2:102). But sinful persons do not, of their own accord, “pay attention” to the natural law written on their hearts, and rewritten in the Bible. Thus God has called upon other persons and authorities in the earthly kingdom to elaborate its basic requirements. All Christians, as priests to their peers, must communicate the natural law of God by word and by deed. Parents must teach it to their children and dependents. Preachers must preach it to their congregants and catechumens. And magistrates must elaborate and enforce it through their positive laws and public policies. The magistrate’s elaboration and enforcement of the natural law was particularly important, Luther believed, since only the magistrate held formal legal authority in the earthly kingdom. “Natural law is a practical first principle in the realm of public morality,” Luther wrote; “it forbids evil and commands good. Positive law is a decision that takes local conditions into

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account,” and “credibly” elaborates the general principles of the natural law into specific precepts to fit these local conditions. “The basis of natural law is God, who has created this light, but the basis of positive law is the earthly authority,” the magistrate, who represents God in this earthly kingdom (Luther : 1912-, 3, No. 3911; cf. Luther : 1883 – 1987, 51:211). The magistrate must promulgate and enforce these positive laws by combining faith, reason, and tradition. He must pray to God earnestly for wisdom and instruction. He must maintain “an untrammelled reason” in judging the needs of his people and the advice of his counsellors (Pelikan et al.: 1955 – 1968, 45:120 – 126). He must consider the wisdom of the legal tradition – particularly that of Roman law, which Luther called a form of “heathen wisdom.” (Luther : 1883 – 1987, 51:242; cf. 1883 – 1987, 12:243; 1883 – 1987, 14: 591, 714; 1883 – 1987, 16:537; 1883 – 1987, 30/2:557; 1883 – 1987, 51:241). “The polity and the economy” of the earthly kingdom, Luther wrote, “are subject to reason. Reason has first place. There [one finds] civil laws and civil justice.” (1883 – 1987, 40:305)

Summary and conclusions Luther’s two-kingdoms theory was a theory of being, of the person, of the church, of knowledge, and of righteousness all at once – or, in loftier academic language, an ontology, anthropology, ecclesiology, epistemology, and soteriology. God has ordained two kingdoms or realms in which humanity is destined to live, the earthly kingdom and the heavenly kingdom. The earthly kingdom is the realm of creation, of natural and civic life, where a person operates primarily by reason and law. The heavenly kingdom is the realm of redemption, of spiritual and eternal life, where a person operates primarily by faith and love. These two kingdoms embrace parallel forms of righteousness and justice, government and order, truth and knowledge. They interact and depend upon each other in a variety of ways. But these two kingdoms ultimately remain distinct. The earthly kingdom is distorted by sin, and governed by the Law. The heavenly kingdom is renewed by grace and guided by the Gospel. A Christian is a citizen of both kingdoms at once and invariably comes under the distinctive government of each. As a heavenly citizen, the Christian remains free in his or her conscience, called to live fully by the light of the Word of God. But as an earthly citizen, the Christian is bound by law, and called to obey the natural orders and offices of household, state, and church that God has ordained and maintained for the governance of this earthly kingdom. Luther’s two-kingdoms theory helped render the Reformation of Germany and Scandavania a reformation both of theology and the church as well as law and the state. It is worth outlining this latter reform by way of conclusion, for it helps to situate the locations of the hidden God in the earthly kingdom, to

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illustrate the distinctive Lutheran form of secularization that has been so fundamental to Germany and the Nordic lands. The Lutheran Reformation brought fundamental changes to legal and political life. Lutheran reformers pressed to radical conclusions the theological concept of the magistrate as the father of the community, called by God to enforce both tables of the Decalogue for his political children. This idea helped to trigger a massive shift in power and property from the church to the state, and ultimately introduced enduring systems of state-established churches, schools, and social welfare institutions. Lutheran reformers replaced the traditional idea of marriage as a sacrament with a new idea of the marital household as a social estate to which all persons are called – clerical and lay alike. On that basis, the reformers developed a new civil law of marriage, featuring requirements of parental consent, state registration, church consecration, and peer presence for valid marital formation as well as absolute divorce on grounds of adultery, desertion, and other faults, with subsequent rights to remarriage. Lutheran reformers replaced the traditional understanding of education as a teaching office of the church with a new understanding of the public school as a ‘civic seminary’ for all persons to prepare for their distinctive vocations. On that basis, magistrates replaced clerics as the chief rulers of education, civil law replaced canon law as the principal law of education, and the general callings of all Christians replaced the special calling of the clergy as the principal goal of education. A good deal of modern Nordic and broader Western law of marriage, education, and social welfare still bears the unmistakable marks of Lutheran Reformation theology. Today, in most Western legal systems, marriage is still viewed as both a civil and a spiritual institution, whose formation and dissolution require special legal procedures. Parents must still consent to the marriages of their minor children. Peers must still attest to the veracity of the marital oath. Pastors or political officials must still confirm the marital union, if not consecrate it. Divorce and annulment still require a special public proceeding before a tribunal, with proof of support for dependent spouses and children. Today, in most Western legal systems, basic education remains a fundamental right of the citizen to procure and a fundamental duty of the state to provide. Literacy and learning are still considered a prerequisite for individual flourishing and communal participation. Society still places a heavy burden on those who shirk education voluntarily. The state is still considered to be the essential monitor of civil education, which task it discharges directly through its own public or common schools or indirectly through its accreditation and supervision of private schools. Today, in most Western legal systems, care for the poor and needy remains an essential office of the state and an essential calling of the citizen. The rise of the modern Western welfare state over the past century is in no small measure a new institutional expression of the Lutheran ideal of the magistrate as the

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father of the community called to care for all his political children. The concurrent rise of the modern philanthropic citizen is in no small measure a modern institutional expression of Luther’s ideal of the priesthood of all believers, each called to give loving service to neighbors. Sixteenth-century Lutherans and twenty-first century Westerners seem to share the assumption that the state has a role to play not only in fighting wars, punishing crime, and keeping peace, but also in providing education and welfare, fostering charity and morality, facilitating worship and piety. They also seem to share the assumption that law has not only a basic use of coercing citizens to accept a morality of duty but also a higher use of inducing citizens to pursue a morality of aspiration. A good deal of the modern Nordic and broader Western struggle with law, however, is also part of the legal legacy of the Lutheran Reformation. For example the Lutheran reformers removed the church as the spiritual ruler in expression of their founding ideals of religious liberty. But they ultimately anointed the state as the new spiritual ruler in expression of their new doctrines of Christian republicanism. Ever since, Germany and other Nordic lands have been locked in a bitter legal struggle to eradicate state establishments of religion and to guarantee religious freedom for all. Similarly, Lutheran reformers removed clerics as mediators between God and the laity, in expression of St. Peter’s teaching of the priesthood of all believers. But they ultimately interposed husbands between God and their wives, in expression of St. Paul’s teaching of male headship within the home. The Lutheran reformers outlawed monasteries and cloisters. But these reforms also ended the vocations of many single women, placing a new premium on the vocation of marriage. Ever since, Protestant women have been locked in a bitter legal struggle to gain fundamental equality both within the marital household and without – a struggle that has still not ended in more conservative Protestant communities today. Luther’s legal legacy therefore should be neither unduly romanticized nor unduly condemned. Those who champion Luther as the father of liberty, equality, and fraternity might do well to remember his ample penchant for elitism, statism, and chauvinism. Those who see the reformers only as belligerent allies of repression should recognize that they were also benevolent agents of welfare. Prone as he was to dialectic reasoning, and aware as he was of the inherent virtues and vices of human achievements, Luther would likely have reached a comparable assessment.

Bibliography ærsheim, H. (2013) Legal Secularism? – Differing Notions of Religion in International and Norwegian Law, in: van den Breemer, R. / Casanova, J. / Wyller, T. (ed.), Secular

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and Sacred? The Scandinavian Case of Religion in Human Rights, Law and Public Space. Vandenhoek & Ruprecht. Göttingen. Beyer, H. W. (1935), Luther und das Recht: Gottes Gebot, Naturrecht, Volksgesetz in Luthers Deutung, Munich: Kaiser. Casanova. J. (1994), Public Religions in the Modern World, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Casanova. J. (2013), The Two Dimensions, Temporal and Spatial, of the Secular : Comparative Reflections on the Nordic Protestant and Southern Catholic Patterns from a Global Perspective, in: van den Breemer, R. / Casanova, J. / Wyller, T. (ed.), Secular and Sacred? The Scandinavian Case of Religion in Human Rights, Law and Public Space. Vandenhoek & Ruprecht. Göttingen. Christoffersen, L. / Moedeer, K.æ. / Andersen, S. (ed.) (2010), Law and Religion in the 21st Century : Nordic Perspectives, Copenhagen: Djøf Publishers. Cranz, E. (1959), An Essay on the Development of Luther’s Thought on Justice, Law, and Society, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Engelbrecht, E. (2011), Friends of the Law: Luther’s Use of the Law for the Christian Life, St. Louis, MO: Concordia Publishing House. Field, L.L. (1998), Liberty, Dominion, and the Two Swords: On the Origins of Western Political Theology, Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press. Friedmann, R. (1973), The Theology of Anabaptism, Scottdale, PA: Herald Press. Furseth, I. (2013), The Ambiguity of Secular and Religious Space: The Norwegian Penitentiary System, in: van den Breemer, R. / Casanova, J. / Wyller, T. (ed.), Secular and Sacred? The Scandinavian Case of Religion in Human Rights, Law and Public Space. Vandenhoek & Ruprecht. Göttingen. Hazlitt, W. (trans.) (1848), The Table Talk or Familiar Discourses of Martin Luther, London: D. Bouge. Heckel, J. (2010), Lex Charitatis: A Juristic Disquisition on Law in the Theology of Martin Luther, trans. and ed. Gottfried G. Krodel, Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans. Johnson, A.M. / Maxfield, J.A. (ed.) (2012), The Reformation as Christianization, Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Knott, K. (2005), The Location of Religion: A Spatial Analysis, London: Equinox. Lazarus, W. (2001), Christians in Society : Luther, the Bible, and Social Ethics, Minneapolis: Fortress Press. Lewis, E. (1954), Medieval Political Ideas, 2 vols., London: Routledge & Paul. Lindberg, C. (2001), Christianization and Luther on the Early Profit Economy, in: Johnson and Maxfield (ed.), The Reformation as Christianization, 49 – 78. Lovejoy, A (1933), The Chain of Being: A Study of the History of an Idea, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Luther, M. D. (1883 – 1987), D. Martin Luthers Werke: Kritische Gesamtausgabe, 78 vols.,Weimar : H. Böhlau. Luther, M. D. (1912-) D. Martin Luthers Werke: Tischreden, 7 vols.,Weimar : H. Böhlau.

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Maurer, W. (1970), Luthers Lehre von den drei Hierarchien und ihr mittelalterlischer Hintergrund, Munich: Verlag der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften. Mäkinen, V. (ed.) (2006), The Lutheran Reformation and the Law, Leiden: Brill. O’Donovan, O. (1996), The Desire of the Nations: Rediscovering the Roots of Political Theology, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pauck, W. (trans.) (1961), Luther : Lectures on Romans (1515 – 1516), Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 120. Pelikan, J. et Al. (1955 – 1968), Luther’s Works, trans. and ed. Jaroslav Pelikan et al., 55 vols., Philadelphia: Fortress Press. Porter, J.M. (ed.) (1974), Luther – Selected Political Writings, Philadelphia: Fortress Press. Raunio, A. (2006), Divine and Natural Law in Luther and Melanchthon, in: Mäkinen, V (ed.), The Lutheran Reformation and the Law, Leiden: Brill, 21 – 62. Ryter, K. (2013) Space for Religion in Public Hospitals: Constructive Coexistence Can be Negotiated, in: van den Breemer, R. / Casanova, J. / Wyller, T. (ed.), Secular and Sacred? The Scandinavian Case of Religion in Human Rights, Law and Public Space. Vandenhoek & Ruprecht. Göttingen. Skinner, Q. (1978), The Foundation of Modern Political Thought, 2 vols., Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Taylor, C. (2007), A Secular Age, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Tierney, B. (1982), Religion, Law, and the Growth of Constitutional Thought: 1150 – 1650, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Tierney, B. (1998), Foundations of Conciliar Theory : The Contributions of the Medieval Canonists from Gratian to the Great Schism, enlarged new ed., Leiden / New York: Brill. Tierney, B. (1964), The Crisis of Church and State, 1050 – 1300, Englewood Cliffs, NJ. Torkildsen, D. (2013), West Nordic and East Nordic Religiousness and Secularity : Historical Unity and Diversity, in: van den Breemer, R. / Casanova, J. / Wyller, T. (ed.), Secular and Sacred? The Scandinavian Case of Religion in Human Rights, Law and Public Space. Vandenhoek & Ruprecht. Göttingen. Triglott Concordia (1921), The Symbolic Books of the Ev. Lutheran Church GermanLatin-English, St. Louis, MO: Concordia Publishing House. Trüdinger, K. (1975), Luthers Briefe und Gutachten an weltliche Obrigkeit zur Durchführung der Reformation, Münster : Aschendorff. Van Den Breemer, R. (2013) Graveyards and Secularism in Norway : In Search of a Fitting Category, in: van den Breemer, R. / Casanova, J. / Wyller, T. (ed.), Secular and Sacred? The Scandinavian Case of Religion in Human Rights, Law and Public Space. Vandenhoek & Ruprecht. Göttingen. Van Der Ven, J. (2013) From Divine Law to Positive Law, in: van den Breemer, R. / Casanova, J. / Wyller, T. (ed.), Secular and Sacred? The Scandinavian Case of Religion in Human Rights, Law and Public Space. Vandenhoek & Ruprecht. Göttingen. Van Drunen, D. (2010), Natural Law and the Two Kingdoms: A Study in the Development of Reformed Social Thought, Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans.

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Von Gierke, O. (1958), Political Theories of the Middle Age, repr. ed., F.W. Maitland, trans., Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Wingren, G. (1957), Luther on Vocation, Carl C. Rasmussen, trans., Philadelphia: Muhlenberg Press. Witte, J. (2002), Law and Protestantism: The Legal Teachings of the Lutheran Reformation, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Witte, J. (2005), God’s Joust, God’s Justice: Law and Religion in the Western Tradition, Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans. Witte, J. (2011), From Sacrament to Contract: Marriage, Religion, and Law in the Western Tradition, 2d ed., Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 113 – 58. Witte, J. (2007), The Reformation of Rights: Law, Religion, and Human Rights in Early Modern Calvinism, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Wyller, T. (2013), The Undocumented Embodied. Shaping the Space Where the Sacred and the Secular Intertwine, in: van den Breemer, R. / Casanova, J. / Wyller, T. (ed.), Secular and Sacred? The Scandinavian Case of Religion in Human Rights, Law and Public Space. Vandenhoek & Ruprecht. Göttingen.

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Dag Thorkildsen

West Nordic and East Nordic Religiousness and Secularity : Historical Unity and Diversity

Abstract The question of a Nordic identity is also the question of the relationship between such an identity and the religious history of the Nordic nations. All these nations have a long tradition where the churches have been organized as state churches with a Lutheran confession. Although the heritage from the reformation and the Lutheran confession has given the Nordic Churches, and for this reason the Nordic societies, certain common features, the differences are as striking as the similarities. The reasons go back both to the Age of Reformation and to the Age of Pietism. The differences between West and East Nordic states and churches were deepened during World War II. The West Nordic states got occupied, while Sweden was neutral and Finland an ally to Germany. During 19th and 20th century revivalism made a great impact on the Nordic societies, but was met in different ways. It became an element in early modernization, and it contributed to secularization, i. e. separating the sacred from the secular. Secularization as differentiation may also be characterized as a dissolvent of inter-woveness between religion and different social aspects. Such a dissolvent has been stronger in Sweden than in the West-Nordic area. One reason is that the Church of Sweden as a High Church historically has had a more independent relation to the state, while the Church of Denmark and the Church of Norway as Low Churches have been more integrated. In Denmark and Norway this inter-woveness has been stronger, first of all at the municipal level.

Lutheran State Churches The question of a Nordic identity also implies the question of the relationship between such an identity and the Nordic Churches and religious history of the Nordic nations. One of the obvious common features of these nations is that they all have a long tradition whereby the churches have been organized as State Churches with a Lutheran confession. Since the sixteenth century, governance of the Nordic Churches – with certain variations – has been an integrated part of the governance of the state. Furthermore, religious

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confession and church order has been an important part of the legislation, and had not only a religious, but also a political aim. Until the nineteenth century, religion gave legitimacy to the authorities, and confession demarcated the territory of state and people towards other states. For this reason the Nordic Churches are often characterized as National Churches, though this description has applied more to the situation since the nineteenth century when the Nordic nation states were established. Prior to that, it would be more correct to describe them as territorial churches, since both Sweden and Denmark–Norway were multinational states. For the same reason, contacts between these churches were sporadic, and we find few traces of a consciousness of religious unity in the Nordic region. What we do find is a consciousness of belonging to an Evangelical unity far beyond the scope of the Nordic countries. But the Scandinavism of the nineteenth century changed this concept and replaced it with ideas of a type of Scandinavian community. One of the most significant consequences of the Reformation was the new relationship between church and state, which depended on the Lutheran doctrine of society. According to the reformers, the basis of society was the household, the key estate of society. The other two estates were the religious estate (whose function was to teach and preach) and the governing estate (whose function was to maintain order and peace). The idea of three estates was expressed in the so-called ‘status hierarchicus triplex’, which means the hierarchy of three estates. The governing estate (the Prince, the authorities, the military, etc.), received its authority from the household, and the Prince should be like a father to all his subjects. For that reason he should be obeyed and loved as a father. Furthermore, the duties of obedience and loyalty to the authorities were based on St. Paul’s commandment in the Letter to the Romans chapter 13: “There is no authority except from God.” During the Age of Absolutism the order of the estates was changed, and the governing estate put first. All authority in society was now derived from the Prince and his divine authorization, also the authority of the religious estate (ministers and teachers) (cf. Thorkildsen: 2011). The Lutheran idea of the construction of society was important for socialising and disciplining the subjects, and it was spread to people through house tables, catechization, house examinations (Sweden) and church schools. During the nineteenth century, when Absolutism was abolished and replaced by a liberal democracy, the former religious legitimization of state and society was superseded by nationalism. But the metaphor of the family was kept. The people were now described in terms of one big family. They were relatives, tied together by the same mother tongue, culture and history and shaped by the same natural environment. The duties of patriotism and loyalty were no longer directed to the Prince, but rather to the nation and the fellow citizens.

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Different types of Lutheranism Although the heritage from the Reformation and the Lutheran confession has given the Nordic Churches, and consequently the Nordic societies, certain common features, the differences are as striking as the similarities. The reasons for this go back both to the Age of Reformation and the Age of Pietism. In Denmark–Norway and on the Faeroe Islands and Iceland, the Reformation was carried through rather fast in close contact with Wittenberg, the Lutheran headquarters. In this region, church order and ministry got a practical and typical Lutheran shaping, the church became an integrated part of the state, and what was formerly ecclesiastical property was used to build the state. The local clergyman represented both God and King, and the clergy was the largest and most important part of the administration of the state. In Sweden and Finland (at this time the eastern part of Sweden), however, the Reformation was connected to Swedish emancipation from Denmark and the establishment of a new monarchy. In this East Nordic Region, the Reformation went on for the rest of the sixteenth century. The confessional direction was not steady, but included Calvinistic influences as well as Roman Counter Reformation, there was greater continuity with the church of the Middle Ages, and the church succeeded in retaining a certain degree of self-government (cf. Österlin: 1994, 89 – 91). From a historical perspective it could be argued that it is here that we find the reason why Church of Sweden is more ‘High Church’ and similar to Church of England than the Churches of Denmark and Norway (cf. Österlin: 1995). These differences were strengthened during the eighteenth century due to the official attitude towards Pietism, which was a popular reform movement. From the very beginning this movement was suppressed in Sweden by means of strict legislation. In Denmark and Norway, however, it was supported by the monarchy and spread through the clergy. The Swedish tension between popular religious activism and the orthodoxy of the official church was strengthened during the nineteenth century and led to further polarization and the establishment of free churches. In Denmark and Norway, however, most of the pietistic laymen movements were integrated into the official church, which resulted in various types of free churches within the boundaries of a State Church. The same development may also be seen in Finland, where Pietism and laymen activism gained a strong hold during the nineteenth century. From the same perspective it is not surprising that Sweden, as the first of the Nordic nations, decided to separate church and state at the turn of the millennium. In contrast to many other European nations that also oped for such a separation, this decision did not come as a result of a conflict between church and state, but rather through mutual agreement. A similar development seems to be emerging in Denmark, although there has been no strong wish among the majority of politicians and members of the church to carry out

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such a separation. Norway, however, has chosen a middle position between Swedish separation and Danish integration. Since May 2012, the relation between church and state has been loosened as a result of constitutional amendments. Leading politicians argue that the Church of Norway will, nonetheless, continue to be a State Church due to its special basis in the Constitution. Furthermore, the Church’s organization and business will continue to be regulated by a separate church law, without the Church being defined as a separate legal entity. The state will also continue to have employer responsibilities for the bishops, deans, pastors and others employed in ecclesiastical positions in regional and central church bodies, which implies that pastors will continue to be civil servants. The state will continue to ensure that local authorities have a statutory obligation to finance local church activities, but responsibility for appointing deans and bishops will be transferred to church bodies. The conclusion of these initial historical lines is that, in addition to an ecclesiastical and religious Nordic unity with roots in the age of the Reformation, it is necessary to distinguish between West Nordic Churches (Denmark, Norway, the Faeroe Islands and Iceland) and East Nordic Churches (Sweden and – with some reservations – Finland). The West Nordic tradition has to a certain degree been low-church Lutheran with a strong integration of church and state, while the East Nordic tradition has been High Church and confessional orthodox with a less firm integration. Although the Church of Norway has moved towards the East Nordic tradition in recent decades, this historical pattern can still be traced in the frequency of contacts and the degree of identification with other Nordic Churches.

World War II The differences between West and East Nordic states and churches grew during World War II and the post-war period. Through a referendum after World War I, Denmark regained the northern part of Schleswig (Southern Jutland), which it had lost during the war in 1864. Furthermore, in December 1917 Finland declared independence from Russia. Otherwise the Nordic states and Churches did not get involved in World War I and remained neutral. The situation, however, was quite different during World War II. The West Nordic countries were occupied. Denmark and Norway were occupied by Nazi Germany in the spring of 1940. The Danish Folk Church was divided in its attitude towards the government’s policy of collaboration. Both anti-Semitism as well as resistance were to be found within the Church.1 In Norway the 1 The Faroe Islands were occupied by British forces. The same happened to Iceland, but the country

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bishops resigned their offices in February 1942 in protest against the Nazi Regime. In April of the same year the large majority (about 90 %) of the pastors followed their bishops, and read ‘The Church’s Foundation’ from the pulpits and resigned their governmental offices. Sweden, however, remained neutral in principle, although several Swedish church leaders had close contact with German theologians who sympathized with Nazi politics. As an example, Archbishop Eidem in Uppsala was chairman of The Luther Academy in Sonderhausen, though this academy became all the more marked by Nazism. The influential professor of theology in Lund, Hugo Odeberg, cooperated closely with ‘Institut zur Erforschung und Beseitigung des jüdischen Einflusses auf das deutsche kirchliche Leben’ (Institute for Research and Elimination of Jewish Influence on German Church Life). In the East Nordic region between 1939 and 1940, Finland fought the Winter War against invading Soviet troops, but lost Finnish Karelia. For this reason Finland became an ally of Nazi Germany, and the Continuation War lasted from 1941 to 1944 when Finland was forced to remove German troops from its territory. This resulted in the Lapland War. The image of the Nordic countries and Churches after World War II was therefore complex and full of tensions. Finland, which had been an ally of Nazi Germany, lost part of its territory (including the city of Viborg) to the Soviet Union and also had to pay heavy compensation to Soviet Union. In Norway and Denmark a treason settlement and court processes ensued after liberation in May 1945. In Sweden, however, no such actions took place, since the country had in principle remained neutral. Even a keen supporter of Hitler like the dean and editor Ivar Daniel Rhedin, who had suggested giving Hitler the Nobel Peace Prize, could continue without any intervention. The tensions after World War II also made it difficult to gather the leading Nordic bishops to a meeting to discuss post-war challenges, though the Danish bishop Hans Fuglsang-Damgaard eventually succeeded in gathering them in Copenhagen (the Norwegian bishop Berggrav refused to meet in Sweden) (cf. Schjørring: 2011, 11 – 44). During recent decades the differences between East and West Nordic churches can be seen in the light of differing attitudes towards the Porvoo Declaration of 1992, the aim of which was to establish mutual recognition between the Nordic and Baltic Lutheran Churches and the Anglican Churches of Great Britain and Ireland. This declaration was warmly embraced in Sweden, while the Church of Denmark was sceptical. Some Danish theologians even characterized the declaration as a betrayal of the Reformation, due to the positive mention of having an Episcopalian tradition. The Churches of Norway and Finland have been positive, though with some reservations. was handed over to US in 1941. Iceland used the opportunity in 1944 to declare the country an independent nation state. Greenland’s east coast was partly occupied by the Germans until Greenlandic and American forces took over.

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Unity, diversity and Scandinavism The unity and diversity among the Nordic Churches could be illustrated in a simplified figure consisting of two axes. The first axis would go from High Church to Low Church Lutheranism. Along this axis Church of Sweden and Church of Denmark would be opposite poles, while the other Nordic Churches would be placed somewhere in between. Along the second axis, stretching from pietism to religious liberalism, the positions would differ, with the Church of Norway and, probably, the Church of Finland at one end and the Church of Denmark and, probably, the Church of Sweden at the other. This would give the following matrix, which should be read cum grano salis: High Church

Low Church

Pietism

Finland

Norway

Religious liberalism

Sweden

Denmark

The reasons why we find such a religious matrix in the North, which will be discussed further in the following passages, are closely connected with the history of the Nordic nations in the nineteenth and the twentieth centuries. At the end of the eighteenth century and the beginning of the nineteenth, the historical pattern, which is described above and which fitted to the geopolitical fact that Denmark and Sweden after the Reformation had been sworn enemies, was challenged by a growing consciousness of a common Nordic cultural identity (early Scandinavism). This identity included also a common religious identity (Cf. Østerg”rd: 1994; Thorkildsen/Österlin: 1998d.). One of the key figures in this ‘national awakening’ was the Danish theologian, minister, poet, historian and politician, N. F. S. Grundtvig. A basic concept in his religious, cultural and political activities from the beginning of the nineteenth century until his death in 1872 was the idea of awakening the sleeping and almost forgotten ‘Nordic Spirit’, which he found expressed in Norse literature and poetry. According to Grundtvig, this Nordic Spirit expressed a Nordic and national identity. Since nationality was an expression of the character of a people, Christianity had to become Nordic and national in order to appeal to the average man and woman. He claimed that the Spirit of the Creator manifested itself in the spirit of a people. It was a power which unified individuals as a people and maintained it in the relationship with its Creator and with its destiny in history. For this reason creation (nature and culture) is not only a contrast to Christian belief and life, but also has its own value. Likewise, a national people have a value in itself and not only the people of God.

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Grundtvig’s most important contribution towards implementing his vision of a reborn Nordic culture was his ideas on education. Both in Denmark and Norway they led to a modernization of the public school system. Furthermore, they created a special type of Nordic school: the Folk High School, which spread throughout the entire Nordic region. Prior to this, the primary schools had been church schools, and the purpose had been to teach children to be pious Christians and obedient subjects. In order to do so, they had to learn to read. Grundtvig would instead keep church and school apart and make secular subjects an important part of the curriculum. He also argued strongly to abolish classical education in the private schools and instead give the children a national education. The purpose of this was to produce responsible citizens and good patriots. This dual purpose became even clearer in the Folk High School, which was aimed at young farmers, who according to Grundtvig were the bearers of national identity. This school should give youth a “historical-poetical” education, an education that reflected the character and identity of the people. National history, mother tongue, ancient Nordic myths, knowledge of the country became main subjects, at the same time as important issues were discussed in public meetings at the schools. In this way these schools became a hearth of nationalism, not only in Denmark, but also in most of the Nordic nations. Grundtvig’s followers in Denmark were a small group and even smaller in the other Nordic countries, but his Nordic vision, with all it implied as he became an advocate of freedom in both the church and society, aligns closely with the predominant changes that came about in the Nordic countries during the nineteenth century. His vision may therefore be seen as a paradigm of the Nordic myth. Grundtvig and his followers gave birth to a popular movement that became one of the most important revivalist movements in the Nordic Region, and revivalism is a characteristic feature of the Nordic nations during the nineteenth century. The revivalist movements played an important role in transforming these nations into modern societies. Among the different types of revivalism, religious revivalism came first.

Revivalism, secularisation and modernisation Religious revivalism is a phenomenon, which is not easy to classify. It occurred not only in the Nordic Region, but also in most of the Protestant world of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. But religious revivalism had a stronger impact on the Nordic societies than in the rest of Europe, particularly so in Norway and Finland (cf. Murtorinne: 1998). For a long time this religious revivalism has been interpreted as a popular reaction to the Enlightenment and to Rationalism, but during recent decades

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there has been a tendency to interpret it in closer relation to the historical and social contexts of the time. The result has been an underlining of the novelty of these movements. It has been claimed that religious revivalism broke the unity of pre-modern agrarian society, created new social forms and thus represented early modernity (cf. Sanders: 1995; Thorkildsen: 1998c.). There is no doubt that there were close links between the Pietism of the eighteenth century and the religious revivalism of the nineteenth century, but these links also held the potential to turn this revivalism into something very modern. This depended on the ambiguous heritage from the Age of Reformation. On the one hand, the reformers had abounded the religious hierarchy of the medieval church and taught a priesthood of all believers, facing God the faith is the only criterion, and for that reason all believers are in the same position. On the other hand, the Protestant doctrine of society promoted a conservation of the hierarchical society and maintained social order ; “There is no authority except from God.” (cf. Thorkildsen: 2011). In the West Nordic region, religious revivalism was kept inside the official church. But in contrast to Norway, the influence of Grundtvig turned the Christianity of the Danish Church into a liberal, sacramental and national form of Christianity. In Finland, too, religious revivalism was integrated with the official Lutheran Church and featured a large part of the clergy. The Nordic exception was, as mentioned above, Sweden, where the politics of religious unity were sharpened. This caused a polarization between a conservative High Church and confessional, orthodox official Church and the revivalists and led to establishment of organized Free Churches. Although a dissenter law in 1873 made it possible to leave the Church of Sweden and join another stateapproved Christian or Jewish religious community, Swedes were not permitted to join a non-Christian religion before 1951. Although the Nordic countries met religious revivalism in different ways, the attempts to suppress revivalism led to demands for civil liberties such as the freedom to assemble and religious freedom. For this reason we find an interaction between religious revivalism and political liberalism, which resulted in the clergy losing control over the religious activities of the laity and a gradual realization of religious freedom. This development first came about in Norway and Denmark, where it began in the 1840s, and much later in Sweden and Finland. The main issue in this East Norden was not freedom of religion, but rather freedom of the church, in the sense of self-government. All the same, revivalism implied an end to the religious unity of the state and opened society to modern pluralism. In this way, religious revivalism made an important contribution to the secularization of the Nordic nations. Outside smaller elites of radical intellectuals, however, this secularization has not resulted in dechristination or irreligiousness, but rather in religious and ideological individualization, differentiation and pluralism. i. e. a break in the religious unity of pre-modern society. The only exception must be Sweden, where ‘value nihilism’, which drew a distinction between facts and values,

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gained a stronghold in philosophy, academia and politics from the end of the nineteenth century (cf. the philosopher and jurist Axel Hägerström). It was followed up by Ingmar Hedenius, also a philosopher, and instigator of the socalled ‘Hedenius debate’ in the 1950s, when he attacked both the Church and theology and promoted a rather aggressive brand of atheism. The result has been that in Sweden the discipline of theology has become non-confessional and was separated from the training of clergy. Religious revivalism emphasized morals. Daily work was seen as a service to God, and the new life after conversion should be sober and simple. This created a foundation for an active and productive ethos, combined with selfdiscipline and self-constraint, which often led to an improvement in living conditions. Some revivalists became rather wealthy, and revivalism was important in the formation of a middle class. As an example, followers of the most famous Norwegian revivalist, Hans Nielsen Hauge, were the first to adapt new agrarian methods and to start an early type of industrial manufacturing. To put it another way, they were early modernizers and represented an ethos that has been regarded as a prerequisite for democracy (cf. the American historian Christopher Lasch). A social drive, rooted in faith, gave the revivalists political and social importance, which is clearly evident in Norway after 1814. Hauge’s followers became kernel of the farmers’ opposition in the Norwegian Parliament. This illustrates how religious revivalism created an early form of social mobility, which inaugurated a breaking up from traditional and stable agrarian society. Although its link to the household represents continuity, revivalism also broke down some of the boundaries of traditional society, which is clearly illustrated by the role of female preachers in early revivalism. Identity, relations and social position in pre-modern society were given by birth and through family, relatives and local community. Revivalism, however, represented a new world view in which the essential identity depended upon personal choice (religious conversion), which led to new relations but which also divided the local community (converts and nonconverts). The most important social development brought about by religious revivalism came with the assemblies of friends, a combination of an ecclesiola and a social network. In number and geographical spread, this social network exceeded other traditional social forms, and the ‘friends’ kept each other informed of what was going on in other areas, such as the price of raw materials (cf. Gilje: 1996, 18). Later on, these assemblies developed into associations, which became important in the establishment of public opinion and political parties. As mentioned above, religious revivalism contributed towards secularization. It was not enough to have been baptized; you also had to undertake religlious conversion. Religion moved from the public sphere to the private sphere, from the confessional and religious unity of the state exercized by legislation and disciplination of the subjects to personal conviction and decision, manifested in a new life, surrounded and

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supported by a network. Furthermore, religious authority was not exercised by state governance of the church through the clergy, but through charismatic leaders and, later, by elected leaders. The world view of this revivalism was, of course, religious. But the emphasis on individual emotions, experience and evaluation represented modernity. When Christen Madsen, one of the leaders of revivalism on the Danish island of Fyn, was charged for having broken a Royal Ordinance governing religious assemblies of 1741, he claimed that he felt obliged to obey the authorities only when their commands accorded with his own convictions and with the Bible (cf. Lausten: 1987, 214 – 215). Hauge said the same. This shows how religious revivalism promoted individual independence and personal responsibility for life and salvation. From a longer perspective, this may be interpreted as a step on the way towards personal autonomy, where individual conviction is the ultimate authority rather than any external authority. The list of factors could be extended, but the point is to indicate how religious revivalism was an important element in early modernization, though it also had links to pre-modern society. Socially, religiously and economically, religious revivalists were modernizers, but culturally their position was antimodernist. Politically they were ambiguous to the great political issues of the nineteenth century : nationalism, democracy and distress, social problems caused by urbanization. In Denmark the revivalism that was inspired by Grundtvig became an important part of Danish nation building and in the Danification of Southern Jutland. In Finland we find a close interaction between Finish nationalism (the Fennoman movement), the clergy and religious revivalism, and some even considered religious and national revivalism as two sides of the same coin (cf. Murtorinne: 1998). In Norway, however, there were strong tensions between low-church revivalism and the national movement at the end of the nineteenth century. For these reasons it is not easy to fit religious revivalism into one pattern, but it certainly had a considerable impact on the Nordic cultures and contributed to secularization and modernization, as well as promoting a culture characterized by equality, soberness and sobriety, and where daily work had its own value and gave social status. Unemployment was not only a problem; it was practically a sin.

State Churches, folk Churches and national churches While religious revivalism actualized the question of individual identity, modernization of the Nordic societies challenged the traditional identity of the churches. As mentioned above, an adequate term to describe the Nordic churches until the nineteenth century would be ‘territorial’ churches. The concepts of ‘State Churches’, ‘Folk Churches’ and ‘National Churches’ are rather new, as they presuppose the idea of a church being something different

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to a state and the way it is governed. These concepts expressed changes in the understanding of the church, which occurred during in nineteenth-century Europe. At the same time they expressed the new relationship between state, people and church. Among the modern concepts, it is ‘State Church’ which expresses continuity with pre-modern society. The local clergyman represented both God and King, and from the pulpit he preached the word of God and proclaimed royal decrees. It was this type of church order, which was carried out in the system of State Churches, that gave the Lutheran Religion a privileged position in the Nordic nations. All the same, the concept of a church being a State Church meant something new: it implied that state and church were different entities with distinct purposes. But to realize its purpose, the state needed the church, because it gave reasons for the moral. This view actualized two problems : freedom of religion and church governance. In Norway the new concept of the State Church emerged during the period between the liberal Constitution of 1814 and the liberalization of religious legislation in the 1840s. An Act of Parliament was passed allowing dissenters to practice their faith in 1845, after which it was possible to be a Norwegian citizen without being a member of the Norwegian Church. It was at this occasion that the expression ‘State Church’ was used for first time in Norway, while in Denmark it had occurred three years earlier. The reason for the new legislation was to grant freedom of religion, which rested upon the idea that religious faith was a voluntary and personal matter. For this reason religious membership could not be linked to citizenship. Freedom of religion was gradually extended during the latter half of the nineteenth century. A similar development took place in Denmark, while politics of religious unity continued for some time in Sweden and in Finland. Put simply, one could say that in Denmark and in Norway, religious tolerance came about as the result of an interaction between liberalism and revivalism, while a High Church and conservative political line held the field in Sweden. In spite of this, one can conclude that a particular Nordic pattern was created during the religious modernization of the nineteenth century, and that it consisted of combining a State Church with freedom of religion. At the same rate as governance of the state was democratized, so too was governance of the church. An absolutist government controlled by the Prince was superseded by a democratic government elected by the people, which also had consequences for the understanding of what the church was. It should be a church for and of the people, a democratically governed ‘Folk Church’. But the concept of ‘Folk Church’ contains some of the same ambiguity as the concepts of people and nation. It is used both in a ‘democratic’ and in an ‘ethnic-cultural’ sense, and these are often mixed together. On the one hand, the concept of ‘Folk Church’ describes an inclusive church which comprises all, or at least a majority, of the people, and which is governed by the people.

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On the other hand, it is used in the same sense as a ‘National Church’, i. e. it is a part of the national characteristics to belong to a certain church which expresses the national history and spirit. Among the Nordic nations, the concept of a national Folk Church has become very strong in Denmark. In Sweden the concept of a National Church did not have the same Nordic orientation and framework as in Grundtvigianism, nor was it combined with the pathos of freedom. It was instead attached to a defence of the old politics of religious unity. The highly conservative and High Church Henrik Reuterdahl used the concept of a National Church two years before Grundtvig. Later on, as a Minister of Ecclesiastical Affairs, he claimed that a church which wanted to be united with civil society could not, by definition, allow apostasy, nor could it accept any kind of religious assembly.2 A similar conservative idea of state, nationhood, people and religion is found among other Swedish National Church theologians in the mid-nineteenth century, and in the beginning of the twentieth century the Young Church Movement, which was rooted in the student community in Uppsala, made the Swedish people object to a national religious mission, summed up in the slogan: “The Swedish people – A people of God”. This difference between the Danish and the Swedish concepts of a National Church is a good illustration of the problem of using the modern concepts of ‘State Church’, ‘Folk Church’ and ‘National Church’ to describe the Nordic Churches; their meaning and functions differ in the respective nations. In Norway the concept of ‘State Church’ is used to indicate that the state governs the church, and that Church of Norway has a privileged position. The alternative has usually not been a free church, but rather self-governance of a church within the boundaries of the State Church. The concept of ‘Folk Church’ was for the first time integrated into the description of the Church of Norway in the Constitution (§16) after the amendments adopted in May 2012, probably after the example of the Danish constitution. Put simply, the State Church was originally organized from the top down. The identity of the church was shaped by the history and linked to the authorities and to a certain territory. A ‘Folk Church’ and a National Church also have territorial bases, but the identity of the church is in this case created from below, with its basis in the people. For this reason, two questions became decisive for the ‘Folk Church’: Who constituted ‘the people’? And were they members of a ‘demos’ or an ‘ethnos’? The modernization of the Nordic State Churches into democratic ‘Folk Churches’ was more successful. The result was not a separation of church and state as in other European nations, but rather a State Church and freedom of religion. An important prerequisite for such a solution was that Christianity in its Lutheran form lost its function as a legitimizer of the state and of the order 2 Henrik Reuterdal (1795 – 1870) was later appointed Archbishop and he distinguished himself with an anti-pietistic and an obvious High Church stance.

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of the society. This function was replaced by nationalism. As the political scientist Benedict Anderson has indicated, nationalism is not an ideology like liberalism and fascism (cf. Anderson 1983). It has more in common with premodern communities such as religious communities and dynastic realms. To express this in another way, one could say that nationalism became a new ‘civil religion’. In this civil religion, Christianity and the Nordic National Churches became a part of a historical heritage, not the Truth, as in pre-modern society.

Conclusions: Changes and challenges The history of the Nordic people in the nineteenth century is a history of changes in and challenges to traditional identities and relations, and of the establishment of new ones. The Nordic societies underwent a process of transition from a pre-modern agrarian society, the Nordic system of states was facing pressure and change, and new bounds and possibilities to form identities emerged. In this process of change, religion and church played a central role, representing both continuity and modernity. Modernity was first of all expressed through religious revivalism, which mobilized a new social group to participate in public life, contributed to new social forms like networks, public meetings and assemblies, and created new divisions that were based on choice, not on heritage. The idea that the essence of a person was not fixed by birth could then be filled with content other than becoming a Christian in the pietistic sense of a convert. While religious revivalism intended to awaken the faith of individuals, national revivalism wanted to awaken the slumbering selfconsciousness of the people to realize their possibilities and historical destiny, and social revivalism aimed to awaken class consciousness among the workers to create a more just society. National and social awakening movements were of course secular, but they also contained transcendent features. And they carried on the pietistic ethos of the religious revivalism, although the reasons were secular. The differences between the various forms of revivalism were first of all what kind of personal and social identity they offered: the people of God, the national people, or the working class. To which extent the various identities could be combined or competed against each other, varied. The State Church represented continuity with a pre-modern integration of religion and state to a higher degree than did religious revivalism. As in the rest of Europe, it was identified with ‘l’ancien r¦gime’. In accordance with the changes in state and society, the State Church was subjected to internal and external pressures such as revivalism, free churches, demands for reforms, church self-government, liberalism, freedom of religion, secularization, religious criticism, socialism, etc. It is, however, striking how firm yet adaptable the system of State Churches turned out to be in the Nordic nations.

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The chief explanation probably lies in the firm integration of state, society, church and people during the preceding centuries. Secondly, the State Church represented historical continuity, which could not be disregarded when building a national identity. Instead of separating state and church, the State Church was modernized into a ‘Folk Church’. The ‘Folk Church’ is, however, an ambiguous and complex entity in which strong tensions prevail. In our time it is also necessary to ask whether the ‘Folk Church’ is still a reality or whether it has been reduced to an ideal. A ‘Folk Church’ requires an integration of church and people, but religious pluralism and individualism have led to such a degree of disintegration that it may be questioned whether it makes any sense whatsoever to use the concept of ‘Nordic Folk Churches’. Both the integration of religious revivalism in the official church and the modernization of the State Church into a ‘Folk Church’– and even a National Church – at the same time as freedom of religion gradually were granted, shows how the process of modernization in the Nordic Region did not take the form of a chasm or schism, but more as a peaceful transformation. For this reason it makes good sense to ask what impact the long tradition of having Lutheran State Churches has had on the building of the modern, Nordic, social democratic, welfare states. It has been claimed that this Nordic model represents a secularized Lutheranism (Østerg”rd: 2005; 2010). It is at least possible to argue that Lutheranism was one of several important factors that contributed to the building of these states. The two pillars of the welfare state have been full employment and social security. These two pillars correspond with two central ideas in Lutheranism: daily work as a fulfilment of God’s vocation, and a priesthood of all believers. The idea of full employment may be viewed as a secularization of the emphasis on the importance of daily work, which was strengthened during the ages of Pietism and revivalism. Furthermore, a priesthood of all believers promoted a culture of equality, where obvious wealth and large social differences were unacceptable, because fundamentally all individuals are equal and have the same worth. At least the building of a welfare state required a united and well-integrated state, and in the Nordic states the Reformation had led to an integration of church and state. Thus the Nordic Churches did not represent a competing institution to the power of state, and loyalty and obedience to the authorities became part of the service to God. Although the Finnish Civil War in the spring of 1918 was a cruel exception, such a tradition seems to have promoted a culture of law and order with little scope for anarchism and violent revolutions. Instead the way has been paved for a culture of compromise and reasonable deals and, not at least, trust in the state and its authorities.

