God After the Church Lost Control (Routledge New Critical Thinking in Religion, Theology and Biblical Studies) 9781032258706, 9781032306742, 9781003306207, 1032258705

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God After the Church Lost Control

This book combines insights from sociology of religion and theology to consider the fundamental changes that have taken place in how people think about God in contemporary Western society. It can be said that God has become irrelevant for many people, often as a result of well-grounded ethical critique of churches. Here the authors argue for the necessity of rethinking God-talk in a pluralist and changing context and for thinking critically about hegemonic ways of speaking about God from a moral and experiential perspective, not only from the point of view of abstract theology. Drawing on empirical material from a Norwegian setting, the book advocates a critical-constructive theology with a notion of God that takes human experience and social change seriously. It depicts a God who is an enabler of moral maturity rather than an authoritarian moral instructor, a God who is on the side of the marginalized and poor, and a challenge to unjust hierarchies. Jan-Olav Henriksen is Professor of Systematic Theology and Philosophy of Religion at the Norwegian School of Theology, Religion and Society (MF) in Oslo, Norway. Pål Repstad is Professor Emeritus in the Sociology of Religion at the University of Agder in Kristiansand, Norway.

Routledge New Critical Thinking in Religion, Theology and Biblical Studies

The Routledge New Critical Thinking in Religion, Theology and Biblical Studies series brings high quality research monograph publishing back into focus for authors, international libraries, and student, academic and research readers. This open-ended monograph series presents cutting-edge research from both established and new authors in the field. With specialist focus yet clear contextual presentation of contemporary research, books in the series take research into important new directions and open the field to new critical debate within the discipline, in areas of related study, and in key areas for contemporary society. Religion in Reason Metaphysics, Ethics, and Politics in Hent de Vries Edited by Tarek Dika and Martin Shuster Augustine and Contemporary Social Issues Edited by Paul L. Allen God After the Church Lost Control Sociological Analysis and Critical-Constructive Theology Jan-Olav Henriksen and Pål Repstad Religion and Intersex Perspectives from Science, Law, Culture, and Theology Stephanie A. Budwey Exploring Theological Paradoxes Cyril Orji African Churches Ministering ‘to and with’ Persons with Disabilities Perspectives from Zimbabwe Nomatter Sande For more information about this series, please visit: https://www.routledge. com/religion/series/RCRITREL

God After the Church Lost Control Sociological Analysis and CriticalConstructive Theology

Jan-Olav Henriksen and Pål Repstad

First published 2023 by Routledge 4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2023 Jan-Olav Henriksen and Pål Repstad The right of Jan-Olav Henriksen and Pål Repstad to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record has been requested for this book ISBN: 978-1-032-25870-6 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-032-30674-2 (pbk) ISBN: 978-1-003-30620-7 (ebk) DOI: 10.4324/9781003306207 Typeset in Sabon by Taylor & Francis Books

Contents

Introduction: Why this book?

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1 On God and change

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2 Religious trends in Northern Europe – an overview

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3 Does society shape God?

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4 The changing Christian God

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5 The crisis of theology – and why it matters for speaking about God

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6 The morally intolerable God – and the alternative

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7 The politically dangerous God – a God of love

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8 God as she? Why can’t she be?

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9 Pluralism challenges notions of God and religious truth

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10 When God becomes irrelevant to society’s challenges

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11 God as vulnerable love?

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Bibliography Subject index Name index

151 158 160

Introduction Why this book?

This book is about some of the reasons why images of God change and how they do it. However, it is also about how the conditions for thinking about and believing in God change, and how we need to critically ask how images of God are construed and what they contribute to society. Moreover, we also want to make critical suggestions against the backdrop of the more critical analyses we offer. To focus on images and conceptions of God is not an obvious task. For many in the Western world, religion, and its concomitant notions of God, represent remnants of the past. This fact notwithstanding, images of God still impact how people see themselves, the world, and religion – no matter if they believe or not. This is a fact even if we do not decide on whether there is a reality called “God” behind their beliefs, or lack of it. It is the images or notions of God that shape our perceptions, and decisions about God’s existence or nonexistence cannot alter that fact. We focus on notions of the Christian God, but without ignoring issues related to religious pluralism. Our empirical material stems mainly from Northern Europe, and it is possible that some of our problem formulations are primarily relevant to the role of Christianity in the Western world. On the other hand, the tension between Conservative Christianity and forms of Christianity more open to change is also a trait in many non-Western parts of the world, as shown in our discussions about liberation theology. Hence, elements in the following may also be of interest to readers who live elsewhere than in the Western sphere. As is outlined in the following chapters, several elements contribute to the change in how people think of and believe in God and how they practise their faith. One of the conditions for such change is the increasing religious plurality. The is no longer one exclusive, dominant, hegemonic image of God in Western societies, but several, which live side by side, sometimes competing, sometimes not. Hence, the Western world is marked increasingly by a plurality of seemingly changing, contingent, and sometimes unreconcilable ideas about God. Moreover, it seems as if people’s ideas of God change all the time. To think about such topics can be done with a basis in different scholarly disciplines. The authors represent several of these: Pål Repstad is a sociologist of religion with a keen interest in theology. Jan-Olav Henriksen is a philosopher of DOI: 10.4324/9781003306207-1

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Introduction

religion and theologian with a keen interest in the societal and cultural conditions of religion. The present book results from our conversations and cooperation over two decades, although it does not cover all we have been pondering about the topic. Although we have of course had some division of labor when writing this book, we have commented upon and rewritten each other’s drafts eagerly, and we both stand behind the book as a whole. It should be added that we have no intention of making a fusion of sociology and theology. For us, sociology is still a discipline following the rules of methodological atheism, treating religion as a social phenomenon.1 In this book, we do not understand “God” as an independent variable, explaining social practices and social change. It is a variable that depends on and is shaped by the societal context in various ways, as we hope to show. However, we also follow Berger’s classic text in underlining that a sociological approach is methodological, it is not substantially atheistic. Sociology is a partial perspective that may be supplemented by other perspectives, such as ethical, aesthetical, political – and even theological approaches. Sociology can say something about all kinds of religion, but it does not say everything about religion. Based on our many dialogues over the years we believe that conversations among different disciplines can be enriching for both theology and sociology. Sociology can give theological reflections and interpretations of the world, empirically based reminders, and even corrections, while theology, with its sensibility to normativity and the need for human orientation, can bring out into the open the implicit normativity which often colours seemingly innocent sociological descriptions. Moreover, the intersection of sociology and theology that we aim at developing in the following builds on the assumption that images and conceptions of God can be studied, analysed, discussed, criticized, and developed based on insights that exist and emerge within both disciplines. Contemporary theology that is not informed by empirical and scientific facts will soon find itself irrelevant and will have little to say about what matters most in peoples’ lives. Thus, that kind of theology may contribute to increased secularization. Furthermore, sociology that is open to the interplay between images of God that believers hold and their social conditions may have nuanced things to say about religion in society. The mutual exchange between the disciplines will benefit both. We mentioned that this book is a result of many conversations between the two of us over the years. We have of course also talked with other people about these matters. We would especially like to thank Linda Woodhead, sociologist and theologian, for conversations over the years that have been important to both of us, regarding both sociological analyses and theological challenges.

Note 1 Peter L. Berger, The Sacred Canopy (Garden City, NJ: Doubleday, 1967).

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On God and change

The dynamics behind believing in God today It has probably always been the case that people believe in God in different ways. However, tradition is not the only element that determines their beliefs. Presently, the changes in how people in the Western world understand and practise their beliefs in God are not only the result of the clergy or religious teachers (or theology professors) telling them to change their views and think otherwise. The societal context conditions how people understand and articulate their beliefs and the implications of these beliefs. Accordingly, how perceptions of God change are, at least to some extent, outside the control of those who hold positions of religious authority. The present book looks into how this is the case, and into ways in which religious beliefs in God are outside the control of established religious authorities. In a contemporary setting, the relationship between God and society is not without problems. The following list of topics suggests some challenges that believers will have to direct their attention to, given that they are interested in maintaining a mode of belief in God that aligns with what is required in a pluralistic Western society. Most of these features are discussed in more depth in the following chapters. These challenges make visible the entanglement of ideas of God with the contemporary complicated cultural and social situation. Among the profoundly problematic ideas in theology and religion are the following: a b

c d

That God is only God for some select group of people, nation, race, class, etc. That insight into what is right and good is stewarded by specific groups who have a textual source that can determine the decisions in these matters, and concomitantly, that holy scriptures can be seen as authoritative because they are “the word of God.” That some ways of ordering society are right simply because God ordains them. That one gender is more privileged than another because of God’s ordination, and that inequality between women and men can be justified theologically. DOI: 10.4324/9781003306207-2

4 e f g

On God and change That religious doctrine can and should ignore the experiences of those who are oppressed by them – in the name of God. That appeals to God can justify that some groups hold access to privileges to which others have not. That appeals to God can justify that one group can have authority over others.

There are reasons to underscore that the problem with these notions is not only that people hold them. The main problem is that they contribute to the legitimation of practices from which people suffer and which impede their chances for flourishing lives. Furthermore, they also contribute to the legitimation of which experiences people have that can count as religiously valid or not. Hence, a theology that shall contribute to how God still can matter positively in peoples’ lives needs to address these problems and offer alternatives that can legitimize other ways of practising belief. Given that belief in God is always mediated by the social and cultural context, the contemporary situation challenges the assumption that there is one obvious way of thinking about and understanding God that people can take for granted and which remains unchangeable. However, within a cultural framework that recognizes the contingent, changing, and socially conditioned character of everything we think, such assumptions need to be addressed insofar as they conceal some of the problematic and challenging dimensions of religion in contemporary society. Accordingly, this book is not primarily a theological book, although it is a book about religion and theology. That fact notwithstanding, we do make some theological proposals and considerations in what follows. However, no such proposals and considerations are separate from the culture and the society in which they exist. Although not every religious believer believes in God, God is very often at the centre of most people’s beliefs if they are religious, at least in the Western world.1 From a cultural and societal point of view, “God” is a potent symbol that provides orientation about identity, values, order, norms, and structure. Moreover, “God” can also be a symbol that inspires change and transformation – as we shall see in the following. Clusters of practices inspired by or based on orientation and transformation are internally linked to the society in which this symbol is engaged. This point should prevent anyone from thinking that we have access to any idea about who or what God is or could be apart from, or totally outside, the traditions and contexts in which belief in God expresses itself. The context has important implications concerning how we understand God, and further, concerning the importance of how conceptions of God must change.2 When we say “must change” here, it is because it seems impossible to address changes in beliefs in God without also engaging a normative dimension about what seems adequate, given context, challenges, and situations. Normativity cannot be established by mere references to the past. It is about how the past is used well. By taking the Christian tradition as an example, this point about contextual conditions can be illuminated easily. It is not possible to develop a conception

On God and change

5

of what can be called a Christian God without considering the resources given for such an understanding in the teachings of Jesus. In general, he talked about God in parables and images, not by using concepts. Many elements in what later became the theological understanding of God in the Christian tradition were only implicitly present in these teachings. Nevertheless, this fact does not rule out that the history of the Christian tradition can be seen as a continuous negotiation about how we are to understand this God in relation to and based on these parables’ content. The parables represent a point of reference that entails that the change of cultural conceptions for understanding should not be understood as an unqualified carte blanche to deliver any understanding of God whatsoever. Changes in the ideas about God are regulated in two ways: by the implications given in the concept as such (philosophically), and by the existing conceptions given in a certain context, tradition, and lifeworld (culturally). The dynamic relationship between these two ways means that the tradition may develop new conceptions of who God is, faced with given challenges, problems, or conditions for understanding. These new conceptions must be negotiated in light of what is given, both with regard to the (theological and philosophical) concept of God and other, already given culturally conditioned conceptions. The dynamics here mentioned are also reflected in the differences and tensions between academic theology and everyday religious reflection (which for some goes under the name everyday theology) that underlie many of the analyses in the following chapters.3 The present plurality of understandings of God is not regulated by one idea about what belief in God should contribute. Plurality is a virtue in this situation because it helps us explore possibilities for understanding and employing conceptions of God. It presents us with a good opportunity for making religion reflexive without reducing a priori the richness of resources that can enhance our conceptions of God. Living in a world where plurality is at the doorstep, one nevertheless cannot ignore that there are different, other ways of perceiving God and giving expression to one’s faith than the one immediately given in one’s own lifeworld. The challenge for the believer is to be aware of the necessity of the culturally contingent in one’s expressions of God on the one hand and to sustain the commitment to the God that is manifest in the tradition to which one belongs, on the other hand. It is crucial for thinking about theology and religion’s role in society that one becomes reflexive about its form as well as its content. This reflexivity can open up to the possible resources that religion has to offer to enrich human life.

On symbols of the sacred In every society, something is implicitly or explicitly presupposed as sacred. Even in the former Communist countries, that was the case. Generally speaking, in Western culture, and especially in the context of Christianity, perceptions of the sacred have always mostly been clustered around the symbol of

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On God and change

God, in one way or another. Not that this God is the only one that has been considered holy, though: one can with many warrants say that the symbol God also has provided for opportunities of experiencing something else as holy; be it elements in nature, a specific site or building (cathedrals are good examples), or even humans: When one speaks of human dignity with the notion “created in the image of God,” this way of speaking about the human is conditioned by a conception of God that allows the human to appear as worthy of a specific treatment or reverence. Thus, understanding someone as created in God’s image implies conditioning or prohibiting specific types of behaviour. Accordingly, the idea of God’s holiness “rubs off” and shapes people’s perception of others. The notion of every human as created in God’s image is among those theological notions that probably have had the most impact on modern discourse about democracy and equality. These considerations are meant to indicate that there is already some implicit link between a conception (or more formally, a symbol) of God and specific ways of ordering society. Society needs to deal with the holy in one way or another, as sociologists have noticed, at least since Durkheim.4 Because theological conceptions of the holy have an impact on how we perceive society, members of society use and engage symbols of the sacred to identify and mark specific elements of significance. These elements may be of constitutive importance for how society is perceived and ordered. Thus, looking into contemporary ways of doing theology may contribute to understanding how theology and society are related. The predominant perspective in the following is how “God” as a symbol containing different conceptions of what is sacred, valuable, or desirable, may reflect challenges and tasks that society needs to handle. To see God as a symbol allows us to address God from the point of view of both theology and sociology: Both deal with the conception of God and its impact on human lives. Even theology has to admit that it does not deal with God’s reality directly, but only with the symbols that allow people to deal with the ultimate reality in which they believe. However, whereas theology asks primarily about how these symbols allow people to articulate their convictions of the ultimate in their lives, sociology asks about the impact of these symbols on the construction of the societal order. If we understand God as sacred, the sacred may be understood as containing two different components: First, the sacred is separate from the ordinary, quotidian, everyday, common life (what usually is called the secular). Second, the sacred is that which is approached with reverence and in one way or another considered worthy of respect, or as “untouchable.” In both these traits is implicit an idea about a difference or a boundary; not everything is sacred. As a result, when “God” is understood as the utmost symbol for holiness, it means that God is that symbol from which we may see society from an angle that is not considered part of ordinary life. God as holy and the sacred transcends the everyday reality of society but is also “untouchable.” You do not mess with God – or with those who claim to have God on their side.

On God and change

7

Therefore, sacred symbols are not mere instruments for symbolizing some feeling or intention other than the symbol itself. They provide guiding principles for behaviours that may, on occasion, be criticized based on what kind of behaviour they lead to.5 Such symbols may also have some value in terms of their ability to mediate personal and communal transformation. Important for our purposes in this regard are two things: (a) Symbols guide behaviour that engages us in/with the world, and thus, they are in some way always referential. (b) As human ways of acting always imply behaviour in which we are already relating to “the exterior,” we cannot see any symbols as mere instruments for handling and mastering the world. They shape us and the world simultaneously. Such an understanding of symbols, including the symbol “God,” challenges us to also focus on the contexts where religious symbols appear in actual interpretations; the meaning of symbols is only accessible in a specific context where they are in use. *** Conceptions of God can be present in different forms of discourse. The content of the concept or image of God should be perceived as a candidate for being subjected to argumentation and discussion. Insights into the necessarily contingent character of human culture (including theology) challenge us to examine more in detail the various conceptions rooted in the lifeworld of believers. The very insight that an understanding of God is always given within a specific tradition points itself to a relative element in the understanding of God. If we are then to summarize the outcome of these initial considerations, it can be done by repeating a claim that has been in theology for centuries: the conviction that God is always greater than we can think or imagine: Deus semper major.

Notes 1 For some nuancing of the claim that God is at the centre for most religious people in the Western world, see Chapter 3 on “How important is God in everyday religion?” 2 This is an insight developed in much of what goes under the heading contextual theology. The existence of such theologies allows us to make the point that what we are doing in the present study is also a contribution to such theology, but it is also important for us to present reflections about the conditions and consequences of such theologies in a context described by sociological means. 3 The distinction between academic theology and everyday religious reflection is made to make visible how academic theology usually relates to standards and methods of discourse that are not determinative for everyday religious reflection in a similar way. Theology should therefore primarily be understood as an enterprise that is conditioned by such standards and methods of discourse. However, the distinction entails no negative assessment of religious reflection, as we hope is apparent in the following, when we point to its influence on theological reflection. 4 “In the representation of God, the believer has the whole of the world, even if he lacks all of its countless particulars” (G. Simmel). Here quoted from Paul Froese and Christopher Bader, America’s Four Gods: What We Say about God – and What That Says about Us (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010), 1. 5 Cf. Robert C. Neville, The Truth of Broken Symbols, Suny Series in Religious Studies (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1996), xiii f.

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Religious trends in Northern Europe – an overview

The aim of this and the following two sociological chapters is manifold. First, it may be of interest (we hope) to read about changes in religious life in Northern Europe, especially in Norway. We have also chosen to present in more detail how religious life has changed in the last decades in what is often called Norway’s Bible Belt. Between these two, mainly empirical, chapters, we offer an overview of theories and empirical studies about how images of God can be influenced by different social orders. These chapters may serve as a background for the analyses of theological contributions and the theological reflections in this book. The two chapters about Norway show some examples of what kind of landscape our theological project takes place in, both when it comes to conservative elements and signs of change, and the chapter “Does society shape God?” can hopefully contribute when it comes to doing theology. This first sociological chapter, then, describes some religious trends present in Northern Europe. The trends are secularization, religious individualization, religious privatization, increased religious diversity, politicization of religion, religious polarization, feminization of religion, religious aestheticization and liberalization of religious life. Although the empirical examples will be taken from Norway,1 our claim is that these trends can be found in religious life in all Northern European countries. They can probably be detected in other countries as well. It goes without saying that the strength of the trends will vary in different nations. There will also be regional variations, variations between various religious denominations, and variations following traditional sociological factors such as social class and gender. We are aware that we paint with a coarse brush here. However, these trends imply important changes in religious life in many countries, and especially so in the democracies of Northern Europe, with their comparatively strong liberal, antiauthoritarian and egalitarian ideals. There are, of course, religious communities also in Norway and neighbouring countries which are characterized by conservatism, isolation from and scepticism towards the greater society, and strict internal social control, but our view is that they are exceptions and that especially the mainline churches follow the trends mentioned. The focus of this book is Christianity. However, even if immigrant-based Muslim religious communities in the West often may have conservative traits, the trends are also to be found in DOI: 10.4324/9781003306207-3

Religious trends in Northern Europe

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these milieus, not least among descendants of the first generation of immigrants. To conclude, even if the strength of these trends varies with social and cultural factors, changes tend to go in the same direction. Accordingly, this chapter aims not to give a detailed presentation of contemporary religion in Northern Europe but to give some sociological background for the changes in images of God that have taken place both in theology and in people’s lived religion. In the presentation of each trend, we will reflect very briefly on possible consequences of the trend for notions of God. We will return to more reflections on that topic later in the book.

Secularization For a long time, there was a widespread opinion in the sociology of religion and more generally that large parts of the world were secularized in the sense that the social (sometimes also political) significance of religion was weakened. Then, partly following the emergence of Islamism and of the Christian Right in America, an opposite view gained support in the media and among some sociologists as well, expressed in the title of a widely read book, God Is Back!2 However, taking a sober look at the developments in Northern Europe, we have to conclude that secularization is an important trend. People can easily misunderstand each other here, for secularization is an ambiguous word. Sociologists often distinguish between secularization on three levels, the societal, the organizational, and the individual.3 No doubt there has been a secularization of the social and political order in countries in Northern Europe for much longer than the last 50 years. Norway can serve as an example. From the autocracy of the 17th and 18th centuries, when the king ruled by the grace of God, up to the formal loosening of ties between state and church only a few years ago, there is a long process of secularization. Not least can we see it clearly in the role of religious education in schools. It has shifted from the mandatory preaching of conservative Lutheranism which Pål, now 75, grew up with. His was probably the last generation to experience this mode of education. It is far from the contemporary non-confessional and intentionally objective introduction to several religions, which implicitly celebrates diversity and favours soft, kind and dialogue-oriented religion. Secularization on the organizational level implies that the faith communities themselves have become more modest on behalf of religion. Some sociologists talk about internal secularization, where religion explains or affects smaller parts of life than before. From time to time, some attempts still emerge to reestablish the idea that God created the world in six days, but this view has little support even in conservative churches. In Peter Berger’s words, religion has gone from cosmology to psychology.4 A couple of generations ago, ministers could say things like “God has a meaning for this, even if we do not understand it,” in funerals after accidents or when young people have died. Today, very few among the Norwegian clergy would say things like that. God does not stand behind accidents and tragic losses, but can be a support for

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people who experience such tragic events. No doubt, many religions’ scope of relevance has shrunk in modernity. Denominations are organizations and, as such, influenced by bearers of secular rationality, both from outside and within the organizations. As for religious beliefs and practice, the arrows point downwards in Northern Europe. In Norway, the trend downwards is not dramatic, but consistently in the direction of fewer people saying that they believe in God, that they pray, or take part in organized religious life. The number of Norwegians without any belief in God has increased. The Church of Norway, comprising seven out of ten Norwegians, has the best and most detailed statistics, showing that the number of people using religious rites, such as baptism, confirmation, church weddings and funerals, has decreased. The number of people who get a Christian funeral is the highest and most stable, still about nine out of ten. There is also a downward trend in minority churches, which comprise about one in twenty Norwegians. So, the picture is a bit grey, seen from a church angle. What will be the implications of secularization for people’s images of God? As we have already seen, internal secularization will, per definition, mean a God with more limited power. Furthermore, secularization means increased competition with other worldviews and other forms of occupations than religion. Hence, the competition will probably result in attempts to present a friendly and inviting God rather than a strict and demanding God.

Religious individualization A frequent answer in many surveys in the Nordic countries is this, or a sentence with the same content: “I am religious, but in my own way.” People’s religious faith and life are shaped less than before by what religious leaders tell people what they ought to believe and do, and more than before by what they themselves think and feel works and makes sense. Many people, then, build on a kind of functional notion of truth. Religious individualization is a part of a broader picture, part of a general trend to be also seen, for instance, in politics. However, this thesis of individualization, prevalent in much sociology, can be taken too far. There is probably an opinion in much recent sociology that the significance of social class for a period was underrated. Many sociologists now acknowledge that class matters, and that freedom of action varies with social class. Few people, if any, get up in the morning wondering “who should I be today?” A lot of religious individualization seems to take place in a critical dialogue with established religious traditions, expressed for instance in sentences like “I am a Christian, but not a super-Christian,” or when young Norwegian Muslims care less about detailed rules of conduct and stress that Islam is a religion of love. Individualization is closely connected to a negative attitude towards anything that tastes of authoritarianism. Nobody should tell me what to think and do! Hence, a God giving people strict, detailed, and direct orders about how to behave does not stand much of a chance in an anti-authoritarian society. Individualization means that images of God have been in a sense deregulated. An open space is created for a great

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variation of images. However, as we will see, other trends in Northern Europe seem to push such images in one direction, namely towards a kind and loving God.

Religious privatization This concept has two different meanings. First, it has been a common view that religion in modern Western societies is more significant in private life, for example, family life, than in public and political life. This view has been challenged in later years resulting from events like Islamism and right-wing Christian populism, but the privatization thesis still has its followers. In Northern Europe it is very seldom that politicians, even Christian politicians, present their views as God’s will. They almost always use general, rational arguments, not religious ones. The closest Christian politicians usually come in a religious direction, is to talk about the significance of the Christian heritage. One may say that religion in politics has been going through a “heritagization.” If a politician in the Nordic countries happened to say that the Covid 19 pandemic was a punishment from God, or that vaccination is unnecessary for Christians, he or she would no doubt be thrown out of the political community. The other meaning of the term religious privatization is closely connected to religious individualization. Religion has become a private matter in the sense that the threshold is high for doing aggressive missionary work, and the threshold is low for calling missionary work aggressive. Recommending a religion to a fellow human being is quickly condemned as an invasion of privacy. In Northern Europe, this means that an increasing number of parents hesitate to have their infants baptized. Freedom of choice has become a substantial value for many people, and some parents want to wait until their children grow up and can decide for themselves. From a sociological angle one is tempted to add that this example shows how important it is to distinguish between an actor’s perspective and a researcher’s perspective. Even parents who celebrate freedom of choice for their children have chosen baptism or not for them when they were babies, and they will probably influence them later in life as well. Sociologists will always look for sources of influence, even when actors believe that they choose freely. For a sociologist, even phenomena such as individualization and individualism are social phenomena. Again, what are the possible consequences for the image of God? It is probably easier to talk to others about a kind and loving God than introducing to them a strict, demanding, and unpleasant God who might even punish them if they do not obey him. Furthermore, if it is correct that religion governs people’s lives more in private life than in political engagement, this implies that the scope of God’s power has become quite limited.

Religious pluralization Like in many other European countries with state churches, Christian pluralization occurred from the 19th century onwards in Norway, when it became

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Religious trends in Northern Europe

legal to establish minority churches, often called free churches. At the same time, the Catholic church, forbidden after the Reformation, was again allowed to operate in Norway. From the second half of the 19th century, atheism and criticism of religion gained increasing support among the country’s intellectuals, while religious indifference became quite common both in the commercial elite and among men in the working class. An increasing immigration trend started in Norway around 1970. The influx of immigrants and refugees has meant a new step in the development of pluralization of religions and worldviews, even if the majority of “new Norwegians” actually come from a Christian background. About 4 or 5 per cent of the Norwegian population today comes from a Muslim background. Generally speaking, immigrants to Norway from non-European countries are more religiously engaged than those with generations of Norwegian ancestors, but one should not uncritically believe that all immigrants are religious. Some, like Iranians, have fled from a strong and authoritarian religious regime and are critical towards religion, and many descendants of immigrants and refugees become more secular or change their religious beliefs in the direction of a somewhat vague doctrine of neighbourly love.5 In other words, many first-generation immigrants bring with them images of a stricter God, but their children and grandchildren seem to adapt to religious trends in their new homeland. What does the reality of religious pluralization have to do with images of God? For many years, in the sociology of religion, there has been a rather polarized discussion of the possible connection between pluralization and secularization. The classical view was presented by the young Peter Berger, who in his seminal work The Sacred Canopy claimed that in a society with one dominating religion, new generations would take over the worldview of their parents as a matter of course. In contrast, in a society with many different religious options, people would start doubting whether any of the options were true, and the result would be secularization.6 Some years later, Rodney Stark and other sociologists, inspired by economists’ way of thinking, turned this conclusion upside down and argued that a religious monopoly would create indifference and outright laziness among the bearers of religious traditions. At the same time, diversity would lead to competition among actors on the supply side of tradition, resulting in a more intense effort to market religion. Besides, in a situation where several different religions were offered, chances are greater that people will find a kind of religion that suits them. Just as more people will look at television when there are more channels, religious pluralization will increase the total number of religiously active people.7 In our opinion, this discussion has been too polarized, and with too few nuances. There is a difference between a more internal and less bitter competition between, say, several Christian denominations who express agreement on some fundamental views and a heated conflict between very different world views. In the first case, some competition may lead to religious vitality, while secularization and doubt may be the outcome in the second case. However, if religious cleavages follow the line of other conflict lines in society, such as

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socio-economic or ethnic ones, a more likely outcome is a stable conflict between religions over time. Furthermore, the relationship between pluralization and secularization may vary when it comes to cognitive aspects of religion and the more emotional and “belonging” aspects. An intellectual theologian may be more affected by truth questions when faced with religious pluralization than people who are well integrated into a religious community and have a good time there, spending much time with fellow believers, friends as well as relatives, without being very interested in theology.8 Contrary to the topic of relationship between pluralization and the prevalence of religion, there has not been much discussion in sociology about how images of God may be influenced by religious pluralization. One reasonable hypothesis may be that in a situation with religious diversity, the diversity of images of God will be greater.9

Politicization of religion Events like Islamist terrorism, the increasing support of Putin’s regime by the Orthodox church in Russia, and right-wing Christian populism, including the mix of nationalism and Evangelicalism to be found among some of Trump’s followers, have resulted in an increased interest among social scientists in religion’s political role. The religious honesty of politicians may vary; some talk about religion being hijacked both by Islamists and populists. However, regardless of how sincerely religious leaders are, religion can have a political significance, often through sacralizing political arrangements and views. Scholars arguing that religion has become more important in politics in recent years often claim that topics concerning religion are discussed more than before in the media and on political platforms. However, one should not mix up the discussion about religion with increasing personal religious engagement in society. Nordic studies show that the amount of media interest in religion has not necessarily increased in the last decades. However, there is a change in topics and content. Forty years ago, there was more religious communication in the media. Now there is less of that and more journalism about religion.10 Moreover, 40 years ago, media reported mainly about the Nordic majority national churches, their activities, and their position in society. Now the main topic is how religious pluralization should be handled. How should relations between different religious communities be, and how should the state regulate religion? Some struggle to maintain Christianity’s dominant position, others propose equality of treatment between religious communities, and some want to secularize the state and the public sphere. Many countries in Northern Europe have seen an expansion of churches’ political engagement over the last decades. Some of this engagement has gone in a right-wing populist direction, but in many countries we can trace a trend towards the left. In Norway 50 years ago, the political and social ethical engagement of the churches was usually concentrated on a few issues in family and sexual ethics, the role and profile of religious education in schools, and state support for Christian private schools and other church activities.

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Like elsewhere, many Christian students in Norway around 1968 received important political inspiration focusing on world poverty, the Vietnam war, and a bit later also environmentalism and feminism. As this new generation entered positions as church leaders, the churches’ ethical-political engagement has been widened, comprising climate and social justice, nationally and globally. And the profile is much more centre-left than centre-right. This is most visible in the Church of Norway. Surveys from 2000 onwards show that the Norwegian church elite, defined mainly as the bishops and deans, are the most left-oriented of all Norwegian elite groups.11 As part of this development, the attitude towards Israel has changed from a strong sympathy for Israel’s policies at any time 50 years ago and to a much more critical view and increasing sympathy for the Palestinian cause. The has also to do with a less literal interpretation of the Bible (a kind of internal secularization), so that Israel’s policies must undergo the same critical ethical evaluation as other countries’ political profile. For example, in 2020, a meeting of all bishops in the Church of Norway published a statement containing strong criticism of so-called Christian Zionism. The same church’s synod has made other controversial political statements as well: In 2021, it recommended a complete halt to the search for oil in Norwegian territories. Only two synod members voted against the statement. Christian minority churches are somewhat more hesitant in their political engagement, but we can see the new trend as well. Fifty years ago it was not uncommon among, for instance, Pentecostals to say that true Christians should avoid getting involved in politics. This view has almost disappeared in contemporary Norway. We find many examples of a more comprehensive and left-ofcentre engagement also from minority churches and other communities of faith, especially in the form of joint statements from umbrella organizations like Norges Kristne Råd [Christian Council of Norway] and Samarbeidsrådet for tros- og livssynssamfunn [The Council for Religious and Life Stance Communities in Norway]. The first of these comprises most national Christian denominations in Norway, and the second most of the national religious and worldview communities, including the non-religious Human-Etisk Forbund [The Norwegian Humanist Association], organizing about 100,000 non-religious members. Images of God in Norway seem to go in two opposite directions: For many, God regulates family life more than political life. For others, God becomes an inspiration to be involved in pressing challenges in contemporary society. However, to follow God does not necessarily mean to follow religious leaders. Surveys show that a clear majority in Norway is against the view that religious leaders should have any kind of direct or special influence in political matters. At the same time, a clear majority feel positive about religious leaders engaging in political matters on an equal footing with others. Hence, the theological position is not excluding others from participation, or the church from engaging in the political sphere. The development nevertheless entails that the church becomes exposed to processes and topics over which it has no control or can claim any specific authority.

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Religious polarization Are conflicts over religion getting stronger in Norway? If actors in conflict believe that they fight on behalf of God, it becomes more difficult to compromise. Like in other Northern European countries, there are forces and factors in Norwegian society that may lead to polarization. It is more difficult for an immigrant than for others to get a job, and many immigrants report that they are discriminated against when it comes to work, housing, and everyday life. Right-wing politicians, helped by social media and a few mass media draw a threatening picture of Muslims and try to create what Zygmunt Bauman called official fear: an encouragement and a legitimation from powerful political forces to create negative stereotypes of minority groups.12 The result can be a vicious circle of marginalization and the emergence of parallel communities. On the other hand, several sociological studies point to factors that help to diminish tensions. Over time, an increasing majority of Norwegians are positive about immigration and immigrants.13 Many second- and third-generation immigrants get education and jobs and end up somewhere in the middle class.14 The welfare state with free education is essential for social and economic integration. Socio-economic inequality exists in Norway as well, but less so than in many other Western counties. This is significant, for religion can increase conflicts when religious divisions follow other possible conflict lines in society. Looking at religion more specifically, interview studies show that most immigrants or children and grandchildren of immigrants support traditional Norwegian structures like freedom of expression, democracy, peaceful conflict solutions, and religious freedom. Muslims are less positive towards blasphemy and homosexuality, but even among them, liberalization in the younger generations is apparent.15 Furthermore, there are well established formal and informal arenas of dialogue for leaders of different religious communities in Norway, such as the abovementioned Samarbeidsrådet for tros- og livssynssamfunn (STL). There are several joint statements from Islamsk Råd Norge [Islamic Council Norway] and the Church of Norway. One of these confirms that everybody should be able to change their religion without fear of harassment. Another joint statement condemned the terrorist attack of 22 July 2011, when a Norwegian right-wing terrorist killed 77 people, invoking a form of Christianity which many people would deem perverted. There was a split among Muslims in Norway in 2017–18, which partly seems to have been caused by personal tensions. Islamsk Råd Norge left STL, and a new Muslim umbrella organization, Muslimsk dialognettverk [Muslim Dialogue Network] became a member. However, recently there has been increasing contact and cooperation between these organizations, so there are good chances that the split will soon be healed. “I can call Olav or Ingrid at any time,” the imam Senaid Kobilica, leader of Muslimsk dialognettverk told the Christian newspaper Vårt Land in 2020. Olav is Olav Fykse Tveit, leading bishop in the Church of Norway, and Ingrid is Ingrid Rosendorf Joys, a Catholic who is the leader of STL.

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A classical sociological theory claims that when conflicts do not go too deep, they can be diminished through personal contact.16 No doubt much everyday personal contact at work or in the neighbourhood helps to reduce fear and scepticism. Negative attitudes towards Muslims are strongest among those who have no personal contact with Muslims. It is difficult to study in detail the connection between the degree of religious polarization and changes in images of God. However, it seems reasonable to assume that a comparatively relaxed climate between representatives of different religious movements will encourage a search for what is shared rather than what is different and that the soft, kind, and inclusive aspects of God will prevail over a God who is strict and punishes those who do not obey him.

Feminization of religion In this context, the term feminization is applied to describe the development towards greater equality between the sexes and increased influence for women in religious organizations. In 2021 it was 60 years since the first female priest was ordained in the Church of Norway. Previously, two minority churches in Norway had introduced female pastors: the Methodists and the Mission Covenant Church. Presently, more than one-third of the clergy and half of the bishops in the Church of Norway are women. In fact, in 2019, all national leaders in this church (the leading bishop as well as chair and general secretary of the National Synod, and others) were women. Historically the free churches and the low-church voluntary organizations in the Church of Norway were pioneers in accepting women’s influence, for example with voting rights. Then they lagged behind, but there are new trends in minority churches as well. Some of them have accepted female pastors. There are also some changes in religious milieus other than Christianity. Even if women have less influence there, generally speaking, there are for instance signs that they are on their way into more influential positions in the mosques. Will the increased number of women in leading positions change the content of theology and preaching, including images of God? Nordic studies have shown that female priests speak more about relations and use more examples from everyday life, while male priests communicate theological dogma to a higher degree, and use a less relational language. It is possible that the God presented by females is softer, more therapeutical, and closer to everyday life. However, the studies mentioned are beginning to age.17 More recent impressions may indicate that male preachers have changed their rhetoric in a similar, relational and therapeutical direction in the last two or three decades, maybe partly because they have learned from their female colleagues.

Aestheticization of religion Often the adjective aesthetic is used about something that we find beautiful. However, in philosophy, the term is used about anything that positively or

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negatively appeals to the senses. It can also point to phenomena deemed repellent or ugly, as long as it touches our senses. In many religious communities, there is a movement away from an emphasis on correct dogma towards a focus on positive experiences. Interest in theological subtleties and distinctions is waning. The doctrinal and social fences between different confessional communities are lowering. Confirmands learn fewer commandments and light more candles. Processions in churches become longer and statelier. There is an increasing number of art exhibitions and concerts organized in and by churches. In Norway, about one-third of the population attends at least one church concert before Christmas every December. These events are by no means without a Christian message, but here people meet the churches at their friendliest, both in the majority church and in free churches. There is much focus on the little baby Jesus in the cradle, and the songs and music are often a mixture of old and dear psalms, old Norwegian folk songs and Christmas evergreens in the style of Bing Crosby, Nat King Cole and Frank Sinatra.18 Internationally, aesthetic expressions are often used to ridicule, offend or stigmatize. Drawing caricatures or burning flags can serve as examples. However, in Norway a more sensual or aesthetic religion is usually also a more dialogue-friendly religion. Aesthetic symbols tend almost per definition to be vague. Lighting candles or listening to music can inspire many different thoughts and beliefs. Aestheticization of religion can sometimes be seen as a result of increased diversity in local settings. One is more comfortable meeting a neighbour in common meditation in front of a candle or another vague symbol than starting a heated theological discussion. In principle, aestheticization can be used to reinforce doctrines, as in old psalms. However, in Norway a senseoriented religion usually seems to reflect and support vaguer and kinder images of God.

Religious liberalization19 In parts of Norway, especially in the South and Southwest, a rather strict and demanding religion could dominate local communities after waves of revivals at the end of the 19th century and through the first half of the 20th century. Today, however, more is permitted in religious contexts, both when it comes to dogma and even more in the realm of ethics and lifestyle. Parents in conservative Christian milieus no longer forbid their children to go to the cinema or compete in sports. For many Christians, abstinence from alcohol has been replaced by moderation. In 2017 the national synod of the Church of Norway adopted a new ritual for same-sex marriages, and it is likely that other denominations and religions will introduce similar rituals in future, even if the road towards that goal may be somewhat longer for them. In what we might call operative Christian doctrine, Jesus has become more of a loyal and empathic friend than a tool for reconciliation between human beings and a zealous God. The most visible change in Norway and elsewhere is

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probably that hell and perdition have practically disappeared from theology and preaching, both in the Church of Norway and minority churches.20 About 100 years ago, lay preachers often used a quote from an unknown source, stating that “when you please yourself the most, you please God the least.” The joy of life and fear of God was a a zero-sum game. Today this has changed even in conservative Christianity in Norway. There is no longer any tension between having self-confidence and confidence in God. Christian anthropology has become much more optimistic than before, not least in communicating a Christian gospel to young people. Again, we see a clear tendency. God has become more tolerant, less demanding, and more supportive.

Trends that work together To present trends in the way we have done above, one at a time, is an analytical and editorial decision. In the real world, many of these trends interact closely. Some of them reinforce each other, and others may have a tense relationship between them. For example, individualization and pluralization will probably reinforce each other. When many worldviews exist side by side in a society, individuals will have more building material to use in the construction of their own worldview, and the very notion that one’s religion and worldview will have to be constructed and reflected upon will be more obvious. What about politicization and privatization, then? These trends can, of course, work in opposite directions. However, it is also possible that both can work relatively independently of each other. One can imagine that leaders in a society, such as politicians, will try to use religion for political aims, while ordinary people at the grass-roots level will adhere to a religion that mainly influences family matters and sexual norms. Furthermore, aestheticization and liberalization will probably attenuate polarization, with the possible exception of reduced tolerance towards religious positions and traditions that are considered intolerant. Does religious individualization lead to secularization? That is not necessarily the case. A diverse religious life may actually lead to religious flourishing – with many different flowers, to follow up the metaphor. However, in the long run, a sociologist may wonder whether a de-institutionalization may result in secularization due to lack of continuity and organizational support, not least for the maintenance of rituals. Which trends are the strongest? It is difficult to say, but maybe the most important societal changes regarding religion over the last 50 years in Norway (and many other Western countries) are secularization and religious pluralization. Within the churches the most important change is probably liberalization. As mentioned, many of the trends we have described briefly in this chapter will appear less systematically as background factors for changing images of God in the following chapters.

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Notes 1 For a more detailed presentation of the trends with a broader set of empirical examples (in Norwegian), see Pål Repstad, Religiøse trender i Norge [Religious Trends in Norway] (Oslo: Universitetsforlaget, 2020). Empirical evidence and more comprehensive references to relevant literature about the trends described here can be found in that book. 2 John Micklethwait and Adrian Woolridge, God Is Back. How the Global Revival of Faith Is Changing the World (New York: Penguin Press, 2009). 3 Karel Dobbelaere, Secularization. An Analysis at Three Levels (Brussels: Peter Lang, 2004). 4 Peter Berger, The Sacred Canopy. 5 Anders Barstad, Er religiøse innvandrere mindre integrert? [Are Religious Immigrants Less Integrated?] (Oslo: Statistisk sentralbyrå, 2019); Sveinung Sandberg et al., Unge muslimske stemmer. Om tro og ekstremisme [Young Muslim voices. On Faith and Extremism] (Oslo: Universitetsforlaget, 2018). 6 Peter Berger, The Sacred Canopy. 7 Rodney Stark and William S. Bainbridge, A Theory of Religion (New York: Peter Lang, 1987). 8 Pål Repstad, “Introduction: A Paradigm Shift in the Sociology of Religion?” In Pål Repstad (ed.), Religion and Modernity. Modes of Co-existence (Oslo: Scandinavian University Press, 1996), 1–10. 9 See more about the connection between religious pluralization and images of God in the next chapter, especially in the section “From canopy to umbrellas.” 10 Knut Lundby, Religion i medienes grep [Religion in the Grip of the Media] (Oslo: Universitetsforlaget, 2021). 11 Trygve Gulbrandsen et al., Norske makteliter [Norwegian Power Elites] (Oslo: Gyldendal Akademisk, 2002); Trygve Gulbrandsen, Elites in an Egalitarian Society (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019). 12 Zygmunt Bauman, Strangers at Our Door (Cambridge: Polity, 2016). 13 Ottar Hellevik, “Vi blir stadig meir positive til innvandrere” [We Are Becoming Increasingly Positive towards Immigrants]. Aftenposten, 8 April 2018. 14 Are Skeie Hermansen, “Et egalitært og velferdsstatlig integreringsparadoks?” [An Egalitarian and Welfare State Connected Paradox of Integration?] Norsk Sosiologisk Tidsskrift 1, no. 1, 15–34. 15 Bushra Ishaq, Hvem snakker de for? Muslimer i dagens Norge – hvem er de og hva mener de? [Who Do They Speak For? Muslims in Contemporary Norway – Who Are They and What Are Their Views?] (Oslo: Cappelen Damm, 2017); Jon Horgen Friberg, Assimilering på norsk [Assimilation, Norwegian style] (Oslo: Fafo, 2016). 16 Gordon Allport, The Nature of Prejudice (Cambridge, MA: Perseus Books, 1954). 17 Anders Bäckström, I Guds tjänst [In God’s Service] (Uppsala: Teologiska Institutionen, Uppsala Universitet, 1992); Kirsten Almås and Rosemarie Köhn (eds), Presterollen [The Role of Priest] (Trondheim: Tapir, 1989). 18 Anne Løvland and Pål Repstad, “Playing the Sensual Card in Churches: Studying the Aestheticization of Religion.” In Andrew McKinnon and Marta Trzebiatowska (eds), Sociological Theory and the Question of Religion (Farnham: Ashgate, 2014), 179–198. 19 Here, by religious liberalization we do not mean liberal theology in the historical sense. The term is used to identify the increased tolerance for different opinions and practices in the churches and congregations. 20 See Chapter 4 for more about religious liberalization.

3

Does society shape God?