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Lasch, C. (1973), The Agony of the American Left, Harmondsworth: Penguin. Lausten, M. S. (1987), Danmarks kirkehistorie (2. edition) København. Lenhammar, H. (2000), Invidualismens och upplysningens tid, Sveriges kyrkohistoria, Vol 5, Stockholm: Verbum. Lindhardt, P. G. (1979), Dansk Kirkekundskab København. Molland, E. (1979), Norges kirkehistorie i det 19. ”rhundre Vol. I – II Oslo: Gyldendal. Montgomery, I. / Rasmussen, T. (1988), Folkekirken i historisk perspektiv. Tyskland og Skandinavia, in: Sandvik, B. (ed). Folkekirken – status og strategier, Oslo (53 – 57, 149 – 150). Montgomery, I. (2002), Enhetskyrkans tid, Sveriges kyrkohistoria, Vol 4, Stockholm: Verbum. Murtorinne, E. (1998), Den fennomanska rörelsen och Finlands kyrka 1850 – 1914, in: Brohed, I (ed.), Kyrkan och nationalismen. Skandinavisme, nationalisme och de nordiska folkkyrkor p” 1800-talet,() Lund: Lund University Press, 381 – 392. Neiiendam, M. (1930 – 1933), Erik Pontoppidan. Studier og bidrag til pietismens historie, København: Gad. Oredsson, S. (1996), Lunds universitet under andre världskriget, Lund: Lunds universitetshistoriska sällskap, ærbok. Petursson, P. (1984), Väckelser p” Island, in: Gustavsson, A (ed.) Religiösa väckelsesrörelser i Norden, Lund. Petursson, P. (1998), Nationalism, skandinavism och den isländska kyrkan under 1800-talet, in:Brohed, I. (ed.), Skandinavisme, nationalisme och de nordiska folkkyrkor p” 1800-talet, Lund: Lund University Press 1998, 431 – 438. Pontoppidan-Thyssen, A. (1960 – 1977), Vækkelsernes frembrud i Danmark i første Halvdel af det 19. ”rhundrede, København: Gad. Sanders, H. (1995), Bondevækkelse og sekularisering. En protestantisk folkelig kultur i Danmark og Sverige 1820 – 1850, Studier i stads- och kommunehistoria / 12 Stockholm. Schou, A. L.(1984), Kvindefællesskaber og mission, in: Gustavsson, A. (ed). Religiösa väckelserörelser i Norden, Lund. Schjørring, J. H. (2001), Nordiske folkekirker i opbrud: national identitet og international nyorientering efter 1945, ærhus: Aarhus Universitetforlag. Sommerville, C. J. (1992), The Secularization of Early Modern England. From Religious Culture to Religious Faith, New York: Oxford University Press. Thorkildsen, D. (1997), Religious identity and Nordic identity, in: Sørensen, Ø. / Str”th, B (ed.) The Cultural Construction of Norden, Oslo: Scandinavian University Press. Thorkildsen, D. (1998a), En nasjonal og moderne utdanning in: Øystein Sørsensen, Ø. (ed.), Jakten p” det norske, Oslo: Gyldendal Ad notam, 265 – 284. Thorkildsen, D. (1998b), Nasjon, nasjonalisme og modernisering. Noen sentrale problemer og posisjoner i nasjonalismeforskningen, in: Brohed, I. (ed.), Kyrkan och nationalismen. Skandinavisme, nationalisme och de nordiska folkkyrkor p” 1800-talet, Lund: Lund University Press, 23 – 58.

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Thorkildsen, D. (1998c), Vekkelse og modernisering i Norden p” 1800-tallet, in: Historisk tidsskrift B. 77, 160 – 180. Thorkildsen, D. (1998d), Thorkildsen, D / Österlin, L., Kulturell, politisk og kirkelig skandinavisme, in: Brohed, I. (ed.), Kyrkan och nationalismen. Skandinavisme, nationalisme och de nordiska folkkyrkor p” 1800-talet, Lund: Lund University Press, 23 – 58. Thorkildsen, D. (2005a), Da den norske kirke ble nasjonal, Nytt Norsk Tidsskrift Oslo, 407 – 418. Thorkildsen, D. (2005b), Kirken og 1905, in: Sørensen, Ø. / Nilsson, T. (ed.), 1905 – Nye perspektiver, Oslo: Aschehoug 2005, 165 – 185. Thorkildsen, D. (2005c), Scandinavia: Lutheranism and National Identity, in: Giley, S. / Stanley, B. (ed.), World Christianities: c.1815 – c.1914, Cambridge University Press, 342 – 358. Thorkildsen, D. (2010), Lutherdom, vekkelse og de nordiske velferdsstater, TEMPtidsskrift for historie 2010 Vol. 1, 131 – 144. Thorkildsen, D. (2011), Unconditional Christian loyalty towards the rulers? In: Kunter, K. / Schjørring, J. H. (ed.), European and Global Christianity. Challenges and Transformations in the 20th Century, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 254 – 269. Tønnessen, A. V. (2000), “Et trygt og godt hjem for alle”? kirkelederes kritikk av velferdsstaten etter 1945, Trondheim: Tapir akademisk forlag. Wallgren, E. (1984), L”t svenska kyrkan förbli en öppen folkkyrka! In: Palmquist, A. (ed.) Att höra till folkkyrkan, Klippan. Westin, G. (1958), Den Kristna friförsamlingen i Norden, Stockholm. Witte, J. Jr. (2002), Law and Protestantism. The Legal Teaching of the Lutheran Reformation, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. W”hlin, V. (1984), Religiøse vækkelsesbevægelser i Danmark, in Anders Gustavsson ed. Religiösa väckelserörelser i Norden, Lund Østerg”rd, U.(1994), Norden – europæisk eller nordisk? De Nordiske Fællesskaber. Myte og realitet i det nordiske samarbejde, Den Jyske historiker nr. 69/70 ærhus. Østerg”rd, U. (2005), Lutheranismen og den universelle velfærdsstat in: Schjørring, J. P. / Bak. T. (ed.), Velfærdsstat og kirke, København: Anis, 147 – 184. Østerg”rd, U. (2010), Martin Luther og dansk politisk kultur. Nationalkirke, luthersk reformation og dansk nationalismein Kritik nr. 195, København: Gyldendal, 36 – 59. Østerg”rd, U. (1994), Svenska kyrkan i profil. Ur engelskt och nordisk perspektiv, Stockholm. Østerg”rd, U. (1995), Churches of Northern Europe in Profile. A Thousand Years of Anglo-Nordic Perspective, Norwich: Canterbury Press. Østerlin, L. (1972), Över gränsarna. Nordisk lutherdom över gränsarna København.

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Lisbet Christoffersen

Sacred Spaces in Secular (Post)-Lutheran Contexts

Abstract This study analyses how and to what extent a Lutheran folkekirke1 as a church building could function as a religious space in a recent situation in which church asylum was claimed. The event in question took place between June and August 2009. It ended when the police forcibly entered the church building late at night and captured a number of asylum-seekers who had hidden in the church to escape deportation. Church asylum for this group of around 60 Iraqi asylum-seekers whose applications had been rejected was established and supported by a group of young political leftist activists (including some former students of mine who had followed classes in law, religion and society). They named their supportive action and the action by the asylum-seekers as Kirkeasyl (Church Asylum). They were further supported by established groups of activists within the church. They argued that providing asylum for those without shelter must be the role of the church – especially for a majority church that must be aware of the situation for minorities in the country. Some Danish theologians, among them the Dean of Copenhagen and the Bishop of Aarhus, supported this view. Other Danish theologians, however, among them another bishop, publicly stated that there was no concept of church asylum in a Lutheran church, no concept of sacred spaces and no dimension of church law that differed from secular law. The police argued that there was only one legitimate power in the country, namely that of democratically constituted law and police enforcement. Politicians from all sides supported this argument, trying to dissolve any discursive normative ideas of the folkekirke as a potential counterweight to law and order in the country.2 1 As has become common for Nordic scholars, I use the Danish constitutional concept of folkekirke for the national church of Denmark, which is by constitution obliged to be Lutheran and which the state, also by constitution, is obliged to support. Approximately 80 per cent of Danes are baptised members of the folkekirke. For a discussion about the correct translation, see for example the introduction in Christoffersen 2010 p. 145 – 147 2 The story on church asylum was widely covered by the media during those months, and I have read all the articles in the written media concerning the case. Two journalists in the old leftist newspaper Information covered the case based on insight from the activists and have subse-

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The case thus opened for broad public debate in Denmark on whether or not sacred spaces legally existed in twenty-first-century post-Lutheran society, and what consequences an idea of church asylum could have for the (Lutheran) understanding of the state, the law and the role of the church.

Introduction In this article I will first identify possible heterogeneous religious, secularist and post-secularist positions or values expressed and contested in the specific case of church asylum mentioned above. I will do so with the help of spatial methodology, as suggested by Kim Knott in her contribution to this book.3 In Knott’s methodology, these three positions are to be understood as ideological positions (and therefore secularist rather than secular or secularisation). In Knott’s model the first of these three concepts consists of a position which tends to exclude any secular approaches to or within the concrete space in focus (religious approach). The second position excludes any religious approaches to or within the analysed space (the secularist position). The third, the synthetic camp, moves beyond the dialectic position and thereby possibly expresses a development in the field (the “post-secularist position). In Knott’s model, the three positions represent camps in three corners and differ from the space actually analysed. Knott also suggests that there will be struggles both between the camps and within the camps, allowing for what I suggest could be conceptualised as intertwined positions. A relevant question of course is whether or not it is at all possible to find any clear-cut positions in a Danish context; this question will be part of my analysis below. Knott’s methodology was developed in order to disclose possible hidden, quently published a book on the case (Geist and Geist: 2011). Interviews, newspaper articles, etc. were also published by Frydenlund: 2011. I also interviewed four of the central actors in the case in three one-hour personal interviews and one e-mail exchange. The four interviewees are the Dean of the Cathedral of Copenhagen (the first site for asylum. He subsequently followed the case as representative for the bishop), the press officer for the activists, a former student of mine from Roskilde University, the Minister for Integration, who was responsible for the policy decisions in the case, and the Head of Police in Copenhagen, who was responsible for the police reaction to the church asylum case. The case is still a contentious issue in the Danish political context and I will therefore not quote directly from any of this material in this article; links between material and the article can be established through contacting me as author, [email protected]. Finally, one of the key points during the summer in this case was a public demonstration at the city hall of Copenhagen, where Svend Auken, former minister for environment, former chair of the leading Social Democratic Party and known to be a rather liberal but practising Christian, held his last public speech before dying of cancer. I have included both his speech and the speech held by the Bishop of Aarhus in relation to his burial in the empirical material as a basis for this article. 3 See Kim Knott’s article in this book, presenting the five steps in the methodology. I have used these five steps as sub-headings in the first part of my article.

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non-secular values in clearly perceived secular contexts. She argues – with reference to other researchers in the field – that the secular is an object or space for which religion provides a secondary point of reference, authority or concern, but that even within a secular space it is possible to identify this secondary reference point and thus also identify not only secularist but also religious and post-secularist positions in such a secular space. My spatial context – a church building – is, on the contrary, perceived by most people as a non-secular religious space. As my case study shows, however, an interpretation of a church as a religious space is not self-evident in regard to the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Denmark, the Danish folkekirke. Knott’s methodology therefore seems even more relevant to use in order to disclose not only religious interpretations of the space but also secularist and postsecularist values which perhaps are less hidden than one would have expected, linked to the same space. Following Jos¦ Casanova’s idea of a possible post-Reformation difference between Catholic European, Protestant European, and American conceptualisations of religious, secularist and perhaps also post-secularist positions (also presented in this book), the second part of my article discusses how these three concepts are interpreted in a (post)-Lutheran context such as the Danish, again using my empirical example, the church asylum case. In this connection, the theoretical approach presented by John Witte in his contribution to this book provides the analytical framework and context for the discussion. My use of the concept (post)-Lutheran4 implies that even though there might be clarity around the Lutheran concepts and their historical traces in the Danish context, Lutheranism is still reinterpreted in any current Danish context.5 The question is thus to determine the extent to which Lutheran theology is still forming our discourse when interpreting a church as a site of conflict between rejected asylum-seekers and the police. This is not a question I intend to answer in this article, but my use of the concept (post)Lutheran suggests at least that other normative frameworks and other theological normative frameworks are at stake in this context. The basic theoretical idea of this book is to map and measure the hidden sacrality of the secular in a Nordic context. My article contributes to this common project by an analysis of whether or not it is possible to identify any hidden sacrality in the Danish secular conceptualisation of what could be perceived as religious, namely a church building. The question is whether or not the Nordic idea of a supposed intertwinement6 of religion and the secular can be identified in a specific case, where basic entities representing the 4 The first use of the concept ‘(post)-Lutheran’ that I know of appeared in the editorial conclusive article Nordic Law in Changed Religious Landscapes in Christoffersen et al. (2010). 5 For the most current example, see Niels Henrik Gregersen (ed.): 2013. 6 I introduced this concept as empirically relevant for law and religion studies in Christoffersen: 2006.

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secular (the police or the law) are approaching a conceived idea of the sacred (the alter in a sacralised church building). An integral part of this question is how specific people in a specific conflict can regard possible crackers of hidden sacrality in a secular reality. The fundamental question behind these theoretical analyses is: What else could – or even should – the police have done?

Church Asylum in Copenhagen, Summer 2009 That the body can be a source and resource for identifying possible religious, secularist and post-secularist positions in a concrete space, is the first of the five dimensions in Kim Knott’s methodological approach, and is used here to explain and possibly reveal religious, secularist and post-secularist norms that were at stake in the case of church asylum in Copenhagen in 2009. Knott’s idea is that the body is the single space, where general norms and ideas are linked to concrete cases and conflicts, and her idea is certainly useful in analysing the Danish church asylum case. On the surface, a bodily approach to this case only reveals secularist norms or values: a group of up to 228 asylum-seekers from Iraq had lived for up to ten years in asylum camps, waiting and hoping that their applications to remain in Denmark would be approved. Their applications had been denied, as were their applications to stay on humanitarian grounds. The government had tried to motivate them to return to Iraq by promising financial support on their return, but they had remained in Denmark because they feared Iraq more than ten years of waiting in an asylum camp. Now the situation had changed. In the spring of 2009, the Danish government had established an agreement with Iraq to receive Iraqi citizens after individual scrutiny. The asylum-seekers feared for their lives after deportation from Denmark to Iraq; they feared that their bodies would become places of personal prosecution because of their original flight. They did not argue that their bodies should be perceived as anything special from a religious point of view. Their own view on the situation of their bodies was neither religious nor post-secular. They simply thought that their basic fear would lead into a (very secular) legal situation, protecting their bodies on grounds of Human Rights. Their support groups – especially those with not-accepted religious arguments – disagreed, and were specifically religious in their argumentation: it is the duty of any Christian to open his or her door for a neighbour or a foreigner asking for help, even if the person knocking on the door is seeking illegal refuge. The understanding is that the law is not always fair or righteous and that no individual should lose his or her life because of unjust decisions.

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The leftist activists, who organised this case of church asylum argued differently. Their focus was on humanity : it was against humanity that these individuals should live so many years in Denmark only to be rejected and deported to an uncertain future. They did not trust any of the promises from the Iraqi state; their view was that individual scrutiny by Iraq would result in the death penalty for many within the group. They knew that the Christian support groups had a religious language for focusing on individual humanity ; they did not, however, have such a language, and at times they found the religious dimension not only tiring but also somewhat uncontrollable. For them, the fight was political. The organisers of the Church Asylum initiative also brought their own bodies into play : when the police finally cleared the church of asylum-seekers after three months, around three hundred activists quickly mobilised and placed their own bodies in front of the buses that were to take the asylumseekers away. The police response was not long in coming: pepper spray and rubber batons, but the protesters continued to base their actions on human rights rather than on religion. Their position could easily be described as post-secular in the sense that they acknowledged and made use of the religious language of others in order to support their own, basically secular, case. Even though that seems to be the case, neither their own report on the church asylum case nor the interviews I have conducted opened for any religious language: they remained secularist in their position, though they agreed that secularist and religious camps could work together politically, hence the potentially post-secularist position. The case initially began at midday on a Sunday in late June, just after high mass in the Cathedral in Copenhagen, when around 60 of some 228 rejected Iraqi asylum-seekers walked into the cathedral building while churchgoers were leaving. They camped in the aisles of the church, clearly demonstrating their intention to stay. The basic – secularist – idea of the organisers, Church Asylum, was that by showing the bodies of the rejected people, the Danish public would react and take a stand on the Iraqi agreements, and that by doing this in the Cathedral or another church rather than in a mosque or the city hall, they would combine the bodies of the asylum-seekers with fundamental Danish norms and values and perhaps their own partly religious identity. Thus the idea behind this use of the bodies of the asylum-seekers in the church also became post-secularist in character. On the night when the police came to capture them, the asylum-seekers also applied for a religious understanding of their bodies by entering the church as such, hiding behind and in front of the altar, with the result that police officers forcibly drew them down from what could be perceived as the most holy site of a church. This was, however, still not based on a religious understanding of their bodies, more on a (semi-)-religious understanding of how to use the place in which they were hiding; i. e., a post-secularist combination of religious and secular values related to the bodily element of the case.

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Other bodies were also involved in the case: the vicar of Brorson’s Church, the dean of the Cathedral, the two congregational councils and the bishop How do we view their bodily representation of a position? And that of the police force and the minister for integration, who also happened to be responsible for ecclesiastical affairs and was thus politically responsible for both the issue of the Iraqi asylum-seekers and the issue of church asylum. What was the Danish public’s bodily picture of her? As for the vicar, the dean and the two involved congregational councils, the answer is clear. They all represented clear religious positions, even to the extent that the vicar of Brorson’s Church was visible day and night both within the church in which he served and outside the church talking to the media during the three months the Iraqi people lived there. After three months, when the police finally entered the church in the middle of the night, he argued that this was police state methods and was uncalled for, thereby causing problems for his own position. However, had the situation escalated into one in which normal use of the churches in question were disturbed, then other voices would have spoken out on the secularity of the case, on the (Lutheran) obligation to follow the law of the land and on the lack of religious identity among the groups supporting the asylum-seekers. In other words, the sense of being ‘used’ by secularists would have grown. The congregational council in the Cathedral met the same afternoon as the Church Asylum initiative was established. They accepted religious arguments for not calling the police to empty the church, and arranged for services and other church functions could be upheld. The congregational council also offered to establish a point of contact between the group of asylum-seekers and the public authorities, a function, however, which Church Asylum had already taken upon itself. There was another problem the congregational council had to face, namely that the Cathedral – even though it is huge – did not have facilities for so many people to live there. Church Asylum therefore decided to move to the more distant but more suitable Brorson’s Church, which was located in an area with a high immigrant population and more suitable facilities in the crypt. The congregational council also accepted this situation, arguing that during the summer it did not really have any impact on the daily running of the church. They therefore publically stated that they did not need of police assistance, thus deflecting any direct arguments by the police to enter the church and change the situation. The bishop was newly elected and had not yet discussed this type of case in the public debate. The now retired bishop publicly stated his sadness over how the situation ended; the new bishop was, however, very outspoken on the secularity of law, the obligation to follow the law of the land, thus problematising the whole case of church asylum. When the situation had ended and the vicar of Brorson’s Church criticised the way the police had tackled the situation, the bishop promptly sent the vicar on holiday leave, a

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decision that opened for speculation as to whether he was siding with ‘the state’ in the case. He, however, maintains that the decision had been taken to protect the vicar from further trouble. Police officers are of course trained in using their bodies to resolve concrete and problematic situations, no matter where the situations arise. They had tried to downscale the situation over the summer by, among other things, turning up at Brorson’s Church without their uniform jackets in order to show a humanistic face and to negotiate with both the asylum-seekers and Church Asylum. The responsible police inspector sent many signals indicating that the police did not want to empty a church by force and thus tried to establish a post-secular situation, respecting the religious identity of the church as well as humanistic views of the asylum-seekers. As time went by, however, they decided to end the situation by clearing the church, dressed in full uniform and armed with shields, etc. Thus the different embodiments of the police force itself showed how the situation was perceived by the secular state: from a humanist-oriented post-secularity to a purely secularist position, showing where legitimate power and use of violence lie in a secular state. Finally, the minister responsible for both immigration and ecclesiastical affairs steered clear of the case. She publicly stated very clearly that this case was not her immediate responsibility. As for the presence in the church, noone had placed the case on her table and asked her to take responsibility ; the congregational councils and the vicar did what they thought they should do according to their legal responsibilities for the church building, and no church functions seemed to be disturbed: she could keep out of it. And for the highly visible, illegal asylum-seekers the public response of the minister for immigration was that this was a case for the police; the ministry and minister herself decided cases under the law, and she did not want to interfere in the way in which the police handled the case of visible, illegal migrants in a church. The government minister thus succeeded in keeping her own person out of the picture, based on a secular(ist?), legalistic argument. To conclude this first sub-analysis, a bodily-oriented, spatial focus already illustrates not only the three different positions suggested by Kim Knott: religious, secularist and post-secularist voices, embodied in the vicar, the police force on the night when the church was cleared, and the bishop, respectively. This first sub-analysis also shows a variety of positions between the clear-cut corners as well as many internal negotiations both within and between the clean positions. As a second approach, Kim Knott suggests focusing on physical, social and mental dimensions of space in order to possibly identify religious, secularist and post-secularist positions. And here my case reveals a mental negotiation about how the physical space, the concrete place, the church building of high symbolic value (as is the case for both the Cathedral and Brorson’s Church), is understood socially in current society. What is it that makes it a church; what is the impact of being a church; and what are the possible consequences of this

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mentally negotiated physical space, in the social context of what is referred to as ‘church’? The leftist members of Church Asylum had no doubt: they did not attribute any sort of sacred dimension to specific buildings known as churches; they did, however, know from former cases that using a church of high symbolic value would lead to a huge public debate if they could link a common social understanding of a church (building) to a sacred place. And their understanding was that if this public focus intensified, they could establish a situation in a folkekirke (since that would unveil double standards in the minds of the majority), ideally in a church building in central Copenhagen and – even better – in the Cathedral, which has also hosted many public state events.7 Their position was thus secularist, though they did (in a post-secular manner) adopt a religious mentality by adding sacred dimensions to churches. The public response was also a clear religious understanding of the site of a church as a sacred space, and provoked a discussion on whether or not it was acceptable for asylum-seekers to make use of church buildings as living accommodation. Many in Danish society agreed with the argument that sleeping in a church violated the sacrality of the church building. They were, however, overturned by other public voices, arguing that a church building must be open to those who are in need and who seek shelter. When the police forced open the church doors in the middle of the night and dragged the asylum-seekers out to waiting buses, climbing over young members of Church Asylum, many people criticised the way in which the police had reacted, and argued that it had been the police that had violated the sacrality of the church. A picture of uniformed police standing above the Christian wording on the church altar provoked particularly strong reactions. The quotation from the Bible on the wall above read: “Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved”. The real-life reality, clearly illustrating police forces overthrowing religious forces, proved too much for many.

7 For example, a state memorial service was held there on 2 January 2005 for Danes who had lost their lives in the tsunami in Thailand in December 2004. The service was announced by the prime minister in his New Year’s speech on New Year’s Day, and was thus an example of the intertwinement of church and state in Denmark. In the fall of 2012, however, there was a case that showed that this intertwinement not only applied to the folkekirke: the police in Copenhagen chose Sunday morning to enter a house with people of African origin, in search of illegal immigrants. The people in the house protested, since they held a Sunday morning service, Sunday school, etc. After first having argued that the police had ‘gone by the book’, the police press representative later admitted: “Had we known it was a house used for services and that a service was taking place, then we would have waited.”

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Photo: Copyright Andreas Bro.8

However, this religious position, clearly established among the wider public and supported by the vicars and congregational councils at the two churches involved as well as by some of the bishops was, as already mentioned, questioned by other leading theologians, including bishops. One of these bishops went as far as to compare a church building with a ‘public house’, understood in all its connotations.9 He of course wanted to express a central theological point in a Lutheran context: no buildings are more sacred than others, as are no types of work more sacred than others. The central factor is their function as a service to God. The bishop therefore also objected – from a theologically informed secular point of view – the idea that the police should not be allowed to enter the church to capture illegal immigrants; on the contrary, his view was that the church was bound by the same legislation as any other institution in society. The legislation concerning church buildings appeared to give public voice to what could be seen as a post-secular position, trying to intertwine two opposite positions. The law on churches10 thus opens for what could be seen as

8 This picture was taken by Andreas Bro, www.andreasbro.com, and pictured first in the daily newspaper, Information and later re-pictured several places, including in international news from the Danish church. 9 The formulation in Danish was: “… ingen mennesker I Danmark skal kunne forbedre sin retsstilling ved at besætte en kirke – eller for den sags skyld et offentligt lokum”. 10 All legislation concerning the Danish folkekirke, including the law on churches is enforced by

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a ‘crack in the wall’, stating that the congregational council is responsible for the use of church buildings in terms of their function as churches. The law also states that new buildings must be sacralised before being taken into use as a church. Former churches must be desacralized before being used for other purposes. Even though Lutheran theology might thus lead to a strongly secularist position, Danish legislation governing the use of church buildings within folkekirken also respects religious sensitivities, establishing an intertwined position. This position was used as basis for a post-secular mental position in the concrete case. Public debate in Denmark on whether or not a church building is in any way sacred opens for the third dimension in Kim Knott’s spatial methodology : the properties of space, that is, how space takes shape in configuration, extension, simultaneity and power. In regard to the abovementioned case, this approach is about the extent to which the churches in play are configured by the people working in and belonging to it; or whether it can be extended by use of power by both the asylum-seekers and their supportive groups and by society at large, represented by the police. From what has been said so far, it should be clear that extension is not only possible, but actually happens. In daily life the Cathedral of Copenhagen is just there, in use as a congregational church as well as a site from which Morning Prayer is broadcast daily. The church was destroyed in the early 19th century (by the Brits during the Napoleon wars) and was rebuilt in the neoclassical style with sculptures of Christ and the twelve apostles by the sculptor Bertel Thorvaldsen. Copies of the figure of Christ stand on the hillside outside Brazil and in the central hall in the Mormon Church in Utah; and in an extraordinary amount of small copies for sale not only in Denmark, but worldwide. The same is the case for the baptistmal figure of an angel, wearing an oyster as baptismal dish for the water. Because of these sculptures, the church is now on the Danish list of cultural historical sites. The Cathedral of Copenhagen was thus already before these events a configuration in the general public; this however increases at certain times, for example when the Crown Prince was married there in May 2004, or in connection with certain funerals and services such as the memorial service after the tsunami. It is generally understood by the Nordic public as well as by Nordic researchers that this public role of church buildings is a central dimension of the special links between church and state in the Nordic countries.11 For many, the link to the state also implies that there is no space left for any acts of parliament and governed by the minister for ecclesiastical affairs whereas the concrete executive powers by law are given to congregation councils, vicars and bishops. 11 This position is e. g. central in the works of Margit Warburg on civil religion in the Nordic countries, see for example Hvithamar, Warburg and Jacobsen: 2010.

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religious power to be represented as a contrast to the secular powers of the land. Seen from this position, it is a matter of legal certainty, and the only legitimate power in the country is represented not by the church, but by the state. Accordingly no church may establish a space for any dimension of counter-power. The very concept of church asylum for both religious and secularist positions – and even for secularist positions on religious grounds, as we saw in the case of the bishop who advised against sacralisation of church buildings – seems impossible. Others would however argue post-secularly, underlining that what the state links up with is a church, not a government ministry ; thus the state should be obliged to support the church in its function as a church, leaving space for counter-forces on an evangelical basis. And an Evangelical Lutheran church as well as its ministers is, according to this understanding, morally or even religiously obliged to serve its neighbour in diaconal work – including civil insubordination – as long as no harm is done. This post-secular position would thus argue that the church is there precisely to limit the powers of the state on a religious basis, acknowledging the secular role of the state but not blindly following its laws – as long as no harm is done. In her fourth methodological approach, Kim Knott suggests looking at perceived, conceived and lived aspects of space, and in her final approach she suggests analysing the dynamic nature of space and its production. To what extent are religious, secularist and/or post-secularist positions (re)producing the space in focus? There is also a historical dimension in the Danish case of church asylum. Danish schoolchildren are taught that King Knud was killed in 1086 while trying to seek refuge at the altar in the Cathedral in Odense (the third-biggest city in Denmark). Historical accounts of this story are unclear and ambiguous; it never becomes clear on which side the Danes ought to stay. The king is called Knud the Holy ; but any Danish child knows that this might be a discursive change of history from the side of the King’s family or from the Catholic Church wanting the same result as the king, namely the suppression of the peasants. On the other hand, any Danish child also knows that a case based on the argument that the peasants were suppressed would always gain support in Danish history, which means that precisely this referral to the suppression of peasants also could be seen as an attempt to cover up for the real power. Somehow the case of Iraqi asylum-seekers is the same: on the one hand, everybody senses that something is wrong when people can sit for nearly ten years in asylum camps without reaching any solution; they might therefore have a case when they prefer to sit there instead of accepting various offers from the state. On the other hand there is general support for the Danish authorities, at least in asylum cases in general (though not necessarily in specific cases), since Denmark cannot receive all the persecuted refugees of the world who seek asylum. When the group of young supporters of the Iraqi asylum-seekers decided to

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call their group Church Asylum, they intended to play on precisely this historical and political ambivalence. They tried to evade theological discussions about the concept and just used the name as a historical/political concept for counteracting unfair state decisions. They also thought that the folkekirke would support this understanding and had not envisaged that authorities within the church (such as the abovementioned bishops) would establish secularist arguments on the basis of religious arguments, supporting the state’s action against a church. Their goal was not to establish, widen or reproduce any limits for the church; but it came to irritate them that this issue became the central topic in the public discourse rather than the asylumseekers themselves. The political motivation of Church Asylum was to place the Iraqi asylumseekers and their fate at the centre of what is perceived as Danish. The choice of a church, a church within the folkekirke, namely the Cathedral of Copenhagen, was politically motivated: nothing is more Danish. And even though it became necessary for activists within the folkekirke to negotiate this function according to religious and religiously motivated secular understandings, they hoped to succeed in showing that also a state church is relevant in a politically problematic situation. It was not relevant to church activists that these particular asylum-seekers were Muslims; what was relevant was their human situation. The supporting groups within the church did not consider religious difference to be relevant, either ; indeed to the contrary. Very often, however, church activists working on asylum cases would rely on international Christian networks to supply information on whether a specific person was in danger according to international law. This is based on the understanding that the church is obliged to support the law according to its own underlying norms. According to involved religious persons there is thus room for criticism if the law does not live up to its own standards. Furthermore, nobody should ever be forcefully thrown out of a church unless they pose a danger to others, or the like. This position is based on an intertwined approach to religious and secular norms – a post-secular position for the Church of Denmark. To conclude this spatial analysis I would thus argue that the church asylum case in Denmark in the summer of 2009 is a relevant example of a situation where a spatial analysis clearly reveals both religious and secularist positions, some of the religious positions even containing of what would normally be seen as secular arguments. A clearly secular position is, that even though a church might be a sacred space that does not open for a right to establish church asylum. A clearly religious position is, that a church building does contain a sacred dimension, which in itself also opens for religious arguments for supporting people in need for shelter – but also this position does not argue for a right to church asylum, just for a right to establish a counter voice. The case also shows that the secularist position is even voiced with clear

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religious support in the sense that it is supported to a certain extent by a Lutheran understanding of the role of the church. I would further argue that a post-secular position is not only visible in the case (especially voiced by the young “lefties”). This position is also possible to establish due to deep normative structures, not only popular, but also legally and theologically theoretically informed. That is; due to the historically and currently established intertwinement of law and religion, the secular and the sacred, the role of the church and the role of the state, post-secular normative positions seem to have a much stronger basis than in societies where the normative deep structures much more build on separation Finally, I would argue that there exists a common, intertwined ground between the religious, the secular and the post-secular positions and that this empirical reality seem very Nordic. It somehow seems impossible to find the (religious) position of the church on one hand; the secularist position of the state on the other. On the contrary, I would therefore also argue that the spatial analysis opens not only for establishing a new, intermediary position as post-secular, but that instead this methodological approach reveals an understanding, a common ground, which is already established through theological and political historical developments and thus appears to hold an intertwined position in the Nordic countries. The post-secular addition to this established intertwinement could be interpreted as a normative support to an empirical reality, which is not aimed at simply choosing between a religious and a secularist point of view. This normative support seems new in international discourses, since they have always focused on separating religion from secularity in a very catholic understanding. What seems to happen now is however the acceptance of, that empirical cases from other parts of the world might lead to different conceptual understandings. It seems however as if the normative dimension – post-secularity – could build on the empirically based concept intertwinement when analysing cases. In the same time, the concept of ‘post-secularity’ seems to add a discursive understanding and acceptance of the Nordic contribution as combining – intertwining – religious and secularist standpoints. This again makes it possible to reflect the Nordic intertwined position in international theory on religion, law and society.

Law is law and law is secular In this second part of the article my aim is to further outline how far Lutheran arguments played a role in this specific case by informing not only a religious standpoint but also a secularist, post-secular standpoint, and to what extent it is possible to talk about post-Lutheran positions. My aim is to underline certain approaches in the theoretical framework presented by

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John Witte in his contribution to this book and to let them serve as an analytical framework for further discussion of the abovementioned diverging standpoints on the concept of law, the role of the state/the police and the possibility of establishing church asylum in a Lutheran folkekirke. For my purposes the most central dimensions to focus on are elements in the Lutheran theory concerning the nature of the church, the theory of knowledge/authority and the theory of justice and law, including the Lutheran understanding of the role of the state. In a Lutheran understanding the nature of the church is two-fold: it is an invisible community of faith, hope and love, and it is a visible structure, though not as a religious identity but rather as part of the earthly kingdom. Of course, church asylum affects the invisible community, but even this community has a visible structure, represented by the church building itself, by the congregations at stake and their councils, by priests, bishops and church ministers and, finally, by the general public. However, it is vital to understand that the visible dimension or nature of the church is not seen as sacred or religious. In a Lutheran understanding there is no sacred or religious structure: visible structures are all part of the ‘earthly kingdom’; that is, part of the legal structures established by the state. In his contribution, John Witte argues that these earthly structures of the visible church, even though they are established through state law, are obliged to serve the norms and moral codes of the church; and many Lutheran theologians, especially from a German context, would argue the same way. Danish theologians, however, often underline that only the state structures and the democratically elected politicians decide what serves the moral structures of the church. In this specific case, however, the laws governing the church revealed what I have called ‘cracks in the wall’: the church laws themselves, as already mentioned, oblige those responsible for church buildings to secure the character of the church through the use of the buildings. By doing so, ‘earthly’ (i. e. secular) laws have opened a tiny space for a sacred understanding of the nature of the church in its visible form, such as a building. It is thus possible to conclude that a Lutheran religious understanding of the church as a secular institution prevails, but that legislation also demonstrates a respect for church buildings which may not be Lutheran, but which is truly religious. The law on church buildings pertaining to this specific case can thus be seen as partly post-Lutheran. by not only arguing a total secular space, but including some (as tiny as they might be) religious identities in relation to the church building. John Witte presents the common Lutheran distinction between Law and Gospel as a theory of knowledge, which gives it a fresh approach. And, he adds, this distinction is only visible to us through ‘masks’, such as a person’s natural reasoning. As part of this theory on the distinction between Law and Gospel, he also presents the understanding of different types of households, usually

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presented as a consequence of the three-estates theory of church, state and family spheres. The idea is that we are all folded into three different dimensions in our lives: the family sphere, the church sphere and the state sphere, and that those responsible for leading these three estates are accountable to God. In other words: fathers or husbands are accountable to God for the way in which their wives, children and servants, and church leaders and secular leaders are accountable to God for their leadership. This means that authority is not only granted by law: it should also be seen as (indirectly) granted by God, and therefore, as stated in the Bible, is requested of householders, that they are faithful.12 According to this understanding, in the role of, for example, a police officer, you are not only accountable to the state for how you treat people, but also to God. As a police officer you ought to know that you are both a sinner and a saint at the same time. Your job as a police officer is not a secular job in direct contrast to a sacred job such as that of a priest. On the contrary : both the priest and the police officer must see their respective roles as a vocation or a calling by God to serve him in earthly life. It is part of this Lutheran understanding that a society needs not only good priests, but also good householders in the home sphere and good stakeholders in the public sphere. In a Lutheran understanding, the state sphere, which could seem to be exclusively secular from a secularist perspective, is as bound by religious norms as is the church sphere. Both the priest and the police officer are religiously and normatively bound to do a good job. And when a police officer is ordered to remove illegal asylum-seekers from a church, then he/she should do so without hesitation, though respecting the asylum seeker as a human being and himself/herself as accountable for the life of the other. It is obvious how this theory can lead to – and has led to – religious legitimacy of state suppression, and that is of course why this theory of the sacred nature of offices of authority has been rejected by many, not least since World War II. However, if understood as a theory which does not allow any type of authority escape the Christian calling and which orders any authority to be accountable to God, the theory could also have led to an understanding whereby the police officers rejected forcible deportation of asylum-seekers, not only from a church building but also from the country. Thus this theory becomes part of the puzzle on both the religious and the secularist side. As also presented by John Witte, a central dimension in the Lutheran Reformation was that law is secular. A consequence of this was that Canon Law was abolished as not being valid in the Reformed countries (in Scandinavia) any more. Later on, when the Jewish minority in Denmark was given

12 Her kræves det s” af forvaltere, at de findes tro (Danish bible translation of 1992); [Now it is required that those who have been given a trust must prove faithful] (New International Version)(1 Kor 4, 2)

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citizenship in 1814,13 this possibility was only offered on the condition that the Jewish minority would no longer follow Jewish law and instead follows the law of the land (such as in matters of marriage and inheritance). This is a further example of the general norm; religious law was no longer accepted in the Danish context. This issue was discussed in relation to the constitution of 1849, which in principle gave free access to all functions in the government system with no discrimination on the basis of religion. In the context of the constitution, this raised the issue that such a regulation would also open the way for Jewish citizens to become judges in the courts; and that was said to be precisely the purpose, since in the courts one is judged on the basis of secular law, not on basis of religious understandings of the law.14 In the Lutheran understanding, the law also has two different functions, both given by God: the justice of law is there for civil needs, i. e. in order to restrain people from sinful conduct, i. e.: conducts that destroy the ability to live together in the society, by threatening them with punishment. The law also has a theological function in order to make people conscious of their duty to give themselves to God. Some branches of the Reformation would add a third use of the law, namely to teach the faithful the good will of God and on basis of that, build a good society. This third understanding of the use of the law is central in American – including Lutheran – theology as informed by the theology of Melanchton, by the Concordia Formula (never recognized in Denmark) and by Reformed (Calvinist) theology. This understanding of the law has also been common among more pietistic movements in Danish religious communities, especially those inspired by American theology and practice. There has, however, been much conflict – not least in still influential twentieth-century Danish university theology – associated with approaching this idea of a Christian as being anything but a sinner on the same level as anybody else in society. When the Reformation talks about two – or even three – functions of the law, then this is not immediately directed at the law of the land or the law given by the king, but rather at the distinction between law and gospel in the Bible. The theory has, however, also had implications for understandings of what law is in a society and where we can learn about law. The abolition of canon law thus opened for possible chaos in Danish/Norwegian society, which let the King and his advisors in the sixteenth- and seventeenth-century post13 Jews had been a recognised minority in Denmark since 1685, when both Jews and Huguenots fleeing religious persecution in France and other European states arrived in Denmark. They were allowed to live in Denmark as foreign believers, that is as a community outside the normal Danish system of enforced belonging to Lutheranism, but then of course not as Danish citizens. Laws on citizenship were introduced in 1776, but Danish citizenship was not available for Jewish persons until 1814; riots in Copenhagen in reaction against the loss of Norway and state bankruptcy opened for this possibility. 14 For further discussions on this topic and also for a recent example of the same discussion, see Christoffersen 2012.

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Reformation countries to look for norms in the Jewish bible. Thus the Ten Commandments became central and the Danish Law of 1685, which assembled all Danish legislation into one law, was based on the structure of the Ten Commandments.15 Danish criminal law still retains this structure – as well as in most of its norms, – relying on normative remains from the Ten Commandments. They were the basis for the instruction of school children in connection with their confirmation, which was introduced in 1736. The Ten Commandments also formed part of the instructions in the public schools according to school laws of 1814 and onwards. All Danish children in the 19th century thus learned to read in order to understand the Law and the Gospel. Lutheran theory is, however, more refined than just relying on Mosaic Law. It is also a common understanding in Lutheran theory that Mosaic Law is only part of what could be called ‘natural law’, with which we are also familiar through legal reasoning. The first dimension of law is seen as ‘positive law’, established by the earthly kingdom, since it belongs to the function of the king – also in his accountability to God – to ensure good laws for society. And since Lutheran theology draws no distinction between Christians and other citizens in the earthly kingdom, the Christian is as bound by the (secular) law as anybody else, though also as a Christian, since as a Christian he is also called to obey the existing natural orders of household, church and state in society. It has thus been part of Danish legal thinking since 1536 that there is no law but secular law and that it is precisely by establishing and securing the certainty of secular law that Christianity influences society. The Christian normative influence is thus not established through distinctive religious spheres, such as the church or the clerics or anything called ‘the sacred’. The Christian normative influence is established through ensuring that the King and anybody else after confirmation know how to interpret their commitment to God through the law. Christianity is still taught in the Danish school system, now as part of a general religious course, though still according to school legislation aimed at giving pupils a general understanding of the Christian normative influence on society. And 75 per cent of all pupils aged 14 – 15 years are still confirmed; that is, they follow a course in the local church, given by the local vicar, teaching them the Ten Commandments, the Golden Rule, basic Christian narratives and a basic repertoire of Danish Christian hymns.16 It is thus still possible to argue that the Danish understanding of the role of the law or – perhaps more relevant – the content of the law is to some extent informed by Christianity. When a case like Church Asylum appears, this also becomes clear to the general public as well as to decision-makers, who at least after a while become able to distinguish between the function of the secular law and a possible calling of the church. 15 The same applies for the Norwegian Law of 1685. 16 See for a broader analysis of this question in the Nordic countries, Slotte 2010.

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However, it is also obvious that this system based on a common understanding of the role of the law to also protect the weak is now under pressure. This pressure in itself calls for people within the church to take a clearer standpoint on what the law ought to do, as in the third use of the law in a reformed/calvinist language. And this is what was done by the religious groups, supporting the church asylum case. One could thus argue that one (religious) standpoint in the case is postLutheran by also calling for the law as leading to a good life and calling for Christians as responsible for the good life of others; whereas another standpoint from theological positions was clearly Lutheran by arguing secularly about the law. One could, however, also argue that the lack of legitimacy behind the function of the law from religious parties in the case of Church Asylum – together with the pressure from real secular secularists and non-informed groups – put the system under pressure. The case thus shows a shift in the Danish debate towards post-Lutheran as well as post-secular standpoints. The three different types of authority established in a Lutheran worldview are theologically speaking equal before God, but have complementary tasks in home, church and state. It is however clear that only state authorities have legal authority ; and a central dimension of the Danish-Norwegian Reformation is that the church no longer has independent jurisdiction. This leaves the responsibility for securing the earthly as well as the spiritual needs of the people to the lawmakers, be they Christian or not. The general legislative power of the state is also responsible for securing freedom of religion and a context in which the church (and other religions) can fulfil their callings. In this way the secular laws have an intertwined function: they must secure intertwined religious and secular needs of the people. The state also took over responsibilities for welfare in general – and with its lawmaking powers having become democratically based since the turn of the mid-nineteenth century, these theories have become the normative function of the state. Danes thus generally think that their influence on lawmaking as well as on executive powers relies on their democratic voice in government and politics and that these areas are of no concern to the church. An understanding that the church in its preachings should also remind the state of its obligations further supports the standpoint. Others would however argue that the church has obligations concerning the needs of the poor and the foreigners among us, even though the general obligation lies with the state. These positions are also clear in the material concerning the Church Asylum case. The Head of Police in Copenhagen also publically argued that there neither was nor should be any other legitimate use of power than that of the state (the police). Protests were of course legitimate, though it was up to the police to decide when the situation had to end in order to re-establish law and order, and the government was in line with this argumentation. The Dean of Copenhagen and all the bishops involved have also argued that

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there was only one law, which was secularly established by the state. They do, however, divide when it comes to whether the role of the church was solely to call on the state for for the spiritual legitimacy of the law (the second position) or whether the church as church, that is: as a religious or even sacred space, also has special religious duties and functions of its own. In regard to the role of the law and of the state, it is also possible to argue that not only the religious but also the secularist positions are religiously informed and thereby basically established on intertwined grounds; but that post-secular trends are pushing the Lutheran argumentation towards postLutheran positions.

Conclusion The church asylum case ended three months after approximately sixty asylumseekers took shelter in a church when the police entered the church building in the middle of the night and forcibly deported the asylum-seekers to Iraq. The picture of police officers subordinating the Gospel of Christ was published not only in national media but also in International Church News from Denmark, and provoked many. The question, however, is: What was the alternative? Which post-Lutheran and possibly also post-secular positions regarding the concept of the church, the law and the state were available? And how would the use of such alternative positions have changed the situation and thereby also Danish society? The case no doubt maps a hidden sacrality of the – religiously informed – secular in the Danish context and thereby also voices the idea of a deep level structured intertwinement as a common ground. The wider population thinks otherwise of a church than to compare it to a ‘public place’ and so does the law on church buildings by requiring respect around their function as a church. There is therefore already openness in the Danish context towards the idea presented by Casanova in his contribution to this book of a modern and, to a certain extent, individual (or at least individualised) spiritual realm as the authentic space of the sacred. The congregational councils understood this when they first took responsibility for the immediate problematic position of the asylum-seekers – and the priests, Church Asylum and other supporters had all hoped that the use of a church building would have established a basis for a different solution. However, as also formulated by Casanova, the point is that even though there of course are tensions between the three domains of the religious-secular-sacred: a) the democratic national collective (including the civil religion function of the folkekirke); b) the Ecclesiastical Lutheran church; and c) the individual inward conscience, these tensions cannot lead to a radical chasm or schism between the three. My conclusion is that it is part and parcel of the very identity of the Danish folkekirke, including the normative support of a Lutheran concept of the state

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and the law as responsible for the well-being, as well as the limits of the people, that such a church cannot establish a real counterweight to the state forces. As a (post)-Lutheran church, individual congregational councils and priests can side with other, also leftist groups, in calling for law and order for asylumseekers. If however ecclesiastical theological understanding of the concept of the church changes into a more post-Lutheran position, then that could open for a concrete church as a space for the third use of the law, aiming at establishing the good society. That would however also in itself challenge a late Lutheran understanding of both the function of the law and the state. Since is it possible to uphold an understanding of the law as only secular, if the church, theologically speaking, has a role in securing the bodies of the individuals against state orders? And what is the role of the state, if the individuals, again theologically speaking, cannot rely on it as an instrument for establishing security and normative structures for the individuals belonging to the society? I have in my analysis understood the Church Asylum group, the young “lefties”, as building on an intertwined understanding of the role of the church in the society. The question is however how far I am right in this. In their own mind, they just used the church for political purposes and they thought that this political discussion about the role of a church in a Lutheran state disturbed the case and moved the focus from the asylum seekers to the church as an ecclesiological challenge. It is thus also possible to understand the “lefties” as establishing not a religiously informed secularity, but a pure secularity with no use of or even misuse of the church building and the underlying religious norms. But still I cannot escape the understanding that even though there might be abuse of roles and powers hidden in the case, then still the general interpretation both theologically, legally and practically has to do with the hidden religiously informed interpretation of what it means to be a church, a state and law. In this basically, intertwined order of post-secularity, the popular understanding of the church building should be respected, simply because the religiously informed secular understanding of the law also obliges this law and this state to secure spaces for sacrality. There is thus still basis for a critique against the police, taken superiority over the gospel in driving concrete individuals out of the church. On the other hand, a Lutheran state only has one (secular) law and one (secular) state. It does not allow for overlapping normative orders or parallel jurisdictions. In this understanding, the spiritual role from the side of the church is only to demand from the state that it by law secures the lives of all people in the country ; and the role of the state, including the police, is – after having listened to this voice – to fulfill its calling to secure law and order in society under the final authority of God. What else could or should the police have done? At the end of the day, this society has this just one law and one order, the order of the secular state, supported by Lutheran Christianity. A change in this

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basic mutual support would imply changes in the conceptual understandings not only of what a church is, but also of what law is and of the role of the state. The case however reveals a series of dilemmas, both within the religious understanding of the (post)-Lutheran state: is it still reliable? Within the secularist understanding of the role of the church: should that not be a sacred space? And within an intertwined understanding of what church, state and law is all about. The case thereby also very clearly shows, why our Nordic societies are currently, all of them, struggling with church-state-relations both theoretically, politically and legally.

Bibliography Christoffersen, L. (2006), Intertwinement. A concept for analyzing religion-lawrelations, in: Nordic Journal of Religion and Society, vol 19:2, 107 – 126. Christoffersen, L. (2010), State, Church and Religion in Denmark, in: Christoffersen / Andersen / Mod¦er (ed.), Law and Religion in the 21st Century – Nordic Perspectives, Copenhagen: DJØF Publishing. Christoffersen / Andersen / Mod¦er (ed) (2010), Law and Religion in the 21st Century – Nordic Perspectives, Copenhagen: DJØF Publishing. Christoffersen, L. (2012): Religion and State. Recognition of Islam and related Legislation, in Jørgen S. Nielsen (ed), Islam in Denmark. The Challenge of Diversity. Lanham: Lexington Books, 57 – 80. Frydenlund (2011): Kirkeasyl. En kamp for ophold [Church asylum: A Fight for the Right to Residence]. Frederiksberg: Forlaget Frydenlund. Geist, A. / Geist, E. (2011): De Afviste. Historien om Danmark og asylansøgerne fra Irak [The Rejected: the History about Denmark and Asylum-Seekers from Iraq], Copenhagen: Informations forlag. Gregersen, N.H. (ed) (2013): Lutherbilleder i dansk teologi 1800 – 2000 [Reviewing Lutheranism in Danish Theology 1800 – 2000], Frederiksberg: Anis. Hvithamar / Warburg / Jacobsen (ed) (2009): Holy Nations and Global Identities. Civil Religion, Nationalism and Globalisation. Leiden: Brill. Slotte, P. (2010): A little Church, a little State and a little Commonwealth at once, in: Christoffersen / Andersen / Mod¦er (ed), Law and Religion in the 21st Century – Nordic Perspectives, Copenhagen, DJØF Publishing, 237 – 271.

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Legal Secularism? – Differing Notions of Religion in International and Norwegian Law

Abstract After a brief introduction to the regulation of religion in international law, the chapter examines the impact of international law on three issues in Norwegian law that presuppose a distinction between religion and non-religion: the registration of religious communities, the consideration of asylum seekers claiming religious conversion, and exemptions from non-discrimination law granted to religious communities. The chapter finds that across these examples, local conditions and political expediency seems to be more important to distinctions between religion and non-religion than concepts derived from international law.

Introduction As Norway enters the second decade of the twenty-first century, it simultaneously prepares for the bicentennial of its Constitution, enacted on the 17 May 1814. During the two centuries of its existence, the Norwegian state has enjoyed a close, complex and sometimes contentious relationship with religious individuals, groups and doctrines. Gradually, draconian measures concerning the acceptance of heterodox religiosity have been amended and abolished in turn, and during the bicentennial of the Constitution in 2014, the majority of constitutional provisions securing preferential treatment for the Norwegian Church will be discontinued.1 Constitutional amendments notwithstanding, Norwegian law still struggles with the slippery subject of religion: the questions of where religion begins and ends, and which competencies, rights and duties should arise from its identification are continuously contested across differing social, political and legal arenas. As Norwegian law has become interwoven with international law, beginning in the 19th century and accelerating rapidly after World War II, 1 The constitutional amendments were agreed by all parties represented in Parliament in 2008, and confirmed in 2012, securing the consecutive term majority required for such amendments in time for the bicentenary.

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domestic laws on religion have become increasingly global in orientation: legal conceptualizations of religion in Norway negotiate international and domestic norms, striking balances between ratified international conventions and domestic legislation. Creating rules for the world, the framers of international law have had no less trouble handling religion than have Norwegian legislators. Conjuring up rights concerning the freedom to hold religious beliefs, engagement in religious worship, proselytisation, registration of religious communities and religious non-discrimination, international lawmakers have explicitly and consistently evaded clear-cut definitions of religion.2 Hence, domestic legislators, while bound to create a raft of different rules on religion, are often left without any tools to guide them in the proper procedure for identifying the highly general and decontextualized versions of religion proposed in international legal instruments. This chapter has two parts. In the first part, I introduce some conceptual issues concerning legal regulation of religion and possible connections to the amorphous concept of secularism, before outlining some historical developments in international rules on religion. In the second part, I briefly chart the role of international law and religion in domestic legislation and ask whether Norwegian law conforms to a particular form of legal secularism. I trace the negotiation of international and domestic rules on religion in Norway across three legal areas: the registration of faith communities, the handling of asylum claims, and the granting of exemptions to religious communities from the general law on non-discrimination. In conclusion, I give a provisional assessment of the extent to which Norwegian law is secularist.

Law and religion The legal regulation of religion3 is a fairly recent phenomenon. Only with the rise of religion as a generic category following the Protestant Reformation could religion become legally recognized as a stand-alone, generic category, both in the domestic and in the international domains.4 As Talal Asad (1999,

2 See general comment no. 22 of the Human Rights Committee (CCPR/C/21/Rev.1/Add.4), which is the authoritative document on the interpretation of international norms and religion. See also UNHCR guidelines on religion-based asylum claims (HCR/GIP/04/06). 3 I use the term ‘religion’ exclusively as a descriptive second-order, generic term to describe how different actors in different discourses for different effects employ it. Hence, I do not comment upon the validity or applicability of the category – rather, I wish to explore the criteria applied by different social actors in religion-making (Mandair and Dressler : 2011, 21) across differing discourses. 4 This is obviously not to say that phenomena later characterised as ‘religious’ were not legally

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185 – 186) has observed, the discursive separation of religion from its surroundings took place concurrently with the rise of the modern nation state, turning the state into ‘the significant other’5 of religion. As the nation state spread across the globe as a standard template for political organization during the colonial enterprises of Western states in the 19th century, the distinctiveness of religion was grafted onto whatever local practices fit the template and turned into others of the state, available for legal regulation and restriction. Legal regulation of religion conforms to the dynamic identified by David Chidester relating to the stability of religion on the colonial frontier of Southern Africa: in times of unrest, the category is contested and disputed, while in periods of general calm and absence of open hostilities, it becomes stable and manageable (1996, 255). Religion generally enters the legislature’s field of vision only when it becomes a problem in terms of creating divisions or inciting discrimination, violence or general differential treatment. Whenever religion is not perceived to be a significant factor in societal issues, it is generally left undefined and unregulated by the law. This mechanism is obviously not exclusive to the regulation of religion, but rather a general feature of law, which constantly generates more or less conceptually coherent regulatory resolutions to practical societal problems. The ways in which law engages in religion-making (Mandair and Dressler : 2011, 21) carry distinct imprints from the degree to which law is perceived to be secularist or not. As Durham (1996, 43 – 44) has shown, the legal regulation of religion tends to be most hotly contested in societies that self-identify as either strongly secularist or theocratic, while mixed approaches tend to ameliorate frictions somewhat, reducing the need for detailed legal regulation. Winnifred Sullivan has pointed to the influence of state-recognized religions for the templates available to judges and other legal professionals – the more embedded and clarified the position of one or several religions in a given polity, the more ordered and predictable the jurisprudence on religion seems to be (2006, 915). Outlining and positioning religion in given social structures, legal regulations of religion are practical applications of theoretical, ideological formations of secularism, understood as sets of doctrines concerning the proper definition and placement of religion in society.6 Law constantly creates

regulated before this time, but rather that these phenomena were not categorised as religious in the sense commonly meant today (cf. Nongbri: 2008). 5 Similar sentiments can be found in Beyer (2003; 2006) and Bloch (2008). Murphy, on the other hand, has pointed to how intellectual systems categorised as ‘religious’ were commonly constructed upon inverted versions of the religions of competing polities (2007, 138). 6 While this is a simplified definition, it conforms to the etymological origin of the term, describing “[…]a conviction that morality should be based on the well-being in the present life, without regard to religious belief” (Online Etymology Dictionary Etymonline.com, http://www.ety-

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and patrols the borders of social practices, and whenever these regulations designate certain spaces for religion, legal rules run the errands of secularism. This specific, narrowly conceptualized legal variety of secularism must be kept clearly distinct from the more elusive concepts of the secular and secularity as end points of a process of secularization, terms attempting to capture the degree of influence which religion holds over a given polity. Following Gorski and Altinordu (2008, 76 – 77), I contend that secularization is a notoriously imprecise concept that tends to involve questionable assumptions about the future of the equally elusive concept of religion.7 Furthermore, legal secularism in the sense outlined above does not encompass or opine on the political doctrine or the cultural practices of secularism that have become key objects of study in political science and social anthropology lately (cf. Asad: 2003, Bhargava: 2006, Taylor : 2007, Jakobsen and Pellegrini: 2008). Rather, any legal regulation that is premised on the differentiation of religion from its surroundings constitutes a form of legal secularism.8

International law and religion Prior to the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) in 1948 by the United Nations General Assembly, international legal regulations of religion were limited to the protection of certain religious groups from persecution by extraterritorial powers (Neff: 1977, 553). These protections were elaborated in a large number of bi- and multilateral treaties negotiated from medieval times and up to the minority treaties under the auspices of the League of Nations in the 1920s. These treaties, though widely differing in contexts and provisions, all granted adherents to particular minority religious views rights not to be discriminated against. The rationale for this protection has generally been described as pure expediency (Neff: 1977, 550), the learning through centuries of cruel experience (Tierney : 1996, 55) or as policy trade-offs (Gill: 2008, 52). The ad hoc nature in which these treaties emerged testifies to these views – most treaties granting religious freedom and non-discrimination emerged in the monline.com/index.php?term=secularism&allowed_in_frame=0). Only a law that is explicitly distanced from religion may create legal rules for religion as a stand-alone, set-apart category. 7 Related problems can obviously be raised regarding the notion of the ‘post-secular’ (cf. Habermas: 2008, Abeysekara: 2008) and ‘de-secularisation’ (cf. Berger : 1999). 8 Following Luhmann, I argue that only that which is already religious may become more or less secular: Since society as such did not have religion as a stand-alone concept until its differentiation from its surroundings, society was never, and could never have been, completely religious, and could therefore never have become secularized (Cf. Luhmann: 1977; Verschraegen and Laermans: 2001, 8).

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aftermath of some conquest, war, revolution or conflict of some other type.9 Consequently, due to the dominance of European powers in early developments of international relations, groups that were granted protection in these treaties were usually Christian, and their provisions could not be generalized to apply to any other religious group. Neither of these early treaties granted enforceable rights to individuals, and created legal bonds only on sovereigns of the states in question. Such protection was extended by granting access to sites in the Holy Land for Christian traders and pilgrims, as in the treaty between the 7th-century Arab caliph Omar and the Byzantine emperor, by coining the “cuius regio eius religio” doctrine at the Treaty of Augsburg in 1555, or by providing for religious liberty in the constitution of the Congo Free State during the Berlin Conference in 1885 (Neff: 1977, 549 – 560). Common to most of these treaties was the trend of powerful states exporting religious liberty without pursuing equal toleration in domestic arrangements, effectively enforcing a heightened level of tolerance on weaker states. This pattern was duplicated in the aftermath of World War I, when a number of recently-created state projects in the wake of the collapse of the Ottoman and European empires concluded treaties with the League of Nations council on the protection of national, ethnic, religious or racial minorities, and guarantees of these minorities’ rights to free exercise of religion (Dickson: 1995, 331). Unlike previous agreements, the provisions of these treaties, negotiated from 1919 to the early 1920s, were subject to the jurisdiction of an international adjudicating body, the Permanent Court of International Justice (PCIJ). The focus of treaty provisions, however, remained explicitly on state protection of minority rights, and not on enforceable rights of groups or individuals, a fact reflected in the lack of access to the PCIJ for non-state entities (Sohn and Buergenthal: 1973, 220). Additionally, the competence to bring cases under the minority treaties before the PCIJ was restricted to the members of the League council, further narrowing their reach. During World War II, the complete failure of the international system in general and the minority treaties in particular to offer the promised protection became all too evident. The UDHR, adopted in 1948, carries the clear imprint of preceding events, resulting in a number of provisions constructed as direct antitheses to the ideologies of Nazi Germany (Morsink: 1999, 36). However, despite the long history of minority rights in international law and their flagrant violations during the war, these rights were not included in the UDHR, mainly at the behest of states claiming either not to have any minorities or states pursuing assimilation policies of various stripes (Normand and Zaidi: 2008, 188). 9 Cf. Bates, who claims that the modern stream of treaties providing for religious liberty began with the Westphalia settlements of 1648, and continued in a string of post-conflict treaties in the following centuries (1945, 485).

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In the UDHR, rights previously attached to religious minorities were divided in two separate categories: Article 2, on the protection of various groups from any form of discrimination, and Article 18, on the individual and collective freedom of religion or belief. Although the UDHR was drafted by a committee with representatives from various states, languages, cultures, religions and legal systems, the provisions that were hammered out were based on an overwhelmingly Western template.10 Moreover, the preamble pronounced the declaration to be a common standard of achievement, ostensibly with universal reach. Employing the language of a new standard towards which states and individuals could aspire, the UDHR perpetuated the logic underpinning the expansion of international law during the 19th century when Western states for the first time crafted proper diplomatic relations with non-Christian states. Whereas former expansions of the international system had been premised on the distinction between Christian and heathen, the discovery of long-lasting, advanced non-Christian societies in Asia prompted the creation of separate, less clear-cut criteria for inclusion, which has later become known as the ‘standard of civilization’ (cf. Gong 1984).11 During the heyday of Western colonial empires in the 19th and 20th centuries, this standard was highly fluent, constantly being revised to fit political requirements (Koskenniemi: 2011, 156). One of the key issues in the standard that was to be disseminated by the help of the UDHR was the freedom of religion, belief and conscience, mentioned as one of the four freedoms in Franklin D. Roosevelt’s famous speech in early 1941. The right to freedom of conscience is commonly hailed as a vital human right, and is prominent in the national narratives of both France and the United States of America, the states whose founding documents were decisive templates for the UDHR. Despite similar language, however, the role of the freedom of religion in these two states differs considerably between what in US legal parlance is commonly called ‘accommodations’ and ‘separationist’ positions.12 Whereas the role of freedom of conscience in these states have been fundamentally shaped by their historical experiences as states, the UDHR offers no such contextual horizon, and strategies to protect this 10 The Western origins of the UDHR is undisputed, both among its defenders (cf. Donnelly : 1998, Glendon: 2001) and its critics (cf. Mutua: 2001). 11 The trajectory of the ‘standard of civilisation’ concept mirrors closely that of the ‘world religions’ discourse created by the European academy in the late 19th century, a process that was also largely due to expanded contacts with ‘high’ civilisations that were neither Abrahamic in faith nor could be considered ‘barbarian’ (cf. Masuzawa: 2005). 12 This division could also be rephrased as the distinction between the US ‘wall of separation’ and the French lacit¦, between which the central fault line concerns whether freedom of religion should be protected from encroachments by the state, as in the former, or whether freedom of religion should be protected in order to clearly delineate and neutralise the religious influence on the state.

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particular right often shape the heated debate on how states should interpret the provisions of the UDHR. Although the freedom of religion, belief and conscience is derived from local, Western experiences, the contents of this right are hardly disputed at the conceptual level. By adding belief and conscience to the list of protected factors, the framers of the UDHR effectively created the unlimited protection of any mental conviction, be it related to a particular system or not (Taylor : 2005, 115). The option to manifest such convictions is obviously coaxed in categories strongly reminiscent of particular, prototypical religious forms effectively favouring established religiosity over less conventional convictions. However, the interpretation of the freedom of religion granted in Article 18 of the UDHR does not demand a distinction between what is religious and what is not. The same does not apply for Article 2 and its later iterations in binding treaties.13 By including religion in the catalogue of criteria eligible for nondiscrimination alongside “[…] race, colour, sex, language, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status”, the UDHR simultaneously presupposed and highlighted the separation and interdependence of these categories as universal traits everywhere. This logic of separation and intertwinement was extended when the General Assembly adopted resolution 1510 in 1960, reacting on information about an increase in anti-Semitic incidents all over the world in 1959 and 1960 (A/4681). In this resolution, the General Assembly condemned all instances of racial, religious and national hatred, apparently conjoining these issues. Two years later, however, the General Assembly adopted resolutions 1780 and 1781, calling on the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) to draft two separate declarations, condemning racial and religious hatred, respectively (A/5217). The declaration on racial discrimination was adopted in 1963, creating the basis for the adoption of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD/C/351/Add.1) in 1965. The short period from declaration to binding treaty was unprecedented in the previous work of the CHR, and stood in stark contrast to the grinding process of working out a treaty based on the UDHR, which had not yet been completed at the time of adoption of the CERD. The express acceptance of the CERD was a matter of the General Assembly responding to the current political climate, where the parallel increase in UN membership of ex-colonial states coincided with an increasing awareness of and opposition against the apartheid policies of South Africa, leading the world’s attention on discrimination to racial rather 13 Although the UDHR is formally only a non-binding declaration, it is commonly considered to have attained status as jus cogens (peremptory norm) in international law, giving it a constitution-like position. The principle of non-discrimination cuts through the entire human rights enterprise, and is part of all core human rights treaties. A similar list, although excluding sex, was reproduced in the 1951 Refugee Convention.

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than religious motivations (Dickson: 1995, 339). Consequently, the negotiations on a possible draft declaration on religious discrimination deteriorated, and a declaration was not adopted until 1981, after substantial revisions and protracted debates. A corresponding, legally binding treaty remains unlikely in the near future (Tahzib: 1996, 485), although calls for its renegotiation have resurfaced recently (Evans: 2011).

International law in Norway Since the foundation of the United Nations (UN) in 1945, Norway has played a tremendously active role, both in terms of funding per capita and in terms of participating and supporting UN activities, both in concrete field operations and in the creation and monitoring of international norms. The Norwegian UN Association14 – fully funded by the government – is the largest such association in the world, and the population is well versed in, and generally positive to, the work of the UN. Consecutive governments pledge allegiance to following the ‘UN track’ at the international level. As a small state on the outskirts of Europe with considerable financial and security interests in a strong position for international legal rules, Norway has always been a strong supporter of multilateralism. In the last decades, Norway has actively created a foreign policy premised on the promotion of peaceful resolution of violent conflicts, with the Israeli-Palestinian Oslo Agreement of 1993 and heavy involvement in the civil war in Sri Lanka as prime examples. Norway has a strong tradition of supporting and influencing international human rights work. Through a variety of NGOs and bi- and multilateral aid, the government funds large-scale programmes on good governance, expanded health care and economic and infrastructural development. Norway has signed all major human rights treaties, and, despite recent setbacks,15 generally receives good reviews in UN human rights committees and the European Court of Human Rights on its human rights track record. Despite this commitment, international human rights treaties have only recently been recognized as part of Norwegian legislation, first with a constitutional amendment in 1994, then later with the creation of the Human Rights Act in 14 UN Associations (UNAs) were created in the 1940s to disseminate information about the world organisation all over the world. In most countries, UNAs are independent NGOs. 15 Norway has failed to ratify optional protocols creating individual complaints mechanisms under the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), has not yet ratified the 2006 UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Furthermore, Norway has been roundly criticised in several human rights bodies over its primary school religious education, and is routinely criticised by the UN Committee Against Torture for conditions in psychiatric health care and the use of detainment awaiting trial.

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1999. However, prior to these explicit inclusions of human rights law, Norway had been implementing parts of international law incrementally for decades, using categories and phrases derived from human rights treaties. States that wish to implement the UDHR in their legal frameworks have to distinguish between two different delineations of religion – one expansive, related to the freedom of belief, conscience and religion, and one restrictive but interchangeable, related to non-discrimination. This is complicated for two reasons. First, the UDHR is not a formally binding instrument, and only the subsequent treaties create obligations upon states. The five instruments most relevant to religion treat the category differently, advising states to handle religiosity using different legislative and policy tools, creating an unpredictable and volatile implementation process for states.16 Second, states are obliged to create legislation that imports concepts that do not necessarily conform to their local configurations. Whether the term ‘religion’ or its translation into 383 other language versions17 makes sense or not, states bind themselves to import this category and its distinctiveness from the rest of the listed terms in the UDHR. Finally, states also have to decide whether they wish to follow the accommodationist strain of the international framework, as evinced by US jurisprudence on religion, or the separationist strain, practiced by French law (although see van den Breemer in this book on the pitfalls of dichotomising these positions too sharply).

Religion in Norwegian law Norwegian law has a tradition of expanding religious liberty in order to compensate for the favouritism extended to the Church of Norway. The origins of this tradition can be traced back to the Norwegian Constitution: previously containing provisions forbidding the entrance of Jews and Jesuits, removed in 1851 and 1956 respectively, the religion clause was considerably overhauled in 1964, when free exercise of religion was added in order to satisfy international law. With the addition of the general clause on free exercise, the Norwegian parliament was faced with the challenge of accommodating religious 16 The five treaties in question are: International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD), 1965; International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (CCPR), 1966; International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR), 1966; International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), 1979; and International Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), 1989. Differences in emphasis on religion revolve mainly around the tendency among the former three to attribute separate spaces to religion and the willingness among the latter two to eradicate, reinterpret or abolish religious practices (ærsheim, forthcoming). 17 Website of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) http://www.ohchr.org/en/udhr/pages/introduction.aspx

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organizations outside the state church, resulting in the adoption of the Act Relating to Religious Communities, etc. (1969). In the following decades, religion has become an increasingly important category in Norwegian law, appearing in different guises in a variety of laws, for widely different purposes. Changes were incorporated into the Constitution in a recent amendment (2012) of the freedom of religion clause (formerly Article 2, now Article 16), where the evangelical Lutheran church, which formerly represented the ‘religion of the state’ was turned into the ‘people’s church’ (folkekirke), eligible for financial support by the state. Simultaneously, however, the state was provided with a novel ‘values clause’, in which the basic values of Norway were established as ‘Christian and humanist’ (Article 2). Whether or not there exists a specific Norwegian legal secularism is thus an open question. Although book-length analysis of Norwegian secularism is a relatively recent phenomenon (cf. Bangstad: 2009, Leirvik et al.: 2011), Norway has – following my earlier delineation of the concept – had a legal form of secularism since at least 1814, possibly longer.18 As the editors of this book allude to in their introduction, the ‘hidden sacrality in the secular’ has a long tradition in Scandinavian Lutheran theology, resulting in unclear borders between the religious and the secular, dubbed intertwinement by Danish scholar Lisbeth Christoffersen (2006). Traces of this intertwinement are clear in the way legal rules draw upon established religious moral concepts and give a privileged position to the church in public life, hinting at an incomplete secularity where religion may be partly removed, yet not entirely. This incomplete secularity is evident throughout Norwegian law, where a combination of exemptions and privileges are granted on the basis of delineating what qualifies as religious or not.19 Such concessions have no explicit basis in international law, and constitute what in jurisprudence before the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has been framed as a ‘margin of appreciation’, a practice that has not been accepted by other international instruments (Taylor : 2005, 186).20 Considering the dominant role of Western 18 If the existence of laws on religion are synonymous with a form of secularism, then Norway has had a legal form of secularism since 1688, with the enactment of Christian V’s Norwegian Code (Kong Christian den Femtis Norske Lov), which in chapter 2, article 1 proclaims the religion of the realm to be derived from Holy Scripture, the Apostolic, Nicaean and Athanasii Symbolis, the Augsburg Confession and Luther’s small Cathechism. However, by 1688 Norway was still a part of Denmark, and this passage was derived from Christian V’s Danish Code enacted by the same Christian V one year earlier, making it more an issue of an import of Danish secularism into Norwegian law. 19 This distinction is operative mainly in exemptions from various anti-discrimination laws, but may also be traced in the registration of religious communities and the option of creating confessional schools, both of which hinge on state approval of religiousness. Furthermore, primary and secondary education shall be based on Christian and humanist values, a basis that is also part of the suggested Constitutional amendments to the religion clauses. Finally, the Penal Code still contains a dormant prohibition of blasphemy. 20 The margin of appreciation is an ambiguous concept created by the ECHR to denote the extent

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Protestantism in the origin and development of Norwegian society, any legal idea of what constitutes religion would most likely be derived from a Westernized religious template, whether it was part of legal regulations or not, as legal professionals bereft of any acknowledged state religion tend to base their understandings of religion on whatever they know from personal experience (Sullivan: 2007, 133).

Three laws, three religions Legislators shaping laws on religion in Norway have to merge international and constitutional constraints with highly area-specific purposes of legislation. Of the three areas of law under consideration in this review, neither have the delineation of religion as their explicit purpose. Rather, the determination of what constitutes religion or not creates limited exemptions, inclusions and privileges relevant to the main regulatory purposes of legislation. Moving chronologically, I will map how these legal areas arrive at their strategies of separating religion from non-religion. a) Act Relating to Religious Communities, etc. The Act relating to Religious Communities, etc.21 (ARRC) was enacted in 1969 as the culmination of an extensive process of legislative preparatory work by the Committee on Dissenters, established in 1957 to amend the Norwegian legal framework on non-members of the state church, chiefly the restrictive Law on Christian Dissenters (1845). The latter was created after protracted battles waged by members of the Quaker society, a Christian movement brought to Norway by prisoners of war from the Napoleonic wars returning to Norway in 1814 (Furre: 1997, 211). The new law was the end point of a long reform of Norwegian laws on religious freedom, with the ban on Jesuits removed against a substantial minority in 1954, and freedom of religion added to the Constitution in 1964. The primary purpose of the ARRC is to give collective effect to the general constitutional principle of religious freedom. The act encompasses all religious communities including the Church of Norway, but has a separate section dedicated to other communities, including a list of requirements for communities wishing to register as religious. Requirements for registration are as follows: to which states are allowed to pursue policies that conflict with the European Convention on Human Rights (1950). It is commonly invoked in particularly sensitive cases, as a convenient tool to resolve controversial issues (cf. Benvenisti: 1999; Koskenniemi: 2011 21 Original name Lov om trudomssamfunn og ymist anna. Translation at http://www.ub.uio.no/ ujur/ulov/. Although unofficial, all translations are from this page, as no other overview exists.

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If a religious community wishes to be registered, it must notify the County Governor and provide the following information:

1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

name and address of the religious community its creed and doctrine its organization, activities and membership the name of each member of the board the name and sphere of responsibility of each spiritual and administrative leader 6. the rules of the community with regard to its objectives, who may be a member, voting rights, spokesmen, servants, amendments to the statutes, dissolution, etc. The Ministry may issue further regulations concerning notification of registration, its form and content (my translation).

Until the enactment of supplementary legislation granting financial support to life stance communities (1981) and to unregistered religious communities (2005), registration was the only possibility for religious communities to receive grants “[…] proportionately approximately equivalent to the sum budgeted for the Church of Norway […], calculated on the basis of the number of members of the community” (section 19 (my translation)). Other benefits of registration include the right to officiate marriages,22 the right to create a separate place of burial (section 18) and the right to receive financial support to conduct religious education for children exempted from teaching in Christianity (section 20). The ARRC represented a clear departure from the strict regulations listed in its predecessor law, but the preparatory works nevertheless explicitly specify that registration is to be limited: The preconditions are really that the religious community represents a positive religious faith that the state may beneficially trust and support, both concerning public morality, and concerning the parts of culture constituted by the religious life (Leirvik: 2009, 74, my translation).

Similarly, section 1 prohibits the creation of religious communities that violate the law or normal standards of decency, and section 24 requires spiritual or administrative leaders in religious communities to live an honourable life.23 Following registration, religious communities are obliged to report annually on their expenditure, which is required to be used for religious purposes (section 19) related to the purpose of the community. Registration of religious communities is handled by eighteen county 22 Act relating to Marriage (1991), section 12. 23 This translation is questionable, as the Norwegian word used in the law, ‘hederlig’, connotes more closely to ‘law-abiding’, removing some of the more moralistic overtones implied by the term ‘honourable’.

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governors, on the basis of the ARRC, supplementary legislation and the occasional advisory notice from the responsible ministry.24 Considering the towering presence of the state church in Norwegian law and the prominence attributed to the redistributory financial scheme under the AARC,25 one would expect conceptualizations of religion in the practice of this law to be strongly derivative of the state church template, and rigidly regulated to ensure equal treatment. In practice, however, neither holds true. Rather, registration by all eighteen governors is uncoordinated, and relies almost exclusively on the application of preparatory works and ministerial advisory notices, resulting in a chaotic practice that has been repeatedly criticized.26 Norwegian media routinely report on unconventional religions successfully achieving registration, and several recipes for creating your own religious community exist online.27 A sample of registration practices gathered from the Hordaland County Governor in 2006 (ærsheim: 2007) showed that refusals to grant registration followed no clear pattern, repeatedly invoking the lack of “religious aspects”, and pointing to lack of “clarity” in applications. Although one of the applicants used a standardized recipe for registration acknowledged by the Oslo and Akershus County Governor in 1994, the application was turned down for lack of religious aspects. Another applicant was turned down because of its similarities with the state church, although no such provision exists in the law; on appeal to the Ministry, the application was accepted. The matter of registration is not a trivial one. Although not formally mandated by international rules, public acknowledgment of communities as religious sends important signals to minority communities that their traditions are not only tolerated, but actively supported by the state, a signal that is vital to even out the imbalance created by an official state religion. Furthermore, religious communities outside the state church have 484,500 members, constituting 9.8 per cent of the total population, and eligible for

24 The latest advisory comment came in 1988, when the Ministry of Justice, upon delegating registering authority to the country governors, proclaimed that registration posed no particular problems. 25 The constitutional amendments provisionally agreed upon by all parties in the Norwegian Parliament in 2008 include elevating this principle to the Constitution. 26 Statskonsult, a state-owned consultancy, has reviewed the practice twice, in 1998 and 2000, and criticized the lack of coordination in both reports. Also in 2000, an interdepartmental working group suggested a series of amendments and coordination that have yet to be inplemented (Leirvik: 2009, 75). 27 The most famous recipe was printed in the anarchist newspaper Gateavisa (GA/152), inspired by solicitor Øystein Solberg, who registered the religious community Alt som er (Everything that is) in 1994. After initial rejection by the county governor, the decision was overturned by the Ministry of Justice on appeal, provided that Mr. Solberg could recruit at least one member to his community. In comparison, the membership requirement for registering a life stance community is 500.

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NOK 404 in state grants per member (2012), resulting in a total of NOK 195 million in state funds available to religious communities.28 The ARRC is administratively handled by the Ministry of Culture (MoC), which is also responsible for sports, gaming, recreation and leisure. Although the state church is formally also governed by the ARRC, church affairs, including responsibility for the Act relating to the Church of Norway (1996), is handled by the Ministry of Government Administration, Reform and Church Affairs, a recent creation that handles a large variety of public administrative affairs. Consequently, the considerable church bureaucracy that has been developed over the years has no formal competence or influence over issues arising under the ARRC, signalling a demarcation of the state church from other religious communities.29 This demarcation may indicate an incomplete secularity in the Norwegian legal regulation of religion, as it reinforces existing differences between the officially sanctioned form of religiosity and all other forms. Furthermore, it cuts off the contextual element whereby public authorities may draw on established religiosity as a template for crafting the borders of unestablished forms, paving the way for the present, fragmented practice. When a religious community has been registered, it is free to govern internal affairs as long as it abides by Norwegian law and normal standards of decency. Unlike the state church, whose bishops are appointed by the Minister for Government Administration, Reform and Church Affairs, religious communities are free to elect their leaders as they see fit. Additionally, religious communities – including the state church – are exempt from the general provisions of the Gender Equality Act (1978), and the AntiDiscrimination Act (2005) (see more below). Despite these significant exemptions, the principles of the ARRC collide with accommodationism on three issues. First, the main parts of the act deal only with religious communities outside the state church, which has its own, separate law. Hence, the core belief in accommodationism – that religion as such is a benefit to society – is undermined by a fragmented legal system with different rules and regulatory mechanisms for different communities. Second, the US wall of separation to protect religious communities from state interference30 is replaced by a web of regulations through which the state takes on the role of overseer in the religious domain. 28 NOK 195 million translates to approximately USD 34 million. This figure only covers state funds In addition; religious communities are eligible for county-specific funds that are calculated on the basis of expenditure per capita specifically related to the state church. 29 Although church affairs were only moved from the MoC in 2010, the handling of church issues has always been clearly demarcated from the handling of religious communities, which was under the Ministry of Justice until 1997 before being moved to the predecessor of the MoC. 30 The existence and magnitude of this wall was recently underlined by the US Supreme Court in the Hosanna-Tabor vs. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission et.al. (Case No. 10 – 553, decided January 11., 2012), where the ministerial exception clause in which religious organi-

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Third, the understanding of religion is not limited to a specific, prototypical variety. Although the ARRC is intimately linked to the international conceptualization of freedom of religion as a question relating exclusively to belief and mental propositions, it is interpreted expansively. Religion, according to the practice developed under the ARRC, can be the belief in everything that is,31 or it can be the belief in walking in a perfect ellipse32 – and it is probably only a matter of time before county governors will have to decide whether the belief that the copying of information is ethically right qualifies as a religious doctrine.33 b) Act on the Entry of Foreign Nationals into the Kingdom of Norway Although the concept of granting asylum to refugees is ancient, the international norm on the criteria for recognising refugees was not established until the adoption of the Refugee Convention in 1951, created chiefly in order to address the large number of displaced people in Europe following World War II. The Refugee Convention is particularly concerned with two aspects: first, that refugees are people who are persecuted or risk being persecuted because of a list of issues largely derived from the criteria for nondiscrimination listed in the UDHR. Article 2 (see above), or because of their membership in a particular social group. Second, that refugees have to be outside their country of origin in order to qualify as refugees. These criteria establish the Refugee Convention firmly within the logic established by the UN Charter and the UDHR: persecution, if suffered for reasons external to the individual, is prohibited on the basis of the inherent dignity of the individual, but the protection of people who are persecuted arises only upon border crossings, due to the sovereignty clause (Article 2 – 7) of the UN Charter. Hence, internal refugees fall outside the convention, and are effectively at the mercy of their respective rulers. Norway ratified the Refugee Convention in 1953, and international criteria for the recognition of refugees were included in the Act on the Entry of Foreign Nationals into the Kingdom of Norway and their Stay in the Realm (AEFN) in 1956. In major revisions in 1988 and 2008, criteria derived from international law in the AEFN have been elevated to trump other Norwegian legislation in sations have full sovereignty over internal affairs was unanimously confirmed in an employment case between an evangelical Lutheran church and school and a former employee. Highly controversial, the decision has been celebrated and criticised in equal measure by activist groups fighting for religious liberty and rights of non-discrimination, respectively. 31 See note 27. 32 This was the key doctrine of Pi-ism, a religious community registered in Telemark. After the national public broadcaster ran a story on the community in 2006, Pi-ism was de-registered by the county governor. 33 This is one of the key doctrines of the Swedish Kopimism community, which was registered as a religious community in Sweden, and has since spread to a number of different countries where registration processes are currently (2012) pending.

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cases of interpretational conflict.34 Few areas of Norwegian law are more disputed: although the law clearly states the prominence of international rules, it also contains a clause on the legibility of emphasising concerns arising from immigration policy (section 1). A widely discussed issue since the early 1990s following gradually increasing arrivals, immigration policy remains a highranking issue on the political agenda, both for politicians and for society at large.

Religion in asylum claims The AEFN contains no specific clause on religion. Rather, it replicates the requirement that, in order to be a refugee, a person must be persecuted for reasons of “[…] race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group, or the holding of a particular political opinion”. Consequently, the decision to grant refugee status is a two-step, cumulative process. First, a person seeking asylum status must convincingly argue, prove or demonstrate the actuality or likelihood of persecution in his or her country of origin. Persecution can be mental or physical, concrete or abstract, but it has to attain a certain level of severity in order to qualify for refugee status. Second, persecution must be linked to one of the five criteria listed above – it must take on a form that can be derived from race, religion, nationality, and membership in a social group or political opinion. Whether this link is established by the persecuted or the persecutor is irrelevant, but there has to be some connection between the acts qualified as persecution and one or more of the five criteria. Due to the prominence of international law in the AEFN, guidelines concerning the interpretation of convention criteria issued by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) are fundamental to Norwegian asylum practice. In 2004, the UNHCR published a set of guidelines particularly aimed at religion-based asylum claims under the convention (HCR/GIP/04/06). These guidelines suggest three different dimensions of religion. First, they establish a clear link between religion in the Refugee Convention and religion as it is understood in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), drawing upon General Comment no. 22, published by the Human Rights Committee (HRC) in 1993 to assist states in implementing Article 18 of the ICCPR.35 In this comment, the HRC clearly states the far-reaching and profound 34 This principle has been established in Norwegian law since the enactment of the Human Rights Act in 1999. 35 Treaty bodies like the Human Rights Committee regularly publish general comments to assist states on the interpretation of treaty principles. General Comment no. 22 is entitled The Right to Freedom of Thought, Conscience and Religion (Art.18) (CCPR/C/21/Rev.1/Add.4), and deals comprehensively with the interpretation of Article 18. This article is largely identical to Article 18 of the UDHR, but with added limitations.

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nature of the right, encompassing theistic, non-theistic, and atheistic belief, as well as the right not to profess any religion or belief. Religion, on this reading, is an unlimited set of beliefs that may inspire a set of manifestations that may only be limited according to a closely circumscribed set of criteria.36 Second, the guidelines introduce a tripartite division of religion that add identity and way of life to belief as the core components of religion in asylum cases. In the UNHCR guidelines, identity is interpreted as the collective nondoctrinal dimension to religion: “Identity” is less a matter of theological beliefs than membership of a community that observes or is bound together by common beliefs, rituals, traditions, ethnicity, nationality, or ancestry. A claimant may identify with, or have a sense of belonging to, or be identified by others as belonging to, a particular group or community. In many cases, persecutors are likely to target religious groups that are different from their own because they see that religious identity as part of a threat to their own identity or legitimacy.

Religious identity, then, is primarily a marker of difference from other communities that may be used as a motivation for persecution. Although belief is also part of this dimension, it is equalized with a range of other criteria. Whether the claimant actually has the religious identity motivating persecution or not is irrelevant to the consideration of whether persecution is actually taking place. Way of life, on the other hand, is solely concerned with the practical consequences of belief, arising from special dress, dietary requirements, observing religious holidays, and so on. Taken together, identity and way of life closely resemble Article 2 of the UDHCR on the right to nondiscrimination.37 Third, the UNHCR guidelines contain a separate set of criteria for the evaluation of religious sur place claims. Sur place claims arise whenever asylum claims change substantially, either through developments in the country of origin (objective sur place), or in the particular situation of each individual claimant (subjective sur place) that result in heightened risk of persecution. Whereas objective sur place claims may draw upon the conventional conceptualizations of religion outlined above, subjective sur place claims commonly entail conversion from one religion to another, necessitating a consideration of whether the conversion is truthful or not. In order to clarify whether a conversion from one religion to another may result in persecution in the country of origin, the UNHCR guidelines suggest the following approach: 36 The following limitations are allowed underArticle18: “[…] only (to such) limitations as are prescribed by law and are necessary to protect public safety, order, health, or morals or the fundamental rights and freedoms of others.” 37 The principle of non-discrimination is one of the most – if not the most – fundamental principles of human rights law. Both a substantial right on its own and an additional principle relevant to all other rights, the right to non-discrimination is part of all major human rights instruments in different guises relative to the instrument in question.