How directly can the image of God common to a society be deduced from the society’s social order or configuration? This is raised here as a sociological question, not a theological one. The idea that society shapes images of God is a very old one. The Roman poet and critic of religion Lucretius claimed rather bluntly that if a man was a horse, God would appear to be a horse. The German philosopher Ludwig Feuerbach’s central idea in The Essence of Christianity is that images of God reflect human nature and human needs.1 If a man is to find contentment in God, Feuerbach claims, he must find himself in God. We will not go back to philosophers like Feuerbach here, but we find it useful to present a reminder of some half-forgotten reflections in Max Weber’s works on this topic. Furthermore, in this chapter we will follow the mainstream in sociology of religion and put the question of truth in brackets. Implicit theological or religious assumptions may influence our claims also in this chapter. However, we, the authors, will save our more explicit normative reflections for other chapters in the book.

Images of God – an intellectual catalogue From the founding fathers of sociology to contemporary social analysis, there is a long list of examples showing that images of and relations to God are described as more or less direct reflections of dominant social conditions in a society. To mention an interesting example, the Swedish sociologist Lars Ahlin has set forth a hypothesis inspired by Mary Douglas’ theories about how their social experiences shape people’s worldviews.2 Ahlin claims that people situated near the bottom of hierarchies in a society tend to look at God or divine forces as impersonal and inscrutable forces, playing their games with people who cannot see through them. Basically, these people become fatalists. On the other hand, people in market contexts are used to bartering and negotiating and tend to relate to divine forces that can serve as personal resources for growth. The intellectual history of psychology of religion can produce a similar list, including, not least, Sigmund Freud’s claim that God is mainly a projection of an overbearing father figure experienced by the child in its early years.3 This theory has been modified and expanded by several psychologists, including two DOI: 10.4324/9781003306207-4

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Norwegian brothers, the psychologist Harald Schjelderup and his brother Kristian Schjelderup, a liberal theologian and historian of religion. Their book Über drei Haupttypen der religiösen Erlebnisformen und ihre psychologische Grundlage was published in 1932.4 The book is now almost forgotten but evoked some international attention and discussion among psychologists and scholars of religion when it came out. The two authors distinguish between father-religion, which they define along the same lines as Freud, with a strict, stern and dominating Protestant God as the prime example. However, they also describe mother-religion, based on positive experiences with the young child’s mild mother, and finally self-religion, based on mystical experiences and a kind of floating immersion with diffuse borders between self and divine forces. It is tempting to draw attention to the similarity between this typology and Woodhead and Heelas’ typology of religions of difference, religions of humanity and spiritualities of life, although their theory does not come with psychological explanations.5 In the field of psychology, it is also worth mentioning Ana-Maria Rizzuto’s theory on how images of God can be formed by images of real and idealized parents.6 Rizzuto’s theory is less deterministic than that of the Schjelderup brothers, who wrote in an age with more ambitious psychology theories. Rizzuto also points to the influence of education, preaching and tradition in forming images of God, thus making the relationship between the social order and God more complex.

Revisiting Max Weber It is time to turn to Max Weber, both for interesting examples and for caveats and modifications. Weber was primarily interested in the socio-economic consequences of different religious worldviews. At least, it is what he is most famous for (The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism7). However, he also presented many analyses of connections the other way around: how different social conditions create various kinds of religion and different images of God. According to Weber, various social groups have a lifestyle and a social framework that will encourage special ideas, including religious ideas. Generally speaking, farmers will tend to lean towards nature worship, magical notions, and fertility religion. Furthermore, elites in society, particularly military elites, will reject religious ideals of humility due to their preoccupation with honour and pride. The lifestyle of a warrior has no affinity for the providence of a merciful God. Confessing sins and seeking salvation are practices far from the self-consciousness that characterizes politically or militarily powerful strata.8 Weber connects the emergence of the ethical and transcendent monotheistic God that has become so central in the West to mighty rulers in the Middle East, who ruled through disciplined bureaucrats. In a courageous line of reasoning, he claims that the king’s control over the centralized irrigation systems in dry areas, and thereby the ability to create something out of nothing, may have

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given inspiration to the conception of an almighty divine ruler. In connection with the development of Jewish monotheism, Weber adds the historical fact that the Jews were continually at war with other peoples, and with some success, at least during specific periods. The local warrior-God Jahveh was, through conflicts and victories, seen as gradually more powerful. Weber saw the emergence of the Christian faith tradition as mirroring the lifeworld of urban artisans. Artisans and other urban citizens lived in a world where agreements and discipline were of vital importance. Strong ideals of duty emerged, and when people violated their own ideals, feelings of guilt and sin developed, and eventually, a longing for salvation. The images of God followed life on earth: God or the gods were ethical; like persons, they had rights, duties and commitments. Weber anchored religious engagement in urban more than rural environments. This choice can serve as a critical reminder in the face of much conventional wisdom in modern sociology of religion: claiming that people involved in agriculture, almost per definition, are more engaged in seeking God than people in cities because of the rural population’s proximity to processes of life, death, and nature. Weber turns this around and says that since urban people live more indoors and are more withdrawn from nature, nature becomes distant and mystical, and hence an object of religious reflection. He explicitly claims that the thesis about the deep religiosity of rural people is rather recent and inspired by Romanticism. Based on historical studies, he concluded that farmers are either oriented towards magic or religiously indifferent. Here, of course, Weber shows that he is a child of his times, accepting the ideological and somewhat condescending distinction between the magical and “real” religion so popular among the liberal theologians of his generation. Recent studies of everyday religion have shown that the line between religion and magic is quite blurred even in late modern societies, as religious practices like specific prayers are often invoked in difficult situations.9 However, of lasting interest, maybe more so than Weber’s concrete and partly speculative theories, are his many warnings against and recommendations about drawing too simple causal lines between the social order and God. He reminds us that the social configuration itself does not shape the concrete and directly specific theological conceptions. The social conditions must be present, but besides, these conditions must be interpreted religiously and theologically by visible and charismatic leaders who succeed in presenting their ideas convincingly. Such religious innovators Weber finds mainly among people with some distance to the daily struggles. Those who are completely involved in day-to-day commitments have too little time and distance to reflect on the meaning of it all. They do not ask such questions. The innovators still have an openness to wonder. Accordingly, religious innovations are made by those who follow events closely, but are not completely immersed in them, and they take place in urban areas, but not in the middle of the metropolis! It follows that priests, prophets, and theologians play an important role in Weber’s understanding of religious development. Furthermore, his descriptions

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of tensions between priests (who want to systematize and maintain the tradition) and prophets (who want to change the tradition radically) are wellknown. So is his description of the routinization of the initial charismatic commitment in a religious movement, often characterized by some adaptation to and compromise with ordinary people’s rather dull religious lives. Here, we can see the influence of the liberal theology of his times, which considered the institutionalization and development of a hierarchy as something necessary for some and deplorable for others. There is also a certain touch of religious elitism here, apparent in Weber’s term “religious virtuosi,” which is not unlike the liberal theologians of his time talking about Jesus and others as religious geniuses. The most interesting heritage from Weber, though, is his combination of risky and exciting theories of the social roots of theology and the careful reminders that things may not be so simple. Weber’s point of view is well summed up by his intellectual biographer Richard Bendix: Weber thought that the links between ideas and given historical conditions are the results of choices – but choices of the kind that are limited by what the status groups in question found in accordance with their life experiences.10 One of Weber’s most well-known concepts is the iron cage of rationality that modern man is assumed to live inside. However, the iron cage is not without holes. In times of unrest and when people look for new solutions, ideas can make a difference – not only in the early stages of capitalism, in which thrifty Protestants played an important role, according to Weber. Even if rational interests increasingly govern the modern world, Weber leaves room for charismatic leaders and prophets – who may or may not be religious. His metaphor of ideas as switchmen on a railway track, changing the directions of interests, is an example of his pedagogical abilities. In everyday business, the train moves along the track. At certain junctions, though, there is a freedom of action to change tracks – until the train is once more stabilized along a new line, usually established by rational planning and economic interests. In other words, God may be depicted and invoked as a God legitimizing change in challenging times and in times where old truths are questioned. Much has happened in the sociology of religion since Weber wrote his works 100 years ago. Priests and other religious experts have lost some of their authority in the present age of anti-authoritarianism. However, Weber is still one of the most exciting thinkers on the topic of connections between social conditions and the content of religious beliefs and practices. Many later sociologists have confined themselves to describing and analysing frequencies and prevalence of religious engagement as such. One hundred years after he stopped writing, Weber is still one of the sociologists who have reflected most upon the relationships between social contexts and the substantial aspects of religion and theology.

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Connecting God and the state David Nicholls is a British historian who has also been an Anglican parish priest. In his book Deity and Domination he presents a number of relationships between images of God and images of the state in selected American and European cases.11 Here are a few examples: In the 19th century, anarchists such as Bakunin and Proudhon tended to describe both God and state in terms of coercive authority. Contrary to this, in the early 20th century, the social gospel theologian Walter Rauschenbusch described God in a manner consistent with Americans’ belief in progress, cooperative spirit, and democratic outlook. God became a friend full of positive thinking and encouragement more than an authoritarian figure. Many of the proponents of the more or less paternalistic welfare state described God as a caring and benevolent father. However, other analogies between God and state were also possible. Protestant theologians such as Emanuel Hirsch and Paul Althaus used an authoritarian image of God, which paralleled and helped legitimize the Nazi state’s totalitarianism.

From canopy to umbrellas In recent sociology of religion, there is an interesting disagreement between scholars who claim that belief in God will be either weakened or vitalized when no hegemonic worldview prevails. For a long time, the conventional wisdom in the sociology of religion was that if six religious leaders and four non-religious leaders all claimed to have found the truth about God, people tended to doubt them all. The young Peter Berger is the best known spokesperson for this view.12 His metaphor of the sacred canopy, used as the title of his famous book, has been much quoted. The sacred canopy has fallen apart. No authoritative worldview dominates modern society, with secularization as the necessary result. Especially from 1980 onwards, the idea that increased diversity of worldviews is tantamount to secularization has been challenged. The criticism has been mainly two-fold. First, many sociologists have reminded us that religious people are usually not lone philosophers who become confused when opposite truths appear on the scene. Religious people are often religious in a social context. They belong in a given local community, and religion’s sensual, aesthetic, material, communal and social dimensions may be more important than the role religion can play in solving intellectual riddles about the world and its workings for them. Hence, as the American sociologist Christian Smith once remarked, even if the sacred canopy may have gone to pieces, many people are still religious under smaller sacred umbrellas.13 They construct umbrellas and are sheltered under them in subcultural and organizational niches within the rich cultural complexity and diversity of modernity. The other form of criticism stems from an influential and controversial way of thinking that some sociologists, especially in America, have borrowed from scholars in liberal economics, namely rational choice theory. Rodney Stark,

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Laurence Iannaccone, Roger Finke, William Bainbridge and others have claimed that religious and world-view pluralization means increased competition between different worldview suppliers.14 Religion is no different from other commodities offered on the market, according to these scholars. It follows that people and organizations on the supply side of religion have to increase their efforts and – equally important – adapt the form and content of their offers to the situation and potential customers’ needs. According to the rational choice theory, all these efforts and all this tailoring will result in an altogether larger sum of religious mobilization and activity. Adherents of this theory contrast this competitive situation with a monopoly situation, in which there is no similar encouragement to work hard to spread religious convictions. The situation in the Nordic countries, with majority churches traditionally closely connected to the state and with low church attendance, is sometimes used as an example, giving empirical support to the view that pluralization stimulates religious growth. What then about the images of God in a situation of competition between worldviews? Dean Kelley,15 Laurence Iannaccone,16 and others in the rational choice camp claim that a strict and demanding God promising rewards in the afterlife is especially capable of creating religious mobilization. If you have invested much in a certain truth, you tend to stick to it. However, one might as well think otherwise. In a situation where many religious and secular movements compete for people’s time and allegiance, it becomes essential not to frighten or alienate people. Hence, a kind and including God might be a more significant success, especially in a society where liberal and tolerant ideas represent a kind of common ground. Even if the idea of religious competition as stimulating religious commitment is accepted, a kind God might be a more efficient competitor than one who is sectarian, vindictive, and strict. The rational choice theory brings in religious human agency as an active factor in forming religion and images of God. This approach is a welcome correction to one-sided theories assuming that social structural changes mechanically lead to changes in religious imagery. Religious people can form traditions and actively do so. Images of God are created, reflected upon, disseminated, and revised by active groups and individuals. Battles are fought over how God is and what he wants from human beings. An example could be the use of the pronoun “he” in the previous sentence. Many feminist movements within Christian churches struggle against a male-dominated discourse about God and for more inclusive language.

Legitimizing changes Traditionally, theological changes have been introduced and legitimized with reference to reinterpretations of holy texts. In Christianity, the Bible is the main text. Feminist theology can serve as an example for new uses of this text. For a long time, an important strategy has been to highlight more or less forgotten Biblical narratives and quotations showing that women have been important in

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the early years of the religion. The relationship Jesus had with women has often been highlighted and said to outweigh statements from St Paul that women should be subordinated. This strategy of making women visible holds up to a point. However, it is difficult to interpret away the many statements in the Bible that support patriarchy. Therefore, another strategy has become more common, which can be illustrated with the following statement: “Yes, this verse in the Bible [or in other texts] is no doubt discriminating against women – and I very much disagree with it!” Often such a statement is followed up by pointing out that, after all, St Paul, Martin Luther, and even Jesus were children of their own times. As we shall see documented in the following chapters of this book, there is an increasing tendency to criticize old texts from a basis of ethics or human experience. A consequence of this development is that the Protestant approach to the Bible as the exclusive source and norm of all theology takes on different shapes. Literal readings of the texts become increasingly difficult when the text is related to fields of knowledge or experiences that show that some uses function as oppressive. This is among the critical changes that subsequent chapters will reflect.

Human agency and social context Following Weber’s approach, human agency should be taken into account when analysing how images of God emerge and change. However, a sociologist would argue that the social context also has an influence, although it is not always easy to tell precisely how. From a sociological perspective, images of God are formed in an interplay between the religious tradition and external social factors. Hence, the internal theological struggle over truth claims is an interesting piece of material for sociological analysis. Pastors, prophets, laypeople, and academic theologians tend to overestimate the significance of internal factors in the religious tradition itself for how God is depicted at any time. A well-known Norwegian church leader, NilsTore Andersen, describes God in this way in his weekly column in a popular magazine: God became human to meet us with grace and truth. God wants to share a problematic and vulnerable life with us. He wants to give us light when everything seems dark. How is God? Jesus has shown us how. He is full of grace and truth.17 When backing up his claim, Andersen uses quotations from the New Testament, in accordance with the general tendency we noted above about attempts to find legitimation for claims in authoritative, holy writings: the older and more original in the tradition, the more authoritative. It would be surprising if Andersen referred to sociological factors lying behind his description of God. However, there is an element of humility in his reasoning, which may be typical of many contemporary mainstream theologians:

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The world is full of words. Religious words, too. How to find a way in this chaotic wealth of words and thoughts? What is true and what is right? Our words about God often become too small, or incomplete and helpless. Our words often reduce God rather than elevate or explain him.18 An element of modesty and humility is called for among sociologists of religion as well. We remain methodological atheists. We look at religion as a social phenomenon, but we tend, at times, to be too reductionist, concluding too quickly that images of God are nothing but legitimations and expressions of this and that, be it nervousness, power, or misery. If sociologists skip an analysis of theological or religious statements and jump too quickly to reductionist “nothing but-ness,” they may overlook socially significant changes in theology, for example about God and God’s relation to humans and society. As shown in several places in this book, a general impression is that God has become less stern, and kinder. Furthermore, in mainstream churches (different from some charismatic movements), God seems to intervene less directly in the world than before, working more through his devotees’ good deeds.

The disappearance of a personal God? The Belgian sociologist of religion Karel Dobbelaere once wrote: if the notion of God still lingers with some, he is increasingly perceived as a “higher power,” a “spirit,” “something vague and general,” rather than as a “personal” God. How could he be thought of as a “personal” God if people experience fewer and fewer “personal” relationships in their public life? In a society in which impersonal, segmented role relations prevail, belief in a “personal” God … seems like an anachronism for many modern women and men.19 Similarly, the Danish theologian Jens Glebe-Møller once claimed that it has become challenging to make theology about an omnipotent and personal God because of modernity’s anti-authoritarian qualities. A transcendent God and a sharp distinction between the immanent and a transcendent world could be experienced as valid in an agricultural society where people are victims of natural forces. With the emergence of industrial society, however, human beings’ relations to their surroundings have fundamentally changed. People have become more autonomous, and it has become impossible to demand submission under Revealed Truths. Glebe-Møller concluded that religion must become immanent. Religion must also become political; since it has become meaningless to talk about a transcendent world where sin can be punished and suffering compensated, suffering and injustice must be faced in this world.20 Both Dobbelaere and Glebe-Møller point to a rather detached God. For theologians (and sociologists!) there is always a risk of generalizing uncritically from their own situation as intellectuals. When Glebe-Møller claims that

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transcendent, revelation-based religion has become an impossible project in the modern epoch, this is probably more governed by his normative theological mission than intended as a sociological analysis. As such, it is too onesided. A sociologist would be tempted to remind him that there are many people in contemporary, modern parts of the world for whom revelationbased religion works well. For them, the notion of an active and intervening God is alive and working. Moreover, we can also find such conceptions of God outside the more or less permeable walls of organized, conservative religion. God is indeed perceived as rather impersonal in much contemporary alternative spirituality, more like an energy or force inside people. Still, though, many people, not least in the Christian faith tradition, involve a personal God in their daily problems and see God behind healing, love, and other activities. The notion of a personal God is not clear and well-defined, but a kind of minimum requirement is that it is possible to enter into some form of dialogue with a personal God. Many people are not very occupied by rationalist, scientific frames and tend to reassign God as a personal God, helping them with their problems. Relating to a personal God seems to be even more widespread in other parts of the world than the modern and partly secularized West. From a logical, rationalist perspective, beliefs in a caring, empathetic, helping, and loving God should be weakened when people experience suffering, death, and other disappointments. The opposite seems to be the case. Global comparative studies by Ronald Inglehart and Pippa Norris have found that faith in God is stronger and more widely held in countries where people have reason to worry about tomorrow, be it about food, shelter, or personal security.21 One can have doubts about some of the methodological aspects of their ambitious study, but that does not make their conclusion worthless. This approach opens for compensatory images of God, well known from the Marxist tradition. As Karl Marx noted, misery and injustice increase the demand for a caring God. Several centuries before Marx, Luke quoted Jesus: “It is not the healthy that need a doctor, but the sick.”22 God seems to become perceived as more personal, more active, and more important for people in distressed, unjust, and intense societies than in safe and prosperous welfare states. People turn to and hope for a more intervening God. That said, even in the most well-organized and peaceful welfare state, we can find individuals and groups suffering from problems of all kinds, psychological and material. Some of these turn to a personal God for help. Some expect or hope for substantial divine help. The problem with such hopes is that they actualize the classical problem of evil: If God is almighty, why does he allow so much evil to happen? Even people who venture to interpret healing or other benefits as a result of God’s intervention in their own lives may become thoughtful: Even if they are the lucky ones, there is still much evil and suffering in the world. So, many people settle for God’s mental solidarity and empathy in trying situations and tend to avoid problematic notions of God’s omnipotence.

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Empirical studies of images of God So far, the empirical foundations of the claims we have referred to have varied greatly, and most of these foundations call for futher empirical backing. It is, of course, easier to be essayistic about our topic than to design an empirical study leading to well-documented conclusions. Thus, some of the claims we have cited in this chapter so far have been rather sweeping. However, let us have a closer look at some empirical studies from the United States. Christian Smith and Melinda L. Denton have written a book about American teenagers’ religious and spiritual lives, based on a national survey among young people between 13 and 17 years of age, and followed up by more in-depth interviews.23 Smith and Denton found that most young Americans were generally positive towards religion – but a European study might have shown a different result. The authors have labelled the dominating religion “Moralistic Therapeutic Deism.” In this religion, God’s role is as follows: He exists. He created and ordered the world and watches over human life on earth. God wants people to be good, nice, and fair to each other. The central goal in life is to be happy and to feel good about oneself. God does not have to be particularly involved in one’s life except when needed to resolve a problem. Hence, God and religion tend to become salient only under specific conditions. Finally, good people go to heaven when they die. Moralistic Therapeutic Deism is not radically different from the everyday religion among Americans that Nancy Ammerman called Golden Rule Christianity. Based on surveys and observations in no less than 23 congregations, Ammerman developed the argument that many Christians in mainstream denominations in the United States with non-exclusivist convictions about religious truth and lower levels of participation in church life are a pervasive religious type that deserves to be understood on its own terms. Their faith is not a pale reflection of conservative, evangelical fervour. They might be characterized as cool more than hot or cold in their religious life, and they are more concerned about right-living than about right-believing. Their engagement in caring corresponds with their image of God: Just as our interviewees’ most common description of the Christian life was living by the Golden Rule, so the most common description of God was as a protector and comforter. God was experienced most often in moments of need. Even beyond times of crisis, these church members talked about seeing God’s presence in the ways “things just work out” or feeling more confident about everyday challenges because they know God will care for them. Among the survey respondents, preferred images of God included savior, comforter, and father. These pictures of God as loving, caring, comforting, and protecting largely transcended ideological lines. They are characteristic of Golden Rule Christians, but they are by no means alien to the evangelicals and activists in our study.24

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A more recent study paints several pictures of God, as revealed already in the striking title America’s Four Gods.25 The empirical material in this study consists of an extensive national survey followed by personal interviews. According to the survey, nearly all Americans (85 per cent) believe that God loves people and the world, but there are several nuances. The researchers have focused on two dimensions: How much does God engage in the world, and how judgemental is God? The answers in the survey are then used to construct four images of God. The authoritative God is engaged in the world and is able and willing to interfere. He is wrathful and finds it necessary to punish sins. This is the most widespread conception of God in this study (31 per cent). The benevolent God is also engaged in the world. Believers in this God see his handiwork everywhere, but they cannot believe that he judges and condemns people. God mainly encourages and supports good in the world. 24 per cent believe in a benevolent God. The critical God is also negative towards sin but does not actively interfere in the world here and now. If justice will be restored, it will happen in the afterlife. 16 per cent are placed in this category by the researchers. Finally, God can be distant. He is not engaged in the world; hence, he is not judgemental either. God is defined as a kind of cosmic force in this category. According to the study, 24 per cent of Americans have this notion of God. Images of God vary with the social situation and context. According to Ammerman, Golden Rule Christianity is found mainly (but not only) in the white solid middle class and mainly in mainstream denominations, though it can also be found in evangelical milieus. Paul Froese and Christopher Bader’s study shows that women tend to picture a more benevolent God than men, and African Americans are more likely than whites to believe that God is angry. Ethnic minorities, the poor, and the exploited often believe in a critical God, looking forward to a restoration of justice after death, while more educated and wealthier Americans favour distant images of God. God is more authoritative in the South than on the West Coast. Of course, these findings are not deterministic, but they are statistically robust, the authors conclude. As mentioned, there is much implicit normativity in sociological research. That is also the case when a study of images of God is designed. Which aspects are we looking for and asking about? Light is shed on some dimensions while other dimensions remain in the dark. Froese and Bader have chosen to focus on how active God is in the world and whether he punishes or is benevolent. The labels we choose are significant. When God is characterized as authoritative in their study, not all who hear this term will associate it with a tendency to punish. On the other hand, if the authors call him a punishing God, it may easily be forgotten that most of the respondents that end up in this category also believe in a loving God. In the eyes of these beholders, God’s love sometimes expresses itself through disciplining and even punishment. What we look for may be influenced by our own values or our personal theology. To mention just one example, the German sociologist Hans Joas claims that a more and more important division in the world of religion runs

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between an image of a universalist God – one who loves all and wants them to live in peace with each other – and images of God which oppose universalism for nationalist, racist or other reasons. This division cuts through the traditional borders between the world religions – Christianity, Islam and so on.26

God and the social context – not a simple mirroring process Some theories see images of God as being formed by group interests; other theories see these images as being formed by the limited horizon given by people’s situatedness. Some present the epoch as the crucial independent variable, for instance, modern society. Such epochal theories are relatively vulnerable to criticism for ignoring internal differences in an epoch, in terms of class, gender, ethnicity, region, and other factors. Indeed, any one-factor explanation seems hopelessly simplistic; many factors and their interrelations must be taken into account. As we have seen, religion in general, including images of the deity, is formed in an interplay between the religious tradition (as this tradition is actively interpreted and reconstructed) and the social context (as this context is actively interpreted and reconstructed). Even then, the model can become too reductionist and mechanical. After the critique of positivism, we cannot overlook people’s own creative powers. Some images of God may reflect the social order; others may be formed as a critical reaction to what is seen as dominating and dangerous signs of the times. Many sociologists, including Zygmunt Bauman27 and Steve Bruce,28 understand fundamentalist religions and their strict and demanding God as a reaction to aspects of modernity and postmodernity. For Bauman, a strict and determinate God becomes a figure to turn to and to obey when the many choices in consumer society become too difficult to handle or when it is impossible for what he calls flawed consumers to fulfil their consumerist dreams. Is this mirroring or critical reaction? There are many nuances here. According to Bauman, the flawed consumer is certainly a product of a consumer society, but the consumer’s demanding and strict God is a harsh judge of a consumer society worshipping freedom of choice and material goods. Maybe one way of describing the relationship between the social context and images of God is to say that theologians and others depicting God borrow many of their questions from their society, but they do not necessarily read the answers directly out of the social context. Even this statement can be seen as too deterministic – many critical remarks (including some in this book) have been directed at theologians who have ready answers for questions that now rarely come from outside the theologians’ own flock. These answers are too loosely connected to the everyday experiences and sensibilities of real people. This insight reminds us that it is probably easier to draw lines from the social context to the popularity and frequency of images of God than to point at causal connections between the social order and the emergence of such images. Theologians and other God-talkers may say and think many things, but social factors influence to what extent these thoughts become marginal or

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mainstream. Generally speaking, the power of the theologians to form images of God is probably weaker than before. Religious life has become more individualized. Nevertheless, we will see, especially in the following chapter on Kristiansand and Sørlandet, that many people still negotiate and construct their religion in relation to established Christian traditions. However, people inside organized religion change too. Their religion tends to become more expressive, emotional, sense-oriented, aesthetic in a broad sense, and less cognitive, confessional, dogmatic – in short, less theological.29 Another way of putting it is to say that another kind of theology emerges, more implicit, more poetic, and less propositional and insisting. In any case, such developments call for critical self-reflection among theologians, another concern addressed in this book. Let us quote a summary of what a middle-aged minister in the Church of Norway told researcher Paul Leer-Salvesen in a study of the practices and teachings of ministers in contemporary society. Reidar, as he is called, said that he was “dead certain and angry” about many things when he had finished his theological education. That changed gradually as he began meeting people in various situations and became more fond of them. He eventually saw them as “living human documents,” later influencing his theology at least as much as the theological books had done earlier.30 In other parts of this book, we describe a situation in which hell and perdition seem to disappear from large parts of the Christian faith tradition’s imagery.31 One may wonder why. It is possible to point at a generally increasing scepticism towards authoritarian regimes, making it difficult to defend the notion of a punishing and vindictive God. Other factors may be at work, probably of a more ethical than rationalist character. More social contact between Christians and people with other convictions makes it difficult to stigmatize others as completely immoral or very unhappy, as the most pious and strict leaders of revivalist movements often did with people “outside.” Such cross-religious and cross-cultural contacts have made it more difficult to draw a distinct line between good and evil, between saved and unsaved. People have become understanding psychologists and sociologists, probably more than before.

How important is God in everyday religion? God is central to theology and for theologians, but how important is God actually in ordinary people’s everyday religion? At first glance, this question may sound strange. However, contemporary sociology of religion increasingly paints pictures of religion where dogmatic and cognitive dimensions, including images of God, become less important, while practical, ritual, emotional, and moral dimensions are the most significant aspects. When describing Golden Rule Christianity, Nancy Ammerman stressed that it was “explicitly nonideological.” It was “not driven by beliefs, orthodox or otherwise.” Rather, it was based on practice and experience. God may be somewhere in the background, but the immediate engagement is “the everyday virtues of doing good.”32 The significant trend in recent sociology of religion called lived

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religion seems to reduce the significance of images of God as an essential cause of behaviour and attitudes, or at least make it difficult for researchers to disentangle images of God from other independent variables in religion, to use a somewhat mechanical language. However, several empirical studies claim to show that images of God have consequences for attitudes and practices. For example, in the abovementioned America’s Four Gods, Froese and Bader find that believers in a distant God believe that the state should provide essential welfare to the poor and needy. In contrast, believers in an authoritarian or benevolent God tend to give religious organizations a more central role as welfare providers. Furthermore, many believers in an authoritarian God are sceptical towards the welfare state because they see the core problem of poverty as moral, caused by laziness, drugs, and free-riding. Froese and Bader also identify a significant correlation between a judgemental conception of God and negative attitudes towards homosexuality. Based on quantitative data from the USA, Andrew Whitehead shows that viewing God as masculine is consistently associated with less support for same-sex unions. Individuals with a masculine picture of God are signalling “a belief in an underlying gendered reality that influences their perceptions of the proper ordering of that reality.”33 Whitehead shows that the gendered perceptions of the divine still influence attitudes to same-sex relations, even when controlled for general gender traditionalism through an advanced methodology of logistic regressions. However, Whitehead admits that, due to the cross-sectional data, he cannot determine the causal direction. However, he argues that for most individuals, types of religious socialization “tend to occur much earlier than the crystallization of same-sex union attitudes.”34 The problem of deciding the direction of cause and effect is probably more significant in a study by F. Carson Mencken et al.35 They have analysed survey data about trust from a sample of highly religious Americans. They found that having a loving image of God created greater trust levels in four contexts: trust in people in general, in people who do not believe in God, in neighbours, and in co-workers. However, an image of God as an angry God resulted in less trust in all four measures of trust. The findings make intuitive sense, but we should not be too categorical in defining the direction of cause and effect. The general trust acquired early in family life may have influenced which image of God was the most attractive. As in many studies of religion and other fields, there is probably, as Pål’s first teacher in social science methodology called it, “flirting between variables.”

Concluding remarks To sum up this chapter briefly, people’s conceptions of God can be understood as mirroring society. Thus, God’s traits are coloured by people’s experience, perhaps by everyday experience more than by extraordinary and spectacular experience in the long run. God can legitimize lifestyles, hierarchies, interests

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and so on. This is not uncommon among people with privileges. On the other hand, God can also be shaped by a critical reaction to phenomena in society, demanding social change or defending old values. God can even be given attributes and powers in a compensatory manner. Poor and lonely people can comfort themselves by looking forward to a time when God will turn everything upside down, degrading the mighty and placing the oppressed in a heavenly community. As interpreters of connections between the social context and images of God, then, we are left with the task of balancing somewhere between social blindness and social determinism. The theories we have touched upon here may be an important intellectual help and inspiration along the way, but each of them is hardly more than what is jokingly called a sometimes-true-theory. Hopefully, such an overview can inspire researchers to think more precisely about how the social order influences images of the divine. Some may say that we have fallen into a ditch, continuing an everlasting and never-ending discussion with the classics in social science. Our defence is the usual: the founding figures in sociology formed many of the fundamental questions about human beings in society, and there is much to be learned from them, not least by asking whether they are obsolete or even mistaken. For instance, in the West, with geographical mobility and the development of commuting and mass communications, are Weber’s speculations on religion in rural versus urban areas as interesting as they once were? These questions call for comparative empirical studies, and there the sociological classics can still inspire us. Finally, we have argued that a mechanical social determinism in the relationship between images of God and the configurations of society must be discarded. One consequence of that may be comforting for theologians: It matters what theologians say. Theological statements about God, like those presented in this book, can make a difference. However, it is also an important message of this book that theology should relate to people’s concrete experiences. Hence it is advisable that theologians who want to say something about God also know something about contemporary human life. If they read empirical sociology and not only their theologian ancestors, they will be able to make God matter more for people who live in our contemporary world.

Notes 1 Ludwig Feuerbach, The Essence of Christianity (New York: Harper and Bros., 1957). First German edition 1841. 2 Lars Ahlin, New Age – konsumptionsvara eller värden att kämpa för? [New Age – Commodity for Consumption or Values Worth Fighting for?] (Lund: Teologiska institutionen, Lunds universitet, 2000); Mary Douglas, In the Active Voice (London/ Boston: Routledge, 1982). 3 Sigmund Freud, Totem and Taboo (New York: Knopf, 1960). First German edition 1913. 4 Harald Schjelderup and Kristian Schjelderup, Über drei Haupttypen der religiösen Erlebnisformen und ihre psychologische Grundlage [On Three Main Types of Religious Experience and Their Psychological Foundation] (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1932).

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5 Linda Woodhead and Paul Heelas, Religion in Modern Times. An Interpretive Anthology (Oxford: Blackwell, 2000). A more detailed presentation of the typology, especially religions of difference and religions of humanity, can be found in Chapter 7 in this book. 6 Ana-Maria Rizzuto, The Birth of the Living God: A Psychoanalytic Study (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979). 7 Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (London: Routledge, 2001). First German edition 1904–5. 8 Important texts in English by Weber on the social order and theology are found in Max Weber, The Sociology of Religion (Boston: Beacon Press, 1964). First German edition 1922. See also Max Weber, Economy and Society, Vols I–III (New York: Bedminster Press, 1968). First German edition 1925. For useful overviews, see Reinhard Bendix, Max Weber: An Intellectual Portrait (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1977); and Hans Gerth and C. Wright Mills, From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology (New York: Oxford University Press, 1979). 9 For examples, see Nancy Ammerman, Sacred Stories, Spiritual Tribes. Finding Religion in Everyday Life (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014). 10 Bendix, Max Weber, 96. 11 David Nicholls, Deity and Domination: Images of God and the State in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries (London: Routledge, 1994). 12 Berger, Peter L., The Sacred Canopy. 13 Smith, Christian et al., American Evangelism: Embattled and Thriving (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998). 14 See for instance Rodney Stark and William Sims Bainbridge, The Future of Religion (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985), and A Theory of Religion (New York: Peter Lang, 1987). See also Laurence Iannaccone, “Rational Choice: Framework for the Scientific Study of Religion,” in L. A. Young (ed.), Rational Choice Theory and Religion: Summary and Assessment (New York: Routledge, 1997), 25–45. 15 Dean Kelley, “Why Conservative Churches Are Still Growing.” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 17(1), 1978, 129–137. 16 Laurence Iannaccone, “Why Strict Churches Are Strong.” American Journal of Sociology 99(5), 1994, 1180–1211. 17 Familien no. 20/2013. 18 Ibid. 19 Karel Dobbelaere, “Church Involvement and Secularization: Making Sense of the European Case.” In Eileen Barker, James Beckford and Karel Dobbelaere (eds), Secularization, Rationalism and Sectarianism (Oxford: Clarendon, 1993), 26. 20 Jens Glebe-Møller, Politisk Dogmatik [Political Dogmatics] (Århus: FK-tryk, 1982). 21 Ronald Inglehart and Pippa Norris, Sacred and Secular: Religion and Politics Worldwide (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 2nd edition, 2011). 22 Luke 5:31. 23 Christian Smith with Melinda L. Denton, Soul Searching. The Religious and Spiritual Life of American Teenagers (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005). 24 Nancy Ammerman, “Golden Rule Christianity: Lived Religion in the American Mainstream.” In David D. Hall (ed.), Lived Religion in America. Toward a History of Practice (Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press, 1997), 203. 25 Paul Froese and Christopher Bader, America’s Four Gods (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010). 26 Hans Joas, Faith as an Option: Possible Futures for Christianity (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2014.) 27 Zygmunt Bauman, “Postmodern Religion?” In Paul Heelas (ed.), Religion, Modernity and Postmodernity (Oxford: Blackwell, 1998), 55–78. 28 Steve Bruce, Fundamentalism (Cambridge: Polity Press. 2nd edition, 2007.)

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29 See the previous chapter, and Anne Løvland and Pål Repstad, “Playing the Sensual Card in Churches: Studying the Aestheticization of Religion.” In Andrew McKinnon and Marta Trzebiatowska (eds), Sociological Theory and the Question of Religion (Farnham: Ashgate, 2014), 179–198. 30 Paul Leer-Salvesen, Moderne prester [Modern Clergy] (Oslo: Verbum, 2005), 102. 31 See Chapter 4. 32 Nancy Ammerman, “Golden Rule Christianity,” p. 211. 33 Andrew Whitehead, “Male and Female He Created Them: Gender Traditionalism, Masculine Images of God, and Attitudes Toward Same-Sex Unions.” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 53(3), 2014, 492. 34 Ibid, 493. 35 F. Carson Mencken, Christopher Bader and Elizabeth Embry. “In God We Trust: Images of God and Trust in the United States Among the Highly Religious.” Sociological Perspectives 52(1), 2009, 23–38.

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The changing Christian God

Hell strife A detailed study of religious change in a specific region may have its limitations, but a study like this can give nuances and concrete life to some of the more abstract lines of reasoning in this book. A good place to start the story is with the so-called Hell strife of the 1950s. In retrospect, this was the point when the notion of a stern and judging God was vanquished by a kinder image of God. The “strife” began in 1953 when Ole Hallesby, a professor at the Lutheran School of Theology (Menighetsfakultetet), delivered a sermon on Norwegian national radio, warning non-Christians that if they were to die during the following night, they would tumble directly into hell. A liberal bishop in the Church of Norway, Kristian Schjelderup, reacted strongly in newspaper interviews and letters to the editor. He rejected Hallesby’s teachings as in conflict with the Christian belief in a loving and caring God. Hallesby was a leader in the “inner mission” Pietistic movement in Norway as well as a professor at the school that educates the majority of clergy in the Church of Norway; Schjelderup was a more liberal thinker who felt he had to intervene. In the late 1980s, as Pål was writing a biography about Schjelderup, he went to see Schjelderup’s widow.1 She told him that her husband had no intention of stirring up the Hell strife. At first, he did not engage with the media. He was tired of being in the middle of controversy and debates. However, he felt compelled to publish a protest letter in an Oslo newspaper when he heard that some people suffered nervous breakdowns for fear of ending up in hell after hearing Hallesby’s preaching. Hallesby’s response was sharp: he questioned Schjelderup’s position as a bishop and referred to the Confessio Augustana, part of the official Lutheran creed of the Church of Norway dating from the 16th century, which says that “eternal physical pain” must be expected for non-Christians after death. God, said Hallesby, is not only loving but also just and zealous. Schjelderup’s response was to make public a letter he had sent to the Ministry of Education and Church Affairs, asking about his own position and whether he could remain a bishop in the Church of Norway, at the time still a state church. The Ministry sought advice from the two theological faculties in Norway. The theological faculty at the University of Oslo said that Schjelderup DOI: 10.4324/9781003306207-5

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was within the church’s dogmatic scope, while the more conservative Lutheran School of Theology (Menighetsfakultetet), where Hallesby was a professor, said this was not the case. Given the disagreement, the Ministry, led by a Social Democratic government, concluded that Schjelderup could continue as a bishop. This conclusion proved to be a turning point in Norway, or rather, it became the public face of a turn that individuals were already making. At the time, Schjelderup represented only a minority of church leaders in Norway. He was harshly criticized by several of the other bishops but received much support from ordinary members of the Church of Norway and most of the mass media. The Hell strife engaged more people in theological issues than perhaps ever before and certainly ever since. Newspapers were full of letters and comments from individuals and local organizations, most of them supporting Schjelderup and his more friendly God. Gradually a kind of fatigue concerning these unpleasant issues occurred, and after the intense discussions in the 1950s, most conservative church leaders fell silent about hell and perdition, at least in public.2 As we will see, there has been a considerable change in this aspect of Christian theology in Norway and even in the region called Sørlandet over the past 50 years.

God in Sørlandet Pål was born in 1947 and grew up in the Sørlandet region, part of the Bible-belt region of Southern Norway. His father was a theologian who had been an eager participant in revivalist movements as a teenager in the 1930s. Later his enthusiasm cooled. He was never ordained but continued as a regular churchgoer all his life and was a Sunday school teacher for decades – but Pål remembers no negative reactions when he came home one day and told his parents that the evangelical Christian organization at his school was too narrow and strict, and that he no longer wanted to go there. As a young university student in the region, Pål was involved in an evangelical student movement. His suggestion to invite Kristian Schjelderup – by then retired – to speak to a meeting was ill-received by the youth pastor and other watchdogs in the movement. At the time, Pål was not very familiar with the conflict lines in Norwegian church politics, but the experience was rather harsh, so when he moved to Oslo to continue studies a year later, it was natural for Pål to move his Christian engagement to the more liberal Student Christian Movement. Later in his study days, Pål became part of the political movement taking a leftward direction among Christian students in Norway and encountered some very negative reactions from some (far from all) people active in the church, not least people from Sørlandet. Many years later, after having moved back to the region, Pål took an active part in establishing the diaconal organization Church City Mission (Kirkens bymisjon) in Kristiansand, an organization known for its welfare work among out-groups in society as well as for its liberal views on same-sex marriage and equal rights for clergy living in such relationships.

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All of this meant that Pål had direct involvement in the process of Godchange that he later went on to study, in a large research project called “God in Sørlandet.” Nearly 30 researchers from religious studies, theology, sociology, and other disciplines contributed to the project, producing publications from 2003 to 2016. Pål finds it appropriate to mention these elements of his biography after the fall of positivism’s belief in complete objectivity. That said, Pål does not think that his background has resulted in a severe bias in the present presentation of the changing Christian God in Norway. The region of Sørlandet or Agder (we use the names interchangeably) is situated as far south as you can get in Norway without getting your feet wet in the Skagerrak sea between Norway and Denmark. Agder has seen several strong conversionist and revivalist or pietist Christian movements in the second half of the 19th and the first half of the 20th century. Several organizations have been formed in the wake of these revivals. Some of these movements existed, and still exist, within the institutional framework of the Church of Norway, the Lutheran majority church. These more or less formalized movements are sometimes called low-church movements, inner mission movements, or lay movements. Kristian Schjelderup was well acquainted with these movements from his upbringing in Sørlandet. A large majority of the population in Agder (more than two out of three) are still members of the Church of Norway, but there are also several vital minority churches in the region. Lutherans who were sceptical of the state church and what they saw as excessively liberal theological tendencies formed independent congregations from the 1850s onwards, and today some of the largest congregations in the Evangelical Lutheran Free Church are found in Agder. This is also the case with some of the largest Pentecostal congregations in Norway, as well as congregations in the evangelical Mission Covenant Church of Norway (Misjonskirken). Since the 1970s, southern Norway has had its share of religious pluralization because of immigrants mainly from Pakistan and more recently from Poland, and asylum seekers, mainly from Chile, Vietnam, Sri Lanka and some African countries. The result has been an increase in the number of Muslims and Catholics, but Protestant Christianity still dominates the religious landscape, and the research project “God in Sørlandet” focused on changes in established Protestant Christianity. In Norway as a whole, slightly less than one person in ten now goes to church or Christian meetings regularly (that is at least monthly; baptisms and other rituals not included). The figure for Sørlandet is two in ten.3 Other surveys indicate that active Christians in Sørlandet – that is, Christians who take part in religious gatherings at least once a month – are particularly conventional and conservative regarding dogmatic and moral issues. For instance, active Christians in Sørlandet will support literal interpretations of the Bible more often than active Christians elsewhere in Norway and like to read and follow the text “as it stands.”4 Active Christians in Sørlandet are also more sceptical than Christians in other regions concerning gender equality between husbands and wives. This is

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changing as Christians from Sørlandet are becoming more similar to Christians elsewhere in Norway. Today only a minority among active Christians in the region believe that God has created an ideal social order where men and women have different functions and positions in society.5 Nearly 10 per cent of the population in Agder are members of minority churches, which is higher than the Norwegian average, and the percentage of frequently active members is considerably higher in these churches than in the Church of Norway. Generally speaking, active members of minority churches are more conservative in gender issues than active members in the Church of Norway. Summing up, Sørlandet is an actively religious part of a rather secular country, at least as measured by regular church attendance. The regularly active church members are a minority Sørlandet, but a stronger and probably stricter minority in Sørlandet than elsewhere in Norway. That makes Agder a good place to study the dynamics of God-change, as many conservative Christian organizations there find themselves challenged by a more liberal and secularized environment and increasing religious diversity.