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Issues which the decision-maker will need to assess include the nature of and connection between any religious convictions held in the country of origin and those now held, any disaffection with the religion held in the country of origin, for instance, because of its position on gender issues or sexual orientation, how the claimant came to know about the new religion in the country of asylum, his or her experience of this religion, his or her mental state and the existence of corroborating evidence regarding involvement in and membership of the new religion.

In reviewing subjective sur place claims, then, the guidelines suggest a chronological and comparative approach: unlike regular religion claims, conversions are scrutinized from their point of origin and to the final act of conversion. Along the way, the claimant must be able to submit truthful, credible and comparative information on any former religious views and their possible deficiencies, the specific reasons for conversion, and the new religious views, complete with possible advantages. Religion, then, has a broad, general meaning that can be evoked in regular claims. Within this broad understanding, the claimant does not need to be well versed in religious doctrines, rituals or ways of life. It is sufficient that the claimant can establish a plausible relation between a sufficiently severe form of persecution and some real or perceived relation to religiosity, broadly construed, including the entire range of beliefs covered by General Comment no. 22, religion as a form of identity or way of life. Once a subjective sur place claim is raised, however, religion becomes significantly more narrow and specific. In addition to the requirement of plausible persecution, the claimant is required to identify concrete doctrines, practices or concepts, both in his or her prior situation and in the newfound religion. Ideally, these concepts should be more favourable in the newfound religion than in the former, constituting a legitimate and logical cause for conversion. Furthermore, the claimant must be able to string together a plausible chronological account of how he or she was acquainted with the new faith, at what time the actual conversion took place, and what it consisted of.

Religion in Norwegian asylum cases The Norwegian Directorate of Immigration (UDI) handles applications for asylum in Norway, which is a subsidiary body of the Ministry of Justice and Public Security.38 The Ministry may instruct UDI in particular cases and interpretational principles. The Immigration Appeals Board (UNE) handles 38 The present ministerial responsibility for asylum cases was inaugurated in 2010, completing a ministerial circle that started at the Ministry of Justice in 1988, before travelling to the Ministry of Local Government and Regional Development, further on to the Ministry of Labour, and then back again to the Ministry of Justice (and Public Security).

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appeals,39 which is an independent, quasi-judicial entity that may not be instructed by the Ministry except through the creation of new regulations and legislation.40 Decisions by UNE may be appealed further to the courts,41 in which case the state is represented by UNE. The majority of asylum claims raised in Norway are conventional claims related to some form of persecution in the country of origin. In these cases, religion is a frequent cause of persecution, although only rarely in isolation. Rather, religion is typically interwoven with several other factors influencing the alleged persecution.42 The assessment of such claims does not necessitate a differentiated, clear-cut view of religion. Hence, the wide, generalized nature of religion outlined in the UNHCR guidelines, combined with up-to-date country reports on the role of religion in the country of origin43 are commonly sufficient background information to deliver a nuanced assessment of the likelihood, nature and severity of persecution in question. Over the course of the past decade, however, a small but rising number of subjective sur place claims relating to religion have been raised by asylumseekers in Norway. The overwhelming majority of these claims concern individuals from countries with a Muslim majority population who have converted to Christianity. While these claims involve a similar assessment of country information and overall credibility of the applicant as for regular claims, they simultaneously introduce a unique and controversial consideration of the nature of religion. Evaluating the sincerity of a religious conviction treads close to, and frequently transgresses, the absolute nature of the forum internum of the freedom of religion by effectively passing verdict on the contents of personally held beliefs.44 UNHCR guidelines relating to such claims complicate the issue further ; suggesting an outright comparison between formerly held and newly adopted convictions. Since the creation of UNE in 2001, 201 cases of alleged conversions have been registered.45 Among these cases, 152 have involved subjective sur place claims. While a singular board leader decides the majority of the caseload 39 The author was employed at UNE from 01. 05. 2009 to 31. 12. 2009, but had no involvement with any of the cases examined below. 40 From the website of UNE 20. 07. 2012: http://une.no/om-oss/Information-in-foreign-languages/ The-Norwegian-Immigration-Appeals-Board-UNE/ 41 Norwegian law has a three-tiered system of courts: District Courts, Courts of Appeal and the Supreme Court. 42 UNE Practice Note 09. 10. 2009: Anførsler om forfølgelse p” grunn av religion 43 The composition and assessment of religion in country reports is a highly complex and controversial topic on its own, but a fuller review of these is impossible due to limitations of space. Cf. Good 2004 on the role of anthropologists in British asylum courts. 44 See Taylor 2005 for a comprehensive account of the absolute nature of the forum internum in international human rights law. 45 The figure is from the abbreviated database of case law maintained by UNE as of 20. 07. 2012: http://une.no/Praksis2/Praksisbase/. The figure is based on the use of the tag ‘conversion’ in the database.

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handled by UNE, cases involving conversion frequently merit the complexity required to call full board meetings.46 During full board meetings, applicants are allowed to meet in person to testify, if considered relevant to the case in question. Cases are decided by majority votes between two lay members and one board leader.47 The number of cases involving majority decisions attests the complexity of assessing conversion claims. Of the 201 claims recorded, 125 decisions were unanimous, 42 decisions were decided by a majority, and 34 were decided by board leaders alone.48 The number of cases where converts were considered genuine (95) was slightly larger than the number of claims found to be fraudulent (75). In assessing sur place conversion claims, UNE has developed a consistent practice where three criteria drawn from the UNHCR guidelines on religion are particularly emphasized. First, claimants must prove some familiarity with the acquired religion in terms of core beliefs, festivals, doctrines and scriptures. Second, a certain level of activity, belonging, collective worship or other activities is expected. Third, claimants must demonstrate a certain level of reflection concerning the act of conversion: what the consequences would be for family and friends, what in particular was attractive with the new belief and negative with the old, what kinds of changes in daily life a conversion would amount to. Additionally, crosscutting issues such as overall credibility and the general impression of the applicant’s sincerity and ‘enthusiasm’ are regularly considered. While the level of knowledge of and activity in the newly acquired religion play a limited role in assessing conversion claims, the majority of claims ultimately come down to the level of reflection demonstrated by the claimant. Drawing on information, reports and testimonies from the Norwegian Country of Origin Information Centre,49 UNE works on the assumption that religious conversion, due to the deeply embedded nature of Islam in the main

46 Full board meetings are merited by the AEFN, section 78 when there is “sufficient doubt” about the outcome of the case. Board leaders have the final word in deciding whether a case is sufficiently uncertain to merit a full board meeting. In principally decisive cases, board leaders can propose a grand board meeting, consisting of three board leaders and four lay members. No grand board meeting has been held on the issue of conversion. 47 Board leaders are jurists employed by UNE for terms of eight years. Lay members are elected for four-year terms and comprise unequal numbers of representatives from humanitarian organisations, the academy and members proposed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Justice and Public Security. 48 Cases decided by board leaders alone commonly did not necessitate a detailed assessment of conversion claims, as other factors were considered more important. However, see 117777242, 1271304528 and 1617866627. 49 The Norwegian Country of Origin Information Centre, Landinfo, is an independent body within the Norwegian immigration authorities. Landinfo is responsible for collecting, analysing and presenting objective and updated country of origin information to various actors within the immigration authorities

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convert-producing countries,50 is a grave and serious choice deserving of particular concern, consideration and personal reflection. While the claim that Islam is an important issue in countries like Afghanistan and Iran is uncontroversial, the mechanical assumption that individuals will have a correspondingly grave and comprehensive view of Islam is not. Notwithstanding the obvious problems with such an approach due to the extreme variety in formal schooling and analytical abilities among claimants, the emphasis on reflection evinces an idiosyncratic and controversial form of legal religion-making: comparisons between former and newly acquired beliefs are premised on the comparability of widely divergent and heterogeneous intellectual systems. Claimants are expected to clarify the role of Islam and/or Christianity in their lives, their deficiencies and benefits, and the train of events leading to the movement from one to the other. Fact-based descriptions should ideally be coupled with sincerity and emotion, and passivity and lack of engagement have been quoted as lacking features in claimants’ stories.51 The importance and interpretation of reflection are unevenly distributed among different religious systems. Whereas converts to the unqualified moniker ‘Christianity’ are assessed according to emic, insider categories like the role of baptism, belief, Bible and God in their lives, converts to more specific denominations like Catholicism, Jehovah’s Witnesses and Pentecostalism are asked to clarify factors in these systems of belief that stand out as particularly interesting.52 In two cases concerning atheism, UNE neglected any examination of the reflection concerning the conversion and the role of the newfound faith in the life of the convert.53 Confronted with Zoroastrianism, Yezidism and Kakaism, UNE has lowered the level of scrutiny generally afforded cases involving Islam and Christianity.54 Most appeals to the courts in cases concerning religious conversion have been settled in favour of UNE. Reluctant to set aside the competence of a specialized bureaucratic entity like UNE, courts generally tend to accept the assessment of claimants’ religiosity offered by UNE, limiting their scrutiny to issues of legal interpretation. Norwegian jurisprudence in asylum cases show a marked tilt towards accommodationism – categories employed to assess conversion claims are derived from an implicit and differentiated view of religion as something genuinely set apart from mundane existence. Claimants must demonstrate the proper consideration deemed natural and logical in the shift from one set of deeply held convictions to an another. This distinct brand of religion-making strongly favours the redeeming and transcendent quality of belief and 50 Iran and Afghanistan combined supply more than 80 % of the conversion claims handled by UNE. 51 See N115696623, 6121505625 and N11939989 52 See 0806615165 and 7581820481 53 See 0070382443 and 7368758571 54 See N1075351025, N127822425 and 0070382443

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reflection over external manifestations like ritual, festivities and ceremonial attendance. Religious conversion, according to this line of inquiry, is a change of heart, not of mind or body.55 c) Anti-Discrimination Act Following decades of scattered legislation concerning discrimination, the enactment of the 2005 Act on Prohibition of Discrimination Based on Ethnicity, Religion, etc. (APDER) sought to implement a set of crosscutting principles of non-discrimination in Norwegian law. Intended as a strengthening of the standing of the Convention on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD), proposed criteria for discrimination originally included ethnicity, national origin, heritage, skin colour and language. Following a broad-based hearing, the Ministry of Children, Equality and Social Inclusion decided to include religion and life stance as part of the protected grounds for discrimination at the request of numerous responses to the consultation.56 A similar approach was taken in 1971; when the Norwegian Parliament introduced clauses on hate speech and commercial discrimination in the Penal Code as part of the legal rearrangements required following the ratification of the CERD in 1970.57 Despite the explicit exclusion of religion from the grounds stated in the CERD, Parliament decided to add ‘declaration of faith’ to the prohibited criteria for hateful speech. Following the introduction of the APDER in 2005, ‘declaration of faith’ was replaced with ‘religion or life stance’ in order to harmonize legislation. Including ‘religion’ in the APDER necessitated an expansion of the clause defining the area under legislation, from a general rule on legitimate differential treatment to a specific exemption concerning religious and life stance communities. Hence, unlike the other grounds for discrimination, the protection against discrimination based on religion and life stance is not absolute, but rather subject to limitations in situations concerning […] actions and activities in faith- and life stance communities and associations with a religious or life stance-oriented purpose, if the actions or activities have bearing on the execution of the religious or life stance-oriented purpose of the community or association.58 55 Explicit references to the centrality of heartfelt convictions appear in N1133291212 and N124214425 56 This inclusion was made despite the explicit recommendation by the Equality Ombudsman responsible for the related 1978 Act on Equality to leave religion out of the mix due to definitional issues. 57 The articles in question were section 135a and section 349a. Both provisions amended existing legislation concerning their respective areas. 58 Section 3 of the act (my translation). The original text: “[…] gjelder ikke for handlinger og aktiviteter i regi av tros- og livssynssamfunn og virksomheter med et religiøst eller livssynsmessig form”l, dersom handlingene eller aktivitetene er av betydning for gjennomføringen av

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Explaining the need for this fairly broad exemption, the Ministry referred to the erstwhile discriminatory nature of existing preferential arrangements in place concerning the Church of Norway. Similar exemption clauses were formerly in effect in the Gender Equality Act and the Working Environment Act but were adjusted and removed respectively upon introduction of the APDER.

Two religions Due to the introduction of a separate exemption clause, the APDER effectively engages in two different modes of legal religion-making. Concerning the scope of religion as a ground for discrimination, the concept is to be understood broadly and in relation to other grounds. Acknowledging the fact that discrimination is rarely clear-cut and related to singular categories, the Ministry has pointed to the intersectional nature of the protection offered. Religion covers all life stances and worldviews, akin to the broad nature of the protection offered under the UDHR and the ICCPR according to General Comment no. 22. Discrimination is not limited to individuals or groups who perceive themselves to hold a certain belief; it is sufficient that the discriminating party acts on the presumption of such belief or adherence. Hence, the broad access to non-discrimination is closely related to the concept of establishing refugee status (see above). Accessing the exemption clause, however, is far more complicated. Tailormade for the Church of Norway, access to exemption from the APDER requires the existence of a comprehensive doctrine and an orderly organization. In addition, the tolerable differential treatment must have a bearing on the execution of the religious or life stance purpose of the community or association. While the law does not specifically link the concept of religious or life stance communities to the criteria listed in the Act on the Registration of Religious Communities, the provisions of the latter should be taken into account when assessing the scope of the exemption.59 While no court cases have been brought under the exemption clause, two related cases concerning the competence of courts to pass verdicts on the purposes of religious and life stance communities have been brought before the Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court during the past decade. The first, Rt-2004 – 1613, concerned membership in an Islamic cultural centre, including the associated Falah-Ul-Muslimeen mosque. While Haugesund District Court found that it had no jurisdiction over the decision by the cultural centre to exclude two members, the Court of Appeal held that since Falah-Ulsamfunnets eller virksomhetens religiøse eller livssynsmessige form”l.” The exemption is only valid for discrimination on the grounds of religion. 59 Norsk Rettsdata, Kirkøen: 2012

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Muslimeen was the only mosque in the area, providing welfare services as well as purely religious services, the decision could be tried in the court system. On appeal to the Supreme Court, the decision of the Court of Appeal was overturned. Referring to the freedom of religion for religious associations, the Court admitted that certain problems regarding the identification of religious purposes could arise, but nevertheless unequivocally stated that The courts may in no way interfere with the sovereignity of faith of the religious community. Consequently, lawsuits requiring the consideration of religious questions must be disallowed (Rt-2004 – 1613, at 32, my translation).

Neither sovereignty of faith nor religious questions have any basis in Norwegian law, and the criteria for their identification are uncertain at best. Following the decision by the Supreme Court, the case was returned to the Court of Appeal. Although incorporating the interpretation of the Supreme Court concerning the competence to handle religious questions, the Court of Appeal nevertheless found that the issue concerned – unruly, quarrelsome behaviour by the members in question – was sufficiently far removed from the question of faith to allow legal consideration. Decisively, the court found that it was not up to the community in question to decide what constitutes religious questions, an interpretation that the Supreme Court supported on the final appeal of the case, claiming that such a requirement would render the competence of the courts to judge on non-religious issues concerning religious communities “illusory” (Rt-2005 – 372, at 18). In a more recent decision concerning the forced reassignment of a Polish priest working in the Catholic Church in Norway, the courts decided in favour of the local parish. The Court of Appeal handled the issue in two different verdicts. First, judging on the right of the priest to be reinstated, the court was divided in a majority opinion finding that reinstatement would be a “[…] considerable interference in issues traditionally under the jurisdiction of the church”. The minority opinion, however, pointed out that the conflict resulting in reassignment – allegations of fraud and adultery – had no bearing on issues of faith, and therefore was not part of the freedom of religion of the church (LB-2008 – 104752). Concerning the question of reassignment, however, the court unanimously and without doubt found that although the parish did not follow the formal requirements of the Working Environment Act, this was legal insofar as it was necessitated by extraordinary circumstances arising from the freedom of religion, suspending requirements of form. The extraordinary circumstances in question were “[…] the view of the Catholic church that pastoral service is a calling, anchored in a sacrament regulated by Canon law.” (LB-2008 – 142425, my translation). Both decisions turned on the clarification of whether the employment conflict could be considered religious or not, and both ruled in favour of the church, despite dissent on the issue of reinstatement. The complexity of the

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issue was confirmed upon appeal to the Supreme Court over reinstatement; the court was divided along the same lines as the lower court, the majority affirming the ‘traditional’ self-rule of the church, the minority questioning the relevance of such self-rule to the merits of the case: For me, it is extremly unclear what the majority of the appelate court means by the ‘traditional’ inner self-rule of the church, a self-rule that almost always will overrule the possibility of an empolyee to be reinstated in a position from which he has been excluded. The Working Environment Act has no special rules for employees in churches (…) According to my view, the majority of the appelate court has misinterpreted the law by finding reinstatement unreasonable singularly due to the inner self-rule of the church (Rt-2008 – 1529 at 35 – 36, my translation).

Deciding what constitutes a religious or life stance issue – even within the context of a registered community – is, then, anything but straightforward. Singling out religious aspects in a communal context, whether it is religious purpose, religious tradition or religious doctrine, is a distinctly different operation from enforcing the freedom of religion for individuals. Whereas individuals enjoy unlimited protection of their beliefs and certain restrictions on the manifestations of such beliefs, associations merit exemptions only if their activities can be demonstrated to be sufficiently religious – criteria for the clarification of which the law is mute. A fundamental and overarching principle of the modern, liberal nation state, the concept of non-discrimination frequently challenges legal secularism, whether of the accommodationist or separationist variety. A strict interpretation of non-discrimination invalidates the active singling out of religion as a special category, either for benefits or limitations. In concrete, legal practice, however, strict conceptualizations of non-discrimination are confronted with the burden of historical and contextual constraints requiring localized adaptations.

Conclusion Norwegian law attributes differing rights, advantages and competencies to organizations and individuals relative to the nature of their religiosity. At the minimal, most generalized level of religion-making derived from decontextualized international law, religiosity is broadly construed as a core dimension of the freedom of belief, thought and conscience. Explicitly opposed to essentialism and bias towards major religions, this broad understanding of religion gives rise to a set of rights that are widely available and easily enforced in Norwegian law, which has implemented international provisions directly in domestic legislation, both through the general Human Rights Act and through the Immigration Act. At the intermediary, more concrete level of religion-making where

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delineations of religiosity give rise to exemptions from otherwise applicable legislation, domestic laws depart from expansive, wide definitions and derive regulatory tools and rationales from the right to non-discrimination on the basis of religion. Unlike the freedom of religion and belief, exemptions from the right to non-discrimination is only available as a remedy in instances concerning clearly religious issues, as in the Anti-Discrimination Act and related legislation. Additionally, as evinced in Rt-2008 – 1529 and Rt-2004 – 1613, Norwegian courts are reluctant to interfere in the internal affairs of religious communities, to the point where principles of non-interference with no explicit basis are invoked, as in the latter case. At the specific, concrete level of religion-making, definitions of religion create the basis for particular benefits and advantages. Detached from conceptions of religious freedom and non-discrimination found in international law, these definitions rely instead on contextual and circumstantial evidence concerning the nature of religiosity. Such definitions are rarely transparent, frequently lack clear connections to the law or accepted modes of legal reasoning, and tend to come down to the knowledge of the individual decision-maker. Operative in the registration of faith communities and asylum cases concerning conversion by subjective sur place, specific, definitions of this kind rely on closed, particularized distinctions far removed from the open-ended vocabulary employed in international law. Whenever the issue of religion is peripheral, obvious or of purely personal interest, it is considered beneficial, and is widely accommodated and celebrated according to international rules. At the intermediate level, the legal borders are gradually tightened, to ensure access to exemptions only for a select few religions. Finally, at the concrete, specific level, Norwegian law is strongly separationist, operating on the basis of clear-cut distinctions. Although Norwegian legal secularism may only be incompletely secular, marked by intertwinement and caught in the space between international obligations and domestic policy, it is first and foremost utterly pragmatic when it comes to the handling of religion: the more state involvement that is required, the more clearly the line is drawn.

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Gorski, P.S. / Altinordu, A. (2008), After Secularization?, Annual Review of Sociology, 34(1), 55 – 85. Habermas, J. (2008), Notes on Post-Secular Society, New Perspectives Quarterly, 25 (4), 17 – 29. Jakobsen, J.R. / Pellegrini, A. (ed.) (2008), Secularisms, Durham: Duke University Press. Koskenniemi, M. (2011), The Politics of International Law, Oxford: Hart. Laermans, R. / Verschraegen, G. (2001), “The Late Niklas Luhmann” on Religion: An Overview, Social Compass, 48(1), 7 – 20. Leirvik, O. (2009), Aktivt støttande religionspolitikk – p” kva vilk”r, til fordel for kven?, Norskteologisk tidsskrift, (2), 66 – 88. Luhmann, N. (1977), Funktion der Religion, Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Mandair, A. / Dressler, M. (ed.) (2011), Secularism and Religion-Making, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Masuzawa, T. (2005), The Invention of World Religions: Or How European Universalism was Preserved in the Language of Pluralism, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Morsink, J. (1999), The Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Origins, Drafting and Intent,Philadelphia: University of Philadelphia Press. Murphy, T. (2007), Representing Religion. Essays in History, Theory and Crisis, London: Equinox. Mutua, M. (2001), Savages, Victims, and Saviors: The Metaphor of Human Rights, Harvard International Law Journal, 42(1), 201 – 246. Neff, S.C. (1977), An Evolving International Legal Norm of Religious Freedom: Problems and Prospects, California Western International Law Journal, 7(3), 543 – 590. Nongbri, B. (2008), Dislodging “Embedded” Religion: A Brief Note on a Scholarly Trope, Numen, 55(4), 440 – 460. Normand, R. / Zaidi, S. (ed.) (2008), Human Rights at the UN. The Political History of Universal Justice, Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Sohn, L.B. / Buergenthal, T. (1973), International Protection of Human Rights, Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill. Sullivan, W.F. (2006), Comparing Religions, Legally, Washington & Lee Law Review, 63(3), 913 – 930. Sullivan, W.F. (2007), The Impossibility of Religious Freedom, Oxford: Princeton University Press. Tahzib, B.G. (1996), Freedom of Religion or Belief. Ensuring Effective International Legal Protection, The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff Taylor, C. (2007), A Secular Age, Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. Taylor, P.M. (2005), Freedom of Religion – UN and European Human Rights Law an Practice, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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Tierney, B. (1996), Religious Rights: A Historical Perspective. In W. C. Durham. Jr. / N. B. Reynolds (ed.), Religious Liberty in Western Thought, Atlanta: Scholars Press, 29 – 59

UN documents General Comment No. 22: The right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion ( Art. 18). Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. (CCPR/C/21/Rev.1/Add.4), 1993 International Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Racial Discrimination, United States of America (CERD/C/351/Add.1), 1999 UNHCR guidelines on international protection: Religion-based asylum claims under Article 1 A(2 of the 1951 Convention and/or the 1967 Protocol relating to the Status of Refugees. (HCR/GIP/04/06), 2004 Manifestations of racial and national hatred (A/RES/1510(XV)), 1960 Preparation of a draft declaration and a draft convention on the elimination of all forms of racial discrimination (A/RES/1780(XVII)), 1962

Websites Website of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) http://www.ohchr.org/en/udhr/pages/introduction.aspx [22. 01. 2013] Oversatte norske lover http://www.ub.uio.no/ujur/ulov/ [22. 01. 2013] The Norwegian Immigration Appeals Board http://une.no/om-oss/Information-in-foreign-languages/The-Norwegian-Immi gration-Appeals-Board-UNE/ [22. 01. 2013] Om praksisbasen http://une.no/Praksis2/Praksisbase/ [22. 01. 2013]

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Inger Furseth

The Ambiguity of Secular and Religious Space: The Norwegian Penitentiary System

Abstract This article analyzes secular and religious space in the Norwegian penitentiary system. The Norwegian establishment model, which was formally amended to disestablishment in May 2012, means that religion and the secular are still intertwined within this public institution. By using a spatial approach, I ask: How is religion engaged with, situated and contested within this public secular space? The analysis is based on public policy documents, field observations from two maximum-security prisons (Ullersmo and Halden), and interviews with prison chaplains. The analysis shows, on the one hand, that the prison system is secularized and that the space of the two prisons communicates values of power, regulation, punishment, and rehabilitation. On the other hand, religion still plays a role in the prisons. The present model favors the Church of Norway, and fewer accommodations are made on behalf of religious minorities in Ullersmo than in Halden. The result is that secular and religious values, beliefs, and commitments are more spatially contested in Ullersmo. However, the present arrangement of prison chaplaincy is under pressure, and the consequences of disestablishment remain to be seen.

Norway : From establishment to disestablishment Until May 2012, Norway had Evangelical Lutheranism as the established religion. The Constitution of Norway from 1814 stated that the King was the head of the Church of Norway and that two-thirds of the members of government had to be members of this church. Paragraph 2 stated that all immigrants to the Kingdom had the freedom to practice their religion. The right to form non-Lutheran Christian churches was introduced in 1845, although the law did not guarantee full freedom for all religions until 1964 (Det frivillige kirkelige landsr”ds paragraf 2- utvalg: 1980, 57 – 68). From May 2012, the constitutional changes imply that the constitution is without a formal confession, although it is based on “our Christian and humanist heritage.” Members of government no longer have to be members of the Church of Norway, and the Church of Norway is now perceived to be a faith community

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on an equal basis with other faith communities. As we will see, however, religion continues to be intertwined with the secular in the penitentiary system, and the present arrangement gives the Church of Norway a privileged position. Since the late 1960s and 1970s, issues of religious diversity have been on the Norwegian political agenda. Religion was first discussed as part of the government’s immigration policies in the early 1970s. For example, Report to the Storting no. 39: Immigration Policies (St meld 39 (1973 – 74) offered foreign workers two days’ leave for religious holidays. The same proposal was repeated in 1979 in Report to the Storting no 74: Immigrants in Norway (St meld 74 (1979 – 80). The underlying idea was that the right of immigrants to practice their religion must be secured and that Norwegian society must consider their particular needs. In the 1990s, there was a growing awareness that religious minorities, and Muslims in particular, were demanding equal opportunities, and that these demands merited attention in public policymaking. The then Ministry of Local Government and Labour stated that its aim was to “facilitate dialogue between representatives of different faiths, and especially to facilitate contact between Muslim faith communities and the authorities when it comes to areas of possible conflict” (St meld 17 1996 – 97, 87). Almost ten years later, Report to the Storting no. 49: Diversity through Inclusion and Participation (St meld 49 (2003 – 04) pointed out that religious diversity implied an actualization of the dilemma as to what the authorities should facilitate and what the individual should do. The idea that varieties of cultural meanings all have claims to equal respect implies that human groups of different cultures can claim the same opportunities as other groups to put their cultures into practice (Beckford and Gilliat: 1998, 6). In Report to the Storting no. 17 of 1996 – 97, freedom of religion was interpreted to mean equal opportunities for individuals to practice their faith in everyday life, and the right to organize religious practice through faith communities within the framework of Norwegian laws and regulations (St meld 17 1996 – 97, 87). The same definition of freedom of religion was given in Report to the Storting no. 49 of 2003 – 04: Diversity through Inclusion and Participation (St meld 49 2003 – 04, 181). These documents state that there are limitations to the notion of religious freedom pursuant to existing laws; for example, religious faith cannot justify actions that are contrary to Norwegian law and basic human rights, and religious freedom does not exempt the individual from his or her societal duties. Overall, the Norwegian government has, for some time, expressed a fairly multiculturalist orientation towards religious minorities. These policies are related to the country’s growing religious diversity. In 2011, the Norwegian population counted 4.9 million, of which 3.8 million or 77 percent were members of the Church of Norway (Statistics Norway 2012a). Members of faith and worldview communities outside the Church of Norway counted 484,534 persons or almost 10 percent of the total population. In the latter

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group, 266,834 persons or 55 percent were Christians. Muslims constituted the largest religious minority outside Christianity, with 106,700 members of Muslim communities (22 percent). The second-largest group represented ‘worldview communities’, with 84,481 members (17 percent), of which 99 percent were humanists. Buddhists counted 14,580 members (3 percent), Hindus 5,858 (1.2 percent), Sikhs 2,975 (0.6 percent), and Jews 819 (0.2 percent) (Taule: 2012). Even if religious diversity increases every year, Norway is still relatively homogeneous compared to many European countries. The multiculturalist orientation towards religious minorities on a general level in Norway has not necessarily been reflected in its governance of religious minorities in the penitentiary system. A comparative study of Norway and Denmark showed that Denmark, which has a more assimilationist policy than Norway, accommodates religious minorities, especially Muslims, to a much larger degree than does Norway (Furseth and Kühle: 2011). This is particularly evident in the penitentiary system, where Denmark has several hired prison imams, whereas Norway has none. The long history of constitutional principles of establishment means that the Church of Norway still enjoys powers, privileges, and advantages which no other religious organization has been granted. This is particularly evident in secular public institutions such as the armed forces and the prisons, where the Church of Norway administers religious life (Furseth: 2003). At the same time, many public institutions have become more secular, which, as I will show below, is the case in the Norwegian prison system. By focusing on two maximumsecurity prisons, my question is how religion is engaged with and situated within a particular secular space. Are there areas that are contested as a result of different beliefs and values? Are there disagreements about principles and practices? My aim is to explore how secularity and religion are located and contested spatially in two Norwegian prisons.

A spatial approach As noted by several scholars (cf. Calhoun et al.: 2011), the concept of the secular developed as a theological category within Western Christendom, and eventually it became one of the terms in the dyad religious/secular. These concepts developed into a binary system of classification that separated “the religious-spiritual-sacred world of salvation and the secular-temporalprofane world” (Casanova: 2011, 56). Today, ‘the secular’ is often used to describe a negation or a residual category, that which is nonreligious or irreligious (Zuckerman: 2010). Whereas studies in the sociology of religion tend to study either religion or nonreligion, the aim here is to focus on how religion is engaged with the secular and situated within secular space. The understanding of religion and secularity is similar to the one outlined by

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Casanova above, which means working with a substantive understanding of religion, for example as belief in God or the spiritual-sacred, and religion’s Other, the secular, referring to the temporal-profane. This understanding is consistent with a common understanding of the dyad religion/secular in Norwegian culture. By using a spatial approach (Knott: 2005), I want to explore how secular and religious values, beliefs, and commitments are spatially contested in two prisons in Norway. The idea is to locate religion in secular space. It is possible to distinguish between space and place where space is more inclusive and abstract than the specific localized place. When analysing spatially, space, place, localities and sites are seen as social, cultural and historic constructions, and as mental and symbolic categories (Sørensen et al.: 2008, 132). According to Lefebvre (1991, 11), sites are physical, social, and cultural and mental. Prisons are environments that consist of physical space, socially constituted space, and imagined, mentally conceived space (Gordon et al.: 2000, 18 – 19). This implies that a prison is not a singular space, but rather “a cluster of heterogeneous, contested and overlapping spaces” (Knott: 2012, 9). This approach is especially useful for an analysis of prisons, since prison space is usually demarcated by high prison walls, and space within prisons are regulated, limited, and used for different, clearly defined purposes. As cultural constructions prison space are also meaningful, multifaceted and contested. The analysis of public policy documents have appeared in previous publications on religion in prisons, but it has been updated for the purpose of this article (cf. Furseth: 2001; 2003; 2006; Furseth and Kühle: 2011). Between 1999 and 2001, I interviewed prison chaplains in the three prisons in Norway, which were presumed to have the largest religious minority populations: the prisons of Ullersmo, Oslo, and Bergen. In 2009 and 2010, I talked to prison chaplains in all of these prisons, in addition to the chaplain in Halden prison, a new prison opened in 2010. In 2012, I visited Ullersmo and Halden prisons, both maximum-security prisons, and interviewed one chaplain at each institution. Since the data are relatively limited, many conclusions are tentative, and there is need for more research in this area.

Secular space: Two state prisons In this section the analysis focuses on the Norwegian prison system. I will attempt to show that some parts of the penitentiary system have gone through processes of secularization in the sense of a decline or diminishing importance of religion in legitimising this system (Casanova: 1994, 19 – 20). I will then turn to two state prisons, Ullersmo and Halden, and attempt to tease out different dimensions and properties of prison space, and the dynamics of prison space upon the body.

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Prisons: From religious to secular space If we take a look at the Norwegian prison system, there are reasons to claim that religion has had diminishing importance, especially in light of its past, where the punitive and religious elements were intertwined. Historically, the Evangelical Lutheran majority church, the Church of Norway, provided services to the old prisons through the local clergy. According to canon law of 1537, the local clergy were to visit prisoners who were sentenced to death. In the 1700s, new forms of punishments were introduced. Instead of bodily punishments and fines, imprisonment and discipline now became the common punishment for crimes. The purpose of the punishment was penance, a religious purification process that was meant to transform the prisoner into a new and obedient subject during his confinement, and the method employed was isolation of the prisoner. These models of punishment had a religious basis, and the role of the Church was to implement penance and rehabilitation (Foucault: 1977). The religious aspects of the prison system were also evident in the new jails that opened, as most of them were fully equipped with chapels and hired chaplains. The Norwegian prison chaplaincy as we know it today dates back to 1883, when Kristiania County Jail (built in 1851) hired the first prison chaplain in a full-time position. The prison chaplain was part of the prison system, and his responsibilities included clerical and educational issues, as well as issues relating to security (Fridhov et al.: 1994, 10 – 12). The Norwegian prison chaplaincy was relatively unorganized until the end of World War II. In most cases, the prison chaplain was hired and paid by the Church of Norway, but in other cases the services of the local clergy were funded by small transfers from the prison administration. After World War II, the prison chaplains were hired by the Ministry of Justice, and the Bishop of Oslo was their superior in clerical matters. In early 2000, the responsibility for the prison chaplaincy was transferred to the Ministry of Church, Education, and Research, and the authority of hiring prison chaplains was given to the council of the local dioceses. The chaplaincy was no longer an integral part of the prison system. During this period, the punitive and the religious aspects of the prison system changed. The purpose of the punishment was no longer penance, but rehabilitation and crime prevention, and the religious legitimacy of punishment disappeared. In this sense, the contemporary penitentiary system is secular.

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The dimensions and properties of prison space Three ‘properties’ of space, taken from Knott’s (2005) spatial analysis, are relevant for the present analysis: configuration, extension, and power. The configuration of space points to its character of holding things together in the sense that it is an arena in which different things are placed and are contained. The architecture of the two prisons provides ample examples. Before visiting Ullersmo maximum-security prison, which was opened in 1970, I had to give a few days’ advance notice so that my background could be screened. Upon entering the prison, I am struck by its grimness. I face a high fence with a locked gate and a long, massive, grey cement wall. I ring the doorbell and tell someone who I am and why I am there, before they let me in. The entrance to the compound is a few meters from the gate. I ring another doorbell to be let into a security area, where I show a guard behind a glass wall my ID, receive a badge to hang around my neck to identify me as a visitor, and put my belongings in a locker. The few possessions I bring into the prison are screened, as at an airport, and so am I. I am taken through two more locked doors before entering the large prison yard. The buildings framing both sides of the yard are two-story white brick buildings with red details. In the middle of the yard is another high fence with a locked gate. As I approach the gate, I hear a buzzing sound, letting me know that someone is watching and letting me through. The signs on the wall tell me that visitors to the prison school should enter a particular door. As I approach, I hear the buzzing sound again. I open the door and face yet another prison guard. Since I will be moving among prison inmates, she gives me an alarm, in case of an attack, and shows me how to use it. I later notice that all the teachers carry a similar alarm in their belts, letting me know that the students here might pose a threat to a visitor or a teacher. I sit in the visitor’s area, waiting for the teacher to come and get me, a somewhat nicer area with two black leather couches and a TV set. As the teacher arrives, we walk down dreary hallways painted in light yellow, frequently stopping to open and close doors. This maximum prison gives me a profound sense of contained space, where the movement of my body is under the close scrutiny and control of others, some of who are visible and some are not. The invisibility of some gives me a sense of the ever-present ‘gaze’, as described by Foucault (1977). I have gone through six locked doors to get to the visitor’s area and a few more to enter the prison school. The school is located in a two-story barracks. Once I am here, the space feels less confined, in spite of the low ceilings, and looks more like any other educational facility. The inmates come and go, and anyone is free to enter any room after knocking first. A teacher tells me that the space of the school is relatively ‘open’ in order to give the students the feeling that the school is different from the rest of the prison. The ‘open’ spatial features of the school serve as a reward in and of themselves, so to speak.

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I am excited as I approach the other prison analysed in this article, Halden Prison, which opened in 2010. The news media has described it a “luxury prison,” where inmates have flat-screen TVs and a wide selection of leisure activities. As I face the massive six-meter-high cement wall, the huge metal gate and the small door to the left, I soon realize that a maximum-security prison is a maximum-security prison. As with the other prison, I was screened before my visit, and I have to identify myself, put my belongings in a locker, and be admitted through six locked doors before entering the visitor’s area. Inside the gate, the architecture of the new prison is strikingly different to that of Ullersmo. This is a large compound with elegant, contemporary- style buildings in dark brown brick and wood, glass and steel details. The visitor’s room is decorated with dark, tiled floors, elegant leather chairs, white square plant containers, and large windows decorated with sliding panels in black, gray and white. Since I will be accompanied by the prison chaplain at all times, I do not carry an alarm, although the rest of the staff do. The chaplain and I walk down airy, light corridors to his office, which is decorated in the same elegant style as the visitor’s area, with white furniture, plants, and sliding curtains. As we walk around the large compound, I am tempted to think of it as a university campus or a village, consisting of apartment buildings where the inmates live, a large central building where I find the school, health facilities, a gym, a supermarket for inmates, a gift shop for visitors with high-quality craft products made by the inmates, and a multi-purpose faith room. In the center is a grassy area with trees and a soccer field. However, the space is clearly divided into smaller areas to contain the prison population. We enter an endless number of locked doors, and all the outside space is divided into smaller spaces by a five- or six-meter-high fence with metal gates. The second aspect of space is extension. Any place is more than its present configuration. It is its past and the culture and ideology expressed in its outward representations (Knott: 2005). The history of the penitentiary system is that of punishment and discipline through the making of the new and obedient subject. Today, the expressed goals are rehabilitation and crime prevention. However, the culture and the ideology expressed by the prisons in their outward representations are largely that of punishment. Those who are confined here for any length of time are here because they are being punished by society. At Ullersmo, the grimness of the place, the locked doors, the gates, the worn-down buildings, the endless hallways, and the lack of decorative elements one finds in other public buildings communicate that this is a place where people are unwanted. The esthetics here is part of the punishment. Halden Prison has a much brighter and friendlier representation, being a new facility. Once you are inside the massive cement walls, the compound gives the impression of a university campus or a business park rather than a prison. It communicates that inmates are more than people who are being punished; they are people who have the potential to be their best selves. The carefully landscaped compound with trees, grassy areas, and a little wooded area

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between some of the buildings communicate that individuals need to engage with nature and see beauty. The production here is good, productive citizens. Yet, the stylish modern architecture in Halden Prison is contrasted by high fences everywhere, sometimes confining relatively small areas, which communicates modern efficiency in keeping control with the prison population. In contrast, the grassy areas in the older, worn-down prison of Ullersmo seem larger, giving the inmates more space to move around once they are outside. The final spatial property analyzed here is power, or the ways in which spaces are infused with and generate power (Knott: 2005). In both prisons, the architecture communicates in very real and physical ways the power that may be used formally and coercively for discipline on a large and small scale. There is a very real sense that the power over one’s body is located outside the individual self. As the purpose of the prisons is to produce good citizens, different methods are used to do so: education, work, leisure activities – including religious services – and conversation groups. However, the questions of what kind of citizen should be produced and how to go about it are contested by different groups within the prisons, among the prison guards, teachers, and chaplains, and, outside the prisons, the state.

The body Space is perceived and lived, and spatial practices are taken for granted and incorporated in the body (Knott: 2005). Indeed, Foucault’s view (1977, 139) that the body is the place where discipline is imprinted is experienced even by a visitor to these two prisons. The body of the visitor, and even more so that of the inmate, is conditioned and organized by discipline. I wait for doors to open and lock behind me. I am accompanied at all times by someone who works there: a guard, a teacher, or the prison chaplain. I move slowly and in a controlled manner in order to let my body language communicate that I accept and adhere to the rules. The bodies of the inmates are disciplined by a strict schedule and rigorous specification of the location for all their activities: the cell, the workshop, the school, the dining hall, and the recreational facilities (library, gym, art shop, sacred room). In Halden Prison, there is the threat of Ward A for those who refuse to abide by the rules, or of being to a less attractive prison altogether. The effects of the sense of confinement dawned on me as I was accompanied through locked doors. I thought: “What if I was not going home tonight?” My heart sank, my stomach ached, and I began to breathe heavily. I envisioned myself locked up within these cement walls, unable to go to bed or get up when I wanted to, or go for evening walks, or socialize with family and friends at home or in their homes, or move freely around the city. I was relieved at the thought: “I can leave whenever I want!”

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The discipline was only temporary and only limited to this space. The outside space with the ability to have control of my own body was available as soon as I left the prison. The bodies of the armed guards, or the “blue shirts” as the inmates call them in one of the prisons, represent the discipline the inmates are under 24/7. The guards have the power to control the bodies of others, and they have the power to break the rules of slow and controlled behavior, as I witness upon leaving one prison. Two guards rush past me, and five more are running, all of them headed for a building across the prison yard. Something is up, and the guards run to control one or more bodies that refuse discipline. I communicate that I adhere to the rules by walking slowly towards the gate. Once I have passed the remaining four doors and the final gate, I take a deep breath, a bodily expression of a sense of relief from the discipline. I straighten my back as I once again regain full control of my own body. Even on a brief visit, I sense some of the values represented in prison space: power, regulation, and punishment. Yet by comparing these two prisons, it is also possible to see them as representatives of different and changing ideals. In many ways, Halden Prison communicates contemporary ideals of inmates as a diverse group of people who have the potential to be rehabilitated through positive reinforcement, whereas Ullersmo seems more to communicate older ideals of punishment as the way to rehabilitation. Yet these images are multifaceted and conflicting. The educational opportunities at Ullersmo are comparable to that of Halden, and the outdoor space seems more open there than it is at Halden.

The place of religion within secular space: Domination, controversy and conflicting values In this section I will attempt to locate the place of religion within Ullersmo and Halden prisons. The question is how religion is engaged with, situated and contested spatially within this secular space. I want to examine whether prisons are sites of contestation between religion and the secular. I will first analyze the administration of religion in prisons according to the regulations before I turn to more everyday issues of religious and secular space in these two prisons.

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The administration of religious life in prisons: Privileged access The issue of religion in prisons appeared in the Norwegian Prison Act from 1958. Religion is mentioned in Section 20: “One chaplain shall work at every institution” (Fridhov et al.: 1994, 19). It is implied that the chaplain is an ordained clergy from the Church of Norway. The Prison Regulations from 1961 mention the rights of religious minorities, or more specifically, the right to have visits from spiritual advisers and the right to use sacred texts or devotional literature. The Prison Act and Regulations were written at a time when few non-Christian faith communities were found in Norway. One would expect that in an increasingly multireligious Norway, the revision would consider and expand the opportunities for religious minorities to practice their religion in prison. Surprisingly, the trend has gone in the opposite direction. The Execution of Sentences Act (Lov om gjennomføring av straff) from 2001 states: “The Correctional Services shall give prisoners opportunities to practice their religion and philosophy of life,” but that this practice should preferably take place during recess or after working hours (Justis- og Politidepartementet 2002). Section 20, which stated “One chaplain shall work at every institution,” has been removed. The Act also states that “the [religious] practices can however be limited in a maximum prison ward”. There is a growing concern with security in this Act and little emphasis on the rights of religious minorities (Furseth: 2006). Indeed, the religious rights of non-Lutheran and non-Christian inmates have clearly been restricted. Whereas all prison inmates previously had the right to have visits from ministers or spiritual advisers “without supervision,”, such visits for maximum security inmates are now supervised in the same way as other visits. Previously, prison inmates were permitted to receive visits from a spiritual or religious advisor in their cell. Today, only inmates who would like visits from prison chaplains from the Church of Norway have the privilege of visits to the private space of their cells. Inmates who would like visits from other faith communities may meet their priest, imam or spiritual advisor in a room away from the public visitation room, but not in their cell. This issue has been a source of conflict at Ullersmo Prison since the late 1990s, when Muslim inmates began to demand equal access for imams and claim that there was unjust and unequal treatment of Muslim and Christian inmates (Dagsavisen: 1999). According to the recent Ministry of Culture’s report NOU 2013:1 on government policy on religion, the present arrangement of the Church of Norway prison chaplaincy prevents the provision of equal religious care for all inmates. The majority on the committee that wrote the report proposes that there should be state-funded chaplaincy positions from a variety of faith communities, whereas the minority argues that the faith communities have responsibility for providing care (Kulturdepartementet: 2013). In spite of this

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disagreement, the committee suggested more equal religious care for all inmates in Norwegian prisons.