Dynamics of individual religious change: Two ways out of the church It has become increasingly common in the sociology of religion to warn against a concept of religion that is too cognitive and head-oriented. Proponents of lived religion, in particular, have eagerly reminded us that religion is not only about cognitive truths that you believe in (or not).6 Religion is also practice, habits, morality, emotions, sensuality, and community, and it is connected to material objects, experiences, and places. Religious engagement cannot always be translated into verbal language. One of Pål’s first books concluded with such insights, but at the time, in the 1980s, he was not able to express them in precise terms, and the term lived religion had not yet come into common use. The book Fra ilden til asken [From the Fire to the Ashes]7 was based on interviews with 21 Norwegian women and men (about half of each) who had been active in Christian organizations, many of them with leading positions, but who had withdrawn from any kind of collective Christian activity. Many of them had grown up in Sørlandet, and Pål was interested in how and why they had left the flock and what they now thought about church and religion. He recruited his interviewees partly through snowball sampling, starting with a few acquaintances (not close friends), and partly through sharing information about the project in various contexts and having people come up to me afterwards to tell him that they fit his description. Pål had extended interviews with these people. Most of them were between 20 and 35 years of age, and there was a certain over-representation of informants with higher education. Nevertheless, very few of the informants specified theological puzzles and difficulties as a reason for leaving. In fact, only one mentioned such a topic, namely the classical problem of theodicy – why there is so much suffering in the world if God is almighty and loving. This interviewee was a theology student who later finished his studies and became a religion teacher in an upper secondary school with no

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confessional bonds. He also mentioned other problems, such as finding the dominating ethics much too strict. This last statement was more in line with what many of the informants said. Roughly speaking Pål’s informants came from two different types of Christian congregation or organization. Some had been members of youth clubs with broad programmes and low thresholds, such as the YMCA and YWCA. The social dimension was important when people came together, with sports, games, food – and the occasional brief sermon. Departures from the organizations often occurred when people got too old to stay there and frequently in connection with moving from home to study or join the military. The informants in this category usually looked back on their time in the youth clubs with fond memories, but without any motivation to seek another Christian milieu. Many of them, especially the young women, maintained a private belief in a warm and caring God or a Jesus with the same characteristics. The other type of Christian organization represented was part of the prevalent low-church, Pietist tradition in Sørlandet. Such milieus could be found inside the Church of Norway, but more often in the minority churches, the socalled free churches. As one informant put it, they were not that free. They had a clear, strict set of moral rules, with a long list of things to stay away from: Cinema, alcohol, in some cases sports, make-up, and, most of all, sex. Furthermore, it was expected that Christians should show a happy face and evangelize to friends, sometimes also to strangers in the street. The beginning of the end for many of the informants who left these strict milieus was often a sense of falling short of these expectations, followed by a need to question them. Unwise reactions from adult leaders sometimes speeded up the process. One example of this that Pål heard repeatedly was when young people asked for a somewhat more modern musical style at the club gatherings and were met by leaders who questioned the faith of the rebels. Again, many women replaced a notion of a strict and judgemental God with a private relationship to a kind and caring God or Jesus, while most of the young men lost their faith in God altogether. Withdrawing from these organizations was much more painful for the Pietist youngsters than for those who had been affiliated with the more liberal associations. Since 1984, Pål has conducted several other qualitative projects with interviews, but as a researcher, he has never seen so many tears as in the interviews carried out in connection with From Fire to Ashes. Some of the departures took place many years before Pål talked to the informants, and for some, time had healed the wounds. Others confided in him that they still felt sick when passing their local prayer house. In sum, morality and lifestyle issues seemed to count much more than theology for those who left collective Christian activity. That is perhaps especially the case for young people. Morality is something close to people and concrete; theology is something far more abstract and distant. The oldest informants in Pål’s study left their flock about 50 years ago. A great deal of liberalization has taken place in Christian milieus in Sørlandet

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since then. Sport has gone from being regarded as dubious in some circles to being considered as a gift from God.8 Several Christians have gone from being teetotallers to allowing moderate consumption of alcohol. Active Christian youngsters go to the movies just as much as others, and so on. Some of the dynamics behind this lifestyle liberalization no doubt has to do with parents in conservative Christian settings gradually and more or less grudgingly having abandoned the strategy of isolationism, where children and teenagers were told to stay away from cinema, secular youth clubs, and other specific taboo areas. Now, the order of business is not to stay away but to carry out a critical evaluation. This conclusion is found in a qualitative study where Hans Hodne interviewed parents in conservative Christian organizations in Sørlandet about how they themselves had been socialized and what kind of upbringing they were now giving their children.9 The increased proximity between children and youngsters from homes with different religious views and practices has made it more difficult for parents to follow a strategy of painting secular milieus in dark colours, as either completely libertarian or deeply unhappy or both. Undoubtedly, many taboos such as going to the cinema, practising sports, and wearing makeup have disappeared today. However, the withdrawal dynamics observed in the 1980s still seem valid, and some of the problematic issues still prevail. Even if the national synod of the Church of Norway accepted same-sex marriage in 2016, the minority churches and several local clergy and congregations have not, so especially in the field of sexuality, many people are likely to experience enduring phases of self-stigmatization and disagreement at the local level. We have seen that lifestyle seems to matter more than theological quandaries when abandoning church activity. We should acknowledge that cognitive, dogmatic images of God are only a limited element in religious life. This fact does not necessarily mean that conceptions of God are without importance for religious practice, but it is a reminder that various images of God can legitimize different practices, and vice versa.10 With this in mind, let us turn to how people in Sørlandet depict their God today.

No longer a punishing God Pastors and clergy Many conservatives among the clergy in the Church of Norway and minority church pastors find themselves conflicted between what they read in the Bible and their own human experience with meeting concerned people in real life situations. In a very forthright statement, a female pastor said in an interview: If I had not been a Christian and considered myself a Bible believer, I would have fought tooth and nail for the rights of homosexuals, because I believe in human dignity and individual choice … However, my conclusion is based on my view of the Bible. I cannot find grounds for permitting homosexual cohabitation in the Bible.11

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This kind of loyalty to scripture is increasingly criticized, also inside the churches, for undermining confidence in one’s own autonomous ethical judgment, and thus inhibiting ethical maturation. We will return to and discuss this position further in one of the theological chapters below. Narrowing the grounds for valid argumentation down to what the Bible says may, in the long run, undermine the plausibility of the standpoint in question. The literal authority of the Bible is still strong inside many low-church organizations and free churches, but this authority is increasingly difficult to communicate outside the camp. Thus, change may be facilitated gradually. The free churches are more used to being in a counter-cultural position as minority movements, but many of the same factors influence them. Some of these denominations, like the Mission Covenant Church (Misjonskirken) and the Pentecostals, have a long tradition of accepting female pastors theologically, so most obstacles to women achieving such positions have been culturally conditioned rather than based on doctrine.12 Similar dynamics can be found in some doctrinal issues, such as questions of hell and perdition, although ethical issues are discussed more, especially those touching on sexuality, like same-sex relations and cohabitation before marriage. In the study we just quoted, Breistein and Leer-Salvesen interviewed state church and minority church clergy in Sørlandet about a hypothetical case: A woman has just lost her husband. She is a Christian; he was not. She is worried that he may go to hell. What would the ministers say to her? They would all try to comfort her with thoughts that the late husband had been handed over to a graceful God and that no human being can know what is really inside a person. Among the state church clergy, several theological opinions on the afterlife were presented. Most of them adhered to a traditional Lutheran view that there are two alternative outcomes, one with and another without God. The way in which these options were described differed. Some adhered to a theory of annihilation, meaning that besides heaven, there is nothingness. Hopes, and to some extent convictions, were also expressed about apokatastasis, that God will eventually gather everyone around him. Many commented that no one could really be certain about these things. They did not have a closed system. Some believed, and communicated to mourners, that the last word is probably not said in the moment of dying. Some referred to the notion that Jesus preached to the dead. Others had thoughts similar about purgatory, although they did not use this term.13 All of them seemed to struggle to find a way to mediate between the texts in scripture and the unpleasantness of this part of the Christian tradition, probably more problematic than ever in contemporary society with its scepticism of authority and its many psychological and sociological explanations of why people behave and choose the way they do. The report above shows how clergy, in their thoughts about God’s character and negotiations with the text and a conservative interpretative tradition, are trying to find room for their more immediate contemporary humanistic ethos. During their theological studies they have learned that interpretation takes place in a dialectical move between the whole and the parts. However, having been brought up in the region, many of them have also been socialized into a

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rather Biblicist tradition. It is essential to add that this tradition, despite many programmatic statements to the contrary, is not always very close to what the chapters and verses in the Bible say, historically speaking. There is a long tradition of harmonizing and ignoring inconsistencies, for instance, between the different Gospels, and for ignoring the most “difficult” biblical statements. As said, the abovementioned “Hell strife” represented a turning point in religious life in Norway. For the first time, more than a minority of intellectuals contested traditional Christian dogma, with the long-term result that hell, perdition, and images of a punishing God have almost completely disappeared from teaching and preaching in Norway. It may be there implicitly when talking about salvation and heaven, but it is almost never mentioned explicitly. Not surprisingly, the minority church pastors in the studies we refer to here (Pentecostals, Covenant Mission, Evangelical Lutheran Free Church) were more conservative when asked about this topic. They all maintained a belief in two outcomes after death but without any notion of physical punishment. No pastor seemed to want to frighten anybody into heaven anymore. They, too, would comfort and encourage the widow in the example above, rather than add to her burden. They would tell her that God is generous and loving and not dwell on the danger of perdition. One might say that they have not changed the dogma (except for the not unimportant part of removing the physical pain), and for some of the oldest free church pastors that Øyvind Skjegstad interviewed, an important motivation for their work had been to save people from perdition. However, they told researchers that these rather uncomfortable parts of the Christian belief tradition are practically never thematized in preaching any more.14 The studies we have referred to so far involve a limited number of clergy in different denominations, about 30 altogether. These studies provide limited opportunities for generalization, of course, but general impressions support the conclusions above. We have no quantitative studies of doctrinal positions among Norwegian clergy, but a Finnish quantitative survey points in the same direction as the studies from Sørlandet. Few in the clergy of the Finnish majority church depart from the official Lutheran teachings when it comes to Jesus, God, and salvation, but several do so in matters concerning hell and perdition.15 Pål has performed a systematic content analysis of a parish magazine in Agder, serving three local congregations in the Church of Norway. Nearly all the text was written by local clergy, other staff and lay leaders. All issues (10 a year) from 1980 to 2004 were analysed. During this period, few references to hell and perdition could be identified, and such references disappeared completely at the end of the period. The focus was on the positive and enriching qualities of Christianity. Many of the features dealt with interesting and entertaining activities in the congregation. Very little was said directly about God, but indirectly one might almost get the impression that He was some kind of managing director for entertaining and positive leisure activities, especially targeting children, adolescents, and families.16

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More people believe in hell in Sørlandet The active Christian laypeople in Sørlandet are generally more conservative and orthodox in their views about hell and perdition than their clergy. A survey from 2012 showed that people in Sørlandet tend to believe in the traditional theological claim that all will have eternal life after death and that some will be saved, others will not. In Norway as a whole, 12 per cent supported this traditional view, compared to 18 per cent in Agder.17 Another survey was carried out in 1998 and repeated with many of the same items ten years later, in 2008. This so-called International Social Survey Programme (ISSP) provides results from the county of Vest-Agder in addition to national Norwegian data, as an extended sample was drawn in Vest-Agder – one of the two counties forming Agder or Sørlandet, besides Aust-Agder.18 Vest-Agder has the higher population of the two and generally scores higher than its neighbouring county when it comes to religion, although Aust-Agder is also among the more religious counties in Norway. How stable over time were the answers to the statement: “I believe in hell”? In Norway as a whole, the affirmation of this position went down from 19 per cent in 1991 to 14 per cent in 2018. Earlier surveys show that the proportion of Norwegians believing in hell shrunk during the 1980s, and probably even before that.19 These changes seem to have come later in Sørlandet. The Vest-Agder surveys show that in 1998 almost half the population believed in hell, absolutely or probably. Ten years later, the percentage had gone down to one out of three. Nevertheless, we see that belief in hell is still more widespread in Vest-Agder than in Norway as a whole. The reason for this is not only that the number of active Christians in Vest-Agder is higher than in other counties, but also that active Christians in Vest-Agder (defined as people attending church services or other religious events at least once a month) seem to be more conservative in their beliefs than active Christians elsewhere in Norway.20 At the same time, when comparing the results from 1998 with more recent figures, it seems that people in Sørlandet are slowly but steadily approaching the national figures. This tendency corresponds to the impression we have from the qualitative data. However, it is possible that the minority churches increasingly represent a stronghold for the traditional dualistic belief in heaven and hell, salvation and perdition. If we delve deeper into the empirical material from the 2008 survey, we see that three out of four people in Vest-Agder who feel attached to minority churches categorically believe in hell, while only one out of ten who feel attached to the Church of Norway takes the same position, believing in hell without reservation.

Nuances and dynamics Quantitative studies do not capture nuances and contextual dynamics very well. Questions, statements, and fixed answers have to be brief. We do not

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understand what kinds of images and notions respondents have in mind when they mark on the questionnaire whether they believe in hell, absolutely or probably – or probably or absolutely not. Such notions may range from concrete and physical images of fire and pain to abstract and symbolic notions about a life where God is not present. Furthermore, we do not capture coherent reasoning lines in such quantitative surveys; we only get fragments. Neither do we know how salient and significant these notions are in the respondents’ daily life. While qualitative studies lose when it comes to general and representative knowledge, they score better on nuances. There is a likely distinction between those who adhere to old official statements and those who compromise and adjust, for instance, because they are in a situation where their near and dear ones are not Christians. A vicar in the Church of Norway told Leer-Salvesen that ordinary Christians often have an image of a more generous God than the lay leaders of Christian organizations. At the same time, he said that he sometimes saw remnants of the old intense preoccupations with hell among older people. An older woman he met quoted her mother, who once told her daughter that she must never wear slacks, or she would end in perdition. This vicar and several others in the clergy said that they try to change such people’s focus from perdition to salvation, from anxiety to hope.21 Again and again, we see that social context and experience make differences during people’s religious careers, although it is not always easy to express such changes in public. We, the authors of this book, have had access to 26 life stories from people in Vest-Agder, describing their life with a special focus on their relationship to religion.22 From these qualitative interviews, we have a telling quotation from a faithful woman who had attended prayer house meetings throughout a long life: “Yes, I believe in hell and all that, but I cannot really believe it is as bad as I have heard and been taught.” Even the faithful in conservative milieus negotiate their tradition. She continued her reflections by saying that God is merciful, so he will probably not send anybody to hell. This comment is interesting. Again, we are shown a negotiation between a literal, conservative interpretation of the Bible and a person’s more immediate and experience-based impression of God. The God this lady related to in her prayers and thoughts is probably a loving, caring God. With some unease, she explained that God’s love trumps other features of God that she had learned about in the theological tradition into which she had been socialized. Simultaneously, she took a step back and commented on her own statement, almost excusing herself, by saying that she probably thought like this because some of her dear ones were outside the flock. While we see that there is still a part of the population that believes in hell in some sense, this belief is a defensive one. In a qualitative study, Trine Ravn Nielsen has interviewed a few conservative active people, some in the Church of Norway and some Pentecostals.23 The informants all admitted that it feels very difficult to defend such positions, and some of them reported a kind of moral distress, even showing signs of physical unease during the interviews, Nielsen reports.

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Changes in societies, changes in religion Why is the belief in hell a defensive one, even in a region with strong conservative Christian traditions such as Sørlandet? We have noted the relatively solid literal belief in the Word of God in the region. Belief in hell seems to be rooted in loyalty to the Bible more than general ethical or religious arguments. This narrow foundation for the notion of hell may make belief in hell even more vulnerable in the future. Many historical examples show that when arguments were gradually narrowed down to statements like “it says so in the Bible,” changes were just around the corner. The issue of female clergy is a good example. In the 19th and well into the 20th century, a great many general, essentialist arguments about women’s nature supported the standpoint that they could not enter the clergy. In the second half of the 19th century, even Norwegian professors in medicine, with their self-identification as progressive, claimed that women had properties that made them unfit for university education, especially in the natural sciences. Gradually such arguments were weakened, even in ecclesiastical contexts. Today, the opponents of female clergy are left with arguments based on (particular interpretations of) Bible quotations. Even if some people still whisper about women’s essential characteristics, the argument has disappeared from public debate. As we have touched upon earlier in this chapter, to base one’s arguments solely on the Bible’s authority may be to build on shaky ground. The Bible has been historicized and, to some extent, relativized in much of the dominating theology, even in the conservative South. With much less confessional religious education in schools and with the level of education now raised, knowledge about the Bible’s historical character has become more widespread and more accepted, even among active Christians. Another relativizing force is the fact that conservative positions in many areas have been given up, after having been presented some decades earlier as God’s absolute will. This is the case with the parliamentary rule, homosexuality as a crime, and many other issues. The knowledge of these changes has in itself worked as an antidote to a peremptory attitude. It would be wrong to interpret these historical changes only as a result of external pressures as if Christians in the South grudgingly had to give up their positions. Like most other people, conservative Christians in Sørlandet reflect on their own positions, and the difficulties of combining the notion of a benevolent and almighty God with a conviction that God inflicts horrible pain to some people after death has been a problem for many people down through the whole history of the church. Schematically speaking, thoughtful Christians have partly tried to soften or remove these pains, partly (more in practice than in theory) to weaken God’s omnipotence. While God has become kinder and more caring for many people, he has also lost much of his former control. He has become less interventionist, although he is still enabling for some of his followers. These changes may also have made him more distant for many.

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The devil has moved into films Organized Christianity, even in conservative regions such as Sørlandet, is less preoccupied with hell and perdition than before, and the anthropology has become more optimistic and this-worldly. There is a contrast between this development and the tendency in contemporary films, TV series, and computer games to thematize, often quite drastically, mythological and apocalyptic battles between good and evil, often personalized into devils and demons. Some will use the vague term a paradox about this combination of trends. Others might say that some of the emotional and intellectual conflicts between good and evil that were prominent in earlier church contexts have now moved into fiction. Our interpretation is simpler: exactly because such creatures and events are seen as fictional and not real by most people today, filmmakers and creators of games can enjoy introducing such elements and make sheer entertainment out of them. Horror movies may scare us but do so within a secure framework that does not affect us deeply and existentially. As long as such popular cultural manifestations are seen as entertainment only, to enjoy (or distance oneself from) colourful presentations of demons and hell, they do not prevent the maintenance of a belief in a loving and caring God.

God – closer, friendlier, and less almighty Images of God in preaching the Christian gospel go increasingly further in the direction of a friendly and empathic God. When preaching to children and young people, Christian leaders always depict an image of a loving God, and there is no presentation at all of a strict, punishing God. This is theologian and sociologist Harald Hegstad’s conclusion in a Norwegian national study of faith education organized by congregations in the Church of Norway.24 Furthermore, in the “God in Sørlandet” project, comprising both the majority church and minority churches, we found many examples where God is depicted as a loving and caring God, and very few examples present Christianity in a dualistic way with a strong emphasis on the options of salvation or perdition. Social semioticist Anne Løvland’s analysis of websites of Christian organizations and congregations in Sørlandet showed that a friendly and activity-oriented Christianity is portrayed on the internet. No “difficult” dogmatic issues were touched upon.25 Broadly speaking, the same conclusion is valid for the summer camps for young people, studied through fieldwork by Irene Trysnes26 The common argument for choosing a Christian identity in these camps goes like this: “God loves you, and he has good things in store for you.” Admittedly, in a Pentecostal youth camp, a dualistic preaching was also present, that is, a preaching where God and the devil, salvation and perdition are presented as distinct alternatives. One of the leaders repeatedly urged the young people to come up to the front of the room to show that they had been converted to a life with Christ. The results were rather modest, despite (or maybe because of) intense warnings.

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However, this was an exceptional case. At other meetings in this summer camp, as well as in all the other five camps, no such events occurred. Our general impression is that the Christian discourse is less polarizing now than in the golden age of the revivalist movements in Sørlandet, say from 1870 to 1970. Differences are still expressed, but less dramatically than before. Presently, there is more talk about practising Christians and active Christians, less about saved people, and virtually no mention of the unsaved. In our research project on God in Sørlandet, a working hypothesis was that God has become less almighty, as well as closer and more caring in the eyes of people from Agder. This claim was inspired partly by a change noted in pastoral discourse at funeral sermons, especially at funerals after sudden, unexpected, and tragic deaths. Some decades ago, a minister speaking on such occasions would often make statements like: “we do not understand this, but we must believe that God knows what is best for us, and one day all will be revealed. Until then, we have to accept it.” This theme, with variations, implied a notion of an almighty God who could also do things that human beings had great difficulties understanding and accepting. Hence, not everything was in consonance with our working hypothesis about a more friendly God. This was apparent in one interview with an elderly woman, very faithful to her low-church organization, who told the interviewer that she believed God could send cancer in order to educate a person.27 In these instances, God was seen as almighty, and therefore the initiator of most of what happens in the world, including (seemingly) evil and difficult circumstances – although probably not including the trouble that sinful people create for themselves or each other. If we were to go by the theory that images of God mirror human conditions, such an authoritarian God would probably have more space for action in authoritarian societies than in contemporary Western democracies, where egalitarian values are adhered to – at least in principle. In more recent sermons, such submission is rarely demanded, if at all. Sermons go much more in this direction: “A terrible thing has happened. God did not want this, and he is not behind this death. You have every right to be mourning, even angry, but God can be close to you and support you.” In these instances, God seems to have changed his role from an absolute monarch with unlimited powers (or maybe some modest limits into which his subject has no insight) to that of a social worker who cannot give the clients a job or even welfare benefits, but who offers encouragement and motivation. When our hypothesis about change in how people think about God’s omnipotence was formed, it was inspired only by impressionistic evidence. Bjarte Leer-Salvesen has since carried out a systematic study of sermons given at 51 funerals, based on manuscripts from ministers, about half of them from Sørlandet.28 This study confirms strongly the conclusion that presently and in most cases God is not held responsible for sudden and tragic deaths, and he is depicted as close, loving and caring – although perhaps without efficient means to change the situation fundamentally. Here we witness what some theologians

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may call an internal secularization, while others might see it as a sharper focus on central Christian notions. In a study among organized Christian youth, however, God’s omnipotence seemed to be intact, at least at a rhetorical level. Helje Sødal performed a study of three Christian youth organizations in the regional capital Kristiansand, tracing changes through 20 years by means of retrospective interviews, studies of written sources, and fieldwork.29 She concluded that the young members see God as both a close friend full of solidarity and as an almighty king, and thus coined the expression “the cosy majesty.” Sødal noted considerable variations in the discourse among the young people, from a formal, solemn style in descriptions of God’s power and majesty to informal, colloquial language when God was presented as a friend. The expression “the cosy majesty” was directly inspired by an observation she made: A meeting started with a long sequence of songs of praise, where most songs praised God and Jesus as elevated majesties. At the end of this session, a boy in the team leading the worship started praying aloud: “Jesus, thank you for letting us have this cosy meeting with you tonight.” Later in the meeting, another young person related how he had been healed from a severe head injury, emphasizing God’s power. At the same time, he talked about the works of the Almighty in teenage slang: “It is cool to be healed, folks!” The elevated and the colloquial styles also go hand in hand in the lyrics of the songs of praise. English texts are used quite a lot. The song “Here I Am, Humbled by Your Majesty” has the following chorus: “Draw me close in your arms – oh God, I want to be with you.” Another song, “Open the Eyes of My Heart, Lord,” gives another example of the combination of a close relationship and God’s overwhelming greatness: “Pour out your power and love, as we sing holy, holy, holy.” According to Helje Sødal, the new songs of praise, with their repetitions and, in a critical perspective, more modest dogmatic content than the old psalms, can be divided into two main types – king songs and love songs. The first kind praises God for his power. In the second type, the singers express their love of God and his love for them. The latter songs can be quite intimate, almost erotic: God, your beauty knocks me out I long for you, to feel the warmth in your embrace I have felt your touch, more intimate than lovers Majesty and intimacy, sensuality, power and love – this picture of God is not without internal tensions, but the young members did not address these tensions in any analytical way. They sang; they did not act as systematic theologians. God’s closeness to people as well as his majesty were primarily communicated through songs of praise, and Sødal reported no indications that the young people found this combination difficult. She reflected: “The young ones found this rather natural, or maybe they do not reflect on this [tension], as long as the emotions and experiences are mostly positive.”30

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Helje Sødal claims that her study supports a general conclusion based on many of the empirical studies in the God in Sørlandet project, namely that theology and dogma over time seem to be less essential dimensions of religious life, and that experience, emotions, appeals to the senses, and aestheticization in a broad sense are coming more to the fore. It may be added that if theology and teaching become less important, maybe inconsistencies are more critical to the theologians (or theo-logicians) than to young people.31 Irene Trysnes has studied changes in the lyrics of often-used Sunday school songs.32 The title of her study is “From ‘Be Careful, Little Eye, What You See’ to ‘God Loves All of Me.’” The first song’s main message is “for our Father in heaven sees everything that happens in the world.” This song is hardly ever used anymore, except in satirical hindsight, but it was a popular Christian children’s song in the 1940s and 1950s. Furthermore, the dualistic worldview that we have described was still present in many Sunday school songs two or three generations ago. Many songs communicated the seriousness of life to children and adolescents: “Do you dare to be a Christian, and take that step fully? In other words, if you do not dare to begin taking this step, where will you go in the end?” Such warnings completely disappeared some decades ago. Other topics that have disappeared from Sunday school include all patronizing references to non-Christians (including the term heathen), and all direct invitations to become a missionary. Today, the songs present a good-hearted, generous and caring God, and Jesus as everybody’s friend. Let us go back to the 26 life stories from Sørlandet to which we have had access.33 For several of these informants, especially the younger ones, God is a rather distant figure, while for others, he is non-existent. Nevertheless, well over half the informants have a belief in God. Almost all these see God as a benevolent, caring, living, generous, and helping God. Even among those who find organized Christianity too narrow and strict, we found images of God as a caring God with whom they had a positive relationship. God is a helper. Many of them struggle a bit trying to find words to describe God. Even among active Christian churchgoers trying to relate to official dogma, things can become rather complicated, as in this statement from an elderly woman: God and Jesus and the Holy Spirit, they are the same person; at the same time, I see them as three, you have the trinity, you know, that God is real, someone you can turn to. There is something there, it is a bit difficult to define. It is interesting to note that the tendency to use formal language is more prevalent when the informants, including active Christians, talk about Jesus. We will now turn to that.

Jesus as friend and saviour – or what? Many people in Norway affirm a kind of belief in Jesus when asked about this in surveys. In 1998, 45 per cent of the Norwegian population agreed or agreed

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partly in a relatively highly profiled dogmatic statement about Jesus: “Jesus is my saviour, who died for my sins.” Twenty years later, in 2018, support among Norwegians for this description of Jesus had sunk to 30 per cent. In both years the proportion supporting this description was a few per cent higher in Vest-Agder.34 Methodological warnings should be issued here, as some people may have given what they knew as “correct” Christian answers, answers they remembered from teaching at school or in confirmation. This caveat is supported by the fact that surprisingly few informants in the qualitative study had much to say in their own words about Jesus. They had less to say about Jesus than about God. One person told the interviewer that while she thought of God as a bit scary, she felt that Jesus was friendlier. However, we do not find more reflections of this kind in the material, and there are very few references to the life and works of the historical Jesus as narrated in the gospels. Again, we see examples of negotiating the tradition. One woman, Wenche, can serve as an illustration. She grew up in a “negotiating family,” as her mother had a Pentecostal background and moved over to the Church of Norway, while her father was “close to being a secular humanist,” according to Wenche. She is married to a Secular Humanist Association member, and she would have liked him to believe in God, as she indeed does herself. All her children are baptized; “We thought that they could decide … for themselves later.” As for the children, some have chosen a Christian confirmation, others a humanist ceremony organized by the Humanist Association. Some family members go to church on Christmas Eve, and others do not. Her images of Jesus are complex and a mixture of “official” dogma and her own reflections in a pluralist society: I really do not think you have to go through Jesus in order to reach God. But he is the son of God after all, I believe that. But I feel I can go to both, not necessarily through Jesus. Wenche strongly believes in life after death: “Yes, I believe firmly in that. Then I will meet my dear ones again.” Again, we see that hell is not very popular: “No, I do not believe in that. I believe in a heaven and an afterlife and such, but I do not believe there is anything like hell.” She moves on to some vivid images: It is fun that I can walk in the cemetery here and talk to my parents in law and ask them to say hello from me to my own parents, who lie in [name of another cemetery]. It sounds rather silly, but … Similar mixtures of personal experiences and dogmatic elements are sometimes presented in different language styles. Martin is an example. He uses rough, colloquial language when giving an account of his quite dramatic life and then moves over to an entirely different, rather formal discourse when talking about spiritual matters. Among other things, he says that Jesus brings a propitiatory

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sacrifice for our sins. Sin is something “impure,” according to him. These two levels or types of discourse may be an indication that the theological and the experiential dimensions are not quite integrated. Some of the others, also with a Christian self-understanding, struggle to express their thoughts about Jesus and end up in somewhat closed “official” formulas, without being able to unwrap them or relate them to their everyday life. When asked about Jesus, Åse finds it more difficult to talk about Jesus than about God: Yes, that is a bit more difficult. That is, I have no difficulties accepting that Jesus in a way was created by God and, you know, that he has lived and died and probably resurrected … Here the interviewer interrupts her and asks if she is not sure about the resurrection: Oh yes, I am sure about that. But to say … Yes, it lies in … It is supposed to be the saviour, kind of … The interviewer asks whether she thinks about Jesus as a saviour, and Åse answers: No. Not in everyday life. No, but I have a kind of diffuse relation to that. But … but I am not saying that he is not, either … Another example is Frøydis’ answer to who Jesus is. She is firmly anchored in teachings and formulas from her Christian upbringing, but even she has some difficulties in “unwrapping” her message: Yes, Jesus, he was both God and man. It said so in the [Luther’s] Explanation, that Jesus had to be a true human being, in order to suffer for us. And he had to be a true God, for his death and blood to have eternal power of the atonement. I do not know if I can explain any more … Practically all the informants using resources from official church teachings about Jesus present the works of Jesus in terms of a sacrifice to please God, in terms of atonement. Many also talk about sin in terms of moral failure. There are few or no references to other theories of reconciliation between God and humans and no references to Jesus fighting evil forces and suppressing evil. As mentioned, very few speak about what happened in the life of Jesus, but there are also very few references to the resurrection of Jesus. The focus is more on sin and death than on liberation, freedom, hope, and joy of life. If we look at the statements in the qualitative material and compare this to the relatively widespread faith in Jesus expressed in the surveys, one possible interpretation is that there is quite a lot of faith present, but that the linguistic

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repertoire is rather poor compared to the possibilities inherent in the Christian tradition. The role and significance of Jesus represent a difficult theme for theologians as well, not only for laypeople. It may be that contemporary preaching about Jesus is a combination of taking for granted old formulas without bothering – or managing – to unwrap them, and a lack of courage to find new ways of expressing Jesus’ role, perhaps because of the controlling socio-dogmatic milieu still to be found inside some of the Christian organizations. However, this is probably only part of the explanation of the linguistic poverty surrounding Jesus. Religious literacy has not necessarily diminished in school, but it is much less concentrated on Christian themes than is was some decades ago. The narratives about Jesus now have to compete with narratives from other religious traditions and secular worldviews, and not least with discussions about ethical challenges in the contemporary world. Some of the qualitative interview material we have looked at was collected about 20 years before this book was written, and it is not unlikely that we would have had other kinds of answers now. A more recent study of radio devotionals in Norway published in 2019 shows nuanced images of Jesus in contemporary preaching.35 On all weekdays, there are morning devotionals on the national public broadcaster (NRK). On average the programme, lasting less than 10 minutes, attracts about 300,000 listeners daily in a country with well over 5,000,000 inhabitants. NRK invites clergy and laypeople from all parts of the Christian landscape in Norway to share their Christian message with the listeners. A theologian with a keen interest in sociology, Nils Terje Andersen, had access to the manuscripts of 200 such devotionals from 2017. Based on this material, he found that the traditional, dogmatic picture of Jesus as a saviour who atoned for our sins was almost completely absent from the devotionals. It is a bit surprising that this theology of atonement is nearly invisible here when one considers how significant it has been in the history of theology. But it is probably easier to stress that people change their minds when they learn that God is love than to insist that God changes his mind when he gets a sacrifice from his son. In the devotionals, Jesus was often described as a great influencer, a good teacher, and an inspiring personality. He was also often pictured as an ethical role model, although seldom as a political freedom fighter. Furthermore, Jesus was presented as God because he showed people who God is, that God is full of love. Several devotionals make a point that Jesus showed that love, in the end, is stronger than death and that he has given hope to all human beings through his resurrection. Simultaneously, the human side of Jesus was underlined, as the vulnerable little baby in the crib (especially at Christmas), or in statements like “He loved long meals with good food and wine.” Jesus is also presented as a person who can change people, not primarily as a miracle maker, more as an able therapist who can listen to people and understand what they need. In sum, the devotionals depict Jesus as a representative of a religion of humanity more than of a religion of difference, to use concepts from Linda Woodhead and Paul Heelas.36

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The Holy Spirit is very rarely referred to in our material. When it happens a couple of times, the focus is primarily on charismatic fruits of the spirit, being “filled by the spirit,” and having good emotions. Thus, there is a focus here on experience, but it can hardly be said to be an everyday experience, rather comprising experiences beyond ordinary life.

A brief conclusion In sum, God scares few people in Norway nowadays, including in the old Biblebelt Sørlandet. Instead, he confirms their projects and makes few radical challenges to their lifestyle – perhaps in reaction to the rather strict and intervening God in the now weakened Pietist tradition. Jesus is more distant than we expected for Christians. A general belief in him as a saviour is widespread, but difficulties arise for many Christians when this belief is to be transformed into words. Some of them seem to resort to rather fragmented formulas from just a part of the Christian heritage, while many drop parts of this very heritage, especially the old theological doctrines about Jesus suffering for the sins of human beings to obtain reconciliation with a strict and zealous God.

Notes 1 Pål Repstad, Mannen som ville åpne kirken. Kristian Schjelderups liv [The Man Who Would Open the church. The Life of Kristian Schjelderup] (Oslo: Universitetsforlaget, 1989). 2 Repstad, Mannen som ville åpne kirken. 3 Pål Ketil Botvar, Pål Repstad and Olaf Aagedal, “Regionaliseringen av norsk religiøsitet” [Regionalization of Norwegian Religiosity] (Oslo: Universitetsforlaget, 2010). 4 Anne Halvorsen, “Hvor spesielle er sørlendingene?” [How Special Are People from Sørlandet?]. Tallenes tale 2004 (Trondheim: Tapir, 2004). 5 May Linda Magnussen, Pål Repstad and Sivert Urstad. “Skepsis til likestilling på Sørlandet – et resultat av religion?” [Scepticism towards Gender Equality in Southern Norway – a Result of Religion?]. Tidsskrift for kjønnsforskning 36, 2012, 204–222. 6 Meredith McGuire, Lived Religion. Faith and Practice in Everyday Life (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008). Nancy Ammerman, Sacred Stories, Spiritual Tribes. Finding Religion in Everyday Life (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013). For a presentation and critique of lived religion, see also Pål Repstad, “More Dialogue Between Approaches: Everyday Religion and Political Religion.” In Pål Repstad (ed.), Political Religion, Everyday Religion. Sociological Trends (Leiden: Brill, 2019), 55–66. 7 Pål Repstad, Fra ilden til asken. En studie i religiøs passivisering [From Fire to Ashes. A Study of Religious Withdrawal] (Stavanger: Universitetsforlaget, 1984). 8 Nils M. Justvik, Idrett og kristendom på Sørlandet [Sports and Christianity in Sørlandet] (Kristiansand: Portal Akademisk, 2012). 9 Hans Hodne, “Endringer i barneoppdragelse blant sørlandskristne” [Changes in Child Rearing among Christians in Sørlandet]. In Pål Repstad and Jan-Olav Henriksen (eds), Mykere kristendom (Bergen: Fagbokforlaget, 2005), 135–150. 10 Cf. the reflections in Chapter 3. 11 Ingunn F. Breistein and Paul Leer-Salvesen. “Moderne prester og pastorer” [Modern Clergy and Pastors]. In Pål Repstad and Jan-Olav Henriksen (eds), Mykere kristendom (Bergen: Fagbokforlaget, 2005), 162.

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12 Ingunn F. Breistein, “Mellom underordning og likestilling” [Between Submission and Equality]. In Pål Repstad (ed.), Norsk bruksteologi i endring (Trondheim: Tapir Akademisk, 2010), 149–170. 13 Ingunn F. Breistein and Paul Leer-Salvesen, “Moderne prester og pastorer.” In Paul Leer-Salvesen, Moderne prester [Modern Clergy] (Oslo: Verbum, 2005), 126–133. 14 Øyvind Skjegstad, “Fortapelsens mulighet: Frikirkelige pastorer i Vest-Agder om livets utgang” [The Possibility of Perdition: Pastors in Free Churches in Vest-Agder on Life after Death]. In Pål Repstad and Jan-Olav Henriksen (eds), Mykere kristendom (Bergen: Fagbokforlaget, 2005), 171–182; Breistein and Leer-Salvesen, “Moderne prester og pastorer”; Leer-Salvesen, Moderne prester. 15 Kati Niemelä, “At the Intersection of Faith and Life: A Narrative Approach to the Faith of Church Employees.” Social Compass 54(2), 2007, 187–200. 16 Pål Repstad, “Kristenliv i Søgne – en kilde til spenninger og integrasjon” [Christianity in Søgne – a Source of Tensions and Integrations]. In Ingeborg and Konrad Opdahl (eds), Trods mørkets harme – Vår skole stå! Med Agder folkehøgskole gjennom 120 år (Kristiansand: Fædrelandsvennen, 2005), 183–196. 17 “Hva skjer etter døden?” [What Happens after Death?]. Vårt Land, 20 April 2012. 18 From January 2020 Aust- and Vest-Agder have merged into one county, Agder. 19 Pål Repstad, Religiøse trender i Norge [Religious Trends in Norway] (Oslo: Universitetsforlaget, 2020), 127. 20 For more detailed information from the surveys, see Pål Repstad, “Fortapelse og feelgood. Endringer i synet på helvete og fortapelse” [Perdition and Feelgood. Changing Views on Hell and Perdition]. Teologisk tidsskrift 4(1), 2015, 65–85; and Pål Repstad, “Hell, Perdition and Feelgood. Changes in Plausibility Structures, Changes in Beliefs.” In Pål Repstad (ed.), Political Religion, Everyday Religion. Sociological Trends (Leiden: Brill, 2019), 133–155. 21 Leer-Salvesen, Moderne prester, 119–136. 22 Most of these life-stories were collected through qualitative interviews carried out by researchers at the KIFO Institute for Church, Religion, and Worldview Research in 1999, and Pål added a few interviews six years later. Thanks to KIFO for letting us use this material. For a more detailed presentation of the interviews and the methodology, see Jan-Olav Henriksen and Pål Repstad, Tro i sør [Faith in the South] (Bergen: Fagbokforlaget, 2005). 23 Nielsen, Trine Ravn, Hva tror de troende? Variasjoner i forestillinger om frelse og fortapelse [What Do the Believers Believe? Variations in Notions of Salvation and Perdition] (Bø: Høgskolen i Telemark, 2012). 24 Harald Hegstad, “‘Gud berører.’ En undersøkelse av hvordan trosopplærere forstår menneskenes møte med Gud” [“God touches.” A Study of how Faith Educators Understand People’s Meeting with God]. In Kristin Graff-Kallevåg and Tone S. Kaufman (eds), Byggekloss-spiritualitet? En studie av spiritualitet i Den norske kirkes trosopplæring (Oslo: IKO-forlaget), 76–98. 25 Anne Løvland, “www.gud-på-sørlandet.no: Ein studie av kristne nettstader” [www. gud-på-sørlandet.no: A Study of Christian Websites]. In Pål Repstad and Jan-Olav Henriksen (eds), Mykere kristendom. Bergen: Fagbokforlaget, 2005, 183–196. 26 Irene Trysnes, Å campe med Gud [Camping with God]. Oslo: IKO-forlaget, 2012; Irene Trysnes, “Camping with God and Goffman.” In Pål Repstad (ed.), Political Religion, Everyday Religion. Sociological Trends. Leiden: Brill, 2019, 159–171. 27 Henriksen and Repstad, Tro i sør. 28 Bjarte Leer-Salvesen, Levende håp. En praktisk-teologisk analyse av 51 presters forkynnelse ved gravferd [Living hope. A Practical Theological Analysis of 51 Priests’ Preaching at Funerals]. Ph.D. thesis (Kristiansand: University of Agder, 2010). 29 Helje K. Sødal, “Forandring fryder? Endringer i tre kristne ungdomsgrupper i Kristiansand” [The Joy of Change? Changes in Three Christian Youth Groups in

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32 33 34 35

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Kristiansand]. In Pål Repstad and Jan-Olav Henriksen (eds), Mykere kristendom (Bergen: Fagbokforlaget, 2005), 66–90. Sødal, “The Joy of Change?” 81. Theologians have battled for centuries with the relationship between God’s love and his omnipotence. A well-known example in Norway is a book by Johan B. Hygen, a professor in systematic theology, where he (as indeed many others) concludes from a review of Old Testament writings that God has a lot of power, and that people are invited to support him and receive support from him, but that omnipotence in a philosophical sense is a Greek notion foreign to ancient Hebrew thinking. See Johan B. Hygen, Guds allmakt og det ondes problem [God’s Omnipotence and the Problem of Evil] (Oslo: Universitetsforlaget, 1973). Irene Trysnes, “Endringer i kristne barnesanger” [Changes in Christian Songs for Children]. In Pål Repstad and Irene Trysnes (eds), Fra forsakelse til feelgood. Musikk, sang og dans i religiøst liv (Oslo: Cappelen Damm Akademisk, 2013), 41–65. All quotes from Henriksen and Repstad, Tro i sør. ISSP Survey on Religion in 1998, KIFO survey in 2018. For more details, see Pål Repstad, Religiøse trender i Norge. Nils Terje Andersen, Så kommer da troen av budskapet. En studie av Jesusbilder i NRKs morgenandakter 2017 [Then the Faith Comes from the Message. A Study of Images of Jesus in NRK’s Radio Morning Devotionals 2017] (Kristiansand: Rapport fra Olavstipendet, 2018). Linda Woodhead and Paul Heelas, Religion in Modern Times. An Interpretive Anthology (Oxford: Blackwell, 2000).

5

The crisis of theology – and why it matters for speaking about God

The crisis of theology: A personal point of departure Systematic theology is concerned with defining correct doctrine and what is a good moral life. However, increasingly more systematic theologians find the name of this discipline hard to digest, as it suggests that there is a system to be developed that enables believers to fit all they experience into a given framework of interpretation. It suggests that theology’s system can appear as solid, fixed, and coherent. Such ideas are counter to the actual experience of theology as contextual, problem-oriented, and explorative. Accordingly, in recent years, some theologians have started to use another self-description: constructive and contemporary theology. Constructive, in the sense of trying to present something that can be put to good use, and contemporary, in the sense of avoiding the type of theology that some of their colleagues call necrophiliac: a theology that writes about dead people and reveres them as if they have all the right answers to the challenges Christian churches are facing today. Contemporary theology also needs to be informed by empirical studies, such as those presented in the previous chapters. However, constructive and contemporary theology should not be seen as an approach that ignores the critical dimension in theology: theology cannot only reflect people’s concerns, interests, and experiences, and what they believe but need to relate critically to all those elements. Only then can theology serve its task and open up to new opportunities, experiences, and perspectives that improve the context and the practices in which believers and others are involved. Constructive theology should be open-ended, explorative, suggesting, and not marked by closure, final decisions, and conclusions. Such theology would then be more aligned with life as it appears to us in a variety of different ways. The present crisis of theology, which expresses itself in how people increasingly see it as either of less importance or as totally irrelevant, is caused partly by the features just mentioned: the impression that theology is about the past; that it provides final answers; and that it is about offering chances for closure and final normative decisions on topics that need continuous discussion. Thus, theology runs the risk of cutting itself off from the world in which humans live. Living DOI: 10.4324/9781003306207-6

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theology uses the past in order to come adequately to grips with the present as it appears, and not only as it should be from a normative point of view. Moreover, the content of theology is also contributing to the crisis. The way theology presents and depicts God, and how notions of God are used, contribute to the fact that people reject theology, leave the church, find it uninteresting or irrelevant. Much of what we write in this book is based on an analysis of how peoples’ understanding of whom God ought to be is at odds with how God is presented by established, hegemonic, and traditional theology. Their understanding of God – the God they see as contradicting the God presented by theology – is still rooted in the Christian tradition, but is also based on other elements that are more closely related to the experiences and intuitions they have about what is good and right. Perhaps some of the crisis can also be illuminated if I, Jan-Olav, in ways similar to Pål in a previous chapter, make a little biographical detour that can highlight some of the developments in theology: I started reading theology at the end of the 1970s. I was concerned with issues of social justice, including gender issues. All theology that addressed such topics at the time was considered “not proper theology” because it involved experience, political analysis, and focus on the contemporary situation instead of the established, written sources of theology. The “not proper theology” was theology at the margins and from the margins. The thought never occurred to the dominant voices in theology at that time that the theologians at the margins were just as important – or more important – than the self-insulating voices of the preferred, often German, male theologians. Feminist theology was for the specially interested. All theology that critiqued power structures was considered political. Hardly anyone was able to conceive that theological arguments could be developed in favour of same-sex relationships. Theologies from the so-called third world were read by few and had no good standing in the academy. Today, almost everything has changed. However, the fact that the hegemonic theology of the time was able to dismiss the theology from the margins, with its references to life, experience, suffering, and injustice so easily, is striking. What counted was the interpretation of texts, not addressing the reality in which people lived. At the centre of it all stood the conviction that God’s word, the Bible, was the source of insight into how things should be. Reality had to be ordered and controlled according to how one perceived this God. References to God (as one took God’s will to be expressed in the Bible) were used to uphold hegemony, maintain control, and eliminate dissenting voices.1 Consequently, those students interested in such topics read much stuff that was outside of the curriculum. There, they found the other voices and other types of theology as well. The theology of control can work in many ways: In the year 2000, after I had been a full professor for six years, I spoke out in favour of same-sex partnerships and claimed that they could be ethically justified. The reactions were strong from the church’s conservative wing. Many called for my resignation. I received piles of hate mail that I had not been able to anticipate that so-called

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Christians could write. Prominent members of the board of my faculty tried to censor me. In the end, they failed. Instead, the need for pluralism in theology was recognized. This case, which got a lot of public attention in Norway, nevertheless told me more vividly and existentially than I had ever experienced before that theology is not only about developing firmly based views and arguing for them in opposition to other positions. The main point is that theology is used to define who is on the inside and who is on the outside, whose voices and whose experiences count, and whose do not. The process also highlighted the importance of doing theology in a way that may find itself in opposition to the dominant voices within the church or outside of church control: Academic colleagues found reasons for stating the case that theology needs to be critical of an everyday theology that wants dissenting voices to be silenced. It is not always that everyday theology should be given preference – hence the need for critical, academic theology. The case reported above made me think about theology in a way that emphasizes far more the pragmatic dimension in theology: The fact that we do not understand the role and impact of theology until we analyse how it is used and in what ways it determines what is relevant and what is not, and who is allowed to have a voice and who is not. Related to this understanding of the pragmatic dimension of theology is the realization that many have today: that all theology is contextual and serves the interests of specific groups: not only “the church” but also specific groups within the church. It also means that all theology bases itself on a distinct perspective. The present book is no exception. However, the reader should not think that this perspectival view means that its consequence is that all the theological reflection is just a matter of personal opinions. It is not. Theology must be based on contributions from other theologians and empirical data to which we have access. Hence, the challenge is to consider the extent to which the perspectives we offer can provide opportunities for recognition, discussion, dissent, or protest. We welcome all of it. It is an enrichment for theology if it allows for a plurality of voices, where none are excluded a priori, but where every voice counts because every voice brings relevant experience and essential perspectives to the theological table. The challenge is to allow people to think about, talk about, and believe in God without the fear of being controlled, censored, silenced, deemed irrelevant. Even though there is a distinction, but not a separation between people’s religious reflections about God and the theologians’ work, this is not an argument for theologians to think that they can control what people think about God – and do so on behalf of the church. Theology has to listen to the many voices that present suggestions, proposals, and experiences that relate to God and the way they find themselves practising this belief. So, instead of offering arguments for closure and final decisions that can be used to promote control, obedience to a petrified tradition stewarded by the few and privileged, a pragmatic theology that is both constructive and contemporary should, I argue, enable goodness, human flourishing, enjoyment of beauty, and gratitude. This can be done by developing another vision of who God is rather than what parts of the dominant theological tradition have promoted. Let us take a

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closer look at the presuppositions for this type of theology – and go back to “we,” speaking on behalf of both authors.