Prison chaplains We have seen that, on the one hand, the punitive system has become more secular. On the other hand, the Church of Norway prison chaplaincy has continued and even experienced growth. For example, the number of prison chaplains increased from seven in 1994 to eighteen in 2000 and to thirty-seven in 2012 (Kirkens informasjonstjeneste: 2012, 299 – 300). The role of the prison chaplains has changed from being a representative of a punitive authority to that of a spiritual adviser. According to Forskrift om tilsetting av fengselsprest (Regulations regarding the Appointment of Prison Chaplains), which was established by a governmental resolution on 20 November 1997, the prison chaplaincy is based on “the users’ right to and need for being met as total persons with spiritual and religious needs” (Norges Kristne R”d: 2000,2). Today, the prison chaplaincy is considered to be an integrated part of the work of the Church of Norway. All prison chaplains are ordained clergymen from the Church of Norway, and spiritual guidance, sermons, and ecclesiastical acts are to take place according to the confession and the order of the Church. Also, since 2004 the prison chaplaincy is no longer funded directly by the state, but through the budget of the Church of Norway. The presence of religion seems to be welcomed by the prison authorities. This is evident in the presence of the Church of Norway chaplaincy and the access other faith communities have to Norwegian prisons. According to a letter written by representatives from the Ministry of Culture and the Ministry of Justice dated July 16 2009 regarding “Cooperation on faith- and worldview services in prisons,” all faith and worldview communities who receive public funding “may provide services in Norwegian prisons” (Kulturdepartementet: 2009). The Roman Catholic Church has hired a full-time prison chaplain. The prison chaplains tell me that several other groups visit the prisons: Prison Fellowship, Salvation Army, Margarita Foundation (Pentecostal), Church City Mission (Church of Norway), and Norwegian Humanist Association. According to the Ministry of Culture, the access of faith communities to prisons is based on “the rights of inmates to practice their religion and worldview during incarceration” (Kulturdepartementet: 2009). Since the 1990s, several imams have also visited Norwegian prisons. As there is no imam chaplain position, these visits have been conducted on a voluntary basis. The result has often been irregular visits (Furseth: 2006). In Ullersmo Prison inmates have complained over the lack of regular visits by imams, and this issue has been a source of conflict for more than a decade (Dagsavisen: 1999). Even though it seems that prison authorities view the

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presence of religious and humanist groups as a positive factor in the rehabilitation of inmates and the production of good citizens, the present arrangement favors the Church of Norway. This arrangement has become a contested issue in prisons with large non-Christian populations such as Ullersmo.

Invisibility and visibility of religion In order to locate religious space in the two prisons I visited, the issue of visibility and invisibility are important indicators of position and dominance. In both prisons, the prison chaplains did not carry any signs of their positions as clergy. Both chaplains I talked to were middle-aged men. One was dressed in jeans, a blue sweater and a light blue shirt, and the other in black jeans and a black t-shirt. The relaxed dress style is meant to lower the threshold for inmates to talk to them. Yet the lack of a collar, which would set them apart as religious leaders, is also a symbol of their representation of a dominant religion. Everyone knows what they represent, so it is not necessary for them to demonstrate their position through dress style. The privileged position of the Lutheran chaplains is also visible in their offices. Whereas other religious leaders must meet their inmates in an anonymous room, the chaplains have separate offices set aside for the purpose of private conversations between chaplain and inmate. Although one office is more modern than the other, both offices are structured according to this purpose. One office is decorated with plants and posters of peaceful places the inmates can no longer access: a stream in a forest and the view of mountains disappearing in the mist. There is also a poster of an incarcerated man, which is meant to create a sense of recognition and commonality, in the sense that ‘You are not alone’. The other office is pleasant, with brightly-colored furniture, green plants, and sliding curtains. Both offices are similarly organized, with two chairs and a small table beside the desk, a set-up that invites for a conversation between two people at the same level, two equals, two human beings. The invisibility of symbols suggesting the chaplains’ position and the visibility of the space set aside for conversations with the chaplains both demonstrate that the dominant religion is that of the Church of Norway. However, one chaplain I talked to worries that the privileges the Lutheran prison chaplains enjoy might be taken away from them as a result of the recent disestablishment. The Ministry of Culture’s report NOU 2013:1 on government policy on religion suggests that the prison chaplaincy should be expanded to include more faith communities (Kulturdepartementet: 2013). This prison chaplain had heard rumors that now that the Church of Norway is perceived to be a faith community on an equal basis with other faith communities, the authorities in his prison would go in the opposite direction so that the chaplaincy would lose their office space and access to prison cells.

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The present arrangement with prison chaplaincy is under pressure, but the direction of future management of religious care in the penitentiary system in uncertain. Either the present arrangement of the Church of Norway privilege is continued, or the prison chaplaincy is expanded to include a variety of faith communities or religious care and is moved outside the prison system altogether.

Secular and sacred space In order to locate religion in the two prisons, I asked the chaplains to take me to the space where communal religious practices took place. To my surprise, I found that in Ullersmo Prison no space is set aside as ‘sacred space’. Built in the early 1970s, the architecture of this prison communicates an era of secularization, where space for a chapel was perceived to be out of date and unnecessary. The chaplain and I go to the gym, which looks like any other gym, with wall bars and a stage at one end of the room and sliding doors at the other. Behind the doors is the sacred place, hidden for all during the week, and open only on Sundays. This is where the religious artifacts are stacked: a pine altar decorated with a large cross in the middle and antique brass candleholders on each side. Two icons decorate the wall behind the altar. The altar ring is stacked on one side of the altar. Every Sunday it is pulled out and assembled. A pine baptismal font made by inmates sits on the floor, and the basin is a steel washbowl available at any hardware store. Finally, there is a large candlelight holder in wrought iron, common of the type found in most Lutheran churches, and a small box with candles used mostly by Orthodox and Roman Catholics. This space is also used by other Christian groups. The Roman Catholic prison chaplain comes, for example, once a month to arrange mass. Here, sacred space is secular space that is sacralized every Sunday morning. The ways in which this space becomes sacralized are similar to conventional places of worship, as the material religious artifacts and decorations, the icons and the altar with the crucifix, are revealed when the sliding doors are opened and the altar ring and the benches are put into place. Sacredness derives from the experience of inmates worshipping together and the chaplain who is associated with the space. However, this space does not acquire the same sanctity as conventional churches or sacred buildings on account of a layering and sedimentation process over time (Gilliat-Ray : 2005, 364). Every time a church service is over, the religious artifacts and decorations are put back into storage, the doors are closed, and the sacred space once again reverts to its secular status. The lack of a sacred place that is set aside for spiritual and religious purposes seems to communicate the small space that religion has in this particular prison. There are plans for a sacred space, but since this is not a priority for the prison authorities, the plans seem to be vague images in a

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distant future. All the chaplains I have interviewed over the years complain that religion is not considered to be important by the authorities. Despite the fact that approximately forty to fifty percent of the inmates in this prison are Muslims, visits by imams are relatively rare, and collective Friday prayer is only arranged on an irregular basis. When they do arrange prayers, they use a room in close proximity to the chaplain’s office, and have no religious artifacts, such as prayer mats, to offer. This prison has a long history of controversy with Muslim inmates regarding visits by imams, space for prayer, and food (it refuses to serve halal meat) (Dagsavisen: 1999; Furseth: 2006). The controversy in this prison centers on secularity versus religion, both in terms of values, space, practices, and commitment. Halden Prison was built at a time when Norwegian society was becoming increasingly multireligious, and the architecture reveals an awareness of these changes, as a relatively small ‘sacred room’ was built to cater for inmates of all faiths. This sacred space is found in the building where other cultural facilities are located, adjacent to the school, the library, and the gym. The room has dark brick walls, high ceilings, and a glass wall behind the ‘altar’. Located on one side of the room is an orange bench, with a back that reaches the ceiling, perhaps to make the room brighter. The design and furnishings contain no religious symbols. The ‘altar’ is a floor-to-ceiling pine wall, scattered with holes in no significant pattern that can be lit in different colors. The fact that this sacred room does not look religious adds to its appeal as a room for a variety of social and cultural activities, such as theater, choir, and literature events arranged by the library. Here, sacredness does not derive from material religious artifacts, decoration or from the storage of holy relics, which is common in other sacred spaces such as churches, mosques, and temples. Yet this ‘sacred room’ for inmates of all faiths does not necessarily have the same ambiguity as many other multifaith rooms have, which are primarily used by individuals to do their own interpretative work without the distraction of religious symbolism from other faiths (Gilliat-Ray : 2005). The reason is that this room is not open for individual use, for inmates to come and go and perform their individual religious or spiritual practices. The room is locked and is only open for collective social and cultural practices and events, and collective religious services and prayers. Every Sunday, it is used for church services. The room is sacralized by decorating it with the religious artifacts stored in the ‘altar’ bench, the crucifix, the Bible, and the candles, and by pulling out the benches stored at the back of the room. Every Friday, the sacred room is used for Muslim prayer. Even if there is no hired imam in this prison, two lay Muslim ‘leaders of prayers’ come from a nearby Muslim association to lead the collective prayers every Friday. The room is now sacralized by pulling out the numerous prayer mats which are stored on a trolley in a nearby storage room. The sacred room is also sacralized through its almost invisible religious symbolism representing the two major religions in this prison, Christianity

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and Islam. The room is, as in all churches, built in an east-west direction so that the ‘altar’ faces the east. Fixed to the ceiling above the ‘altar’ is a compass to help inmates face Mecca during prayers. Perhaps the sacred room is an indicator of how the role of spirituality and religion is viewed in this prison. From what I understand, the chaplains here are used as advisors by the prison authorities and feel that they play an important role in the care for inmates. The lack of controversy over the sacred space is also due to the dominant position of the Church of Norway chaplaincy. Of course, the fact that Christians and Muslims celebrate different holidays during the week helps to allay controversy over space. However, the main issue is that the Lutheran chaplains are ‘in charge’ of the sacred room in the sense that other users must go through them to arrange events, including prison staff and religious leaders who come from outside, such as the Muslim leaders of prayer. The gatekeeper role of the prison chaplains facilitates the use of the sacred room by different groups.

Conclusion This article has attempted to show how religion is engaged with, situated and contested within a particular public secular space, the Norwegian penitentiary system. I have analyzed public policy documents, field observations from two maximum security prisons, and interviews with prison chaplains. By using a spatial approach, I have also examined in more detail two prisons, Ullersmo and Halden, as secular spaces and the place of religion within them. The analysis shows, on the one hand, that the Norwegian prison system is secularized and that the space of the two prisons communicates values of power, discipline, punishment and rehabilitation, though in different ways. On the other hand, religion still plays a role in the prisons, and religion and the secular continue to be intertwined within this public institution. The ambiguity inherent in the Norwegian establishment model is evident, where the presence of the Church of Norway is characterized by continuity and growth, and few accommodations are made on behalf of religious minorities, especially in Ullersmo Prison. The result is that secular and religious values, beliefs, and commitments are more spatially contested in Ullersmo than in Halden. However, this arrangement is under pressure, as the consequences of disestablishment remain to be seen. Perhaps the intertwinement of religion and the secular will continue in its present form, or perhaps the changes will go in the direction of an expansion of the chaplaincy to include leaders from other faiths, as suggested in the recent report by Ministry of Culture. Or perhaps the changes will go in the opposite direction, where the chaplaincy will be pushed out of the penitentiary system, leading this institution in a more secular direction.

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Rosemarie van den Breemer

Graveyards and Secularism in Norway : In Search of a Fitting Category

Abstract As part of a general investigation into Nordic secularity, I analyse in this article the Norwegian state’s attitude towards religion and religious diversity in the graveyard. I explore the viability of categories like ‘establishment secularism’ and ‘Judeo-Christian/accommodative secularism’ fitting this reality. My conclusion is that both these categories capture an important dynamic in the Norwegian mode of religious governance, but they risk reifying what is a much more complex and ambiguous situation. Departing from a view of modes of religious governance as ‘internally heterogeneous’ (Bowen: 2007) and taking a historical and contextual approach to the 1996 legal amendment, which made the Church of Norway responsible for Norwegian graveyards, I show that the Norwegian mode of religious governance consists of several strands. It entails not only a tradition of remaining establishment and increasing religious accommodation, but also that of disestablishment and increasing independence of church bodies within the state and municipal framework. I thus propose a more refined and dynamic characterisation of the Norwegian model and reveal the existence of a multiplicity of Norwegian secularities.

Introduction The aim of the current anthology is to investigate what might be labelled as ‘Nordic secularity’. Can we characterise countries like Norway, Denmark, Sweden or Finland by a form of intertwinement between religion and secularity that sets them apart from countries following the Southern pattern (Casanova: this volume)? In this paper I focus on one particular manifestation of this Nordic pattern and analyse the Norwegian attitude towards religion and religious diversity in the graveyards. I explore the viability of ‘establishment secularism’ (Stepan: 2011) and ‘Judeo Christian/accommodative secularism’ (Hurd: 2008) as fitting categories for this reality. The central claim of the article is that typologies and general categories are important analytical tools for cross-national comparison. Yet we should be wary of reification. In our search for a Norwegian form of secularism, we

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should understand this mode of secularism, or mode of religious governance, as ‘internally heterogeneous’ (Bowen: 2007). The attitude of a state towards religion comprises constitutional, legal and policy regulations in a variety of policy domains that will show ‘some minimal internal coherence’. But a state’s attitude does not necessarily correspond to a single underlying institutional matrix (Bader : 2007b, 879). Overly one-dimensional typologies risk reifying what is a much more complex and ambiguous reality. Rather than compare domains, this article will show how, within one public domain, the mode of religious governance by the Norwegian state comprises a variety of logics. Two questions will guide our analysis: 1. Why, in 1996, was the Church of Norway given charge of the graveyards, when Norway was becoming more religiously plural?; and 2. How does this affect the burial conditions for religious minorities or life-stance groups such as Muslims and humanists? We address these questions in reverse order and show that the Norwegian state combines a re-affirmation off the Lutheran establishment model with an accommodationist policy of providing provisions for minorities in the graveyards. However, the ambiguity of the Norwegian situation (as shown through the 1996 amendment) is that what looks like a continuation of the established church is simultaneously a disestablishment of the municipal church. Part I provides a brief comment on method and mapping of the terrain. Part II assesses different categories of secularism as potential analytical tools and discusses the need for refining national models and categories. In part III, we extrapolate the (normative) reasoning inherent in the state’s formal discourse by analysing the legal and institutional provisions for religious minorities (Muslims and humanists) in the graveyards. In part IV, we return to the 1996 legal amendment, which transferred the administrative responsibility for graveyards to a church body. Here we take a historical and process-based approach, analysing the reasons for the amendment before concluding (part V).

Method and definition of terms For the purpose of this paper I use the terms ‘mode of religious governance’ and ‘mode of secularism’ interchangeably, although I prefer to speak of ‘religious governance’. By ‘religious governance’ is meant the normative and/ or ideological reasoning of state and non-state actors towards the role of religion in the public sphere.1 By ‘religious governance’ is meant the normative

1 Religious governance juxtaposes religious government. It includes; “regulation or steering, guidance by a variety of means, not only by rules” (Bader: 2007b, 873). Its focus is narrower than that of the government, as it includes only those mechanisms that provide intentional capacities

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and for ideological reasoning of state and non-state actors towards the role of religion in the public sphere. The study’s approach is grounded; focusing on what governments at all levels actually have done – not only legally – and do to religion (Bader : 2007b, 883). The study combines a legal focus with sensitivity to actual institutional provisions and change over time. The data consist of public documents, legal texts and interviews with burial actors.2

Mapping the terrain: Constitutional disestablishment, establishment and pluralism Since May 2012, the constitutional relationship between state and church in Norway has been loosened. Article 2 of the Constitution no longer mentions that the Evangelical-Lutheran Religion remains the official religion of the state, but emphasizes a “Christian and humanist heritage.” Furthermore, responsibility for the appointment of deans and bishops was transferred from the state to the diocesan councils or National Council. Simultaneously, the Evangelical-Lutheran Church would remain Norway’s popular church (folkekirke) (Article 16). The state maintains financial responsibility for employing bishops, deans, pastors and others employed in ecclesiastical positions of regional and central church bodies. But also at a local level the municipalities would remain responsible for a large part of the local churches’ finances, such as for maintenance of offices or materials related to the Church’s educational purposes.3 The Norwegian mode of governance of the graveyards stands out in one way. Graveyards had partly been a municipal responsibility since 1896. However, in 1996 a new Funeral Act was adopted.4 This law transferred administrative responsibility for the graveyards to a church body called the Joint Parish Council (kirkelig fellesr”d). Graveyard employees became church employees instead of municipal employees. This change entailed not a continuation of a privilege (and responsibility) but rather its enforcement. This occurred at a time when Norway was experiencing a dramatic increase in religious diversity and growth of ‘immigrant religions’ especially Buddhism and Islam (cf. Leirvik: 2007, 14). The influx in the 1970s of primarily Pakistani and Turkish labour migrants to Norway was followed in the 1990s by a to regulate. It is broader in perspective as it includes more actors and more modes of coordination. 2 I rely on fieldwork and 15 semi-structured interviews with graveyard owners, municipalities, burial agents, and Muslim and humanist representatives carried out in 2009, 2010 and 2012. 3 For confirmation, diakonia, church music. See Section 15 of the 1996 Church of Norway Act (Lov om Den norske kirke). For the sake of brevity I refer to the ‘Church Act’. 4 This law is called the Act relating to Graveyards, Cremations and Funerals. (Lov om gravplasser, kremasjon og gravferd) For brevities sake I refer to ‘the Funeral Act’.

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significant wave of asylum-seekers and refugees fleeing from the Balkan wars. A general consciousness developed that religious minorities (e. g. Muslims) needed to be taken seriously in their institutional and public demands and that, as a government report stated, “Cultural diversity is enriching and strengthening our community” (St meld 17 1996 – 97: 7). The Council for Religious and Life Stance Communities was established in 1996. One of its aims was to further “equal treatment between various religious and life-stance communities in Norway.”5 Compared to other Western countries, Norway is religiously homogenous, with membership in the Church of Norway of 79.2 per cent and 10 per cent registered as members of other communities. The fastest-growing groups are Islam (112,236 in 2012) and Roman Catholicism (200,000 in 2012) (Thorkildsen: 2012, 1). Muslims represent 22.0 per cent of all religious and life-stance communities outside the Church of Norway. Humanists are the third-largest life-stance or religious community, after Muslims (Lutherans represent the largest), with a registered membership of 84,722 (16.6 per cent).6

Theoretical discussion: The agenda of the multiple secularisms The research agenda of the multiple or alternative secularisms is a fastgrowing interdisciplinary area of research in the social sciences as well as in normative political theory. With the demise of the secularisation theory as a viable theory of modernity, scholars have begun reworking the basic categories of analysis. Central in this reworking process is a shift from deductive to inductively derived models and context-driven research on religion and state. In normative political theory this takes the form of a shift away from abstract to more contextual reasoning (Bader : 2007; Bhargava: 2011; Taylor : 2011). The standard picture of secularism as requiring a strict separation between state and church and the private role of religion has been abandoned in favour of more contextual versions. These emphasize the range of morally permissible state church arrangements and the inherent balancing of the multiple principles involved. Within the social sciences this contextual focus takes the form of charting all forms of differentiation that have occurred historically and in different local contexts (Casanova: 2006; this volume; Gorski: 2000; 2003). Alternatively, they chart the existing secularisms in different historical and geographical contexts.7 ‘Norwegian secularism’ is a rather recent phenomenon (cf. Bangstad, et al.: 5 http://www.trooglivssyn.no 6 See http://www.ssb.no/trosamf/tab-2012-12-04-01.html 7 Kuru: 2008; Jakobsen and Pelligrini (ed.): 2008; Warner, van Antwerpen, Calhoun (ed.): 2010; Cady and Hurd (ed.): 2010; Bangstad: 2009; Calhoun, Juergensmeyer, VanAntwerpen (ed.): 2011.

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2012), but the question of how to qualify a set of state–church relations is, of course, not. In the general literature on religious governance and immigrant integration, a shift towards a more historical and contextual understanding of the internal contradictions within a country’s institutional reality can be observed. Instead of working with large global and national categories, as the secularism literature so far upholds, the trend is to break with overly generalised national pictures.8

Literature on religious governance In this body of literature, state–church models figure in different ways.9 A first view speaks of national state–church models in relation to constitutional systems. In comparative legal constitutional studies, scholars commonly distinguish between: a) systems of separation (United States, France); b) systems with an established church (England, Norway); and c) corporatist or concordatarian systems (Germany, Italy) (Ferrari: 2002). Such typology focuses on the formal, constitutional aspects of relations between state and church, for example the fact that in systems of separation there will not exist an officially recognized state church. The second view, which is used in comparative political science, focuses on country models as sets of ‘underlying principles’ that work together to create a distinctive ‘national approach’ to church–state relations (Monsma & Soper : 1997, 156). In this view, the church–state model is taken to involve more than the constitutional regime, and includes ideas, governing traditions and policy legacies (Fetzer and Soper : 2005). There are more reified and one-dimensional typologies, such as the idea that France corresponds to a strictly secular model and the Netherlands to a pillarised model (Koopmans et al.: 2005). Other typologies underline that national models are internally heterogeneous and fairly ambiguous. For example, the Netherlands contains both a confessional-pluralist tradition that seeks to accommodate all religions even-handedly, and a liberal secularist tradition which seeks to create a neutral public sphere (Maussen: 2009, 2012). The point is not to dismiss national models or categories altogether (although some would argue for that), but rather to refine them so as to better understand and explain given policy outcomes or legal amendments. We need models or analytic categories to help reduce complexity, but we risk reification with overly one-dimensional versions. Perceiving models as “dense, coherent, stable and homogeneous structures” (Bertossi and Duyvendak: 2012, 240) 8 Koenig: 2007; Bader: 2007b; Maussen: 2009, 2012; Bowen: 2007, Breemer and Maussen: 2012, Bertossi: 2012; Bertossi and Duyvendak: 2012 9 The passage below is derived from Breemer and Maussen: 2012 published in the Journal of Immigrant and Refugee Studies.

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leaves little room outside the ‘Norwegian establishment’ to understand Norwegian society. It can falsely suggest that the ideology of establishment is the direct and sole driver of action or shaper of institutions.

Localising Norway In the literature on models of secularism, Norway stands as a borderline case. Rajeev Bhargava defends a typology of varieties of secularism (by which he means normative models of secular states)10 in which Norway is placed in the camp of the ‘religion-centered states’. The countries in this category, which also include Saudi Arabia and Israel, are in Bhargava’s words “all deeply troublesome” (2011, 102). Bhargava makes an important distinction between formal and substantial establishment: “in Saudi Arabia, Islam is formally and substantively established. Britain has a formally established church […]”. Still, “apart from a few exceptions, only a secular state grants liberty and equality to all.” (ftn. 20, p. 112). Bhargava’s typology entails the defence of a particular moral ideal (principled Indian secularism) rather than providing a descriptively accurate model of state–church relations. Still his categories are very crude, given the enormous variation within the category of the religioncentered state. Ahmet Kuru, who proposes a more fine-tuned understanding of secularism, also excludes Norway. Kuru defines secularism as types of ideology, which can coexist to different degrees in a secular state: Assertive secularism requires the state to play an assertive role to exclude religion from the public sphere and confine it to the private domain. Passive secularism demands that the state play a “passive” role by allowing the public visibility of religion (2009, 11).

In Kuru’s analysis, the necessary conditions for being a secular state are: 1) The state is nonreligious in its institutional control over legislature and the judiciary ; 2) The state is neutral towards religion (it is not antireligious and there is no official religion) (2009, 30). Although Norway could fit Kuru’s account of passive secularism, Norway is not a secular state.11 If we move up the level of generality to where ‘secularism’ is not the name for ‘a mode of governance in a particular set of countries’ (instead all countries worldwide fall under the banner with a more detailed typology below it), we 10 He distinguishes between the following varieties of secularism: ‘amoral secular’-, ‘antireligious’, ‘mainstream value based’, and ‘alternative’ principled Indian (Bhargava: 2011, 97 – 98). 11 See Appendix (p. 247). In an updated version of Kuru’s book, Norway would still qualify as established (p. 253), although the constitutional establishment has largely been abandoned.

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can typify Norway as a form of ‘establishment secularism’ Stepan (2011).12 Like Casanova (2006; 2009), Stepan is part of the social science literature that conceptualises secularism as a mode of state-religion-society relations. “There are many varieties of secularism that can satisfy the twin tolerations and be democratic” (Stepan: 2011, 114). Central to a well-functioning democracy is not the degree of secularity of a state but rather the extent to which political institutions respect the twin tolerations: the minimal degree of toleration that democracy needs to receive from religion and the minimal degree of toleration that religion must receive from the state (cf. 2011, 116). Norway stands in his typology together with states like Saudi Arabia and Iran, but differs importantly in the degree of state control that is exercised over religion. Stepan thus avoids Bhargava’s oversimplified opposition between ‘religion centered states’ and ‘secular states’, the first being problematic and the second (typically) not. However, Stepan’s category resembles Ferrari’s somewhat one-dimensional constitutional typology. In this book Casanova suggests a Nordic pattern of secularisation as opposed to a laic Southern one, in which the Nordic countries coexist with states like Germany and the Netherlands. Secularism for Casanova can be defined in many different ways. Secularism as an ideology encompasses two types: ‘philosophical historical secularism’ and ‘political secularism’, both of which are distinct from ‘secularism as a statecraft’ (2009). The latter category is not an ideology because the state does not entail some theory about religion (2009, 1051). Rather it is based on two principles: non-establishment and freedom of religion. Based on the minimal content that Casanova has given to the category of secularism as statecraft, it is not clear which category Norway falls under.13 If primarily defined at a constitutional level, Norway could fit the category of secularism as statecraft (since May 2012), but, if confronted with a more internally heterogeneous situation, where some domains internal to the state reveal establishment and Lutheran hegemony and others not, his category would require more specification. Elizabeth Shakman Hurd distinguishes between two strategies for managing the relationship between religion and politics: laicism and Judeo-Christian secularism. “The former refers to a separationist narrative in which religion is expelled from politics, and the latter to a more accommodationist narrative in which Judeo-Christian tradition is the unique basis of secular democracy” (2008, 5). This typology is almost similar to Casanova’s distinction between a Southern and Northern pattern.14 Her Judeo-Christian model is derived from a European/US context where members of the political community agreed upon 12 Stepan 2011:116 distinguishes between: 1) separatist, (2) establishment, (3) positive accommodation and (4) respect all, positive cooperation, principled distance secularism. 13 Does Sturla St”lsett’s public advisory report (NOU 2013:1), which aims to streamline the state’s position towards religion in all parts of society, count as a theory about religion? 14 In this volume Casanova separates the American pattern from the Nordic pattern.

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a political order based on doctrines common to all Christian sects. While the Judeo-Christian model does not expel religion from politics, it “prevent[s] the state from backing one [Christian] confession over another […]” (2008, 41). Norway provides thus only a partial match, but as a starting point for our analysis we might explore the extent to which the Norwegian mode of religious governance can be classified as a possible subcategory of Judeo-Christian secularism or establishment secularism.

Graveyards: Extrapolating the state’s normative reasoning in law and practice The point of the previous discussion has been to localize Norway in the existing typologies of secularism. In what follows, we will move from large global and national categories to the groundwork of one domain. We ask how the Christian colouring of this domain affects the burial conditions for religious minorities or life-stance groups. We limit the discussion to Muslims and humanists and focus on the (normative) reasoning underlying institutional provisions. It is not only the mode of religious governance in a country or municipality that affects the availability of institutional provision; graveyards are governed by a variety of institutional regimes. At the national level, regulations with regard to hygiene, public order, forms of ownership, and rules for proper burial are stipulated.15 At the municipal level, concerns with urban planning, the aesthetic appearance of graveyards, safety and soil requirements (water levels), as well as discussions on different rules of access prevail.

Legal framework Two primary laws govern the Norwegian burial domain: the 1996 Funeral Act and the 1996 Church Act (for full names see footnote 3). Both laws have been altered since January 2012, motivated by a concern with religious plurality and declared political agreement in 2008 to better “take into consideration minorities’ needs”.16 It is stated in the Funeral Act (Section 6) that everybody has a right to a free grave, regardless of membership in the Church of Norway 15 The Ministry of Government Administration, Reform and Church Affairs issues the rules for the form, size or depth of the graves as well as regulations regarding soil quality (Funeral Act, Section 2). For the construction, destruction or extension of graveyards, one needs approval from the municipality and permission from the Council of Bishops. 16 Political agreement signed by all parties in Parliament on 10 April 2008 (Church-State Compromise).

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or religious affiliation. Furthermore, “Burials shall take place on a public graveyard or a graveyard belonging to a registered community of believers […]” (Section 1). The Funeral Act thus satisfies individual equality for all because it does not discriminate on religious affiliation or membership and provides a free grave for everybody for twenty years. It expresses a concern for collective religious freedom by allowing other confessional graveyards outside of the Lutheran/public offering. Furthermore, a recently added paragraph addresses individual religious freedom, stating that “burials shall be performed with respect for the deceased’s religion or belief” (Section 1). Yet, despite these concerns with equality and religious freedom, the reality of Norwegian burials is quite striking in comparison to many European countries. Almost everybody is buried in public Lutheran graveyards, and 92 – 93 percent of all Norwegians are buried according to church ritual, a number that has remained stable over the past ten years.17 Despite the legal willingness to allow for diversity in confessional graveyards, there are few options outside that of the public/Lutheran offering. Of a total of 2,000 graveyards in Norway, less than 15 graveyards with a private confessional status exist.18 This is due in part to the fact that the legal option to construct one’s own graveyard is not linked to any financial support. Yet the offer of burial in a public Lutheran graveyard is funded by the public budget.19 Consequently, there are no communal, neutral graveyards available, except for what was until recently referred to as offentlig kirkeg”rd, a public churchyard. It is public because it is open to all, regardless of affiliation, and is funded by the municipality, yet it is owned, supervised and managed by the Lutheran Church. Crematoria and a handful of private graveyards are thus the only exceptions to this nearreligious monopoly. Crematoria are owned and governed by the municipality.

The challenge of pluralism in law and practice: Muslims and humanists Is the Christian colouring of the burial domain an impediment to accommodating, for example, Muslim burial needs?20 Changing patterns of repatriation make this question relevant, as the number of Muslim citizens that desire to be buried in their country of residence (and/or citizenship) has

17 18 19 20

Tilstandsrapport for Den Norske Kirke 2011, KIFO Notat, nr 3 2011, 16. Report to the Storting: The State and the Church of Norway (St. Meld. nr 17 (2007 – 2008), p. 105) I mean the offer for a grave and the maintenance of graveyards, not burial ceremonies. For similar questions about the role of the state church in the treatment of Muslims in prisons in France and Britain, see Beckford 2005, for Norway, Furseth 2003.

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increased in the past decade, with repatriation rates formerly at 40 – 50 per cent for Norway.21 The Islamic wish to have one’s dead positioned facing in the direction of Mecca, and the preference for burial within 24 hours and without a coffin, is at odds with Christian and secular burial customs. The need for burial in the direction of Mecca can be resolved in different ways. We can distinguish between four institutional solutions, as they exist in countries like Norway, France and the Netherlands. The most common form of burial takes place in a public graveyard, with a special section for the particular confession (for example Muslims or Catholics). This section can be governed by : 1.a) the graveyard owner, or 1.b) by the religious community itself. 2.) A second public solution entails the provision of individual graves in the direction of Mecca. 3.) A third option is burial in a private confessional graveyard. Norwegian legislation allows for all these alternatives but is in practice constrained to options 1a and 2. Private confessional (and therefore Islamic) graveyards are allowed.22 Yet on the matter of confessional sections, both the previous and the recently updated Funeral Act are silent. The formulation is rather general: “Burial shall occur in accordance with the deceased’s religion or life-stance perspectives” (Section 1). And Section 6 states that “Burial in a grave that is adapted to the particular needs of the religious or life-stance communities”. The solution is thus individualized and targets each particular case rather than constituting a right to a collective section. Burial within 24 hours is not specified in the law, nor is the option of burial without a coffin.23 If we complement this legal picture with that of available provisions, Norway has an estimated Muslim population of between 112,000 and 185,000, (2 – 4 per cent of the total population),24 no Islamic graveyards but sections on public/Lutheran graveyards in about fifty municipalities,25 three of which are situated in Oslo.26 There is good cooperation between the Norwegian Islamic Council and the joint parish councils.27 Muslims express the wish for some improvements: 21 Estimate comes from the Islamic burial agency Al-Khidmat. Interviews October 2008; April 2009. See Døving 2005 for discussion on repatriation within the Norwegian Pakistani community. 22 This legal right is not extended to life-stance communities. Funeral Act, Section 1. 23 There is no mention of a minimal time period after which burials may occur, only a maximum of 10 days (Section 12). Since January 2013 burial without a coffin is allowed in special cases as mentioned in the recommendations to the funeral law (gravferdsforskriften). 24 http://www.ssb.no/vis/magasinet/blandet/art-2011-08-29-01.html 25 Prop. 81 L, p.11 26 The first section dates from the beginning of the 1970s in the graveyard in Gamlebyen; a second is situated in Klemetsrud 1998. A third section was opened in November 2004 in Høybr”ten. 27 I base this on interviews with (Islamic) burial agents (Al-Khidmat), the Graveyards and Burials Agency, City of Oslo (Gravferdsetaten i Oslo) and representatives of the parish councils in Elverum and Lørenskog.

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The (obligatory) use of a coffin is seen as the biggest challenge. There is a clear desire for a graveyard managed by Muslims themselves so that both the demand for burial in a coffin as well as the need for deviating from the constraints of working hours and holy days can be put aside. Especially in the Shi’a mosques they confirm such a wish. The section at Høybr”ten is seen as small and the wish that Muslims themselves should manage this is prominent (My translation).28

Furthermore, the wish to solve Muslims burial needs in the form of a demarcated section is not always welcomed in certain areas outside Oslo. Some parish councils refuse to bury Muslims in the direction of Mecca, altogether. As the parish council in Balestrand put it: “Graves in the direction of Mecca are very inefficient.”29 The municipalities, particularly the smaller ones, do not always have the money, the technical capacity or the will to accommodate. Or there is a willingness to find solutions, but not by providing for a separate section. “I’m not in favour of a patchwork strategy. We should not segregate minorities in the graveyard.”30 Segregation in the graveyards is seen here as detrimental to integration into Norwegian society.31 Rather than separate sections, the parish councils propose the separate blessing of individual graves as a solution.32 “We do not want sections for special groups. The law does not require this.”33 This scepticism toward separate sections, which I encountered in my fieldwork, has recently been translated into law. As the new Funeral Act shows, the legislators have avoided any reference to explicitly separate sections in public graveyards. Moreover, Section 5, which in the previous Funeral Act allowed for the possibility of a blessing (vigsling) of parts of a churchyard for religious communities outside the Lutheran faith, has been removed. The new passage mentions the possibility of consecration (innvielse) as long as one does not show disrespect to other communities. The senior advisor involved in the formulation of the 2012 Funeral Act explained this to me.34 Avoidance of having separate sections in public graveyards is due, he said, to integration concerns: “to be as equal as all the others”. Social democracy and welfare state ideology result in the fact that in the graveyard “we are all the same.” 28 Livsfasesriter : 85. This research project, commissioned by the Council of Religious and Life stance Communities, aimed to chart the challenges for communities in terms of life rituals in Norway. 29 http://www.nrk.no/nyheter/distrikt/nrk_sogn_og_fjordane/1.7321326 30 Interview October 24, 2008 with the Church Employer organisation and the Norwegian organisation for Churchyard Culture (Norsk forening for Kirkeg”rds Kultur). 31 Hamar Arbeiderblad April 7 2009, nr 82. Monica Søberg. 32 Interview representative of the joint parish council in Elverum, 23 July 2009. Also hearingsresponse parish council Døvre, see Prop. 81 L, p15. 33 Church warden in Brummendal. The churchyard will provide for Islamic graves, but not a special section. Hamar Arbeidersblad, December 29, 2012. “turned towards Mekka” 34 Interview with a senior advisor in the Ministry of Government Administration, Reform and Church Affairs, 7 December 2012.

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Norwegian Humanist Association The humanists have long been sceptical to this ideology of sameness and equality. They argue that the default offer for burial, while free for all, is not as “equal for all”.35 Since it was founded in 1956, the Norwegian Humanist Association (HEF) has fought for the separation of state and church. It has campaigned to provide Norway’s nonreligious citizens with the possibility to celebrate their rites of passage: naming ceremonies, weddings, confirmations and burials without religious elements. They have provided an alternative: a humanistic burial, though the influence of the church is nevertheless still very strong. Symbolically, humanists object to the strongly Lutheran colouring of the Norwegian public institutions involved in burial: the public graveyard (its proximity to a church and explicit Christian symbols) and the public municipal crematoria, which are often loaded with Christian symbolism. They complain that while there is a standard offer to talk with a priest on one’s deathbed in public hospitals, a similar offer to talk with representatives of other confessions is not available. (Livfasesriter, 80) They also protest at the lack of neutral ceremonial rooms in the smaller Norwegian cities, a point on which a wide variety of religious groups agrees.36 A 2008 political agreement (Kirke-statforliket) between all parties in the Norwegian Parliament promised improvements in the situation regarding ceremonial rooms and was an important impulse behind the recent 2012 amendments. It followed in the wake of a 2006 government commitment to pursue an “actively supportive religious and life-stance policy” (NOU 2006:2). As a result, in the updated law, the term kirkeg”rd (churchyard) has been replaced by the more neutral term gravlund (graveyard), and several of the minority groups’ concerns were addressed in law or in practice.37 However, the graveyards’ Lutheran ownership and administration remain unchanged, much to the dismay of the HEF: It is very disappointing that the political parties will continue this public form of discrimination. It is unjust that one belief community is given the legal responsibility to administer all communal graveyards/churchyards on which all of us should/will be

35 “Inequality in the grave” is HEF’s official framing. See Livsfaseriter, 81 36 Families have to take refuge in the chapels next to the church, which often bear a heavy Christian imprint and are too small and cold in winter. 37 Further changes entailed the establishment of an annual meeting of religious and life-stance groups to discuss their needs (Section 23). Section 6 now mentions that it is the financial responsibility of the joint parish council to compensate for costs incurred by minorities if their burial needs cannot be accommodated in the home municipality and force them to go elsewhere.

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buried. It should be the responsibility of the municipality to provide this service with neutral values as its point of departure.38 (My emphasis).

Summary We have observed that the Norwegian mode of governance in law and practice confirms the designation ‘accommodationist’ insofar – and crucially – as we understand this as ‘compensatory accommodative’. It provides for accommodations that compensate for the privileged position of the Norwegian Church. Despite political commitments to take the needs of minorities into consideration and to provide a more neutral Funeral Act (in terms of the wording), the graveyards’ Lutheran ownership and administration remain unchanged. Through the lens of the establishment category, we might interpret this enforcement in 1996 as a case of maintaining or reinforcing establishment. This, I will argue, explains matters only too well.

1996 legal amendment: Establishment or municipal disestablishment? How can we understand the 1996 decision in light of the increasing pluralisation of Norwegian society? I discern two broad sets of factors: the first relates to the identity of the graveyards and the way in which they are ultimately seen as the domain of the church; the second relates to the increasing need for independence of church bodies within the framework of the state church.

Governance of graveyards from a historical perspective Ever since Norway’s conversion to Christianity (around 1000 AD), the church has been involved in burials and the maintenance of graveyards, but in different roles and to different degrees. Typically, the local community that lived around the church took care of the church building and graveyard, and the burial process was taken care of by the family and the local community (Lappegard: 1994),39 with only a small role for the minister, who did the final 38 Quote by Representative of HEF on matters of burials. His personal archive Arkiv : 5478 VT. Interview October 2008. 39 This included functions such as the bell-ringer, the churchwarden and the sexton.

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blessing (sometimes six months after the deceased had been buried). The Act relating to Churches and Churchyards of 1896 marked the first legal formalisation of the financial and ownership aspects pertaining to churches and graveyards. This law gave the parishes ownership of the graveyards. However, financial management of the graveyards became a municipal responsibility. Supervisory responsibilities for the graveyards changed over time, but were primarily left in the hands of a ‘religious’ body, although these bodies were always mixed in composition and interwoven with the local community up until 1837, and thereafter with the municipal administration.40 Central for our discussion here is the graveyard administration and employer responsibility for graveyard employees. In one reading of history, this has been a municipal responsibility since 1896 (NOU 2006: 2, 133), but as the history of the churchwarden shows, the reality was more complex.41 The position of churchwarden dates back to the second half of the 12th century.42 He was a man of status in the local farming community who was charged with securing income for the church and for maintaining the church building and graveyard. The institution was firmly rooted in the local community as well as part of the international institution of the Catholic Church. (Alsvik: 1995, 31) With the Reformation (1536 – 37), church governance was integrated with state governance (Thorkildsen: 2012, 1). The then Danish-Norwegian king confiscated all church property and used this wealth to create an integrated state. The introduction of absolutism in 1660 increased the material and spiritual power of the state. Materially, the king subjected the churchwarden to the control of the minister, which every third year inspected the financial accounts and forced the churchwarden to hand over any savings (tvangl”n) (Alsvik: 1995, 40). However, the state also increased its spiritual and moral influence over the local community. The churchwarden was given a moral supervisory function and was drawn into the church structure. Now, as a state representative, he became part of the state’s moral project (Alsvik: 1995, 53). Church and state were at this point in time still the same. From the 1680s onwards, the pressure for income increased as the Danish king kept losing wars. The locals were pressed for more money and the king began selling the churches to private individuals. In the course of the 1800s the churches were gradually returned to the public. The creation of municipalities through the Alderman Act of 1837 put organisational structures in place that could help buy back the churches (cf. Hovland: 1987). With this law the churchwarden now became a municipal employee, and, in large cities like Oslo 40 For example the 1897 act introduced a church supervisory body (kirkens tilsyn) to take part in the appointment of churchwardens. It included representatives of the parish, the municipality and the alderman (formannskap). 41 Historically, the churchwarden was a person, but later it often referred to an institution. 42 I rely on Alsvik (1995) for my historical account of the ambt or profession of churchwarden.