Theology as open-ended Theology has always provided reflections on God and why God matters. However, as suggested already, the conditions for doing theology have changed in recent years. Three important conditions should be noted, some of which have already been suggested: First, theology is no longer merely a text-based enterprise but considers the social reality of which religion is part. One important aspect of this is that texts that previously were interpreted as containing meaning in themselves now are seen in relation to peoples’ practices and experiences. Second, this has the consequence that theology no longer can present authoritative claims about what should be believed and not without taking practices and experiences into account. Third, it means that when theological normativity is no longer solely in the hands of theological experts, theology itself becomes democratized and contextualized. Experience is given authority in ways that may also challenge previous positions and opinions about why God matters and how. Authority is not based exclusively on the hierarchy, in doctrine, in the Bible, but is also conditioned by experience and how people find that religious images and doctrines help them – or do not help them – to cope with their challenges, tasks, experiences, and come to terms with them. If you look at the pictures of Christ in Byzantine art and compare these with the paintings of Jesus by Indigenous people from South America, you will see how much the understanding of Jesus is coloured (literally!) by the social and political context. The understanding of the holiest person of the Christian tradition reflects an understanding of the cultural, political, and social context: Christ as the exalted emperor is distinct from the democratic Jesus who walks among ordinary people and creates joy in their lives. Art and theology, creativity, and religious reflection play together to show us how religion and social context are linked. We should expect the same to be the case with God when we look at the contemporary Western situation. The religious sphere is part of the societal fabric and cannot be separated from it. Because religion is part of society, we have to understand what goes on in society to understand why people engage in religious practices and interpret reality by means of religious symbols. If there are unresolved problems in society, they may also come to the fore in theology and religion in different ways. Hence, problems that are pervasive in society may also be pervasive in theology and religion. This, we argue, is the case in different ways for an understanding of God. We claim that God appears in different ways in society after the church has lost control over the factors that determine who God is, and that this points to important elements in society that people still see as relevant to address from the point of view of their convictions about how God should be understood and practised. From the point of view of contemporary theology, there are three interrelated elements that need to be clarified to have a full understanding of what I aim at achieving in what follows.

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Contemporary theology must relate to, interpret, and discuss critically contemporary features of religion in its different forms regarding how and to what extent they may be seen as viable expressions of religious life and practice and help peoples’ lives to flourish. Hence, both a critical and constructive component are inherent in the discussion of contemporary theological topics. Furthermore – and this is not necessarily a view held by all – contemporary theology sees religion and religious expressions as ways to express, open up to, and produce specific experiences of the holy. This element is especially important concerning our critical discussion of religious symbols for ordering society: they may not simply be taken over from tradition; they may also be critically scrutinized with regard to in what way and to what extent they are able to provide grounds for such expressions.

 

Against the backdrop of what has been said above, this understanding of contemporary theology’s task implies that it has to relate to and become informed by elements from the social sciences to get a full grasp of the phenomena, doctrines, and practices that it addresses or reflects upon. Hence, theology is not an enterprise concerned with doctrine in its isolation from everything else; rather, it is aiming at understanding doctrine and normative elements with regard to their pragmatic implications, i.e., what these elements have to say for humans living in the world, in a specific society. Thus, theology is open-ended, and although it may suggest candidates for normative positions, these may nevertheless be subject to adjustment, revision, or abandonment when it turns out that they are no longer working and helping people live good lives. Contemporary theology, understood as suggested above, implies a continuous critical reflection on existing religious beliefs and practices. Hence, it implicitly or explicitly is part of what determines religious peoples’ and groups’ way of orienting themselves in the world and contributes to reflections on what ideals determine their struggles for personal and societal transformation. Therefore, we cannot identify an answer to the question “What kind of God does still matter?” without considering how different understandings of God are in use. We will address these understandings as “symbols” of God – only because what we call God and how God impacts humans’ lives are never independent of how such symbols are understood and practised. We need to see theological work as intrinsically related to different types of practices that develop in the course of history due to different social, political, cultural, and psychological conditions.2

Does God still matter? God is not gone. But God now appears in different contexts than those controlled by the church, and partly in shapes that address some of the shortcomings of the traditional ways God has been depicted by prominent or vocal members of Christian communities. So, God matters, but not only in the ways that theologians like to think.

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Somehow, it has always been like this: The God that still matters is a God with a long history and has mattered in similar ways for centuries. On the other hand, it is also possible to say that some features of the symbols of God no longer seem plausible or simply create too much fuss and confusion for people to remain part of that in which they believe. We shall look closer at some of these symbols in the following chapters. One important feature related to a pragmatic approach to religion is that it can account for how people are less interested in religious doctrine as such and more in how religions open up to experience and different ways of practice. Today, there is a new focus on religious experiences that cannot be ignored and which partly has its cause in how religious authority has declined. The decline of authority may result from various factors, including rising levels of education and increased religious pluralism. In combination with the flow of information and various perspectives on almost everything accessible on the internet, references to personal experience also contribute to identifying what matters and is important and what is not. Thus, if doctrine, including the doctrine of God, does not help to open up to or make sense of one’s own experience, then “God” does not matter anymore. When many people today express that they think doctrinal understandings of God lack relevance, it simply means that the said doctrine offers little help to interpret some of the experiences that are still prevalent in the contemporary setting. We can mention a few examples, which point to negative as well as positive experiences that theology would be a likely partner to help interpret: People have negative spiritual experiences of various kinds: Experimentation with the occult among youth has caused negative experiences of evil, spirits, or extraordinary or paranormal events. People can have shattering experiences of how evil destroys or fragments their lives. Sometimes such experiences are depicted in movies and thereby made “entertaining.” It does not make them go away, though, and those who have these experiences may have a hard time finding out how to deal with them. It is all not mere psychiatry. However, much of contemporary theology in Western societies seems to lack the ability to interpret and help people with these experiences and often hands them over to psychology. The effect is that theology deprives itself of the chance to help people deal with the genuinely evil and negative dimensions in life. To point this out is not an argument for the revival of exorcisms and a pre-modern world-view, but only for theology also to develop the tools for addressing such topics, instead of channeling all energy into the proclamation of a God that is so kind and loving that it is hard to see both why we should bother with this God, and what this God could possibly have to do with the negative and evil topics that present themselves in life. Moreover, it seems like positive extraordinary experiences as well are mostly referred to in interpretations offered by marginal groups or in popular culture. People may have healing and wholeness experiences that come from unexpected sources that the church does not address. The result is that the church is experienced (sic!) as having little or nothing to say about such things, despite

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that these experiences seem to be of immense significance for people. Again: if the church has nothing concrete to say and do concerning such matters, it is no wonder that its doctrines and positions are deemed irrelevant. One reason for the lack of ability to address experiences like those in the above examples may be that the dominant view of God as a loving and kind parent seems difficult to align with a God who judges and fights evil and destructive powers in the concrete realm of peoples’ experience – and which can provide a means for recognizing the fragmented character of human life conditions. The emphasis on God as love, which admittedly is an important one, seems to contribute to harmonizing or idealizing peoples’ experiences. It does not allow for a real confrontation with evil or for addressing that which extends beyond the boundaries of normality and control. Among the most relevant examples of how the church has shunned peoples’ negative experiences in contemporary Western society are the cases of sexual abuse. These have been disclosed in several churches and have turned out to be more pervasive than anyone could have previously imagined. The combination of the notion that this could happen in God’s church and done by those who were assumed to be God’s servants made it hard to realize the extent of the abuse. Furthermore, the idealization of the church as God’s instrument in the world made it hard to address these perpetrations as unambiguously under God’s judgment, and much of the cover-up attempts should be seen in the light of how the conception of God as present in the church made it hard to fully confront what took place. One of the critical questions one has to ask in the wake of these revelations is: Which notion of God has made it possible to allow such evils to be inflicted on so many and over so many years? We remain convinced that such abuse, such lack of care, empathy, and moral integrity, are among the main reasons people today may find that God is not present in any positive way in their experience of themselves and the world. When the victims of such abuse, in addition, are presented with ideas about what God requires of them, namely to forgive the perpetrators, this demand contributes further to the perception that the church and God do not care about them, or that there is something utterly misguided with the God represented by the Christian church. From another angle, in the contemporary political and cultural scene, understandings of God (as a symbol that comprises religion in general) are sometimes presented as causes for violence. This use usually appears in two ways: on the one hand, God is the one who can be blamed for religious violence by those who do not believe in this God. Concomitant to this view is, of course, the God who can legitimate religious violence and who is employed by believers for that purpose. The combination of symbols of God and violence is a deadly cocktail: The idea that God can justify violence may contribute to believers’ violence against others and the rejection of religion and belief in God in general. Seen from a distance, though, this ambiguous way of practising God is not totally different from ways of thinking of God as “on our side” or God as someone who can be co-opted for different political purposes. Although there is a wide gap between, say, some versions of violent jihadism and the strongly

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conservative evangelical right in the US, both groups adopt their version of God as someone who can, under given circumstances, legitimize war against “others.”3 Our point here is that although the groups that stand behind such practices can be considered marginal in one sense, they nevertheless impact how to think and not think about God in contemporary terms.4 The abovementioned uses of the God symbol are among several other factors that shape the notions of religion in general. From a theological point of view, a God who is employed for political purposes runs the risk of becoming an idol. And it is exactly these idolatrous visions of God that Richard Dawkins and others (without seeming to recognize it as such) attack. These critics’ ignorance of the reflections about God and the world that has made Christianity a success in the history of ideas and societal formation is only paralleled by Christian fundamentalists who seem to be equally ignorant about the historical dimension of the texts they revere as sacred.5 The latter group then contribute more fuel to the critics. However, a conception of God that allows some to bash religious people as delusional without asking critically if the victims of this attack are representative contributes to the banalization of religion in general and the notion of God more specifically. The mutual reinforcement of the new “scientifically based” atheism and the resurgence of new and more or less fundamentalist or science-critical versions of Christianity (although not very large, but nevertheless articulate groups) serve to push constructive theological reflection about God, and a deeper understanding of religion, into the background.6 What suffers is the recognition of how religion can and should continue to serve as a means for life to flourish. Instead, in both parties, notions of religion contribute to underscoring and further fear and hatred against the other. There are, however, also other ways in which God still seems to matter, and which are politically relevant in a positive sense: God is not only used to legitimize violence or the current political order but is also a symbol that inspires acts aiming at social transformation. The God who enables criticism of those in power is still an important element in many societies: A God who is on the side of the poor – the God of hope. The God who criticizes the cruelty of a capitalist society that marginalizes people and makes them poor, homeless, and sick, and inspires them who care and try to help. The is an understanding of a God whose features are mercy, compassion, grace, and love: who can offer resources for protest, for hope, and for care in a society that focuses on utility, profit, usefulness, and the capacity for functioning in order to achieve these aims. In a situation of increasing religious pluralism, images of God are changing in ways that make people either more open to other traditions or make them more eager to stick to and consolidate their own traditions. However, we see a growing tendency towards understanding God as one who enables unity amongst religious diversity instead of conflict. A God who is a god for all, and not only for those who adhere to a specific religious tradition. When Charles Taylor describes a situation in which one can no longer assume that one’s belief can go unquestioned or without defence, he points to features that contribute to

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the development of either openness towards or resistance to other traditions.7 We can also rephrase a saying by Peter Berger and say that the more diversity, the more reflection: A point that, as suggested already, has as its consequence that religious authority is not taken for granted any more or perceived as impossible to question.8 From this perspective, God is not defined and restricted by the teachings of religious experts and authorities. Concomitant to this feature is the already mentioned situation in which there is less emphasis on doctrine and more weight on the potential for the everyday to provide religious experiences amid everyday routines.9 A specific element in contemporary discourse is the appeal to God as creator to consolidate specific ideas about gender and sexuality. Increasingly more, however, God is the one with whom it is possible to ally oneself in the struggle against male dominance and heteronormativity – and in favour of equality. It is worth noting that, at least in the Nordic countries, instead of leaving the church, many young women and gays and lesbians have signed up to serve in church positions and thereby contribute to notions about God as inclusive and non-discriminating. Thus, they promote a symbol of God who is more than a grumpy judge mainly concerned with peoples’ sexual preferences: A God with concern for justice and possibilities for human flourishing. Against the sketch above, God seems to matter still as an instance of comfort in times of loss and provide a secure base in times of disruption. This is so not only for fundamentalists but also for others who need a God who can reassure one of stability and provide a firm ground for life. For some, this is a God who can provide simplistic solutions in a complex cultural and social situation – and a God who can offer solutions to ethical problems one cannot figure out by oneself.

Against deductive theology The previously mentioned understanding of theology as an enterprise that starts with interpreting texts and employs them as a guide in organizing our reality and our experiences prevails in pockets of lived religion worldwide. It runs the risk of developing a deductive theology in which one subjects reality to statements derived from doctrine – statements that were established with no reference to or not informed by the present empirical situation. We see an example of this approach in evangelical theology in the US that subsumes experiences related to global warming to notions about God’s sovereignty and uses it as an excuse for engaging in practices that may impede it.10 Several problematic consequences emerge from this approach. First, it ignores some of its own suppositions: Theology is not, and never was, a mere deductive enterprise. If we ask what has engendered theological reflection through the centuries, we find that it is not the reading of texts in isolation that facilitates orientation and transformation. The interaction between texts and the experiences people have with the situation and the reality they find themselves in have always played a role. Second, it can only address topics that the text addresses,

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and it leaves everything else in the dark or ignores it as theologically irrelevant. Third, it runs the risk of placing theology and religious engagement in a sphere isolated from believers and others’ everyday experiences, since it, to no small extent, may be unable to address contemporary issues and topics adequately. The alternative to a predominantly deductive approach is to use the reflective resources of theological symbols, narratives, doctrines, Bible, and tradition, to interpret present experience to the extent that it is possible, and to continue to develop imaginaries, notions, and practices that open up to other, possible ways of doing theology when the resources of the past appear as insufficient. Although theology will always remain rooted in the resources that have their origin in the past, the contemporary situation must inform theological work. This fact places theology in a situation in which it is explorative and inductive rather than deductive. The explorative approach entails figuring out how symbols may open up to new perspectives and experiences and how experiences may challenge established symbols and sometimes show their inadequacy or their shortcomings. Theology becomes creative when it develops responses to the present and suggests ways to respond to and relate to what we experience as present challenges. This inductive understanding of theological practice makes it experience-based and experience-related. Theology becomes an open enterprise informed and shaped by contemporary challenges. It is forwardlooking in its uses of the past. Hence, theology needs to engage the symbols of the past with concern for how this allows us to address the contemporary situation – as theologian Paul Tillich indicated when he spoke about the difference between living and dead symbols. Moreover, theology cannot merely aim at transforming the present situation and the practices of humans, although that is also an important aim: theology must also be willing to undergo a transformation of its own to the extent that it is not able to address the contemporary situation in an adequate manner. Therefore, the primary test for Christian theology under the present conditions will be to what extent it can be put to use. Theology presumed to work in an isolated sphere without reference to present experience and practice will quickly be rendered obsolete. The growing awareness of the empirical context, and more specifically about the different pragmatic conditions at play in the actual use of theology, entails that we cannot consider theology as based merely on texts that need interpretation and understanding. The main question is how we can use such texts. Their use must be related to, informed by, and developed with reference to empirical conditions studied from a scholarly and scientific perspective. Thereby, theological work’s actual outcome proves relevant and not a mere statement of a priori claims. The empirical orientation implies that theology works in an interdisciplinary context, where social sciences contribute to understanding theology’s role, function, and contribution to human life. Theology no longer interacts exclusively with philosophy and history, but with other disciplines as well.

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The crisis of theology While internal coherency is a necessary and worthy goal of any religion, where such a coherency is not in accord with what we know about the interconnectedness of the world and the role of humans in it, the religion’s truth claims can be called into question – especially where these claims may be contributing to harms of human beings, other organisms, and the environment.11

The type of theology we argue for here has a pragmatic basis: it aims at and sees itself as rooted in use. Hence, one cannot make generic theological statements without reference to the contexts in which these can or should be used. David Kirchhoffer addresses this from his point of view (which is not explicitly pragmatist) by underscoring the interrelation between the focus on particulars, on the one hand, and more general contexts and practices, on the other hand. It is against this backdrop that the normative dimension in theology appears: While it is possible to make generalizable claims about human nature, this can distract theology from the unique histories and contexts of individual believers and nonbelievers, and their struggles to come to terms with the meaning and purpose of life, suffering, injustice, and the pursuit of truth, goodness, and beauty. Attending to these things is not to fall into relativism. Like the relationship between particular cases and generalizable principles in ecology, there is a dialectic between praxis and theory, between the particular and the universal, that tries to take both seriously. This approach also accepts that, while consensus may be possible at a generalizable level, consensus should not do so in a way that rides roughshod over the realities and uncertainties that arise from the complexities of particular cases and circumstances.12 The pragmatic turn in theology, which we advocate here, entails that theology is concerned with theological teaching’s consequences for peoples’ lives. The actual experiences that people interpret with the help of theology can give feedback to those who practise and use theological reasoning in various ways and contexts. Such openness to other disciplines and the cultural context has changed theology over the last decades. It has contributed to seeing theology not only as ideology or doctrine but as practice. The theologian can no longer be content with simply answering questions about what church doctrine is, but has to take responsibility for how this doctrine affects peoples’ lives and is used to orient or transform human life. The normative dimension in theology is expressed in how it can offer guidance for such use. Normative claims are always connected to and at least partly determined by the relationships in which they exist and the contexts they partake in. Hence, normative claims cannot be based solely on some essentialist assertion about my existence, of the kind of being that I am (e.g., free and rational), and of principles deduced from

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that. The normative claim must also be based on the historical, contingent realities of my past, present, and future functions.13 One consequence of the pragmatic turn in theology is that the subject of (academic) theology becomes broader than before: As indicated, it cannot only be text-related or focus on articulating coherent and transparent doctrinal formulations and generic and/or essentialist principles. Theology needs to consider how it works in an actual social, historical, and cultural context. Theological work cannot restrict itself to analysing and addressing religion primarily as propositions subject to arguments. Instead, the subject at hand is human experiences that may give rise to these propositions and experiences of how these propositions work and are used. Coherent theological arguments must also address their own implications: how theology can be used in good or bad ways for or against people who want to change social, ecological, cultural, or economic patterns they experience as unjust and oppressive. Various forms of contextual theology (as in liberation theology or feminist theology) provide good examples of how theology has become more empirically informed in ways that do indeed point to empirically informed reflection about its tasks and functions. This empirical orientation introduced into the theological reflection elements beyond the control of established religious authorities.