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and Bergen, held a full-time position. Yet despite the process of municipalisation, the position remained voluntary, part-time and closely connected to the church in most other smaller cities and towns. The Act relating to Churches and Churchyards of 1896 reflected this variation. It gave the financial responsibility for a variety of church functions to the municipalities, yet it reflected ambiguity by mentioning (Section 45) that the municipalities or the parish council may appoint the churchwarden. In the period from 1900 until 1950, the function of churchwarden continued to be based on a borderline between different administrative identities. The Church of Norway Act of 1953 (Lov om Den norske kirke) did therefore not change much. It allowed the parish council to appoint a churchwarden if it involved an unpaid position, but if it involved a paid position; the municipality would be responsible for the appointment. In the course of the 1950s and 1960s, many municipalities were merged into one. Consequently, the need arose for a churchwarden to attend to the tasks of the different parishes, and, often, to lead the joint parish council (if it already existed). Furthermore, the position became important enough to transform it from an unpaid, voluntary church function to a full-time, paid position. Paradoxically, these municipal processes led to more religious involvement, as the churchwarden became an important link between the parish council and the municipality. However, as his formal position was that of a municipal servant, the churchwarden continued to be Janus faced. This confusion gave rise to a question in the early 1980s in the report submitted by the Sivertsen Committee. Should it not be that? […] the municipalities should have full responsibility for building and maintaining appropriate graveyards in the municipality. This ought to be a municipal responsibility, and it is important that each local community has responsibility for ensuring that their dead are given a dignified burial. Since the graveyards are for everyone, regardless of religion or worldview, it is in principle correct that it is the municipalities and not church communities that have responsibility for building and maintaining the graveyards.43

The Church Act Committee (Kirkelovutvalget) In 1982 the Norwegian parliament appointed a Church Act Committee to prepare a recommendation. The majority advice of the committee was that the administration and maintenance of the graveyards should become a municipal responsibility, but that the church should maintain a supervisory role to secure the close connection between the graveyards and the Church of 43 Passage comes from NOU 1975:30 State and church, quoted in St. Meld. 2007: 17, 106.

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Norway. A minority of the committee members suggested that the Church should take care of both the administration and supervision. Both subscribed thus to maintaining the link between graveyard and church, yet differed on what maintaining the link would require. The minority argued that the cultural and religious distinctiveness of the graveyards should also be expressed in the practical administration of them.44 The majority considered graveyards a “non-church administrative domain”. This advice was presented to a wide range of institutions and relevant individuals to be voted on.45 A small majority (55 per cent) of the parish councils voted for church administration, versus 39 per cent for municipal responsibility. The response rate of the municipalities was, however, too low to draw any conclusion from (Raustøl: 1993). The decision makers interpreted this as a lack of municipal interest.46 The humanists and free churches (frikirkelige) protested against church responsibility, emphasising its principled and symbolic inequality.47 National employer and interest organisations and most educational institutions defended municipal responsibility from the perspective of equality and non-discrimination. Yet, the Church Employers’ Association48 defended church responsibility, stressing the churches’ high quality and broad competence. The department decided in favour of church responsibility. Two later advisory committees in 2002 and 2006 discussed the question of burial administration and again recommended municipal administration.49 Nevertheless, each time the final decision was that the church should have the responsibility. An important recurring argument after 1996 was that “the Church of Norway is professional enough to treat everyone equal.” (NOU 2006: 2, 136) In other words, this political and principled inequality is justified by procedural reasons; those affected by it judge it to operate fairly. The most recent committee (2013), led by Sturla St”lsett, once again recommended a municipal responsibility (NOU 2013:1).

44 NOU 1989:7, 230 member Skurtveit. 45 This involved parish councils and municipalities as well as bishops, county representatives, religious minorities and nationally relevant organisations. 46 Interview former deputy under-secretary of state (1984 – 2008), November 2012. 47 Interview representative of HEF, October 2008 and interview General Secretary for the Council of Free Churches, November 2009 48 Kirkelig arbeidsgiver- og interesseorganisasjon, KA 49 Bakkevig Committee (2002), a church advisory committee, and the Gjønnes Committee (2003), a public committee (NOU 2006:2).

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Consequences The Church Act and Funeral Act of 1996 resulted in mandatory creation in each municipality (with more than one parish) of a joint parish council (in places where it did not exist already). This body was made responsible for both the supervisory as well as the administrative tasks related to graveyards. It is a ‘Christian’ body in the sense that it takes care of its parish members.50 At the same time, it has a public role and legal status, and must work for the common good of the entire community.51 From now on, the churchwarden and other graveyard employees had to report to the joint parish council. And being a church employee required membership in the Church of Norway.52 The 1996 act allows for local solutions. The municipality can also obtain responsibility for the graveyards administration (NOU 2013:1, 212.).53

What were the motivations of the Ministry? The Ministry of Culture and Church Affairs54 aligned itself with the minority of the Church Act Committee in perceiving graveyards as a place where cultural and religious burial customs are conveyed. Their administration could therefore not be seen as a purely administrative, legal and neutral matter. This provoked the argument over church traditions (Ot. Prp. Nr. 64 1994 – 1995, 43): According to the Ministry it seems unwise to break with the centuries-long and deeply engrained traditions in this area; traditions which connect the burial realm and the churchyard’s administration closely to the church administration in a broader sense. […] Based on the consultations one should expect that it would be perceived as unnatural, unnecessary and incomprehensible to change well functioning and traditionally established regulations for the churchyards administration. (My translation). 50 It takes care of economic and administrative tasks on behalf of the different parishes. It plans and sets goal for all church activities, furthers cooperation between the different parish councils, and represents the interest of the parish towards the municipality. 51 It is composed of two representatives of each parish, one pastor or one representative from the Bishop and one municipal representative (Church Act, Section 12 and Section 14) 52 Exceptions exist for those who have tasks unrelated to church functions (Funeral Act, Section 22). 53 In five municipalities the responsibility has been moved from the joint parish council to the muncipality. 54 Kultur- og Kirkedepartementet. This department is now localised in the ‘Department of Government Administration, Reform and Church Affairs’.

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Furthermore, it adds an argument about Christian burial customs and Christian cultural foundations (ibid.). An increasingly pluralistic society, according to the opinion of the Ministry, does not weigh heavily enough when 95 per cent of the country’s population chooses a church burial and our society’s burial customs still mirror society’s Christian values and cultural foundations. (My translation).

The 1996 decision seems thus not in any direct sense related to the increase in religious plurality. A concern with increasing religious plurality is explicitly outweighed by the argument in favour of an essentially Christian tradition and Christian burial customs. Furthermore, principled reasoning is outweighed by practical considerations. As the Ministry stated in 2007: The Ministry agrees that, from the perspective of equal treatment or neutrality, it naturally follows that graveyards which should be open to all, regardless of religious of life-stance affiliation, should be administered by a public institution which does not connect itself to, or grounds itself in, a particular religion or life stance […]. In the opinion of the Ministry, the exercise of such principles should be seen in light of […] the fact that, annually, more than 90 percent of those who die receive a Christian burial or are buried according to Christian values. (St.meld. nr. 17 (2007 – 2008): Staten og Den norske kirke, 108 – 109).

The argument of tradition is somewhat shaky. Indeed, the 1996 act continued the previous connection between parish and graveyard (its ownership and supervisory relationship), yet in terms of the administration it involved in fact a break with the previous formal municipal responsibility. And even when specified in terms of actual involvement, it was just as much a break in large municipalities as it was a continuation of actual religious involvement in small places. As we have explored at length, there has been much variation in different administrative responsibilities throughout history and throughout Norway. A degree of political pragmatism must thus have played a role. Apparently, Gudmund Hernes, the then Minister of Church Affairs, Education and Research (1990 – 1995), addressed the decision on the administration of graveyards as follows: “Why on earth would we change a regulation that has worked for centuries?”55 This remark conveys a concern with the practical but also the perceived connection between graveyard and church. The preference of the local, rural church and the existing practical connection outweighed, in his opinion, the preference for national organizations, big cities and principled reasoning. And this local preference apparently carried significant political weight. Both these points (diverging opinions and political weight) lead to the designation of the Church of Norway as a municipal rather than a state church (Grimstad: 2003, 3). 55 Interview former deputy under-secretary of state (1984 – 2008), November 2012.

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Strengthening the local church as part of the process to increase independence And this ties into another story. An important goal of the 1996 Church Act – and the processes leading up to it – was to give the local church more administrative and juridical independence vis-—-vis the municipality. The decision to give the graveyards to the Church was part of on going political negotiations between the municipalities and the Church over how to divide responsibilities and rights. The reforms (of which the Funeral Act was only a part) aimed to clear up some of the intertwinement between purely church functions and municipal functions, which had arisen in the 1800s when the local church administration developed as part of the municipal administration. As NOU 1989 – 7 states: Conscious of the particularity of the Church of Norway as one religious community amongst several, and an increasing secularization process and diminishing homogeneous culture, it has become more problematic to see municipal representational bodies as representatives of the local church. (NOU 1989:7, 5) The joint parish council will have extensive administrative responsibility, particularly for financial and legal issues pertaining to men in public services, which today formally lie with the municipality. The joint parish council will have employer responsibility for most of the church positions. Church employees, who today are municipal employees, will hereafter no longer stand in a direct employee relationship to the municipality but to a purely church organ. The municipal steering committee can no longer be seen as part of the local church steering committee and will have a more delineated voice within the church administrative realm. (Innst.O.nr.46 995 – 1996, 2).

However, this increasing independence should not lead to a cutting of the ties between church and local community ; to the contrary, it should lead to its strengthening “as a centre for faith, culture and everyday issues.” (ibid., 3). By strengthening the local church’s representation in elected bodies like the parish council and joint parish council and by drawing on a broad constituency, the Church enhances a process of democratisation. “This way the Church can create identity in the people.” (ibid.). The Church of Norway will have considerable administrative independence, but the majority of the committee is of the opinion that the popular church within the framework of the state church should be closely connected to the local community. The practical arrangements between municipality and church are important to convey the church as inclusive. The popular church depends for its well-being on the municipality to recognize this responsibility (ibid., 3).

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The maintenance and administration of graveyards fulfilled an important role here. It gave substance to the set of tasks, which the joint parish council would be responsible for. It would provide a critical mass of tasks that could legitimise the joint parish council as a relevant local player vis-—-vis the municipality.56 So here we have in a nutshell the ingredients for the contradictory Norwegian situation: the continuing relevance of the Church of Norway and its continuing intertwinement with public institutions (in this case the municipality), as well as increasing independence and separation of the church from the municipality within the state church framework. To end, let me situate the latter issue within a broader historical context, which may underscore this as an essential ingredient of the Norwegian mode of religious governance. The theme of increasing independence of the church within the framework of the state church has long historical roots going back to the 19th century. As early as the 1840s, arguments about church reforms (kirkelig reformbevegelse) were made. Originally formulated in the context of a tight state church constellation, which controlled its citizens in many areas of life (obligatory membership, baptism and confirmation), the demand to separate state and church (in some form or the other) emerged. A consciousness arose that the Church of Norway was a spiritual community for which forced regulations were not appropriate (Mollan: 1979, 9). This happened in the wake of the 1842 abolition of the prohibition to organize for religious purposes and the 1845 adoption of the freedom to belong to a Christian community other than that of the Church of Norway.57 In tandem with a wish for religious freedom, a wish for more institutional independence vis-—-vis the state also emerged (Elstad: 2002, 163; Mollan: 1979, 8). Jens Lauritz Arup was the first to formally articulate such a vision. This consisted of a reorganization of the church by means of, for example, the election of parish representatives, as well as changes higher up in the church hierarchy. (Mollan: 1979, 8). However, this movement was only very slowly successful. Absalon Taranger, a professor in law, argued for a free popular church that loosened its ties with the state, but not towards the people (Oftestad et al.: 1991, 241). A 1908 church committee followed his lead and took the issue further. The minority of members followed Taranger’s proposal for a free church, the majority chose to retain the state church, with opinions divided within the church as well as amongst politicians. When this advice was distributed for consultation among parishes and municipalities, the outcome was a total defeat of the idea of a free popular church. Only 17 per cent supported it. Initial realization of parts of Arup’s proposals, then, did not come into effect until 1920 with the enactment of the Parish Councils Act. 56 Interview Senior Adviser Norwegian Ministry of Goverment Administration, Reform and Church Affairs, 7 December 2012. See also Alsvik (1995, 111) for a similar argument. 57 These were the Conventicle Act and the Law on Christian Dissenters, respectively.

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In the post-war period the issue came up on the political agenda again with the 1945 Reform Commission, which proposed a church council (kirker”d). Promises had been made to the church during the war for a new structure of self-governance within the church. Yet, again the reforms were struck down. The very positive attitude of the political elite towards the church, which characterized the war period evaporated in the five years following the war (Furre: 1991, 191, 278). Amongst other things, the “battle over hell”,58 confirmed fears in the Labour Party of the possibility of conservative forces in the church coming to power (and consequently want to maintain control). It is not until the early 1980s that the question of local reform of the church is taken up. The Church Act Committee (kirkelovutvalgst), which we have discussed as central to the 1996 amendment, is the first public report to address this theme so prominently.

Conclusion In this article we have explored some of the dynamics of Norwegian secularity through the lens of the burial domain. We explored the viability of ‘Judeo Christian secularism’ (Hurd: 2008) and ‘establishment secularism’ (Stepan: 2011) as fitting categories for the Norwegian reality. Two questions guided our analysis: 1. How can we understand the 1996 decision to make the church responsible for administrating the graveyards in light of the increasing pluralisation of Norwegian society?; and 2. How does this decision affect religious minorities and life-stance communities with respect to the graveyards? In reverse order, we answered as follows: The contemporary mode of religious governance as it affects religious minorities and life-stance communities in the graveyards today has revealed obstacles for humanists rather than for Muslims. It reveals a new affirmation of the establishment model with that of a very recent (2012) accommodationist policy towards religious minorities in the graveyards. However, a contextual and historical analysis of the 1996 decision has revealed contradicting elements of both establishment and disestablishment.

58 This concerned a heated debate over the centrality of a belief in hell as part of the Lutheran dogma and over whether the state had the power to decide this. During a radio show Professor Halleby said: “You know that if you were to die at this very moment, you would plummet down to hell?”

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Main findings A crucial factor in capturing the Norwegian reality has been an understanding of the Church of Norway as a low church (Thorkildsen: this volume) in which the local representation/administration of the church is deeply intertwined with that of the municipality. Like Denmark, but unlike in Sweden, this intertwinement is very strong at the local level. The reasons for this intertwinement are many, and go all the way back to the introduction of Lutheranism by King Christian III after the Reformation. Rather than appoint state representatives in a top-down manner to replace the local structures of representation, the king enforced his power by giving local representatives an additional state – and thus church – function (as we have seen, the church warden was drawn into the moral project of the state and church). We see examples of an opposite movement of intertwinement with the introduction of the Alderman Act of 1837. Here the church minister very often became leader of the new municipal board, and one of the first responsibilities of the newly created municipalities was to take care of the local church and church affairs. In other words, intertwinement works both ways. Local representatives also became church representatives. And, after 1837, church representatives also became part of the municipal structures. This local and intertwined dimension of Norwegian state-church politics proved crucial in understanding the 1996 decision. This has brought home two further points: the preferences of the local community and local church bodies (joint parish councils) can diverge significantly from propositions formulated by government advisory committees or politicians. Secondly, this local dimension carries considerable political weight, lending to the designation of the Church of Norway as a ‘municipal church’. These findings have implications for our categorisation of the Norwegian case in several ways. At the most general level, the Norwegian mode of religious governance confirms the hypothesis of ‘intertwinement’, central to Casanova’s Nordic pattern. It is often hard to say what is secular and what is religious. Institutions and functionaries are simply both to some degree.59 Furthermore, the mode of religious governance can be seen as an instantiation of ‘accommodative Judeo-Christian secularism’. Yet, like Casanova’s Nordic pattern, Hurd’s typology is painted with a very broad brush. It requires further qualification to be meaningful for cross-national comparison and to explain how Norwegian state church relations are differently accommodationist (or intertwined) compared to the Netherlands, for example. I qualified it as ‘compensatory accommodative’: it accommodates religious minorities while enforcing a privileged position for one 59 We see further intertwinement in terms of a) constant cooperation and b) composition: ‘religious bodies’ contain municipal representatives, and vice versa.

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majority religion. Furthermore, contrasting law with practice, we have seen a political preference for resolving the accommodation of the needs of minorities through a public route (instead of the legally possible route of private confessional graveyards). Despite the 2006 and 2008 commitments to actively support visibility of religions in the public sphere, there is a political, rather assimilationist, preference for avoiding demarcations in the public graveyards (motivated by concerns with social democracy and welfare state equality). At the level of the municipality, however – and in line with our general findings of the Church of Norway as a de facto ‘municipal church’– parish councils have a large degree of autonomy, and confessional sections in the graveyards exist. A more precise categorisation of Norway as pertaining to ‘establishment secularism’ proved more viable. However, we should be careful not to overinterpret matters through this analytic category. More than anything the 1996 amendment was the effect of a municipal church politics, rather than state church politics. Secondly, maintaining an important local role for the church occurred through disestablishment, rather than establishment.60 Departing from a view of modes of religious governance as ‘internally heterogeneous’ I ultimately suggest a more refined and dynamic characterisation of the Norwegian model. It entails not only : 1) a tradition of establishment, and 2) (increasing) religious accommodation, but also that of 3) disestablishment and increasing independence of church bodies within the state and municipal framework. And these different strands can conflict or coincide over time. Importantly, support for one strand over the other can vary between levels of governance (national law, political establishment and municipality). Thus conceived, the 1996 legal amendment makes sense as a further dis-intertwinement of local church and municipality. At the same time it confirms (or at least does not challenge for the moment) the wish of a national political majority to hold on to the church as an important cultural/ value foundation for the state’s national and local projects.

What can we say about Norwegian secularity? Norwegian secularity has proven to be plural in its manifestation, but ultimately does not require the removal of religion from the public sphere or institutions. An understanding of the secular as that which is left after religion has been taken out (‘subtraction theories’ (Taylor : 2007) has proven alien to the Norwegian reasoning. Religion and secularity are intertwined in Norwegian institutions in a myriad of ways, yet different notions of secularity 60 We can of course also nuance our conception of establishment as entailing 1) a control dimension, 2) a support dimension, 3) political and symbolic alliance dimension.

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exist in regards to the question of how to give form to the concern with new religious plurality. A procedural approach to secularity emphasizes the professional expertise of the church as provider of the public graveyards: as long as the church treats everyone equally, it can fulfil this special role. A more principled reasoning considers the continuation of church administration in violation of non-discrimination and equality between communities. Here equality and secularity require removal of all privileged positions, but not of religion in general. To ask the question of what Norwegian secularity consists of is then very quickly a question of what secularity should be. Some judge the current church burial administration to be secular. It provides an example of the way in which the modern Norwegian state uses the church for the provision of public services. By the standards of the Norwegian humanists, however, this can hardly be called secular. Bibliography Alsvik, O. (1995), Fra ombud til “kirkens r”dmann”. Kirkeverger gjennom 800 ”r [From ombudsman to church councillor. Church wardens throughout 800 years], Verbum. Bader, V. (2007b), The governance of Islam in Europe: The perils of modeling. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 33(6), 871 – 886. Bader, V. (2007a), Secularism or Democracy? Associational Governance of Religious Diversity IMISCOE Research, Amsterdam University Press. Bangstad, S. (2009), The faces of secularism. Sekularismens ansikter, Oslo: Universitetsforlaget. Bangstad, S. & Oddbjørn, L. Plesner, I. (2012) (ed.), Secularism through Norwegian glasses, Sekularisme- med norske briller, Unipub. Beckford, J. A. (2005), ‘Muslims in the Prisons of Britain and France’ University of Warwick, UK Journal of Contemporary European Studies Vol. 13, No. 3, 287 – 297. Bertossi, Ch. (2012), French republicanism and the problem of normative density. Comparative European Politics Vol. 10, 3, 248 – 265. Bertossi, Ch & Duyvendak, J.W. (2012), National models of immigrant integration: The costs for comparative research, Comparative European Politics, Vol. 10, 3, 237 – 247. Bhargava, R. (2011), Rehabilitating secularism, in Rethinking Secularism, Calhoun, C., Juergensmeyer, M. and VanAntwerpen J. (ed.), 92 – 114. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Bowen, J. R. (2007), A view from France on the internal complexity of national models. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 33(6), 1003 – 1016. Botvar, P.K. / Skalvoll / Urstad, S. (2011), Tilstandrapport for den norske kirke 2011 Breemer van den R. / Maussen, M. (2012), On the Viability of State-Church Models: Muslim Burial and Mosque Building in France and the Netherlands, Journal of Immigrant & Refugee Studies, 10:3, 279 – 298.

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Jakobsen, J. R. / Pelligrini, A. (2008), Secularisms, Durham: Duke University Press Books. Koenig, M. (2007), Europeanising the governance of religious diversity. An institutionalist account of Muslim struggles for public recognition, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, Vol. 33, No. 6, August. Koopmans, R. / Staham, P. / Giugni, M. / Passy, F. (2005), Contested citizenship: Immigration and cultural diversity in Europe, Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. Kuru, A. (2009), Secularism and state policies toward Religion. The United States, France and Turkey, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lappegard, S. (1994), Death in the rural villages. A historical account. Døden p” bygda. Eit historisk tilbakeblikk, in: Aagedal, O. (ed.), Døden p” norsk, Oslo: ad Notam Gyldendal. Leirvik, O. (2007), Religious plurality, plurality, conflict and dialogue in Norway. Religionspluralisme. Mangfold, konflikt og dialog I Norge,Oalo: Pax Forlag A/S. Maussen, M. (2009). Constructing mosques. The governance of Islam in France and the Netherlands (Unpublished PhD dissertation), Amsterdam: Amsterdam School for Social Science Research. Maussen, M. (2012), Pillarization and Islam: Church–state traditions and Muslim claims for recognition in the Netherlands, Comparative European Politics, 10(3), 337 – 353. Molland, E. (1979), Norway’s church-history in the 19th century. Norge kirkeshistorie I det 19. ”rhundre. B II Oslo 1979. Monsma, S. / Soper, C. (1997), The challenge of pluralism, church and state in five democracies. Lanham, MD / New York, NY: Rowman & Littlefield. Næss, H. E.(1987), Governance of the people in city and village: Norwegian municipalities throughout 150 years. Folkestyre i by og bygd : norske kommuner gjennom 150 ”r, Oslo : Universitetsforlaget Oftestad, B. / Rasmussen, T. / Schumacher, J. (1991) Norwegian Church-history. Norsk Kirkehistorie, Oslo: Universitetsforlaget Plesner, I. T. / Døving, C. A. (ed.) (2009), Life-rituals, religious and life stance political challenges in Norway. Livsfaseriter. Religions- og livssynspolitiske utforderinger I Norge. Oslo: Samarbeidsr”det for tros- og livssynssamfunn. Raustøl, T. (1993), Charting and analysis of the hearings from the church-law committee- NOU 1989: a work note. Kartlegging og analyse av høringsuttalelsene fra Kirkelovutvalget- NOU 1989 – 7: et arbeidsnotat. Stepan, A. (2011), The Multiple Secularisms of Modern Democratic and NonDemocratic Regimes, in: Calhoun, C. / Juergensmeyer, M. / Van Antwerpen, J. (ed.) Rethinking Secularism, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 114 – 144. Thorkildsen, D. (2012), The Role of Church in contemporary Norway : Changed Relations between State and Church. Kirchliche Zeitgeschihte, No 2. Warner, M. / Vanantwerpen, J. / Calhoun, C. (ed.) (2010), Varieties of Secularism in a secular age, Harvard University Press.

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Public documents Innst.S.nr.46 (1995 – 1996) Instilling fr” kyrke-, utdannings-og forskningskomiteen om 1) lov om den norske kyrke (kyrkelova) og 2) lov om kyrkegardar, kremasjon og gravferd (gravferdslova). Innst. S. nr. 393 L (2010 – 2011) Innstilling fra kirke-, utdannings- og forskningskomiteen om endringer i gravferdsloven og enkelte andre lover. LOV 1996 – 06 – 07 nr. 31: Lov om Den norske kirke (kirkeloven) LOV 1996 – 06 – 07 nr 32: Lov om gravplasser, kremasjon og gravferd (gravferdsloven). NOU 1975:30 Stat og kirke. Kirke- og undervisningsdepartementet. NOU 1989:7 Den lokale kirkes ordning. Kirke- og undervisningsdepartementet NOU 2006: 2. Staten og Den norske kirke. Kultur og kirkedepartementet. NOU 2013: 1 Det livssyns”pne samfunn En helhetlig tros- og livssynspolitikk. Kulturdepartementet. Ot.prp. nr. 64 (1994 – 95). 1. Om lov om Den norske kirke (kirkeloven) 2. Om lov om kirkeg”rder, kremasjon og gravferd (gravferdsloven). Kirke-,utdannings- og forskningsdepartementet. Prop. 81 L (2010 – 2011). Proposisjon til Stortinget (forslag til lovvedtak). Endringer i gravferdsloven og enkelte andre lover. Fornyings-, administrasjons- og kirkedepartementet. St. meld.nr. 17. 1996 – 97. Om innvandring og det flerkulturelle Norge. Oslo. St. meld.nr. 17. 2007 – 2008 Staten og den Norske Kirke. Oslo. Hamar Arbeiderblad, April 7 2009, nr 82. Monica Søberg, “Will bless each grave before burying”. Vil viksle hver grav før begravelse. Hamar Arbeidersblad, December 29, 2012. Nr. 303. Jo Kjetil Heggelund, “Turned towards Mecca”. “Vendt mot Mekka.”

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Knut W. Ruyter

Space for Religion in Public Hospitals: Constructive Coexistence Can Be Negotiated

Abstract Public hospitals today attest to the variety of the secular. They offer space to religion by making it possible for patients to practice their religion while staying in hospital. Secular reason is meant to strengthen equal and integrative health, of which ‘belief ’ is counted as an essential element. The secular commitment to make religion available in hospitals runs counter to the main understanding of secularization as differentiation by separating secular and religious spheres from each other. The aim of the article is to show that the secular can interact with religion within the same space, also when religion is visibly present in material and metaphorical spaces. Due to traditions and memories of tight integration, we need to recognize the ambiguity of the presence of religion in public spaces. Religion needs to accept that it shares the space on secular premises (without dominance and as one of many), while the public hospital must be willing to make certain concessions and adjustments. Norwegian public hospitals show that it is possible to negotiate arrangements for affording space to religion. It is an example of learning and of accepting constructive coexistence within the same space.

The inclusion of religion in public hospitals It is true that religion never left public spaces in Norway, seen against the historical background of tight integration between church and state. It is also true that Norway is one of the most secularized countries in the world in terms of the decline of professed personal faith. In this context it is highly significant that in 2011 the largest public hospital in Norway made a commitment to include religion “to make it possible for the individual believer to practice his or her religion or outlook on life in contact with the hospital” (South-Eastern Norway Regional Health Authority : 2011a). This applies to patients as well as health personnel, not only accepting the visible presence and practice of different religions in a public space, but also actively negotiating and finding practical resolutions to how they can best be achieved. It is noteworthy that the reason for the commitment is not an acknowl-

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edgement of religion as a public servant, but rather of the concern and care for individual believers, especially from the plurality of minority populations belonging to religions or (Christian) denominations other than the Lutheran church. It was framed in a setting to strengthen equal and integrative health care for minority populations in the Greater Oslo area. The project for integrative health also included a section on “Belief and outlook on life”, not as a right or as a claim, but as a matter of care. I think it is fair to say that this would not have happened if the Lutheran church had not been integrated into the public space of the hospital through chapels and chaplaincies. This is not challenged, but taken for granted. Conscious of the fact that about 20 per cent of the population in Oslo adheres to religions and Christian denominations other than the Lutheran, it became a question of equality in respecting and servicing individuals of other persuasions. It meant that it had to be integrated visibly and concretely into a public service (see discussion on the practical solutions below).

Challenging secular theories that presuppose separation I think this way of integrating religion into a public space runs counter to and challenges one of the most common ways of analysing the relation between religion and state on the basis of secularization theories. In his seminal Public Religions in the Modern World, Jose Casanova (1994) presupposes that differentiation in a society is a matter of separating secular and religious spheres from each other (1994, 212). The differentiations occur in each of the spheres, but the dynamics of differentiation cannot – or should not – take place within the same sphere, such as a public hospital. He claims that established churches are incompatible with modern differentiated states and that “the fusion of the religious and political community is incompatible with the modern principles of citizenship” (1994, 213). The need for separation holds, I think, in contexts in which established churches claim dominance and authority as a public servant, as it has been in many predominantly Catholic countries. The need for separation has been much less in a Protestant context, despite the historically tight fusion and integration between church and state. One explanation is that the Lutheran church functions on secular premises, or as Charles Taylor opines in his A Secular Age, the Scandinavian churches are “so low-key and undemanding” that they are de facto separated from political structures (Taylor : 2007, 1). As with Casanova, this is viewed through Catholic lenses. It does not take note of the intertwinement of church and public space, in which the mission and the service of the church of Lutheran constitution are realized in the secular and by the secular, at times referred to as ‘hidden sacrality’. Regardless of this, Taylor’s analysis of secularity in public spaces as one option among many others fits well with the commitment of the

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Norwegian hospital to integrate religion into the public space, not only as one option among others, but also as a pluriformity of many individual options (among many religious persuasions) that become visible in public spaces. In interesting ways the integration of multiple options challenges the Lutheran understanding of hidden sacrality. Providing for religious options in public hospitals makes this hidden sacrality visible and opens it to public view.

Spatial analysis of hospitals In the following analysis I am indebted to the methodology developed by Kim Knott in her incisive The Location of Religion (2005), in which she applies the concept of space in the study of religion. She is not interested in specific religious sites or what makes them sacred, but rather in “contemporary everyday spaces in order to discern the location of religion within them” (1994, 2). I take it that such an everyday space can be a hospital. Although religion can be located as a material space (such as a hospital chapel), Knott’s analysis focuses on the spatial aspect, geared towards “dynamic relations” in which religious features interact with other features in common spaces. The interaction is coined metaphorically. I also share Knott’s insistence in analysing these matters as local particularities (Knott: 1998). As with Casanova and Taylor, there are highly developed metatheories and principles for secularity in liberal societies, but these do not always fit the particularities of a given location. The hospital is a case in point. Its location cannot be analysed universally without a given context. Finally, and since hospitals are only mentioned in passing in one article (Knott and Franks: 2007), I found it quite interesting and fruitful to use Knott’s devices to analyse the location of religion in public hospitals. I should acknowledge that the term shared space was coined by Ben Hamilton-Bailie in 2001 as an expression of common threads for traffic planning to reduce adverse impacts of traffic in towns and create ways of sharing of space for different uses and by different modes of movement (Hamilton-Bailie: 2001). Many new hospitals are designed as urban villages in which the planning of ‘traffic’ needs to create room for the same kind of sharing of space. When related to religion, the key analogy is not the principle of segregation (in traffic planning) or separation (cf. Casanova), but the idea of integration. To see the implications of this more clearly, I have also drawn on the approach of the British sociologist Tariq Modood, who argues that the politics of difference ought to be extended to include religious identities and organizations in public spaces (Modood 2007: 78). It does require adjustments on the part of the secular institution, and a willingness to “make pragmatic, case by case, negotiated” (not ideological) arrangements for sharing the same

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space (2007, 79). I will therefore explore the understanding of shared space, not only as material space but also as metaphorical space. In Modood’s terms of adjustment and negotiation it seems quite easy to recognize the ambiguity of sharing the same space and the necessity of dealing with uncertainty and unpredictability, as well as with controversy and conflict – much in the same way as shared space has been for traffic planning. It is somewhat surprising that ambiguity is not explicitly discussed in Knott’s spatial analysis, not even in an analysis of an English medical centre (Knott: 2007). The reason for this might be that she bases her analysis on harmonious premises of the religious and the secular as two sides of the same coin, whereby the analysis concentrates on breaking open the secular to discover “in what ways (secular values) are informed by religion” (2007). However, at the same time she acknowledges that places can be “sites of contestation” and “knowledge-power relations” which indirectly address the ambiguity of sharing space. Integrating religion into the location of public spheres needs to recognize the ambiguity of the endeavour – and the hard work it may entail in negotiating solutions that respect equality and difference as one option among many. It may never be overcome, because convictions, values and meanings will always challenge different understandings of secularity and religion, especially regarding the impact of religion and whatever concessions the secular must make to permit its presence. I cannot offer any general solution to ambiguity, but I can point to practices and initiatives within public hospitals in Norway in which secular public hospitals not only include religion in the location but also make a commitment to enable individual believers to practice their religion while in hospital. I will return to the challenges of shared space and its many ambiguities, but we cannot overlook the background of the location of religion with respect to hospitals. Historically, hospitals are very different from many other locations in two important respects. First, the Church created the hospital as a location; the material spaces as well as the metaphorical spatial underpinnings. Second, and specific to Norway, the integration of state and church from the 18th century established a symbiosis that also reflects the function and role of the church in the hospital as location. The symbiosis is less intertwined today, but it is still visible and taken for granted. These historical facts and characteristics – or what the Jesuit philosopher Michel de Certeau calls ‘spatial trajectories’ – “traverse and organize places” (1984, 115) and have implications for the feasibility of religion sharing secular spaces dependent on specific locations.

The spatial trajectories for the location of religion in hospitals The Christian church founded the very first hospitals in the 4th century. The American historian, Gary Ferngren, concludes: “The hospital was, in origin

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and conception, a distinctively Christian institution, rooted in Christian concepts of charity and philanthropy” (2009, 124). This does not mean that there were not other institutions that took care of the sick, such as military infirmaries, but none of them carried the distinct characteristic underpinnings of the hospital. These characteristics make up what Knott calls ‘metaphorical space’. The most important characteristics emphasized by Ferngren and others are presented below. The hospital was established in conjunction with a monastery or a church, with inpatient facilities. It was the community (not individuals) that took responsibility for caring for the sick by establishing and organising the activity. It was motivated by charity (“I was sick, and you visited me”), and the charity was not limited to one’s own (monks, Christians), but provided care for all (in need) as a service for public benefit (2009). Another distinctive feature was that this type of charitable work represented a dramatic departure from the then predominant view of sickness as punishment for sin and wrongdoing (2009, 142). It was the fact of suffering (likening the passion of Christ) that gave the sick person “a positive status” (2009, 143) which deserved compassion and care “to lend to God that mercy of which they stand in need at his hands” (quoting what Gregory of Nazianzius wrote of Basil) (2009, 143). In contrast to common practices of ostracism, the sick were included in the location as valued guests. Etymologically, hospital is derived from the Latin hospes, meaning strange) guest. In the architecture of early hospitals, it is interesting to see that the inpatient facilities also had cultic functions of reminding the worshipping community of the fate of suffering and of the call for care. Care of the sick was also motivated by an impetus for healing, but it is noteworthy that healing in terms of supernatural miracles did not play any role at all. A characteristic feature was that the hospitals incorporated secular medicine and physicians as part of the service offered to the sick. The hospitals did not employ healers, but professional (and secular) physicians. This attests to an interesting feature of integration in which a religious location invites the secular as a mutually supportive and integral actor in caring for the sick, though there were considerable shortcomings in practice. There is no doubt that the central issue was the ethical attitude towards care, in which secular medicine could serve a very important function. We do not know much about what the early buildings actually looked like, but architectural drawings of a monastery in St. Gallen in the 9th century have been preserved (Hecht: 1983, Jacobsen: 1992). They attest to the distinctive features of a hospital. They show various types of inpatient facilities for seriously ill patients, and a separate house for treatment of the sick, which mainly offered state-of-the-art techniques such as bloodletting (venesectio) and purgatives (laxatives). There was a separate house for the physicians, which included a section for the very sick patients and a pharmacy, adjacent to which was a garden where plants for herbal medicines were cultivated.

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The sick as the friends of God Along with Christianity, these distinctive institutions also spread to Norway from the 12th century onwards. Hospitals were built in all the major cities (Trondheim, Bergen, Stavanger, Oslo and Hamar), but one was also established in an Augustinian monastery in such a remote place as Halsnøy in Sunnhordaland in 1164 (Lange: 1847, Lid¦n: 1967, 7). All of these hospitals were small, but in some way or other they tended to people who were both sick and poor. There was a variety of hospitals, ranging from something resembling nursing homes to alms-houses and care facilities for lepers, where protecting the healthy was at least as important as caring for the sick outcasts (Nedkvitne: 1991, 228, Holck: 1974). There is no doubt that the sick and the poor were considered to be ‘the friends of God’ (as attested by, for example, the donation made by the king to the hospital for the poor in Trondheim in 1277) or considered as privileged guests for care and inclusion, as can be found in, for example, Franciscan spirituality. In practice, there were also hospitals that found caring for the sick to be a burden, sometimes even an unwelcome burden (Carlin: 1989, 25). Although there are examples of physicians being employed by hospitals, often recruited from abroad and bringing with them medical textbooks from Salerno and other well-known medical schools (Lange: 1847), physicians were in very short supply.

The tight integration of church and state in Norway from the 18th century The present location of public hospitals in Norway cannot be understood without understanding the basis for the tight integration between church and state following what has been coined “state pietism.” (Thorkildsen: 2010, 133).1 In its particular context in Denmark and Norway, pietism as a religious movement emphasized individual piety and moral improvement and was very influential in forming and implementing five specific social and moral reforms regarding: keeping of the Sabbath (1735); obligatory confirmation (1736); public education (1739); correctional facilities (1741); and the continuation of hospitals (such as the founding statutes for the Hospital of Oslo, 1737). The main goal was to eradicate poverty, educate the commoners, improve morals, discipline the wayward, and care for the poor and sick, all under the main purpose of installing “the basis of faith and the way of salvation, order and 1 The term tight integration is taken from Thorkildsen.

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means, according to the Word of God and the true teaching of the Evangelical Church” as it is worded in the introduction to the Public Schools Act (Act relating to Public Schools: 1739). It was a highly ambitious moral and political project that made (and utilized) the church the vehicle and the location for all the reforms. There can be no doubt that the pastors were the most important (civil) servants of the state in these endeavours. Through its ministers, the church administered almost all the locations, and the state required that any public servant was “cathecized, examined and confirmed” by the church. When it came to confirmation, it was clear that the reforms included strong methods of discipline for those who did not concede. Anyone not confirmed could be placed in a correctional facility until they complied. The same fate could befall anyone taking part in unacceptable moral behaviour (such as vagrancy, begging, promiscuity or drunkenness). Parents, pastors, police and courts could ‘place’ people in a correctional facility for improvement and labour. This was bolstered by a little-known regulation regarding the Sabbath (1735), which required church attendance and prohibited lots of activities on Saturdays that could lead to immorality (such as theatres and bars). Lack of compliance could lead to fines, pillory or arrest (typically for two days, on bread and water). At the same time, this tight integration also attested to realistic and pragmatic compromises. A case in point was the way in which state pietism dealt with women who had children out of wedlock. Though heavy sanctions were imposed, it was commonplace to have the first child before marriage. Although a child was inscribed in the baptismal register as “illegitimate” (uægte), no fines or other sanctions were imposed if the alleged father promised marriage within a reasonable space of time. The fines were avoided by obtaining permission from a civil servant (a so-called slottsfogd (bailiff). Such instances were recorded in the margin of the registry as “m.sl.f.”(med tillatelse fra slottsfogden, by permission of the bailiff). When it comes to the hospitals, they confirmed some of the characteristics of the past yet were clearly integrated with the endeavour of state pietism. The differences are noteworthy in relation to the attempt for tight integration. It illustrates in a very concrete way John Witte’s emphasis on the need of the Reformation to encompass the reformation of law and the state as well (Witte: 2013, ms p. 3). State pietism was a highly ambitious and concrete endeavour to bring order to society and to social institutions. The founding statutes for hospitals were issued by the state. Hospitals were not necessarily integrated into an existing church. The church was, however, established within the location of the hospital, either as a separate parish or as an annex to a parochial church, and then with a chapel at the hospital. The board (of any hospital or poverty commission) usually consisted of civil servants as well as pastors or bishops. The manager of the hospital was almost always a minister. His duties were clearly listed in the founding statutes: “He shall supervise the care facilities

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daily, and on no day when he is healthy, shall he pass by without having visited both wards and ensure that everything is in order, clean and quiet, with prudent and cautious use of fire; that the members are agreeable, that those who can do something, work with their hands and are not idle; that on Sundays and days of sermon make sure that they do not neglect the worship services, when they are capable of getting up; that they participate in religious education as often as it is given, as well as offer morning and evening services at the right time and in a proper way ; he shall also supervise the employees that they do what is expected, and from the members hear whether the employees do their duties” (Regional State Archives in Oslo). Thus the founding statutes also ordered room for metaphorical space, including obligatory religious instruction every Sunday afternoon, worship services on Fridays and Sundays, and morning and evening prayer. It is also interesting to note that the founding statutes required that admittance to the hospital was for the deserving poor and sick, especially those that were admitted for longer periods of time. The founding statutes of 1737 stated that the undeserving poor (Ret gemene Folk) could not become hospitalslemmer (long-term patients) “even when they become old, sick or disabled.” They belonged in poorhouses and should be supported by the municipality (which usually meant the poverty commissions). The hospital was reserved for those who had been in someone’s service, had had a trade or business or had been good craftsmen or decent and respectable citizens who “without culpability had become poor ; they and their widows, when they become old, disabled or very feeble, can be admitted and taken care of for the rest of their lives” (Regional State Archives in Oslo). The hospital had detailed rules on sanctions for a number of breaches of proper conduct. Breaches of rules or lack of compliance gave reason for fines, but could also lead to dismissal and transfer to a correctional facility (Regional State Archives in Oslo.). This practice is also a clear break with the understanding of all poor people as God’s special friends. It was only the deserving poor (the honest, the humble, the blameless) that were admitted to the hospitals; the undeserving sick and poor received very little help, if any.

Loose integration allowing for difference and pluralism When we look at public hospitals in Norway today, there is no doubt that religion is located in the hospitals and is expressed in metaphorical spaces through practices that are deeply ingrained in people’s mentality when it comes to sickness and death. The tight integration is, however, replaced by a loose integration that allows for difference, while it might be claimed that the (welfare) state has taken over the fundamental characteristics of the pietistic ethos (Thorkildsen: 2010, 141) and has integrated them into the fabric (hidden

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sacrality) of public services. It would therefore be a mistake to think that this tight integration is of historical interest alone. The Church of Norway (which is still its official name, no less) is present in almost all public institutions in ways most of us (Norwegians) take for granted, from the armed forces, prisons and hospitals to the cemeteries. The judgement of such a legacy can of course vary substantially, but even historians sceptical about religion, such as Arnved Nedkvitne, must acknowledge that one of the important roots of solidarity with the poor and the sick is to be found “in the determined propaganda of the church through one thousand years” (Nedkvitne: 1991, 229). The chosen term ‘determined propaganda’ is ambiguous: on the one hand it underscores the effectiveness of the endeavour, while on the other hand it conveys power and unified regimentation on the part of the church. The biggest difference in the hospitals of today – apart of course from the progress of medical science and the wide availability of treatment – is that the church has lost its lead in the tight integration. Ministers no longer run hospitals, and the church has gradually lost its dominance and control – and therefore also its ability to discipline (Thorkildsen: 2010, 139). The unified regimentation belongs to the past, but there are at least three features that are of interest to the topic of secularisation. First, it seems that the state has taken over and integrated much of the pietistic ethos in its own expressions of values for the health care system. Second, all public hospitals have a chapel consecrated by the Church of Norway. Third, all public hospitals employ ministers ordained by the Church of Norway to provide pastoral ministry. With respect to Norway, we cannot really speak of any secularisation in terms of separation between state and church, but the tight integration has been replaced by a loose integration in which the state has incorporated the basics while at the same time taken the church location for granted, though adapting it to pluralism and allowing for interesting types of difference and pluralism.

Values in the Norwegian health care services Before providing a succinct example of this, I think it is important not to overlook state integration of the pietistic ethos with the metaphorical underpinnings of the existence and management of hospitals. The Ministry of Health’s report to the Norwegian Parliament titled Om verdiar for den norske helseteneste (On Values in the Norwegian Health Services) published in 2000 stated that it was of tantamount importance to keep and implement the values identified in the humanistic and Christian traditions. The issue was not to question continuation of the integration of these values, but rather to say that it was even more important today to preserve and emphasize such values in order to offset the trends towards organising hospitals as businesses and

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prioritising evidence-based medicine. The values presented carry the imprint of an acknowledged “Jewish-Christian tradition” though they are open to change and new interpretation (Ministry of Health: 2000). An entire chapter was devoted to promoting what is described as “values related to the inviolable human dignity, such as mercy, respect, equality, just prioritisation, compassion, especially for the vulnerable and weak and for assuring safety for those who are in the most dire circumstances,” only breaking with state pietism on the issue of distinguishing between the sick, stating that “any human person has the right to be respected for his integrity regardless of race, colour, language, religion, political convictions or opinions, national or social background, property, birth or other circumstances”. Nonetheless, only the Church of Norway may have a consecrated location in a public hospital, and no-one but ordained ministers of the Church of Norway may be employed by a hospital to provide pastoral services. But from loose integration follows also interesting adaptations.

An example of separated locations: Akershus University Hospital When Akershus University Hospital was under planning, an interesting solution was chosen. It contained a chapel consecrated by the Church of Norway as well as a livssynsrom, which in English is commonly referred to as a (non-denominational) multifaith room. However, the Norwegian word does not necessarily refer exclusively to religious faiths, and is meant to include any outlook on or philosophy of life. As the chaplain of the hospital said at the opening ceremony, the location was meant as “a room for all outlooks on life and all religions”. The hospital has provided certain facilities outside the room, such as facilities for ritual washing, while various religious organizations have donated items that are important for religious practice. For example, the Islamic Council donated e. g. copies of the Koran in different languages, prayer mats, and the like. In terms of pluralism, the statement by the chaplain implied that the Church of Norway was not part of all outlooks or all religions. Separate spaces seem to imply that all other outlooks on life represent something that can be added to the location of the presence of the Church of Norway but that cannot be integrated into it or replaced by a location for all, reflecting perhaps an understanding of multiculturalism as side-by-side integration. In public spaces other than hospitals, however, we find multifaith rooms that are for all, including the Church of Norway. An example of this can be found at Oslo Airport, though the only priest employed there is an ordained minister of the Church of Norway. In a recent empirical study on religion in Norway we find, I think, some of the reasons for deciding to establish a room in addition to the location of the

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Church of Norway chapel (Botvar and Schmidt: 2010). The explanation may lie in an extremely interesting incongruence between personal faith and church belonging. Although only a small percentage confess to a strong religious faith, and even fewer practice a religion on a regular basis (Norway enjoys a reputation as one of the most secularized countries in the world (2010, 93)), a large majority still chooses to belong to the Church of Norway. Within this large majority, the study shows that they accept not only the presence of the Church in public institutions, but also that of other religious entities. The particular basis for acceptance of the presence of the Church of Norway is that it does not dominate, control or condemn individuals, neither inside nor outside the Church. It is accepted as long as it functions on secular premises (2010, 92). Most people do not mind if a bishop of the Church of Norway participates in public discussions as long as he does not try to exert influence or pass judgement. The same is true of chaplains in hospitals. The presence and participation of religion is welcomed as an offer and a service of which people can avail themselves and, again, as long as it does not exert influence. Three out of four respondents in the study respect all religions, though there is growing scepticism about particular forms of visible religious presence in public spaces, be they hijabs in the schools, turbans in the armed forces, or the building of mosques. Though it cannot be read directly from the study, it seems to me that scepticism is fed by a wariness of the potential influence of these new expressions of religious presence, e. g. occasionally reported as moral policing by members of religious communities. Still Norwegians accept the presence of other religions in public spaces. As an example, it is interesting to note that almost 40 per cent of respondents would accept that employees in the public health care facilities wore clothing or symbols “which reflect their religious faith” (2010, 97). At the same time, and in contrast, it is interesting that most hospital chaplains look like ordinary health care workers. A tentative contention is that there is tolerance for having locations for religious expression in public spaces. The majority of respondents belonging to the Church of Norway uphold its privileged position of having its own location to which others may be added but may not replace. This can be seen as ‘natural’ solely on the basis of relative size. The add-on is an expression of tolerance of and respect for minority persuasions, though without relegating the Church of Norway’s dominant position. The condition in all circumstances, also for the dominant religion, is that religions are supposed to function on secular premises, i. e. without unified regiments or missionary zeal.

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The ordained Lutheran chaplain as a minister for all? The Lutheran chaplain is an integral part of a spatial practice for the entire location of the hospital, not only the chapel. The chaplain is not self-identified, but rather approved by the church and appointed by the hospital. The material space of the chaplain in the public hospital is undoubtedly a remnant of the past. Interestingly, it has hardly been contested, in contrast to, for example, the use of religious symbols in public functions such as judges, the armed forces or the police. Voices are occasionally heard arguing for the abolition of chaplaincy (for the sake of secularisation) or for the public to pay for chaplains from other denominations and religions (for the sake of equality). At the end of this section I will discuss a third option for shared space. But first I think it is worth analysing the metaphorical space of the Lutheran chaplain in order to see the radical changes that have taken place and that are taking place in the face of the growing plurality of patients. The chaplain is no longer the authority in assuring religious and moral regimens. Today chaplains are usually dressed in white garb that is indistinguishable from that worn by doctors and nurses. They very rarely wear any clerical attire or religious symbols such as a collar or a cross. The only privilege left is that the chaplains are the only ones permitted to light candles in a hospital (due to fire regulations). More interesting is the fact that the chaplain is the only person whose function applies across all spaces in the hospital. Apart from viewings and funerals, the main function is often coined as ‘pastoral care’ for the sick, but it seems that this care is not limited to one’s own ‘flock’ or even to patients. Independent of diagnosis and treatment, the chaplain offers something different: “a space that is different”, as chaplain Eileen Paus expressed it (Fonn: 2010, 23). I read this as a metaphorical space that has room for moral, existential and spiritual issues. In many respects the space is akin to conversation and therapy, and chaplains often function as therapists, without a religious word expressed. At the same time, chaplains have metaphorical tools that no one else may avail themselves of: blessings, prayers, candles, rituals, and sacraments. If nothing else, it can give a point of reference outside and above oneself, something to hold on to that might be therapeutic in itself or have therapeutic effects. The chaplains are also often acknowledged as resources by health personnel, and priests say that most of their referrals come from health personnel (2010, 25). Health personnel also avail themselves of the chaplain’s services when life becomes rough, not least in circumstances of serious illness or death. It seems that the chaplain is well respected across the board for representing a ‘different’ space. It is interesting to note that since clinical ethics committees were introduced in Norwegian hospitals in 1994, all of them have had a hospital chaplain as member. In many other countries this would be seen as a problem of representation and influence. In Norway the chaplain is no longer primarily

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considered as a religious authority in his own denomination, but as an expert in ethics and existential issues with good communicative skills and a wide knowledge of the organisation as a whole, independent of other parties and interests. It seems to me that they are especially respected for the fact that they have broad experience in dealing with issues that most others prefer to avoid, such as suffering and death. The perspective of representing a different space brings with it a challenging observation. Hospitals do not offer additional, different spaces for ministers from other religions, though they are accepted and called upon – by chaplains, staff or patients – to attend to members of their flock. In contrast, the Lutheran hospital chaplains are considered to be chaplains for all, regardless of faith and outlook on life. This applies to the chaplains themselves and for the expectations of staff and patients. If so, it is a noteworthy perspective of embracing integration. In the article I et annet rom (In a different room) (Fonn: 2010) a chaplain reflects over the wide metaphorical space of the chaplain in a hospital. He says that he is perceived as “the man of God” for all. When encountering people from different faiths, he says that he often offers to find a minister from their own religion. Most often, however, patients decline, saying that “Your God is also my God” (2010, 26). As long as it is a matter of providing a listening ear and a caring heart – in both existential and spiritual matters – there seems to be no problem. But the chaplain in this interview admits having problems with his own integrity when asked to perform specific religious prayers or rituals from other religions. For example: “if someone asks me to pray to Allah or Buddha, I withdraw politely. I must protect my own integrity” (2010). He also tells of how Catholics often ask for their own priests, but not all of them. Some of them ask for extreme unction from me. “Do you do it”, asks the journalist. “Yes, I do it my way” (2010.). I take the response to mean that he does not utilize the ritual but does something resembling it, which he personally can stand for. Again, this is a question of integrity, but in this context I read it more as a limitation on what a chaplain (from a particular denomination) can offer within a wide different metaphorical space. I had a similar experience while reviewing a case as a member of a clinical ethics committee. The hospital chaplain brought up a case in which she had been asked by a patient to dispel evil spirits to get rid of her stomach pain so that she could conceive a child with her new husband. The hospital chaplain was in doubt as to whether she should honour such a request and whether such things should be done in a hospital. The woman, who requested the exorcism was originally from Africa, was divorced and had four children. She had divorced due to abuse. She had remarried in Norway, and emphasized that she was a Christian and had also remarried a Christian man. She was referred to the hospital because she didn’t eat or drink due to stomach pain. She suffered from stomach pain during the first marriage, but it almost disappeared after the divorce, but now it had

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returned. She explained that she had no child with her present husband and had aborted several times. She was convinced that evil spirits had possessed her. These spirits destroyed her womb and prevented her from having more children. The patient was also convinced that her aunt had sent these evil spirits because she strongly disagreed with the divorce. According to her tradition, the first marriage was still valid. She expressed shame because she was married to two men and experienced that she had brought the condemnation of her forefathers over herself and the whole family. In her home country she knew that Christian missionary priests were helpful in driving out evil spirits. Most of the members supported exorcising the evil spirits, as a vehicle for resolving the underlying psychological problems embedded in a specific cultural context. The chaplain, however, was deeply concerned about her own integrity : “I cannot do something that is not grounded in my own theology and practice”. Like the other chaplain mentioned above, she offered to say a prayer, but in her own way. These few examples indicate that there are limits to what can be accommodated; at least when seen from the perspective of the ordained Lutheran ministers themselves. It seems that health personnel and patients will accept that a chaplain may serve as a general minister for all and may utilize prayers and rituals from other religions or outlooks on life when asked. It is readily acknowledged that chaplaincy in public hospitals is in ‘transition’, as Jonathan Swift puts it (Swift: 2009). As he sees it, the challenge for chaplains lies in developing a new role “permitting and embracing an assortment of spiritual and religious expressions” (2009, 4). I read the phrase ‘embracing an assortment” ‘as another way of saying an expansive service provided by a minister for all. Such a result would complete the transition. It is interesting to note, however, that the focus is limited to a testimony to the nature of spirituality. The bedrock is that the chaplain does not exert professional power, but retains the origin of faith and spirituality as part of healing and reconciliation to respond to the multifaceted spiritual needs “of all those estranged as well as those of other persuasions”. This requires the chaplain to be at the forefront of spiritual and existential expressions of the time, also for staff “for authentic experiences”. At best, a chaplain formed in this mold will be a bearer of religious aspects related to the existential and moral issues associated with curing and coping with illness and death. It is probably also a role that is highly compatible with the growing attention paid to religion and spirituality in medicine, as ‘elements’ that are important to well-being and even healing (there is a large body of literature in this field, including double-blind studies on the effects of intercessory prayer). It is also one of the reasons why hospital administrators will support chaplaincy as a spiritual service. In this lies, of course, the presupposition that spiritual services must ‘embrace’ the assortment of plurality of spiritual expressions and persuasions.

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In this context it is worth observing that chaplaincy have – to a lesser or greater extent – been and may become disengaged from the church. I have often heard chaplains discuss how their relationship with (and mandate from) the church is becoming increasingly more vague within a secular service and with widely encompassing services for all. The question of integrity in the cases above addresses this disengagement spot on. The question of integrity needs to be taken seriously, not only with regard to the chaplains, but also with regard to the material and metaphorical spaces for spiritual services in public hospitals. With the longstanding tradition of Lutheran pastoral services – and the privileges that go with it – it is tempting to include others in the same space and expand the assortment of religious services. But this is hardly a sustainable model, apart from situations of honoring individual requests. A more feasible way of integrating services for other persuasions in the different space is the initiative taken by the SouthEastern Norway Regional Health Authority.

Integration of a plurality of spiritual services in hospitals The initiative was launched in the fall of 2012. It was called Tro- og livssynsbetjening i sykehus. This is a catchy title in Norwegian, but hard to translate. It is meant to convey the idea that services are not limited to the plurality of religious faiths but also include secular outlooks on life, particularly humanist. The goal is to train people from various persuasions to offer spiritual/existential services to members of their own religious or humanist communities. In the context of this article it is interesting to see that the course is offered only to people from different persuasions outside the Church of Norway. Like Akershus University Hospital chapels, the services are meant to be offered in addition to the existing Lutheran chaplaincy. The initiative was taken by the hospital administration of Oslo University Hospital to meet the plurality of spiritual needs, and was based in the Section for Equal Health Care Services. Bente Mikkelsen, Director of South-Eastern Norway Regional Health Authority, said at the opening of the course that attention to religious and humanist issues was central for many people’s well being. The vision of the Health Authority is to create “good quality and equal health services for everyone who needs them, when they need them, regardless of age, place of residence, ethnic background, gender and financial means” (SouthEastern Norway Regional Health Authority : 2008). Though faith and life stances are not mentioned in the strategy, she stressed that religious and humanist services followed “naturally” from the vision. She commended the Lutheran chaplaincy but underlined that it appeared discriminatory in a setting in which about 20 per cent of the population in Oslo belonged to a wide plurality of other persuasions. To achieve equal services, it was therefore

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paramount that the plurality of others could be offered pastoral and existential services from persons of their own persuasion. The course was developed through cooperation between the hospital, the Council for Religious and Life Stance Communities (STL) and the Faculty of Theology at the University of Oslo. The faculty is the provider of the course. STL will invite persons among their own members. Participants may be religious leaders. The main focus is on dialogue, though performing rituals may also be a desired topic. The curriculum focuses on three areas: communication training and crisis management; faith and human values as resources in encounters with patients and contextual knowledge of hospital administration, Norwegian law (such as professional secrecy); and understanding of role. The hospital (not the faculty) will assess the participants’ suitability and invite them to join a resource team to ensure equality in spiritual and human value services for the plurality of patients outside the Lutheran church. The initiative is commendable. It should, however, be made clear that the solution presupposes and accepts the established order of Lutheran chaplaincy. Other chaplains from other persuasions (be they ordained or not in their own rite) are added to the existing order. It cannot be expected that the new resource should be able to offer the same quality of spiritual services to members of their flocks as that offered by the chaplains. The members of the resource team work on a voluntary basis with some kind of authorization from the hospital.

Multifaith chaplaincy service In the present situation, in which health care providers recognize the importance of the unique services of the chaplaincy and the voluntary spiritual services of different faiths and life stances, it might be timely to discuss and negotiate strategy and collaboration to improve and enhance these services. The purpose of the hospital trusts is to offer a service of spiritual care for all the patients, their careers and well as the staff and to be responsive to a variety of religions, faiths and life stances. In my view, the add-on strategy was a first important step on the way to acknowledging multifaith spiritual services, but it is unsatisfactory in the long run. It is also unsatisfactory to retain a traditional Lutheran chaplaincy as though nothing has happened, operating alongside other services yet unconnected to them. In this respect, Norway has much to learn from the National Health Service in the UK, which started reorganising and improving spiritual services in public hospitals more than ten years ago (NHS: 2003). It led to the establishment of one common, multifaith chaplaincy for each hospital. It has retained a large majority of Anglican priests, but the chaplaincy also recruits and employs chaplains from other faiths “in proportion to the

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religion or faiths of the local population”, with the authorization or permission from their own faith community (2003). In the local population of Greater Oslo this might be a (non-religious) humanist counsellor, a Catholic priest and a Muslim imam. The resource team (of volunteers) is located with the chaplaincy in order to facilitate collaboration and referrals. In all cases it requires specialist training of chaplains, and then the chaplaincy as such performs the tasks of supervision, training and, not least, enhancing knowledge of a range of religions and faiths (outreach) (2003). The challenges experienced by Norwegian Lutheran chaplains of being ministers for all become less acute in a common chaplaincy. The goal is to ensure that patients receive spiritual care appropriate to their beliefs, though chaplains ought to be prepared to offer services for beliefs other than their own if that is the expressed desire of the patient. One such resource is Human Rites, though it is limited to rites from Christian denominations (Ward: 1995). Some research also indicates that many people express spiritual beliefs and needs without any specific religious affiliation (King: 1999). It can of course be discussed whether this should be limited to pastoral care and ethical guidance or whether it should also encompass the performance of rites and rituals. If spiritual needs are to be taken seriously, it is important to find out what patients and staff need and expect in order for the chaplaincy – and the hospital – to plan accordingly and be able to respond to such needs. In order to be able to fulfil such a task, an important prerequisite for the chaplaincy would be the possibility for patients to register their religion or other belief or life stance affiliation. This is not done in Norway at present, due to concerns for privacy. In UK the opportunity to record religious affiliation was approved in 2009 (NHS: 2009).

Space for religious symbols, food and practices among health personnel and patients In the past few years the hospitals in the Greater Oslo area have become very conscious of the presence of a plurality of minority populations in the hospitals. A project was set up to strengthen equal and integrative health care for minority populations in the Greater Oslo area (South-Eastern Norway Regional Health Authority : 2011a). It focuses primarily on health issues, interpretation, prevention, recruitment, etc., but also includes a section on “Belief and outlook on life” in which it is clear that the hospitals will not only permit religious practices but will actively “make it possible for the individual believer to practice his or her religion or outlook on life in contact with the hospital” (2011a: 15). Inclusion in the material and the metaphorical space of the hospital takes not only the patients into account, but the health personnel,

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too. There is a clear acceptance of the use of hijab among health personnel, and even a project for the design of a professional new hijab. The first status report also lists the availability of halal food at one of the hospitals as a sign of an integrative service (South-Eastern Norway Regional Health Authority : 2011b). With regard to space, it is noteworthy that the hospitals will actively accommodate the needs of patients belonging to religions or outlooks other than the Lutheran or humanitarian to practice their faith. It is no longer a tacit requirement for the others to integrate into a given space; it is a conscious decision to permit new religious practices into hospital spaces that have had very strong secular pretensions. I think this can be seen as a significant change from considering religion as a purely private matter and as something neutral, irrelevant and bothersome in a public institution. When my father died about ten years ago and we as relatives expressed the desire to perform some religious rituals, we were politely told that “religion belongs in the basement” (meaning the mortuary). The possibility to practice religion becomes even more obvious when it comes to health personnel. The common – and tacit – understanding has been that religions (and religious views) should not be visible – or present or expressed – in relation to patients. It is considered a private matter. If a health worker were to ask a patient if she should pray for him or her, many would consider it unprofessional. If known, it would in all likelihood lead to a reprimand, if not suspension. Even if a patient asked a health worker to pray, I think very many would hesitate, because the secular mentality is embedded in the training of health personnel. In a publicized case from the UK, a nurse was suspended for having said the Lord’s Prayer for a patient. She was later reinstated. In this context the argument of the administration is noteworthy : “The delivery of spiritual care should only be provided by the hospital chaplaincy services”. The acceptance of using religious headscarves (such as the hijab) by employees in a public hospital cannot but make religion visible in a public space, even if (only) as presence in the material space. Anecdotal stories among Muslim nurses confirm the findings of Botvar and Schmidt (2010) that patients in hospitals and nursing homes accept headdress as a visible expression of religious affiliation. Muslim nurses confirm that in the instances when they have experienced rejection, this was due to colour or gender, not religion (Fonn and Hernæs: 2011). This case also concerns an integration of visible religious symbols in a public space. The challenge seems not to lie in the visibility of religious attire, but rather the religious practices that accompany them. For examples, hospitals have had to face the challenge of addressing issues of hygiene and the consequences of fasting. When such issues are only resolved on the basis of a fixed set of professional standards and procedures, they often end up in conflicts in which health personnel of different persuasions must accept the

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standard or find something else to do. In this case it seems that hospitals can make adjustments to integrate and create room for alternatives standards that fulfil requirements for hygienic standards and job performance. A good example is Oslo University Hospital, which designs and provides workplace hijabs that undergo the same washing regimes as other hospital clothing, thus avoiding the use of private clothing. Another example is the requirement for scrubbed-down, bare arms below the elbow in surgery, which for some Muslim physicians and nurses runs counter to prescribed modesty. Hospitals in the UK have designed “disposable over-sleeves, elasticated at the elbow and wrist” to avoid exposure of forearms while maintaining equivalent standards of hygiene (Department of Health: 2010). Oslo University Hospital has made a bold move for integrative health services that have substantial ramifications for the way in which religion is included in a public space. It also attests to a break with the common model of separation in favour of integrating difference within shared spaces. What is particularly interesting with difference is that secular humanitarian outlooks on life are also included and acknowledged – not in opposition to all other (religious) persuasions, but as one among many. The greatest challenge for this kind of integration of difference is that medical training of health personnel is lagging behind. Some studies show that the subject of religion is virtually non-existent on the curricula of all the professional health care programmes. In professional psychology educational programmes in Norway, for example. 93 per cent of the students reported that there was no focus on religion whatsoever in their studies. One third of the students even perceived the discipline as being disrespectful towards people with religious beliefs (Berggraf: 2009). Faculties of medicine have experienced difficulties in dealing with issues of modesty in the presence of both sexes when examining patients. In the case I know of, the administration required that students adapt and accept, because that was the way things were done here. Teachers have been more pragmatic and have, for example, allowed students to stay in the background and not involve them. None of these approaches seems satisfactory. As in the hospitals, the educational institutions need to set religion and outlooks on life on the curriculum and learn to integrate them into their teaching practice.

The need for religious sensibilities as part of the normative and spiritual basis of public hospitals The understanding of shared space for religion in a secular institution has received unexpected support from secular and liberal political philosophers in recent years. The most noteworthy among these is Jürgen Habermas, but also

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Peter Berkowitz communicates the same basic tenets. It is recognition – or an admission – that secularity and liberalism are not sufficient for achieving a good society. Making liberalism work, says Berkowitz, requires the renewal of “the old sources for cultivation of the necessary virtues” or the creation of new ones (Berkowitz: 1999). Habermas identifies similar (old) sources of compassion, values and motivation – almost exclusively from religious traditions –, which need to be recognized and preserved for a viable and good secular society. He asserts that, in the long term, the liberal state is dependent upon “mentalities” (Mentalitäten), which it cannot create and cultivate on the basis of its own resources (Habermas: 2005, 9). Without such (re)sources, secular societies are in danger of developing pathologies caused by freedom, power and money that squeeze and distort sensibilities. In an analysis of the work of Habermas, the Norwegian philosopher Arne Johan Vetlesen argues that Habermas not only modifies and changes his views on the place of religion in secular societies, but replaces it with a new one (Vetlesen: 2009). Expressed in the vocabulary used in this article, the new view not only includes religion in shared spaces, but can – and should – serve as a possible source of inspiration, motivation, meaning and values. Vetlesen is one of very few contributors to have analysed in depth the radical change in the writings of Habermas. Vetlesen emphasizes that Habermas in: Theorie des kommunikativen Handelns (1981), in contrast to Weber, presented an optimistic view of secularity. The secular society has a sufficient basis for subsistence for keeping and legitimising a good society on the grounds of a universal morality developed through discourse ethics and implemented in rights-based legislation (Vetlesen: 2009). More than twenty years later, in “Zwischen Naturalismus und Religion” (2005), Habermas reflected over the unexpected revitalization of religion in secular societies and implied that they may contribute to what is missing in the secular. Religiöse Überlieferungen leisten bis heute die Artikulation eines Bewusstseins von dem, was fehlt. Sie halten eine Sensibilität für Versagtes wach. Sie bewahren die Dimensionen unseres gesellschaftliches Rationalisierung abgründige Zerstörungen angerichtet haben, vor dem Vergessen. Warum sollten sie nicht immer noch verschlüsselte semantische Potentiale enthalten, die, wenn sie nur in begründende Rede verwandelt und ihres profanen Wahrheitsgehaltes entbunden würden, eine inspirierende Kraft entfalten können? (Habermas: 2005, 13).

The passage has no simple interpretation, but Vetlesen reads it as a conviction that secularized societies need religion and its potential as it is localized in religious traditions as sources of reconciliation, hope and compassion which go beyond the boundaries of each religion – and which also nonbelievers “need to go to and seek inspiration from” (Vetlesen: 2009, 213). It is not self-evident what the implication of shared space in hospitals would be. The sensibility for such sources of morality does, however, challenge the

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efficacy of rational new public management of hospitals with respect to the sensibilities of health personnel as well as the needs of patients. It encompasses the entire metaphorical space of hospitals, in which the current, tacit understanding is that religious sources must be translated into common, secular language in order to be communicable and valid. Only secular expressions and reasons count. What is new with the converted Habermas is that he, too, wants believers to be given the space to articulate their convictions in a religious language (Vetlesen: 2009, 213). The presupposition is, also in Habermas, that religious convictions do not – and must not – enjoy or be accorded an epistemic and morally privileged status. But this is also true of secular convictions; they are not a priori superior to religious convictions, though they have the advantage of being more rational and commonly available (2009, 213). With respect to hospitals, however, it could be argued that the source of a religious conviction is not only accepted as one among many nor relegated to the realm of inspiration, but is a basic source for the normative task of taking care of the sick that feeds on cultural and religious motivation and vocation. Habermas, in conversation with Cardinal Ratzinger, emphasized that secular institutions – and as such, public hospitals – needed to make an effort to address such sensibilities in a protective manner (Habermas and Ratzinger : 2005, 32, cf. Vetlesen: 2009, 220). This implies recognition of the need to preserve and even protect basic normative sensibilities in caring for the sick. It is noteworthy that Modood addresses the same point by underlying that inclusion of religion in public spaces “involves recognising the normative significance of religion” (2007, 79). He goes further than Habermas by suggesting institutional approaches for integration. In the context of this article it is interesting that he reintroduces “the historical accommodation between state and church as a basic model for negotiations in order to achieve consensual resolutions consistent with equality and justice” (2007, 79). This ‘model’ presupposes that public spaces can – and even should – be shared, and that it must consist of a form of ‘loose’ integration that is open to negotiation. It seems to me that the examples from Oslo University Hospital regarding chaplaincy and the presence of religious symbols, food and practices reflect the complicated negotiations of sharing the same space.

Shared Space: ambiguities, adjustments and negotiations The analysis of public hospitals in Norway challenges understandings of secularisation which presuppose that secular and religious spaces must be separated. This never took place in Norway, though integration of the secular and the religious has loosened significantly over the years, confirming Taylor’s impression of a low-key and undemanding religious presence. In the case of

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the Oslo University Hospital, however, it is neither the Lutheran Church nor any other religious community that asks for space; it is the public hospital that invites religions to be integrated into the location “to make it possible for the individual believer to practice his or her religion” while in hospital. It is noteworthy, of course that the primary motivation for doing so was to strengthen health care for minority populations. It does challenge the dominant, though low-key, position of the Lutheran Church, as is clearly evidenced in this article. At the same time, the integration of other religions makes religion visible in ways that are not customary in a Protestant setting of hidden sacrality. The invitation by the hospital brings with it many ambiguities, both for the hospital and for the religious communities. But as long as all the religious communities accept that they each represent one of many, and present themselves primarily for the individual believer, integration might be another viable understanding of secularity, to paraphrase the wording of Casanova. This requires willingness by all parties to make adjustments and to take part in negotiations, as Modood rightly emphasized. I hope this article shows that such negotiations and adjustments are possible, for the sake of the individual believer. It remains to see if public hospitals dare to utilize some of the moral and existential resources of the religions, not only for the sake of individuals, but also for the enterprises as a whole. It seems that new public management is not sufficient in itself to create and cultivate the moral and existential foundations and relations for good care and treatment. This could be the focus of a future spatial analysis — la Knott, in which focus is geared towards dynamic relations in which religious features interact with other features in common and shared spaces. Bibliography Berggraf, L. / Anderssen, N. / Johnsen, T.E. (2009), Er religion neglisjert i psykologutdanningen?, Tidsskrift for Norsk Psykologiforening 46: 9, 837 – 842. Berkowitz, P. (1999), Virtue and the Making of Modern Liberalism, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Botvar, P.K. / Schmidt, U. (ed.) (2010), Religion i dagens Norge. Mellom sekularisering og sakralisering. Oslo: Universitetsforlaget. Carlin, M. (1989), Medieval English hospitals, in: L. Granshaw / R. Porter (ed.), The Hospital in History, London: Routledge, 21 – 39. Casanova, J. (1994), Public Religions in the Modern World, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Certeau, M. De (1984), The Practice of Everyday Life, Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press.

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Department Of Health (UK) (2010), Uniforms and workwear : Guidance on uniform and workwear policies for NHS employers, London: The Crown. Appendix B Advice from Muslim Spiritual Care Provision in the NHS. Ferngren, G.B. (2009), Medicine and Health Care in Early Christianity, Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press. Fonn, M. (2010), I et annet rom, Sykepleien 9: 21 – 27. Fonn, M., Hernæs, N. (2011), Muslimske sykepleiere i Norge, Sykepleien 10: 30 – 39. Grankvist, R. (1982), Nidaros kirkes spital 700 ”r. Trondhjems hospital 1277 – 1977, Trondheim: F. Bruns Bokhandels forlag.. Habermas, J. (2005), Zwischen Naturalismus und Religion, Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp. Habermas, J., Ratzinger, J. (2005). Dialektik der Säkularisierung, Freiburg: Herder. Hamilton-Bailie, B. (2001). Home Zones: Reconciling People, Places and Transport, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Graduate School of Design. Hecht, K. (1983). Der St. Galler Klosterplan, Sigmaringen: Jan Thorbecke Verlag. Irgens, K.H., Irgens, L.M. (2000), St. Jørgens Hospital, ærbok, Fortidsminneforeningen, Norsk sykehusarkitektur, 59 – 76. Jacobsen, W. (1992), Der Klosterplan von St. Gallen und die karolingische Architektur, Berlin: Deutscher Verlag für Kunstwissenschaft Berlin, 1992. King, M., Spech, P., Thomas A. (1999), The effect of spiritual beliefs on outcome from illness. Social science and medicine 48, 1291 – 1299. Knott, K. (1998), Issues in the study of religions and locality, Method and Theory in the Study of Religion 10, 279 – 290. Knott, K. (2005), The Location of Religion: A Spatial Analysis, London: Equinox. Knott, K., Franks, M. (2007), Secular values and the location of religion: A spatial analysis of an English medical centre, Health & Place 13, 224 – 237. Lange, C.A. (1847), De norske klostres historie i middelalderen. Christiania, 1847. Lid¦n, H.-E. (1967), Halsnøy kloster. Leirvik: Sunnhordland Folkemuseum og Sogelag. Ministry Of Health (Norway) (2000). Om verdiar for den norske helseteneste. St.meld. nr. 26. www.regjeringen.no. Modood, T. (2007), Multiculturalism: A Civic Idea, Cambridge: Polity Press. Nedkvitne, A., Norseng, P.G. (1991), Oslo bys historie, vol. 1. Byen under Eikaberg fra byens oppkomst til 1536, Oslo: Cappelen. National Health Service (UK) (2003), Caring for the spirit. A strategy for the chaplaincy and spiritual health care workforce. www.nhs-chaplaincy-spiritualcare.org.uk [17. 01. 2013]. National Health Service (UK) (2009), National health service dataset for religious or other belief system affiliations. www.nhs-chaplaincy-spiritualcare.org.uk [18. 01. 2013]. Semmingsen, I. / Fischer, G. / Berg, A. (1939), Oslo hospitals historie, Oslo: Aschehoug. Regional State Archives In Oslo, Akershus stiftamt. Helsevesen, 2, 1776 – 1789.

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South-Eastern Norway Regional Health Authority (2008), Strategy document for the South-Eastern Norway Regional Health Authority. Strategic Development Plan 2009 – 2020. South-Eastern Norway Regional Health Authority (2011a), Styrking av likeverdig og integrerende helsetjeneste for minoritetsbefolkning i hovedstadsomr”de. Et samhandlingsprosjekt. Prosjektbeskrivelse. South-Eastern Norway Regional Health Authority. (2011b), Styrking av likeverdig og integrerende helsetjeneste for minoritetsbefolkning i Hovedstadsomr”det (2010 – 2012). Statusrapport. Swift, J. (2009), Hospital Chaplaincy in theTwenty-first Century : The Crisis of Spiritual Care on the NHS, Aldershot: Ashgate. Taylor, C. (2007), A Secular Age, Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. Thorkildsen, D. (2010), Lutherdom, vekkelse og nordiske velferdsstater, Tidsskrift for historie, 131 – 144. Vetlesen, A.J. (2009), Avfortrollingen av verden og spr”kliggjøringen av det sakrale. Om religionens gjenkomst i Habermas’ forfatterskap 1981 – 2005, in: A. Vetlesen, Frihetens forvandling. Essays og artikler 2002 – 2008, Oslo: Universitetsforlaget, 199 – 224. Ward, H. (1995), Human Rites: Resources for an Age of Change, London: Bloomsbury Witte, J. (2013), From Gospel to Law: The Lutheran Reformation and its Impact on Legal Culture, in: On the variety of the secular, T. Wyller et al. (ed.), xx.

Websites Act relating to Public Schools, 1739. www.fagsider.org/kirkehistorie/lover/ 1739_skole.htm [13. 5. 2011]

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Trygve Wyller

The Undocumented Embodied: Shaping the Space Where the Sacred and the Secular Intertwine

Abstract It is interesting that a new kind of intertwinement is emerging in Christian social practice based on Scandinavian Protestantism. This intertwinement highlights and challenges the distinction between the traditional sacred and the traditional secular. One of these cases comes from a project in Gothenburg, Sweden, where a powerful philanthropic organization cooperates with a local, Lutheran congregation. They unite to improve the general conditions of undocumented migrants in Southern Sweden. Once a week, the Lutheran church building is turned into a centre dealing with health and social issues. Voluntary professionals advise the hundreds of undocumented migrants on health, legal and social issues. In the context of this book, such a project illustrates the intertwinement between the secular and the sacred. What we have is a ‘contested space’ (Kim Knott) where outsiders become insiders, both politically and theologically. The spatial position of the excluded has been moved inside the classical church, making them insiders and constituting the profile of the project. This intertwinement leads to new interpretations of both sacred and secular.

Sans-papiers and the secular Intertwinement works both ways. That is the point in this article. The opening articles by Casanova, Knott and Witte in this book all point to a possible Nordic (or even: West-Nordic (Thorkildsen)) secularity. We have used the word ‘intertwinement’ (first launched by Lisbet Christoffersen) to interpret this kind of secularity. Most of the time, the interpretations argue that there is more ‘religion’ in the secular than expected; it is intertwined. Not so often, there are interpretations arguing that there is more secularity in religion than expected. Like Lisbet Christoffersen (above), I shall present a case connected to the contested issue of migrants. In my case the context is that of undocumented migrants. This context is obviously a contested political issue in all the Nordic countries, but the way it is discussed seems to indicate that it can also prove fruitful when discussing the intertwinement hypothesis. I am sure that the

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number of asylum-seekers and undocumented migrants is much larger in Southern European countries than in the Nordic countries, but the issue acquires a specific profile in Northern Europe, most probably due to the Protestant tradition. These are traditions (Witte and Christoffersen) which claim that there is only one law, and that is secular law. So when asylum-seekers and undocumented migrants approach the Protestant churches, the issues of secular law and theological position arise in very interesting ways. I will focus on the impact on theology and ecclesiology when the secular takes place (or better : space) in a church. One thing is the challenge for the thesis of secular law, or (post-) Lutheran law; another is the impact on church ethics and church profile. It must also be intertwined; in other words, it cannot be pure and sacred alone. There is secularity in the sacred, and that changes the core of what sacred means. It does not necessarily become less sacred because of that, but it may be sacred in a different way ; perhaps even more truly sacred, to be honest.

The case My specific case takes place in a church situated some 20 minutes’ drive outside Gothenburg, Sweden. The modest church building, designed not to stand out in any way from its surroundings in the immigrant-dominated commuter town, makes up part of the central square in the community. Around it you find the school, public offices, some restaurants and a supermarket. The congregation has had strong and decisive immigrant participation for many years, and this is the area where most (documented) immigrants have lived. Consequently, the Sunday services are significantly multicultural and multireligious. Its members come from Christian traditions, which are definitely not Lutheran or even Protestant, and my impression is that not only Christians participate: some are at least dressed according to typical Muslims traditions. According to the minister, there is currently strong support in the congregation for opening the doors to undocumented migrants and for cooperating with the philanthropic movement Rosengrenska Stiftelsen and the Red Cross. The initiative started when Rosengrenska project for undocumented migrants needed more space. The leader of Rosengrenska, who worked as a nurse in the community close to the actual congregation, asked the minister if he would let Rosengrenska use the church premises one evening a week. Rosengrenska is a network of professional health workers, lawyers, social workers, dentists, etc. Established more than 10 years ago, this network has organized a very efficient body of workers. Once a week at 18.00, this little

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army of volunteer professionals moves into the parish church, which serves as a very strong and ambitious centre fulfilling most of the needs of the sanspapiers.

Photo: Joakim Magnus Taraldsen, USIT, University of Oslo

This is the patient archive in Rosengrenska. It contains files on many thousands of ‘patients’. During the week it is kept locked in the organization’s office. On the weekday in question, the leader puts the books into two big plastic bags and drives to the church building together with a colleague, where it is used for the evening consultations before being returned to the office – again by two persons. The secret lives of the yet documented, undocumented. On their professionally designed website, Rosengrenska presents itself as follows: Rosengrenska is a non-profit, independent network consisting of medical staff that helps undocumented migrants. Individuals are assisted through our telephone hotline where they can get in contact with nursing staff within or outside of the normal health care system. Several times a year we send out invitations to our lectures. We collaborate with other non-profit organizations and since 2008 we cooperate with the Red Cross in Gothenburg.1

The vision is to establish a level of human dignity for the undocumented. Humanity-based reflection and practice is the foundation. Put briefly, the cooperation between the congregation and Rosengrenska is a good case to look for and interpret the intertwinement tendency that is focused on in this 1 On Rosengrenska: http://www3.rosengrenska.org/index1.htm

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book. What we have is a classic Lutheran congregation cooperating closely with a classic philanthropic organization. The cooperation takes place inside the Lutheran church in the centre of the community. It is both sacred (church/ congregation) and secular (the project). The question is: What kind of ‘postsecularity’ is this?

Using spatial theory for a discussion on the intertwined I think a spatial approach offers an important perspective for discussing the secular and the sacred character of the Rosengrenska project. According to Knott the embodied and the territory are two ways in which the sacred appears today : “Body and territory are formative for the notion of the ‘sacred’, that is, for marking off or setting apart things, places, and events” (Knott: 2005, 122). Knott’s reflection is important because it gives spatial and embodied perspectives a privileged position when it comes to discovering the sacred. I agree with Knott on the issue of embodiment and territory. Spaces might be seen as formative for profiling the sacred. But what kind of sacredness can one find in the Rosengrenska project? In my view, the paradoxical perspective is that the embodied space acquires a specific profile because the embodied is both sacred and secular at one and the same time. I follow Knott, but I think her theory should be expanded. The Protestant tradition presented by Witte in this book opens for a more precise interpretation of what the phenomenon, which Knott calls (with Habermas) ‘the post-secular’ is. Experiences of the secular are part of the phenomenon of the sacred. This is what I want to discuss in the final part of this article. First, however, we need some context. What is the ‘body and territory’ of Rosengrenska?

Life worlds in Rosengrenska The context In the following I shall present some glimpses into the practice of Rosengrenska. The leader allowed me to participate in the project as an observer. I took notes during the visits and summed up my impressions the same evening. During six visits over a period of 18 months (2011 – 2012) I also interviewed six volunteers in open exploratory dialogue. While my intention is not to write an empirical report on the project, in the context of this book, I found that the empirical part of the preliminary fieldwork and interviews offers an interesting illustration to the discussion on

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the secular and the sacred. I therefore find it justifiable to present some of the material in this connection. A project for the undocumented such as Rosengrenska is obviously faced with difficult ethical challenges. First of all, anonymity needs to be respected at all costs. The photos, which were taken with permission by the hospital, must never identify individuals, and interviews must be subject to informed consent. In spite of these restrictions, I still think that I can offer some relevant perspectives for further discussion. The history of Rosengrenska started in the early 1990s. Undocumented migrants have been arriving in Sweden for many years, and a group of experienced health workers initiated low-threshold consultations to offer them a basic quality of life. The connection to explicit church life is narrated as purely coincidental. One of the founders worked as a nurse in a northern suburb of Gothenburg, in the district with the largest immigrant population. The local minister became a colleague and friend in the course of her daily work. In the beginning, Rosengrenska held their consultations in other places around Gothenburg, but when their activities expanded, they needed more space. The nurse once suggested to the minister that perhaps the local church could be used, and that was how it began. The local minister had to convince the more conservative members of the community, but Rosengrenska soon became a secular practice, taking place in the sacred, church building. From then on, the purity of research on the sacred and the secular has been confronted. Today, Rosengrenska tries to generate public support in favour of undocumented migrants. They mainly do this in three ways: advocating, counselling and active help. The latter takes place weekly in the local parish church. Rosengrenska has a list of more than 100 professionals and students from the health care and legal professions. About forty of them work in the fluid organisation one evening a week. During the week, two to three of them work full-time advocating, counselling and preparing for the weekly sessions. The local minister and staff in the congregation are not themselves members of Rosengrenska, but they support and contribute to the project in many ways. First of all, they open their church and facilities to Rosengrenska for the weekly evening sessions. The minister, the deacon and other church staff are also active in collective Gothenburg church initiatives for migrants and refugees. Thirdly, individual staff members and volunteers from the congregation take part in the voluntary work. The free food and refreshments served in the cafeteria are the responsibility of the congregation and its volunteers. The weekly practical consultation sessions start around 17.00 in the afternoon. At this time, undocumented migrants arrive at the west entrance to the church to have their names registered in the consultations lists. The lists consist of professional medical doctors, psychiatrists, dentists, lawyers, physiotherapists, social workers, and nurses. There are also volunteers

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working with children’s groups, clothing, food, etc. The consultations start at 18.00 and last until 21.00. In the peak period, between 19.00 and 20.00, the building is full of people, especially the cafeteria in the centre of the building. The church building itself is not one of those churches designed with exterior aesthetics in mind, but rather for practicality. It is built of concrete, with the church room proper as the main room, decorated with brown wood and a modern symbolic altar. A door at the back of the room leads to the room used as a cafeteria or for congregational gatherings. There are several other small rooms on the same floor, used for various purposes by the congregation and in the weekly sessions by Rosengrenska for consultations, interviews, waiting rooms, cafeteria, etc. The building also has a basement and an upper floor, which are used for holding consultations. The volunteers, who wait with them until they are called, escort the undocumented to the different rooms.

The consultations The consultations at Rosengrenska are in one way very standard, yet in another way they are not standard at all. The professionals sit in their small, not particularly pleasant rooms, most of them behind a desk. The optician stands. But most opticians stand, so this is standard, too. What is not so standard is the context and the content of the consultations. This makes emotion and empathy distinctive elements in the consultations, ones that could not be omitted without losing the real life worlds in Rosengrenska. Nina, one of doctors, tells me that she is active in her Free Church congregation, but in Rosengrenska she does voluntary medical work. She listens to the client from Iraq through the interpreter speaking both Swedish and Iraqi fluently. The client has been heavily tortured in Iraq and has specific pains that need surgery. But the problem is that the regular Swedish health care system does not provide surgical treatment to the undocumented, except in life-threatening situations. But Nina does not consider the patient’s pains to be life-threatening, which would be the only reason for granting him permanent residence in Sweden, so she can only give him some medicine to relieve the pain. The Iraqi listens patiently. It is as if he knew the answers before he entered the room. Still, he talks with dedication and is not openly disappointed. He gives every sign of appreciating the dialogue. The doctor gives him a new appointment for consultation in a few weeks’ time. He thanks her and leaves the room with the interpreter. Downstairs he meets with friends and probably other members of his family and sits in the cafeteria for the remainder of the evening. This has not just been a consultation: it is also an important social space. The same goes for the consultation with the retired child psychiatrist

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Camilla. Camilla wanted to do something meaningful in her retirement, and works regularly as a volunteer for Rosengrenska. A woman from one of the Balkan countries comes because of depression. Her father and sister were shot in an honour killing and she was seriously injured in the process. Camilla has already had several consultations with the woman, so both Camilla and the patient agree that her situation was improving. She still has physical pains, but they are gradually diminishing. The mental situation, however, is not very convincing. Her eyes look very sad, and there is not much optimism in her appearance. Nevertheless, she obviously appreciates the consultation, which consisted more of a discussion of her situation and her plans for the immediate future than a therapy session. The work of the optician is, in this respect, easier. He belongs to a charitable organization of opticians who collect old glasses and travel to poor countries to give them to people that cannot afford to buy new ones. The optician has several boxes of glasses in his consultation room. The clients enter the room one by one, hoping to find some glasses that can improve their vision. Some clients have serious problems and have not been able to see for months. Others have various kinds of eye diseases and are coming for a preliminary consultation.

The signs of a religious context There are different levels of religious symbolism in Rosengrenska. One of them is the obvious one, related to the fact that the whole practice happens inside a church building. Another level is the more contingent one because of all the drawings, signs and other indications of congregational activities that take place in the rooms on Sundays and on other days during the week. A man sitting in the medical consultation room with his wife, who is suffering from cystitis, suddenly interrupts the dialogue and says: ‘Is the icon on the wall really Protestant? I did not think Protestants used icons.’ The doctor is confused, but looks at the wall and sees one of those icons that often decorate walls and desks in many Protestant parish rooms. The interruption obviously interrupts the professional context of a medical consultation, so the doctor remains silent and tries to return to giving advice and medication, but the husband goes on, smiling: ‘I am orthodox, and I like it.’ No more is said, but this is more than enough. The space changed from definitely secular to something else. The voluntary activities take place in rooms that are different from those in which the doctors, opticians and nurses normally work. I guess there are no icons in the state-run Sahlgrenska Hospital in downtown Gothenburg. The room used for optical consultations contains a cheap Eucharist reproduction and posters with all the letters to be read by the patients; not a common sight in professional consultation rooms elsewhere in Sweden. Signs and posters

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like these are all over the place, even if one does not notice them so much; the focus is on the clients and their contexts. The religious symbolism remains in the background, though highly visible, concrete reminders of a permanent ambiguity between the secular and the sacred There are two central rooms in the building, the cafeteria and the church room, which are connected by a small corridor and a door. The cafeteria is the room where people gather every day to eat or simply to meet. This happens throughout the week, not just during Rosengrenska sessions. At the weekly sessions, there is not very much explicit religious symbolism in the cafeteria, in fact the opposite. I see none, but much is implied. Lots of small, beautiful colour photographs hang on some of the walls. On closer inspection, they turn out to be portrait photographs of refugees, undocumented migrants and asylum-seekers. Many other church cafeterias have paintings of trivial religious symbols or photos of paintings of ‘holy’ church people, ministers, saints, popes, and bishops and the like. This is not the case in this cafeteria. But the photos of the refugees, etc. hang on more or less the same walls that were previously reserved for the holy people. The result is that the refugees have a very privileged position in this church, almost substituting the saints, etc. The cafeteria food is also part of the same ambiguous symbolism. The food offered is very simple. There is not much that is sacred about it. On the other hand, the minister once told me that Muslim organizations in the neighbourhood had recently offered to serve all the guests during Ramadan. All Muslims must serve their neighbours or fellow men during Ramadan, in gratitude for the strong contribution to refugees and undocumented in the area, the Muslim organizations wanted to acknowledge the church and their guests. The gift was supposed to be the serving of some special meals. And so the issue of food changed from trivial to highly symbolic. The church room itself is not part of the Rosengrenska project: no activities directly related to Rosengrenska take place there during the weekly evening sessions. But at some of the weekly sessions at which I was present, the children’s church choir was rehearsing or other church-related groups were holding activities in the room. And no matter which activity was going on, candles were burning all the time, in some spots lighting the central crucifix and some of the paintings. As already mentioned, the church room is connected to the cafeteria by one small corridor and a door. This door is not locked during the Rosengrenska sessions, and anyone may pass from the cafeteria to the church, and some do, both volunteers and clients alike. One interesting role of the church room in the Rosengrenska context relates to the plan for emergencies. Recently, all the leading volunteers gathered for a brief meeting ten minutes before the doors opened for the undocumented. The main focus for the meeting was to clarify the participants’ respective tasks during the evening. At the end of the meeting, the church minister, who was also attending the meeting, made a brief announcement about the emergency

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plan. In the event of fire, everyone had to go here and there. But another emergency involved the danger of neo-Nazis and related groups. If they entered the building, all the volunteers and undocumented had to proceed immediately to the church room and stay there. “We hope there is still enough respect for the church room, so that people staying there will be protected”, he says. The meeting reacts to this information with silence, the kind of silence that comes from an experience of seniority.

The monasterial hospital The activists in Rosengrenska and the volunteer professionals serving the project argue from a humanity rooted in the traditions of medicine. They do not argue on religious grounds, but refer instead to responsibility and commitment to humanity and the dignity of man. This is most apparent on Rosengrenska’s website, where references to human rights and UN initiatives for the undocumented are strong parts of their argument. This is also evident in all kinds of presentations and demonstrations prepared by Rosengrenska. It is the right to be taken care of in life-threatening situations that is at the top of their list. The human rights argument is also closely connected to the basic ethics of medicine and nursing, giving first priority to anyone whose life is in danger and then to anyone in need of basic medical attention, regardless of legal and contextual circumstances. The short narratives from Rosengrenska’s practices presented above also overwhelmingly confirm such positions. The optician is part of a global network committed to fulfilling the right to see; the doctors want to establish human rights-based medical justice, even to those without a passport. They respect the limits between what should be done from a medical perspective and what is possible to do. The doctors cannot cross these limits and claim that an undocumented patient is more seriously ill than he or she actually is. But they listen carefully and look for arguments that could strengthen the patient’s right to stay legally in Sweden, to move from undocumented to documented. The same goes for the nurses. They run the clinic, but they also provide medical care and advice and dispense medication. The health care service offered at Rosengrenska is not only aimed at individuals with life-threatening diseases: it also helps individuals with relatively trivial problems (spectacles that do not fit, less serious mental diseases, or physical and psychological conditions resulting from torture). Because the patients in Rosengrenska are undocumented and therefore have no ID, they cannot easily go to a normal medical centre in Sweden to have these problems treated. Rosengrenska therefore acts both ideologically and practically on what they consider are human rights-based grounds for providing medical and social care. Everyone has the right to medical and

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social care, regardless of legal status. This is the basic position of Rosengrenska, and this is the reason for keeping the activity secret. Swedish society and public authorities have decided that the undocumented must leave Sweden. Nonetheless, giving them medical aid means that human rights are taken seriously, even for the undocumented. So what we have in Rosengrenska, from the position of the leaders and most of the professionals, is an initiative based on what we could call ‘embodied humanitarian values’. But these embodied values are performed in a specific space, the Lutheran church. The minister is part of the project, as are members of the congregational staff. There are rituals within the church that are deeply committed to the Rosengrenska project. What kind of intertwinement is this? From a historical perspective, the Rosengrenska project is not so radical and new, it is more the returning of a very strong continuity. Some years ago I argued in favour of establishing an institution which I referred to as a ‘monasterial hospital’ (klosterhospital) (Wyller 2001). Before the Reformation, hospitals were often integrated parts of the monasteries. A classic example is the Ospedale dello Spirito Santo, which still exists today, near the Vatican in Rome. This hospital had one large rectangular room, divided in the middle by an altar, with the men’s ward and the women’s ward on either side. All the beds were situated so that s could see the altar from their beds. The church was a hospital was a church. This is the classical monasterial hospital, where the sacred rituals and spaces also explicitly included caring for the sick and the poor. It took place inside a church as part of the sacred. To use the vocabulary of this book, it was not a hidden, but rather an explicit sacred. The Lutheran Reformation was, from a theological perspective, an explicit negation of this model. The churches should not any longer provide care for the sick in order to achieve some religious merit. The churches should be spaces of the gospel, to receive grace and forgiveness. The sick should be treated by nurses and the doctors in other (secular) institutions, outside the churches, as a (sacred?) responsibility of secular society. There is a long and complicated history and interpretation of all the institutions of modernity that arise from Protestant theology and the countries of the Reformation. In this article this history would take us too far back in time. The important point is that the monasterial hospital should end. The sick were treated in one institution, religious individuals in another. This is the beginning of the famous differentiation and, very gradually, the beginning of the Scandinavian welfare state (Knudsen 1993). The modern version did not emerge before the mid-20th century, but historians today discuss how much the Reformation contributed to the founding of the welfare state. The principle of this model is that the public (first phase: the King; second phase: philanthropic institutions; third phase: public secular authorities) should take care of the sick and needy. And this has, with some exceptions, been the story in Scandinavia for almost a century now.

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From the point of view of theology, this model meant an intentional distinction between the sacred and the secular spatial institutions. The sacred in the church, the secular in the public, following the traditions spelt out in Witte’s article mentioned above. Nevertheless, the Rosengrenska project is taking place in a suburban Lutheran church that belongs more to the tradition of the monasterial hospital than to the rigid distinction between the two kingdoms. The historical specific is that the historical tradition of the monasterial hospital is now being practiced in a Lutheran, spatial context.

A new intertwinement The historical argument can neither explain nor interpret the intertwinement of secular and sacred in the Rosengrenska project in Gothenburg, but it is a model where we can see what is new in this project. What is not new is that the doctors, nurses and lawyers (the ‘nuns’ of the project) of Rosengrenska argue from a humanitarian position. The original nuns definitely argued from the position of Christian faith, the modern-day ‘nuns’ do not. They are humanitarians. But what remains is the space. The monasterial hospital was a church, and so is the building in which Rosengrenska conducts its activities. So what is new is not only that they argue secularly : what is new is that they argue secularly inside a church and inside a community. The concrete project for the undocumented is still a humanitarian project. This means that the spatial perspective is both significant and relevant. Rosengrenska/the congregation is clearly an example of what Kim Knott calls a ‘contested space’. The new, temporary, monasterial hospital is obviously contested from all kinds of perspectives: political, ethical and theological. It is a space that confirms Knott’s theory that contested spaces are where religion in postmodernity ‘happens’. In the historical argument above, I have shown that this monasterial hospital is really not new, but rather a revival of an age-old tradition. But one needs to be precise and careful in interpreting this revival. It still takes place in the context of Scandinavian Protestantism, dominated by the distinction between the two kingdoms, that of the gospel and that of the public. The space that has returned is the Catholic monasterial hospital, but it has done so in a humanitarian Protestant context.

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Conclusion So what is new is not that they argue ‘secularly’, but that they argue ‘secularly’ inside a church and inside a community. It is as if the monasterial hospital has been reestablished. What is new is that the hospital and the church have once again, after almost five centuries, been reunited. The welfare state, an institution for taking care of the sick and the needy, this proud Scandinavian invention, has failed. One needs to reestablish the monasterial hospital. This is the theological model being practised in the Rosengrenska project in the northern Gothenburg congregation. Such a conclusion opens for numerous questions. The most obvious one is connected to the intertwinement thesis in the introduction to this book. Is it adequate to call the reestablished monasterial hospital in Gothenburg for ‘a hidden sacred’? In a way, the answer could be affirmative. What happens is that the traditional public and secular moves into a church and takes place there. It is still secular, but the sacred context transforms it into the intertwined and hidden sacred. So, what has happened in this specific church is, in my view, the secular moving into the sacred and remaining secular inside one and the same space. All of a sudden, the spatial perspective becomes extremely significant. The Rosengrenska/church is clearly a ‘contested space’. The new, temporary, monasterial hospital is obviously contested from all kind of perspectives: political, ethical and theological. But one issue is indisputable. It is a space that confirms Knott’s theory that the contested spaces are where religion takes place in post-modernity. In the historical argument above, I have shown that this monasterial hospital is really not new, it is a revival of an old, very old, tradition. But one needs to be precise and careful in interpreting this revival. It is still taking place in the context of Scandinavian Protestantism, dominated by the distinction between the two Kingdoms: that of the gospel and that of politics. The space, which has returned, was once the Catholic monasterial hospital, but it returns in a dominant Protestant context. This context does not make public healthcare for the undocumented more sacred even though it takes place in a church. It is not done to achieve any kind of religious merit. The space is ‘protective’ (to use David Harvey’s term here), so that the secular can unfold undisturbed. My thesis, however, is that what changes in this new space, is the sacred itself. The sacred does not ‘happen’ because the public, secular work for the undocumented takes place inside a church, but because the sacred space opens itself to the secular in its midst. The whole congregation is dominated by opening itself to the undocumented. The sermons cannot be heard outside this context, the activities of the congregation aim to prepare and contribute to the project, the old religious paintings have been replaced by photos of the

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refugees and the undocumented etc. So, what we have here is that the traditional sacred renews itself by taking place in a space where secularity is so close and so influential. And so we have one more case of an intertwinement where the secular (the humanitarian and the philanthropic) happens in a context of explicit Christianity (the church and the congregation), the Protestant intertwined. In a Lutheran context, it is not the church itself that is sacred: it is the communication and the receiving of the Word of God. Here is God’s presence. Nevertheless, the church building is a consecrated building. By inviting Rosengrenska into the building, the church immediately becomes a contested space. This building, this consecrated building, houses both a religious community and a humanitarian and politically disputed project. The sacredness is highlighted by coexistence with the others, the undocumented, their embodied presence and their being part of the same territory. And so it is the territory that changes, it is nurtured and shaped by the humanitarian and the non-religious; some would call it the secular. It would be very misleading to call this profile a reduced and colonized territory. On the contrary, it is a territory that takes on the appearance of the space of intertwinement. It is this intertwined space that becomes the contested space.

Agamben and the compassionate usus politicus legis Lisbet Christoffersen (above) rightly concludes that Lutheran theology only recognizes one public law, the secular law, decided by parliament. In the reformed traditions, and in the more revivalist parts of the Lutheran traditions, one also has a third kind of law, the tertius usus legis. The third ‘use’ of the law, is meant to apply to Christians. Being converted to Christ, they are supposed to develop a specific behaviour and a specific lifestyle, showing the seriousness and the consequences of their faith. Classic Lutheran theology has, as Christoffersen explains, never accepted the tertius usus legis. There is only one law, the secular. However, I believe that we also need to rethink the content of what the usus politicus legis means, referring to Rosengrenska project discussed in this article. The situation for the undocumented in Sweden (and elsewhere) is that the police hunt them. Their stay in Sweden has been denied and they are to be returned, if captured. So it is strongly contested that the churches engage in favour of the undocumented. The critics claim, in a way convincingly, that congregations that give asylum to the undocumented introduce the usus tertius legis and a new ‘sacred’ law, above democratically decided public law. I think this interpretation is misleading. Rosengrenska in the Gothenburg church is not a usus tertius legis, it is a proposed alternative to the hegemonic

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usus politicus legis. The Gothenburg congregation presents a different kind of ’secularity’ from the one dominating in Swedish law. Rosengrenska opposes the present law by proclaiming another law, profiled by the humanitarian, embodied space happening in the congregation. This gives Rosengrenska an important political impact. Against this background, Giorgio Agamben’s (Agamben 2008) famous criticism of philanthropic practices for the undocumented needs correction. I think Agamben has an important point, but he also misses what happens inside the ‘contested space’ in Gothenburg. It is not only contested: it might finally be called compassionate. Agamben’s criticism is that the philanthropic movements participate in the brutality of what he calls the “state of exception”, the brutal exclusion of the undocumented from European territory. The humanitarians do the same as they criticize the regimes of doing; they take control of the bare life, the Zoe. The exclusion policy manifests itself by controlling every inch of the body. But Agamben claims that the philanthropists, even with their best intentions, do the same, controlling and caring for the body. From this perspective, Rosengrenska practices mentioned above, is a perfect illustration. This is a strong argument, but I still do not think it completely fits the practice in Gothenburg. The practice of Rosengrenska is not only controlling the bodies. It is something more than discipline. The project is a contested and an embodied space, and it is the message sent by this that gives the political impact of Rosengrenska its profile. The communicated experience of a new usus politicus legis in an unexpected space is what makes the political and theological impact of Rosengrenska so strong. The point is that it is not all kinds of obvious religious symbolism and practices that make Rosengrenska specific. On the contrary, it is the humanitarianism that constitutes the specificity of the usus politicus legis in this church. This is also the reason why Agamben overlooks the political impact of Rosengrenska. Taking the humanitarian into the church and transforming it into a space of a new usus politicus legis gives this contested space a specific content. I like to call this compassion. The communication of such compassion opens for a new and intertwined sacrality in the Protestant traditions.

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The spatial intertwined: the physiotherapist’s bench in the minister’s office Photo: Joakim Magnus Taraldsen, USIT, University of Oslo

Bibliography Agamben, Giorgio (1998) Homo Sacer. Sovereign Power and Bare Life, Stanford. Beneduce, Roberto (2008) “Undocumented bodies, burned identities: refugees, sans papiers”, Social Science Information 47: 505. Knott, Kim (2005). The Location of Religion. A Spatial Analysis. Equinox. Knudsen, Tim (1993) Den danske stat i Europa. Jurist - og Økonomforbundets Forlag. Sager, Maja (2011). Everyday Clandestinity. Experiences on the Margins of Citizenship and Migration Policies, Lund University. Wyller, Trygve (2001) “Mellom klosterhospital og hermeneutisk relasjon. En skisse av forholdet mellom deltaker og tilskuer i noen omsorgshistoriske perioder. In: K. Ruyter and A.J. Vetlesen (ed.) (2001) Omsorgens tvetydighet - egenart, røtter og praksis, p. 77 – 88, Gyldendal.

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P”l Ketil Botvar and Anders Sjöborg

A Comparative Study of the Relation Between Religion and Human Rights Among Young People

Abstract This chapter examines the impact of religion on the attitudes towards human rights among young people. More specifically, the attitudes towards the first generation of human rights are analysed, using data from a survey conducted among young people in Norway and Sweden. This data set is further compared with data from four other countries in north-western Europe, namely Belgium, (West-) Germany, England and Wales, and the Netherlands. Special attention is given to a comparison between young people defining themselves as Christian, Muslim and nonreligious. Data from representative population samples (ISSP 2004) in these countries are also utilised. The results suggest that, despite some detectable differences and after control for background variables and civil values, the impact of religion is rather limited. This proves to be true for all the countries involved in this study. This chapter interprets and discusses these findings and argues that since the first generation of human rights plays such a central role in Scandinavian public life, they function as some kind of cohesive values that also interpenetrate the value system among the young people defining themselves as Christian or Muslim. In this chapter we ask if human rights fulfil the criteria used to define civil religion. Are human rights the new civil religion in the Scandinavian countries?

Introduction In his book A Secular Age, Charles Taylor distinguishes between three types of secularity : 1) differentiation between religion and secular spheres; 2) decline in individual religiosity ; and 3) the new ‘conditions for belief ’ whereby every individual is aware that his/her belief is only one of several different options with no hegemonic status. The third type of secularity is characteristic of the situation in Northern Europe at the beginning of the twenty-first century. According to Taylor, this may lead to a situation of conflict over and fragmentation of the value basis for society, but it may also lead to the acceptance of plurality in the field of world views which then leads to a

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stronger effort to find a kind of common ground for public discourse in a time dominated by new public roles for religion (Taylor : 2007, 1 – 3, 15). Another scholar, Jos¦ Casanova (1994), claims that religion has been deprivatised and returned to the public sphere. According to Casanova (2003), when secularisation meets globalisation, this will lead to a resurgence of religion on the public stage. Some of this resurgence is due to immigration and new religions. If Casanova is right, a shift will take place in the role played by public religion in modern societies such as the Scandinavian ones. Casanova sees the fusion of the religious and the political as incompatible with the modern principle of citizenship. He concludes that only public religions at civil society level are consistent with modern universalistic principles (Casanova: 1994, 219). Changes in the religious landscape in recent decades have made the role of religion in the public sphere increasingly significant the topic of debate. This poses new questions concerning the relations between religion, politics and civic values. In his contribution in this volume, Casanova mentions ‘civil religion’ as an example of a form of public religion that is more closely related to the civic sphere than to the political sphere and therefore more compatible with modern pluralistic societies than public religions in the political sphere. The concept of civil religion was much debated among Scandinavian scholars of religion during the 1980s and early 90s (Gustafsson: 1981, 1991; Sundback: 1989; Riis: 1985; Repstad: 1995; Furseth: 1990) and in the past couple of years it has re-emerged and taken a new direction in the academic debate.

Scandinavian folk churches as civil religion The French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau was the first to refer to the concept of ‘civil religion’, but it was the American sociologist Robert Bellah who applied the concept to the contemporary situation in his article “Civil Religion in America”, from 1967. In this article, Bellah describes civil religion not as a state religion but rather as expressions that sacralise national values and turn them into a kind of religion. American civil religion becomes a common ground for all Americans: Jews, Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists and atheists. The god who is referred to in American civil religion is not a specific, narrow, nominational god, not even a Christian God, but a unifying god, the god-above-us-all god. According to Robert Bellah (1967), civil religion is “an institutionalized collection of sacred beliefs about the nation”. One of the core elements of American civil religion is the view that America has a special role in history, a destiny to spread freedom and justice around the globe. Several Scandinavian sociologists of religion have described the folk church culture as the Scandinavian counterpart to American civil religion (Sundback:

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2000, Gustafsson: 1991:159, Riis 1989, Aagedal: 2000). Their argument is that the folk churches fulfil the same functions as civil religion does in the United States. Gustafsson (2000:184) finds civil religion in a widespread understanding of the international role of the Nordic countries as small, peace-loving democratic countries with a strong sense of human rights. From this perspective, the Scandinavian countries are seen as realising a special mission in international society, as agents of human rights, peace and negotiations between other countries. There are two aspects of Bellah’s original reference to civil religion. The first of the defining elements for civil religion is that it is tolerant and inclusive. According to Bellah, one of the main functions of civil religion is to connect people across confessions and denominations. Then there is the critical-prophetic element, which is activated when people do not live up to the standard expected of a chosen people. This critical aspect is often forgotten, and we are left with a banal civil religion, a religious glorification of a nation (Repstad 2009: 200). One example of this is Norwegian politicians’ frequent references to Norway as a humanitarian superpower (Repstad 2009: 201). During the last couple of years the separation between church and state has extended to Scandinavia. Before the year 2000, the Scandinavian countries had rather similar state–church systems, as each country had a national church with special privileges granted by the state.1 But in 2000, Sweden took a step away from this model when it decided to formally separate the church from the state. In 2012, Norway followed suit, though not as extensively as in Sweden. The debate about separating church and state has also begun in Denmark. Until 2012, Article 2 of the Norwegian Constitution from 1814 stated: “The Evangelical-Lutheran religion remains the official religion of the State”. The new amendment states: “The fundamental values remain our Christian and humanist inheritance. This Constitution shall ensure democracy, the rule of law and human rights”. This is the first time that human rights are mentioned in the Constitution together with religion, and some Norwegian politicians want human rights to have an even more prominent place in the Constitution. In the debate on the new Constitution, human rights were seen by many as an equivalent to religion and a possible substitute for a reference to the Evangelical-Lutheran tradition. In Sweden as well, human rights are often referred to in key governance documents. One salient example is the national school curriculum, where important human rights are given a pivotal place in the fundamental values for the educational system. The above-mentioned legal amendments have been introduced in a situation where the majority position of the national churches is being questioned. In 2012, membership in the Church of Norway is around 75 per 1 This point could of course be nuanced by going deeper into the historical background of the two countries, as Dag Thorkildsen does in his chapter.

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cent in the country as a whole and only 58 per cent in the capital, Oslo. In Sweden, around 70 per cent are members of the Church of Sweden (Bromander : 2011:18). According to Bromander (2011:19), this figure will fall to 58 per cent for the country as a whole by 2019 if the current trend continues. The steady decline in membership figures is due to the immigration of people with other religions and the growth of ‘unchurched’ citizens, i. e. people who do not belong to any religious community. In light of the diminishing influence of the former state church, it is relevant to ask if the churches are still capable of fulfilling their former societal functions or if these have been taken over by others. The declining percentage of the population holding membership in the national churches is an argument against seeing them as a part of the phenomenon of civil religion. This development makes it relevant to ask if it is possible to find traces of civil religion outside the national churches. In recent studies of civil religion in Denmark, Margit Warburg argues for this position. Warburg has recently described several instances when God is called upon in connection with the fate of Denmark, which may take place relatively independently of the national church (Warburg: 2005a, 2005b, 2008, 2009). Warburg argues that a transcendent element is needed if we are to use the concept of civil religion. When exploring, the call for God is a central area of focus. In her studies on civil religion in Denmark, Warburg looks for references to God in speeches and songs used at national and local celebrations. In his studies of American civil religion, Bellah (1967) also traced civil religion in presidential speeches about God and the nation. Other researchers do not believe that a reference to God is required in order to use the concept of civil religion. According to Carin Laudrup (2009), the transcendent aspect is found in the ritualistic parts, the worship of the sacred nation and the way in which civil religion transcends everyday life and unites the past and the present. Instead of deriving its sacred symbols from historical Christianity, it derives its symbols from the ‘democratic faith’, from the ideas of pluralism, tolerance, cosmopolitanism, autonomy, and equality. Democracy in itself requires a leap of faith in human capacity for self-rule (Heyking: 2009). Scholars like Malachuk (2010) see human rights as a kind of religion in itself and introduce the concept ‘religion of humanity’. Human rights are related to religion in several ways. Some will argue that human rights are founded on religious thought in the first place (Stuart Mill). For many people their committment to human rights is based on a religious world view. Today, human rights are generally accepted by a majority of religious institutions, albeit often with some reservations. In an article by Mate-Toth Felecy (2009), the authors find traces of civil religion in the post-communist countries of Central and Eastern Europe in their survey data. They had to revise Bellah’s original concept in order “to refine the operationalization”. Their definition reflected the threefold functions of the integration of society : first, involving people in a common

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past and destiny, usually expressed in ceremonies and myths; second, legitimising a social order as well as common societal goals; and finally, mobilising society’s members to take upon themselves common tasks and responsibilities (Porsdam: 2012: 10). This represents a radical rewriting of the criteria formulated by Bellah, but in this chapter we will remain closer to the original concepts introduced by him but will try to use them on data material related to human rights. One can ask how the diminishing role of the majority church affects the role of human rights in these societies. In this article we will take a look at how young people in two Scandinavian countries – Norway and Sweden – view basic human rights and analyse the relationship between attitudes towards human rights on the one hand and religion – in a broad sense – on the other. We intend to investigate whether human rights fulfil a function similar to civil religion, particularly in these countries.

The empirical basis The authors of this chapter have taken part in a project studying attitudes towards human rights as political values. Studies in this project using data on Christian, Muslim and nonreligious youth in the Netherlands and data on Christian and nonreligious youth in Sweden indicated that the impact of religion on attitudes towards freedom of religion and freedom of speech was rather limited (Sjöborg: 2012, Ven and Ziebertz: 2012). Botvar and Sjöborg (2012) used data on young people in Norway and Sweden in the same project to explore if there were closer relations between religion and attitudes towards human rights in the private sphere than for attitudes towards human rights in the public sphere. Special attention was given to differences in this regard between Christians, Muslims and a group of nonreligious persons. The main findings was that while a closer relation could be seen between religion and attitudes in the private sphere than in the public sphere, there was no support for the assumption that this relationship is stronger in the Muslim subgroup. Such results certainly call for more research in order to further qualify previous findings. This review shows that while previous studies found some evidence of an impact of religion on political values, and in particular on attitudes towards different aspects of human rights, issues that need to be studied closer are: 1) comparisons between people of different religious traditions; 2) different aspects of human rights (where the first generation of human rights is of specific interest, as it is more fundamental and clearly distinctive); and 3) cross-country comparisons. The latter is of interest in identifying typical features in the Nordic societies.

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Our intention in this analysis is to discuss some of the criteria used to define civil religion, the first being the integrative function, i. e. that civil religion is capable of building bridges between various religious groups in society. The second is that civil religion contributes to the ‘sacralisation’ of a nation. Some scholars see this sacralisation of a nation as the transcendent element in civil religion. As a third criterion, other researchers require a reference to God or a concrete relation to a belief in a higher power before the concept of ‘civil religion’ can be applied. The data material in this study is not suited for deep analysis of the transcendent element in civil religion. We therefore have to limit our analysis to investigating the first two criteria presented here. We will test four hypotheses in this chapter : 1. Attitudes towards human rights are more supportive/positive in Norway and Sweden than in the other countries in the study. This may be related to the way human rights are related to the welfare system and are also seen as part of a national myth about these countries’ missions in the world. 2. The support for human rights is more or less equal between groups with different world views (Christian, Muslim, nonreligious). This tendency is more pronounced in Scandinavian countries than in others. This could be an indicator of human rights fulfilling one of Bellah’s criteria for human rights performing the role of a civil religion. 3. The impact of religiosity on attitudes of human rights is smaller in Norway and Sweden than in the other countries in the analysis. This would be another indicator of human rights fulfilling the criteria performing an integrative role as a common value basis in society. 4. Support for human rights goes together with a positive view on the nation and the way democracy functions at the national level. A positive relation between support for human rights on the one hand and belief in national democracy on the other is an indicator of the prophetic role of civil religion. Bearing the above hypotheses in mind, this chapter focuses on the relation between religion and political values expressed as attitudes towards human rights. We will examine whether religiosity, for Christian and Muslim subgroups respectively, has any impact on attitudes towards human rights and if there are differences between the two groups of countries in this regard. The expectation is that there are small differences in views on human rights between religious groups in the Scandinavian countries, at least smaller differences than in other Western European countries. Such findings can be seen as an indicator of human rights having an integrative function in these countries.

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Methods, materials, context and setting This article analyses empirical data from six countries: Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, the UK and Sweden. The main material consists of questionnaires answered in school by upper secondary school pupils (aged 17 to 19) living in metropolitan areas. The questionnaire was developed within the international research programme Human Rights and Religion (Van der Ven: 2010). It is important to point out that this particular study did not use a representative sample, but rather a strategic sampling method, so that subgroups of youth identifying themselves as Christian, Muslim or nonreligious could be reached. This gave us the opportunity to compare the role of religion in attitudes towards human rights within these three worldview groups. Another source has supplied data from representative population samples in the respective six countries. We have chosen to use data from the 2004 wave module of the International Social Survey Programme (ISSP), where the main topic was citizenship. An advantage of this particular survey for the present chapter is its focus on issues related to religion, human rights and attitudes towards national democracy in the future. The latter issue is related to the prophetic role of civil religion. In both studies, the one on young people and the one on the population as a whole, we look at religious identity as an independent variable. Attitudes towards human rights are seen as dependent variables in most of the empirical analysis. In the final analysis using the ISSP data, we look at the relationship between certain human rights attitudes on the one hand and belief in national democracy on the other. In this analysis, human rights attitudes are seen as independent variables and belief in national democracy as a dependent variable. In the analysis of young people, twelve statements on human rights reflecting six basic human rights were used. These are the first generation of human rights, or civil rights : freedom of lifestyle, freedom of religious speech, freedom of moral speech, freedom of assembly, freedom of the press and the right to privacy.2 For each of these rights, two statements were given 2 The particular items from the survey on human and religion were: [Freedom of life style]: 1. Our laws should protect a citizen’s right to live by any moral standard he/she chooses. 10. Any form of sexual relations between adults should be their individual choice. [Separation of state and church]: 2. In regard to euthanasia, politicians should decide irrespective of any religious leader’s will. 11. In regard to abortion, politicians should decide independent of religious leaders. [Freedom of religious speech]: 3. Making fun of religious people in cabarets is a legally protected right. 12. Making fun of atheists in public meetings is permissible. [Freedom of moral speech]: 4. The community’s moral standards should be critically debated in schools. 13. Children should be free to discuss all moral ideas and subjects in schools, no matter what. [Freedom of assembly]: 5. Minority groups should be allowed to use the town hall to hold protest meetings.14. A cabinet minister should allow his striking officials to meet in a ministerial building. [Freedom of the

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and the respondents were asked to answer to which degree they agreed with the respective statements, using a Likert scale. The value 1 indicated total disagreement with the statement, and the value 5 indicated total agreement. In this study, the independent variable concerning religion for the first part of the analysis was religious self-identification: Christians, Protestants, Anglicans, Catholics, Pentecostals, and respondents from other Christian traditions were coded as ‘Christian’; Muslims, Sunnis, Shias and respondents from other Muslim traditions were coded as ‘Muslim’; nonreligious respondents were coded as ‘Nonreligious’. Other alternatives, such as Buddhists, received values that were too low to be included in the analysis and were therefore omitted. For the second part of the analysis, a religiosity index was used as independent variables concerning religion, while the background control variables that were used were used gender [gender (male=0, female =1); political discussion at home (never=1, sometimes=2, often=3); parents’ level of education (ranging from 1 to 5, as a mean for both parents); and importance of politics (not important at all=1 very important=5)]. The religiosity indexes that were used, one for Christian religiosity and one for Muslim religiosity, were each constructed out of six items. For the Christian religiosity index, the items were: 1) Believes the Bible is the word of God; 2) Frequency of reading the Bible; 3) Sees Jesus as the son of God (scale composed of three items, the mean for the three items is used); 4) Participates in religious services; 5) Frequency of personal prayer ; and 6) Self-identification as Christian. The Muslim religiosity index was based on the following items: 1) Believes the Quran is the word of God; 2) Frequency of reading the Quran; 3) Sees Muhammad as God’s prophet (scale composed of three items, the mean for the three items is used); 4) Participates in religious services; 5) Frequency of personal prayer ; and 6) Self-identification as Muslim. These indexes range from 1 to 5. The mean for the Christian Religiosity Index was 2.09, standard deviation = .85. The mean for the Muslim Religiosity Index was 2.17, standard deviation = .98. Other independent variables used in the second part of the analysis were background variables such as gender (male=0, female =1); political discussion at home (1=never, 2=seldom, 3=often); and parents’ level of education (mother and father combined, 1=primary, 2=secondary, 3=tertiary). In the first part of the analysis, comparison of means (ANOVA) was the main analytic tool, while post-hoc analysis (Scheff¦) was used to discern significant inter-group differences. Only differences with at least a 5 % level of significance were accepted. In the second part of the analysis, multiple regression analysis was used to investigate the impact of religiosity while controlling for other relevant variables. To further examine the hypotheses press]: 6. Newspaper columnists should be free to express radical convictions.15. TV journalists with radical ideas have a civil right to employment. [Right to privacy]:

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in this article, the Christian Religiosity Index and the Muslim Religiosity Index were added to an initial model consisting of background variables, using the forced entry method.

Study of young people. Part I: The religiosity of three subgroups First the Christian, Muslim and Nonreligious categories were compared in terms of their religiosity. These groups were derived from the selfidentification of the respondents. We chose to compare these groups in terms of frequency of reading the Bible or the Quran, regular prayer, regular service participation, religious saliency and view on Jesus and Muhammad respectively. Table 1 shows that the Christian youth in Norway/Sweden read the Bible more frequently than the Christian youth in Belgium/Germany/the Netherlands and UK. There was a similar difference when it came to reading the Quran, where the Norwegian/Swedish Muslims did this more frequently than in the other four countries. One possible explanation for this could be the Protestant or pietistic culture in the two Scandinavian countries, which may also affect the religious behaviour of the youth. Service participation is higher among the Muslim youth in BE/DE/NL and the UK, while participation among Christian youth is higher in the two Scandinavian countries. A similar pattern applies to prayer, where Muslims in BE/DE/NL and the UK pray more frequently than in the two Scandinavian countries, and the Christian youth in the Scandinavian countries pray more frequently than in the other countries. As expected, the two statements on traditional Christian and Muslim views or beliefs about Jesus and Muhammad respectively distinguished between the groups in terms of religious selfdefinition. The Christian youth, regardless of region, agreed to a larger extent with the statement that Jesus was the son of God, while the Muslim youth, regardless of region, agreed to a larger extent with the statement that Muhammad was God’s prophet. It is also clear from Table 1 that nonreligious self-identification worked well in the sense that the respondents in this group were not religious according to the indicators used here.

Study of young people. Part II: Attitudes towards human rights and religious self-definition in two regions Table 2 provides a comparison of the attitudes of Christian, Muslim and nonreligious youth in the two examined regions, Belgium, Germany, the

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Table 1. Religious activity and views in two regions. Means for three groups of religious self-definition compared (scales 1 – 5) Means

BE, NL, DE, UK

NO, SE

Christian Muslim NonChristian Muslim Nonreligious religious Reading Bible

1.58

1.26

1.11

2.23

1.43

1.08

Reading Quran

1.05

3.33

1.02

1.09

3.49

1.05

Rel. participation

2.32

3.23

1.37

2.53

2.67

1.29

Praying

2.25

3.67

1.19

2.52

3.31

1.15

Religious saliency

2.59

4.11

1.87

3.14

4.07

1.68

Jesus God’s son

3.02

1.95

1.75

3.47

2.04

1.53

Muhammad God’s prophet

2.40

4.63

1.75

2.02

4.32

1.55

Netherlands and the UK on the one hand, and Norway and Sweden on the other. Table 2 indicates that different human rights seem to matter more in the two compared regions. Freedom of lifestyle scores higher in Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands and the UK (with a few exceptions). However, freedom of religious speech has higher means in the two Scandinavian countries. Freedom of assembly is seen as more important in Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands and the UK. What is more striking, however, is that religious selfdefinition seems to bring out salient differences among youth more frequently in Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands and the UK than in the two Scandinavian countries. The intragroup comparison between Christian, Muslim and nonreligious youth in Norway and Sweden indicates significant differences in only eight out of 36 possible cases. Among the youth from Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands, and the UK, this occurred in 25 of 36 comparisons. Notably in the Scandinavian sample, this concerned freedom of assembly and freedom of moral speech. When it came to freedom of assembly, the possibility of minority groups to use the town hall for protest meetings, the Muslim group (3.56) was more positive to this than were the Christian (3.01) and nonreligious (2.71) groups. As for the right to strike, Muslims were more positive (3.29) than Christians (3.03) and the nonreligious (2.96). For freedom of moral speech, there were significant differences between the religious groups in the Scandinavian data. The Christian (3.44) and the Muslim (3.43) groups were more positive towards critically discussing the community’s moral standards in school compared to the nonreligious (3.23) groups.

© 2014, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525604496 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647604497

3.48 1.18

Any form of sexual relations between adults should be their in- 3.91 1.04 dividual choice

© 2014, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525604496 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647604497

2.98 1.21

In regard to abortion politicians should take decisions independently of religious leaders

3.27 1.12

3.14 1.19

In regard to euthanasia politicians should decide irrespective of 3.28 1.03 any religious leaders will

Separation church/state

4.06 1.01

3.61 1.01

Our laws should protect a citizen’s right to live by any moral standard he, she chooses

Freedom of life style

Sd

Sd

3.62 1.22

3.55 1.19

4.03 1.13

3.66 1.13

M

Sd

M

Sd

Sd

3.46 1.32 2.97 1.30 3.93 1.38

3.39 1.22 3.49 1.15 3.68 1.31

3.85 1.20 3.55 1.24 4.04 1.33

3.40 1.33 3.52 1.27 3.25 1.27

M

M

M

M

Sd

Non-religious (n=632 – 642)

NO, SE

Non-reliChristian Muslim gious Christian Muslim (n=1903 – (n=1074 – (n=1781 – (n=513 – (n=241 – 1917) 1098) 1795) 526) 252)

BE, NL, DE, UK

Table 2. Attitudes towards human rights in two regions (BE/DE/NL/UK and NO/SE) and three groups of religious self-definition. Comparison of means.

246 P”l Ketil Botvar and Anders Sjöborg

© 2014, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525604496 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647604497

Minority groups should be free to use the town hall to hold protest meetings

3.12 1.02

3.45 1.07

3.77 0.98

Children should be free to discuss all moral ideas and subjects in 3.81 0.93 schools, no matter what

Freedom of assembly

3.58 0.99

The community’s moral standards should be critically debated in 3.31 0.93 schools

Freedom of moral speech

2.36 1.32

Making fun of atheists in public meetings is permissible

2.37 1.12

2.56 1.37

Sd

Sd

3.15 1.08

3.96 0.95

3.39 1.11

2.42 1.33

3.17 1.27

M

Sd

M

Sd

Sd

3.01 1.18 3.56 1.08 2.71 1.23

3.78 1.04 3.54 1.19 3.75 1.26

3.44 1.00 3.43 1.07 3.23 1.19

2.64 1.31 2.62 1.26 2.60 1.46

3.01 1.24 3.02 1.30 2.97 1.40

M

M

M

M

Sd

Non-religious (n=632 – 642)

NO, SE

Non-reliChristian Muslim gious Christian Muslim (n=1903 – (n=1074 – (n=1781 – (n=513 – (n=241 – 1917) 1098) 1795) 526) 252)

BE, NL, DE, UK

Making fun of religious people in cabarets is a legally protected 2.84 1.17 right

Freedom of religious speech

Table 2 (Continued)

A Comparative Study

247

3.10 1.14

TV journalists with radical ideas have a civil right to employment 3.12 1.00

3.83 1.20 3.50 1.14

3.50 1.21

The police are only allowed to inspect peoples cars under strict 3.15 1.07 judicial conditions

Police searches of private homes without a search warrant are prohibited

Rights to privacy

2.93 1.23

3.17 1.09

Newspaper columnists should be free to express radical convictions

Freedom of press

3.35 0.95

Sd

Sd

© 2014, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525604496 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647604497

3.12 1.17

3.65 1.27

3.26 1.05

3.30 1.15

3.25 0.92

M

Sd

M

Sd

Sd

3.31 1.18 3.31 1.10 3.27 1.27

3.69 1.20 3.71 1.18 3.70 1.41

3.33 1.15 3.17 1.08 3.28 1.21

3.13 1.09 3.20 1.14 3.11 1.24

3.03 1.05 3.29 1.04 2.96 1.09

M

M

M

M

Sd

Non-religious (n=632 – 642)

NO, SE

Non-reliChristian Muslim gious Christian Muslim (n=1903 – (n=1074 – (n=1781 – (n=513 – (n=241 – 1917) 1098) 1795) 526) 252)

BE, NL, DE, UK

A cabinet minister should allow his striking officials to meet in a 3.11 0.87 ministerial building

Table 2 (Continued)

248 P”l Ketil Botvar and Anders Sjöborg

A Comparative Study

249

Muslims were less positive (3.54) than the Christians (3.78) and the nonreligious (3.75) towards the freedom of children to discuss moral ideas in school “no matter what”. It should, however, be noted that all groups were quite positive towards this statement. When comparing the rather modest but still intriguing outcome in the Scandinavian data, it can be said that there were some significant differences between the religious groups with respect to such key civil rights as freedom of moral speech and freedom of assembly. Nonetheless, it is interesting that religious self-definition seems to matter much more in Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands and the UK. One interesting finding is that Muslims in Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands and the UK were more negative towards freedom of religious speech and the statement on freedom for newspaper columnists to express radical convictions. These differences are not found in the Scandinavian data. The next step in the analysis is a multiple regression analysis. This helps us to examine whether the results from the comparison of means which indicated some differences between religious groups and regions hold true when controlling for background variables. The results of the multiple regression analyses are presented in Table 3. Table 3 demonstrates that the impact of religion is small, even if it is more frequently detectable in the sample from Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands and the UK than in the sample from Norway and Sweden. It also demonstrates that there is no support for the notion that Muslim religiosity is more negatively linked to human rights than Christian religiosity. The overall effect of the model (R2) was between .01 and .08, which means that the model explains at best eight per cent of the variance in attitudes towards human rights. This demonstrates that the apparent pattern from the first step of the analysis using a comparison of means between the groups of religious selfdefinition (Table 2) did not hold true when considering the control variables applied in the multiple regression analysis in Table 3. We will now summarise our findings up to this point: Even if the first step of the analysis, comparing means, suggested that in some cases Muslims would be more negative towards the first generation of human rights, this did not hold true when considering the control variables in the regression analysis. The often iterated assumption (cf. Huntington: 1993) that religiosity has a greater impact on the attitudes towards human rights among Muslims than among Christians, or that Muslims would be more negative towards human rights, was not confirmed by our data. Christian religiosity had as significant an impact. The first hypothesis stated that attitudes towards human rights were more positive in Norway and Sweden than in Belgium, Germany, the UK and the Netherlands. Furthermore, one hypothesis stated that the impact of religion on attitudes towards human rights is smaller in Norway and Sweden than in the countries with which they were compared, and this hypothesis was confirmed. The

© 2014, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525604496 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647604497

NO/SE

.02

.13**

Pol. conversation

Parents’ education

© 2014, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525604496 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647604497

Adjusted R

.03

.01

.04

* p