Theology and experience The points made above indicate the necessity of taking the social context into account methodologically and systematically. Contrary to some theologians’ delusions or self-perceptions, theology has always been empirically informed, in the sense that it has related to, made use of, and built upon empirical elements in its context or environment. All theology must presuppose elements in the knowledge reservoir of its time and place. Even reference to divine revelation as the basis for theology does not eliminate this fact since revelation does not rule out experiential elements. Revelation occurs under historical and social circumstances requiring the hermeneutic resources to understand it by those who witness it. Personal experience cannot be ignored in the context of such theological work. Although it can then be argued that theology has always been empirically informed in some way or another, we need to add a significant qualifier here and avoid simplifying the matter. One thing is to state, generically, that theology has always been empirically informed, but this does not imply that all empirical material that theology has engaged with has been scientifically established and validated. A programmatic and methodological awareness of the empirical conditions for doing theology in the contemporary world enables us to identify four implications for contemporary theology understood as empirically informed: First of all, it implies a criticism of any theology that perceives its own activity as self-contained and self-explanatory with no need for taking into

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account elements in its social context. The time is over when theology can operate without integrating elements from other disciplines or ignore critical elements and questions that other disciplines direct toward it. Second, theology must recognize the methodological consequences of its own origin in experience: it builds on experience transmitted by sources, as well as experience of how traditionary experience works in the contemporary context. There is no access to theological topics unmediated by present experience. The theological tradition is always transmitted through social and historical contexts that shape the form, content, emphasis, and outlook of what the community of believers holds true. Furthermore, and third, this means, as already suggested above, that the value of theology is first and foremost to contribute to the actual interpreting of experience by believers past and present, as well as offering new chances for experiences by employing the resources for orientation and transformation of which religious traditions are stewards. Finally, and fourth, the implication of all the above is that theology can only benefit from closer contact with religious studies, cultural studies, sociology of religion, and psychology of religion. The divide between theology and religious studies that remains in many academic contexts needs to be overcome, as a wider and interdisciplinary frame is necessary for theology to consider and address all its challenges regarding reflection about how religion is to be understood and practised in concrete social contexts. The overcoming of this divide would most likely be beneficial for both disciplines. It may also benefit religious studies because it is essential for such studies to have a firm understanding of the religious convictions that shape religious agency, and theology may contribute significantly to such understanding. The pragmatic approach to theology suggested here entails that its doctrinal claims require a pragmatic justification in terms of how well it works and its effects on the flourishing of life on this planet. A mere doctrinal proposition cannot help us understand what its claim means for the interpretation, orientation, and transformation necessary. To make a twist on a famous statement by Karl Marx: Theology is not only about understanding the world but about changing it. Hence, it is not only an intellectual enterprise performed at the desk of an individual but a social practice for specific purposes of orientation and transformation.14 Although pragmatism explicitly denies the possibility of a “God’s eye view,” it does not exclude normative judgments about what positions and ideas are good or not. The focus on the practical implications of ideas provides a basis for this assessment. It is also relevant when we discuss different dimensions of existing conceptions of God. The advantage of this approach is that we can avoid questions about the extent to which a religious practice is “true” generically – and instead ask as to what extent it is justified under specific conditions, given its practical implications.15 The main element in normative assessments is how practices enable and support the flourishing of life. A final element that must inform contemporary theology is the finite character of any human position and judgment and all our positions’ provisional

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character. Concerning religion, this insight into the finite supports a crucial insight: “If the ultimate is worth getting excited about, it would have to be bigger than what we can get our signs around,” writes Robert Neville.16 Because of this provisional character, it always recommends itself to be open to other and new perspectives and resist the temptation to rely on or be content with the place in which one finds oneself already and with the symbolic resources at hand.

Notes 1 Some of this approach to theology is also apparent in conservative theology’s reaction to bishop Schjelderup’s protest in the Hell strife, as reported in a previous chapter. 2 This approach to theology and religion is argued more extensively in Jan-Olav Henriksen, Religion as Orientation and Transformation: A Maximalist Theory. Religion in Philosophy and Theology series (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2017). 3 The support of the Iraq war and the whole “war on terror” may count as evidence for the latter, as may the atrocities of Isis for the former. We will return to this topic more extensively below. 4 On religion and violence, and the problems with considering religious imaginaries as the only cause, see Joas, Faith as an Option: Possible Futures for Christianity; Mark Juergensmeyer, Terror in the Mind of God: The Global Rise of Religious Violence (Oakland: University of California Press, 2017); and James William Jones, Blood That Cries Out from the Earth: The Psychology of Religious Terrorism (Oxford/ New York: Oxford University Press, 2008). 5 The problem with both these groups is their deeply mistaken understanding of religion as a competitor to science. Against this, contemporary theologian and philosopher of religion Ingolf Dalferth succinctly writes: “Science searches for explanations, theology unfolds the orientation implicit in the practice of faith, philosophy clarifies the schemes of distinctions and procedures of location that we use in different spheres of life and areas of thought, and philosophy of religion does so in the sphere of our religious practices and ultimate existential orientations. Neither theology nor philosophy continue what science does, rather they have their own agendas. But when it comes to unfolding the schemes of orientation implicit in the practice of faith, theology outlines normative systems of doctrines (that seek to direct and improve the practice of faith), whereas philosophy explores metaphysical schemes that claim to make ultimate sense of the world of everyday life.” Ingolf U. Dalferth, “On Distinctions,” International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 79(3) (2016): 179. 6 Cf. for examples, Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion (London: Bantam, 2006), and responses in Terry Eagleton, Reason, Faith, and Revolution: Reflections on the God Debate. From a more apologetic angle than Eagleton’s, Dawkins has been commented on in Alister E. McGrath, Dawkins’ God: From the Selfish Gene to the God Delusion. 2nd edn (Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2015). 7 See Charles Taylor, A Secular Age. 8 See Berger, The Heretical Imperative. 9 Cf. Nancy Tatom Ammerman, Sacred Stories, Spiritual Tribes: Finding Religion in Everyday Life; Everyday Religion: Observing Modern Religious Lives. 10 See more on this below, pp. 000. 11 Cf. David G. Kirchhoffer, “How Ecology Can Save the Life of Theology: A Philosophical Contribution to the Engagement of Ecology and Theology.” In Theology

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12 13 14 15

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The crisis of theology and Ecology across the Disciplines: On Care for Our Common Home, eds Celia Deane-Drummond and Rebecca Artinian-Kaiser (London: Bloomsbury, 2018), 56–57. Ibid., 58–59. Ibid., 62. Cf. Jan-Olav Henriksen, Religion as Orientation and Transformation: A Maximalist Theory. Religion in Philosophy and Theology series (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2017). The position that religion should be assessed with regard to how it can present justifications for its practices, instead of asking about to what extent it is true, is argued by Dirk-Martin Grube and Walter Van Herck, Philosophical Perspectives on Religious Diversity, Bivalent Truth, Tolerance and Personhood (London: Routledge, 2018). Neville, Defining Religion: Essays in Philosophy of Religion, 188.

6

The morally intolerable God – and the alternative

Obedience and authority destroy moral capacity Perhaps the most dominant reason why people are leaving churches is that morality, as preached there, has made God unacceptable. Why should one tolerate a God that demands obedience to authorities and norms that seem discriminatory, unjust, and privileging some humans at the expense of others? Why should a Christian’s identity be tied to accepting rules for sexual conduct and gender roles, but not to social, economic, and political justice? When people turn away from the churches, it is not because they are immoral – I would rather say that it is because they find that part of what is presented as “the Christian” version of morality in some circles is not acceptable to their moral convictions and intuitions – which they may have good reasons to hold.1 Moreover, the churches have also sometimes themselves presented reasons for leaving established religion. The cover-ups of sexual abuse in both the Catholic and the Anglican church, as well as the American evangelicals’ support of Trump and their willingness to ignore the base mode in which he has addressed women and political opponents, have not made it easier to identify with the God promoted by these groups. It is perhaps no surprise that the next largest religious group in the United States is comprised of ex-Catholics. They have not stopped being religious, but they no longer believe in a God that allows for cover-ups and protection of abusers because of some assumed holiness of God’s church. Against the backdrop of examples like the above, the Christian God appears to many as intolerable. However, they do not want to give up God or morality. They just think and believe otherwise about God and morality – beyond the control of authorities. Morality is not something that rests on divine commandments, from which abstract norms can be deduced that address and identify the world. A more pragmatic understanding of what constitutes morality sees it as grounded in concrete attempts to solve difficulties, challenges, and injustices that emerge in people’s lives and present them with obstacles to justice and flourishing. A God that commands and is under the control of the church’s interpretation is exchanged for a God that enables humans to solve problems by using their own competencies for assessment, evaluation, and moral discernment. DOI: 10.4324/9781003306207-7

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The most obvious example of how the God of morality is no longer under the control of one religious group can be identified in the secularization of morality in the West. Modern pluralist societies would have been in a precarious situation if different religious convictions about what is right to do and what goods to pursue only stood against each other and provided opportunities for conflict, competition, and division. However, when morality is liberated from the control of a religious group, we can identify the advantages of a secularized society in the possibility for discussion of moral questions without having to link them (explicitly or without reserve) to one specific religious tradition and its moral contents. Furthermore, given the increasingly complex situation in modern societies when it comes to moral quandaries, religious traditions that find their normative sources in texts that have an origin in a different time face challenges in terms of how to use these sources when they deal with issues that are foreign to the situation in which the sources emerged. The idea that such texts contain the solution to humankind’s moral challenges because they are of divine origin has become increasingly more challenging to uphold. Nevertheless, in religious circles, the idea of God and God’s authority as the ultimate backing for prescriptions about how to act or what to do may still be prevalent. God’s ordinance also sanctifies (and thus legitimates) important societal institutions like kingdom, marriage, family, etc.2 God has indisputable authority, and accordingly, the one who can define what God wants is the one who can have moral authority. But in a secularized and increasingly more democratic society, the religious authority that controls access to the will of God is not taken for granted anymore. Moreover, as suggested above, the churches themselves have provided reasons for the erosion of such authority. References to God’s authority as a warrant for moral values, norms, or institutions have traditionally been significant – and have probably also been of utmost significance for legitimating tradition as well as societal orders. The critical word here is tradition: in a post-traditional society where people no longer share a common tradition and its content as the basis for how they understand these elements, such a way of legitimating normative claims faces the predicament of plurality: The existence of a plurality of opinions about what is God’s will makes it harder to back moral positions with reference to tradition. Instead, this situation may lead to the development of new understandings of God’s (moral) authority, where this authority is understood as that which is ultimately backing up the results of common reason in the moral realm. Hence, authority is transferred from a tradition that elected stewards control to the commonplace of the reason expressed in the different and differing modes of human reasoning and practice in general. Then, it is not only a question of change of what constitutes moral authority; it also has profound implications for society’s power structure.3 This situation creates some challenges for a moral position that uses God as the point of reference for morality. When morality becomes “inner-worldly” and a human matter more than a divine one in this way, the result is an increasing

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distance between God and the conclusions from moral reasoning. References to God’s authority in moral matters are diminished or made superfluous altogether. Most people realize that their view is only one of many and that no one has privileged access to moral insight – despite what proponents of Christian Ethics may argue. Alternatively, one can, of course, insulate oneself and identify one’s own moral decisions with the will of God in a way that does not take into account the need to view such decisions with self-critical scrutiny – a situation in which one comes very close to the “God is on our side” position, that renders other moral judgments less valid, or contrary to God’s will. The above is not an exclusively academic argument. It also has some obvious practical implications. We saw in an earlier chapter how a female pastor argues that “If I had not been a Christian and considered myself a Bible believer, I would have fought with tooth and nail for the rights of homosexuals, for I believe in human dignity and individual choice …. But my conclusion is based on my view of the Bible.”4 This position is one that, in fact, undermines the capacity to make moral judgments. In effect, it not only means that one does not oneself take responsibility for one’s moral position and its consequences – but it can also be psychologically damaging because it means that you repress or set aside your own personal moral judgment and intuitions and ignore your own feelings about what is right or wrong. (The flipside of this position is, of course, that the abuser with religious moral authority can tell you to do the same because he or she is right, despite what you feel.) When people find God morally intolerable, it is based on this way of linking God and morality: Instead of defining something as good because humans judge it to be so by reason and experience and common deliberation, something is defined as good because it rests on the will of God, on God’s commands. The position is supported both in some academic circles and among people who want to find clear and easy solutions to moral quandaries. It is clearly exemplified in discussions about the problems of the so-called Divine Command Theory (DCT). In its most simple form, DCT states that something is right because God has ordained it in a specific manner. Hence, as already indicated, the authority of a moral prescription is based on (a reference to) divine command (contained in an authoritative tradition), and not by reference to human knowledge or to experience obtained from other sources that have not been sanctioned as divine. The simplest form in which this approach expresses itself is “This is right because God says so!” Thus, morality is under the control of those who can tell you what God says. According to this position, everything from the subjection of women in marriage to rejection of democracy may be right basically and principally only because of the knowledge about God’s commandments. Usually, God’s will is assumed to be accessible in the commandments of the holy scriptures. The sacred will of God has to be obeyed without any need for reference to specific arguments or warrants for the position, or because of some established agreement about what is right and good.

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DCT fits well with a type of thinking that emphasizes the difference between God and humans, where human knowledge and insight are darkened by sin, whereas God as holy is the all-knowing, the one whom one can trust. The sinful and distorted reason of humanity, which has no capacity to find out what is good for themselves, needs to rely on God for moral guidance. Given that this is the case, DCT may offer strong reasons for rejecting any type of human reasoning that dares to contest the religious tradition’s contents in which the moral position finds its legitimation. Such opposition would mean that one distrusts God and puts too much trust in one’s own sinful discernment. From a critical perspective, it can be argued that this understanding of God and morality impedes moral maturation and the development of moral capacity because all it fosters is to act in compliance with authorities. It is a position that places you in the moral position of a child who is not allowed to grow up. DCT allows for the perception of a God that tells people what is right and wrong – outside of and independent of a given society. This is a God who acts like a father telling children that they have no chance of knowing what is right or wrong for them. Moral autonomy is ruled out. A deeper understanding of what is right and wrong may then not come from experiences within the context of society, but from “God and the Bible” (or the Qur’an, etc.), which is understood as a source of moral knowledge independent of society and of the experiences one has there – because it is the revelation of God. DCT may serve a function in traditional societies where everyone agrees about what God has commanded. However, it is mostly not the case that we can still call Western societies traditional, at least not when it comes to the basic structure or how to understand the social order and how the values of these societies are developed.5 With increasing pluralism, the reference to a given authority may not be sufficient to convince different citizens that one action is right and not another one. Some may even not believe in God – and thus reject this basis for backing up a moral claim in the first place. However, even most people who believe in God do not find this morality-God acceptable. When this situation becomes widespread, it is necessary to turn to another way of establishing sources for agreement about moral conduct – otherwise the only option left is for some groups to coerce other groups to follow their convictions (which is the strategy often suggested by more biblicist or fundamentalist groups). However, most will admit that this strategy does not work beyond communitarian boundaries, especially not in a predominantly pluralistic society. The option left is to replace established authority with increased emphasis on reason and reasoning, as indicated above. We can exemplify this by imagining a society (and there are such societies in the Western world today) where the population consists of Muslims, Christians, and secular humanists. They may all have different ways of backing up their positions when they deal with matters of organizing society. Reference to God may be essential to some of them and not to others. The problem is that when there is nothing more to back up a position than a reference to God or a holy tradition, these groups may have nothing in common to talk about. In practice, this is also what happens in

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societies where there are different groups along these lines: Either the tension would dramatically rise if they were to stick to their (exclusive) positions, or they would have to give them up and find some common ground. In most Western democracies, the latter happens. The most difficult way of solving the problems arising from pluralism is, as tacitly indicated above, by means of a power struggle: When no recognized common ground of reasoning exists, the question may boil down to “Who has God on their side?” because there cannot be any recognition of the other as one who may be informed by the God you believe in yourself. This inability to recognise the legitimacy of the other’s position is one of the two most important problems related to how the idea of the holy/God is engaged within the framework of DCT. Accordingly, this model of reasoning about dealing with value questions in society contributes to increasing tensions.6 One often unrecognized version of the same problem is when the reference to “traditional Christian values” is used by political parties in order to legitimate themselves and their position as different from others – as is the case with several European “Christian-Democratic” parties. Because an underlying claim of this book is that the churches have lost control over God, and that other sources contribute increasingly to understanding who God is, issues concerning morality provide a clear indication of such loss of control. The pluralist societies of the West have given rise to new ways of employing or understanding the sacred when it comes to how to handle moral matters in society. No religious (or secular) position can assume hegemony, as that would be seen as a restriction of others’ participation or even as an abuse of power by some over other parties. Thus, for religious people, God and God’s will may be negotiated in societal matters in other forms than merely by referring to the authority of God or God’s word. Sometimes we can see this in how churches now conduct their social responsibilities and how they advocate their moral concerns: No more do they do this by referring to their own unique and authoritative status as the sole stewards of God’s will. Instead, they are pointing to common grounds and common reasons that all humans may have their share in as created in the image of God. A religious position is no longer conceived as a condition for being included in or excluded from the discourse about what count as authoritative moral positions in society. Most likely, more is at stake in these changes for theology and the relation between religion and morality than what appears at first sight: As already indicated, the changes imply a radical change in the structure of moral and political reasoning on the side of theology. To present the authority of God’s word must be done in such a way that belief in this God is not a necessary condition for holding the actual position under discussion. Thus, not a presumed divine command, but human reasoning, common deliberation, discernment, and experience are all considered in developing a moral position instead. If there is to be any reference to God’s will, it must be in such a way that the position can be substantiated in the moral reasoning of everyone. The legitimacy of this inclusive mode of moral reasoning would be a theological

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reference to how the will of God makes itself present in every human created in God’s image. In the latter case, the autonomy of the will of God in the DCT is replaced by the authority of the will of God as it reveals itself in the reasoning process of every informed citizen. Furthermore, this means that the power to decide over moral issues in society is no longer with those claiming to have God exclusively on their side. Pluralism in political and moral matters means the dissolution of the power of the hierarchy in general – including the hierarchy that sees itself as instituted and ordained by God. References to ecclesial authority and the holiness of church instruction (which basically is instruction about God’s commands) are no longer elements that can have a decisive impact on societal matters. It also means (in a historical perspective) that non-democratic types of government can no longer refer to God’s will as a legitimation for their continuing existence (or, the other way around: that governments that legitimize their powers only with reference to God are non-democratic). To the extent that the church will still appeal to God and God’s authority, this must be done in such a manner that such appeals align with the moral insights provided by communal reasoning. Accordingly, in a pluralist society, references to God become less motivated. Such references may provide opportunities for tension and increase (unnecessary) conflicts in society if used in a way that blocks the chance for common moral reasoning. If references to God are to have a place in public discourse, these have to be shaped in ways that can find recognition by all the members of society. With growing awareness of differences and irreconcilable religious traditions, such practices of trying to have a shared discourse may be challenging to pursue. However, it is nevertheless crucial if all members of society are to take up their joint responsibility for a society that includes all members on equal footing. The discussion about civil religion in the United States may provide a good example of what is at stake: Referring in very generic terms back to the initial events that led to the development of the United States, Robert Bellah et al.7 showed how civil religion as employed in political discourse framed the common life of Americans with points of reference and value that served to shape American identity. However, more recently, as Muslim, African-American, Native American, and Asian voices have become more outspoken on the national scene, there is a growing awareness and unease about references to a common “God” or a common history and their inadequacy. In this context, references to a common belief in God both cover up tensions and may reinforce them as well. Consequently, a theological warrant for society’s order may not be articulated in a manner that excludes the legitimacy of other religious traditions. A practical consequence of this is that theological justifications for a specific order of society have become silent to a large extent. For example, when they are expressed in some types of conservative Christian rhetoric in the US or Europe, they are usually not taken up or discussed by serious contributors. Moreover, when they are articulated in political contexts by those already in power, such theological references are the source of much debate, as was the case in the discussion over the preamble to the EU in the early 2000s.8

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Nevertheless, contemporary theology needs to consider the pluralist situation in two ways if it is not be entirely silenced in the public sphere. First, it must emphasize that it builds on sources that are, in one way or another, common to all. The sources of moral judgment must be open to and take into account the experiences of those who live in the context in which the judgment is developed. On the other hand, it must emphasize the responsibility of all faith communities for a society in which all members are equal. An appeal to God as someone who only wants the good for selected members of society will not do. Hence, dialogue becomes essential. Both these “strategies” imply that theology becomes democratized and that the understanding of God recedes somewhat into the background when it comes to the specific traits of the different religious traditions in understanding the will of God. God then becomes the warrant for all that we can agree is good – and not much more. This situation may, in turn, allow God-talk to lose its actual impact and become obsolete altogether, as suggested above. The weakening of the impact of specific religious traditions and the authority of the God of these traditions may, in turn, be a strengthening for democracy, and thus for a value that theology can acknowledge as vital to a modern pluralist society. Democracy – which presupposes individual autonomy, the use of reason, recognition of differences, and equality among members of society, appears as contrary to any authority based on tradition and established hierarchy. To demolish the traditional authority structures of the church then also means demolishing obstacles to democracy. The theological symbol that can warrant such development is the idea mentioned above: That all humans are created in the image of God. Looking back on our point of departure in this chapter – the impossibility of a morality and a society based on authoritative divine command, we now see that theology and specific societal orders may be linked. Religions of difference may be hard to uphold in a democratic society, and a democratic society will cause religions to put more emphasis on a God who is a God for all, rather than on a God who is the God of one exclusive group that also holds the privilege of defining right or wrong. Hence, we can speak of how the sacred in God’s commands no longer lies within a specific institution and its stewards’ control, but has been dispersed. This situation, in turn, has led moral authority to become individualized rather than institutionalized. The shift from institution to the person in terms of understanding God and God’s will, and from the church and the communitas of the ecclesia to the common and the civitas can be identified as moral progress and not as moral decline. The idea of God in a pluralist society functions differently: Not as a tribal God – but as a universal God. It becomes increasingly more challenging to advocate a God who is a God only for the few.

Notes 1 An empirical warrant for this claim has been established by Pål Repstad, in the study already referred to above, Fra Ilden til Asken [From the Fire to the Ashes]. But also in other contexts, we see that problems with doctrine is not the most significant variable

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4 5 6

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The morally intolerable God for leaving a church. Social and moral issues are also mentioned as main reasons in Linda A. Mercadante, Belief without Borders: Inside the Minds of the Spiritual but not Religious (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014). Cf. e.g. D. Nicholls, Deity and Domination. The move from a traditional to a post-traditional society has been investigated in detail with regard to which values are prevalent in society, by Ronald Inglehart, Miguel Basáñez, and Alejandro Menéndez Moreno, Human Values and Beliefs: A Cross-Cultural Sourcebook: Political, Religious, Sexual, and Economic Norms in 43 Societies; Findings from the 1990–1993 World Value Survey (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1998); Pippa Norris and Ronald Inglehart, Sacred and Secular: Religion and Politics Worldwide, 2nd edn, Cambridge Studies in Social Theory, Religion and Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011). See Chapter 4 above. Cf. for this Inglehart and Norris, Sacred and Secular: Religion and Politics Worldwide. The other problem, which is not relevant in the same manner in the present context, is that the reference to tradition allows for a less rigorous development of the moral subject’s own skills from moral judgment (prudence) because he/she can rely on an external authority rather than on his/her own autonomously shaped moral reasoning. See R. N. Bellah, “Civil Religion in America,” Dædalus, 96(1): 1–21. Accessed at www.RobertBellah.com. Cf. also the fact that no Norwegian politician, including those who belong to the Christian Democratic Party, refers to the will of God in public disourse, as is indicated in the previous chapter about religious privatization.

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The politically dangerous God – a God of love

Notions of God are used and abused. Often so for political purposes. The abuse of God is one of the reasons that people turn against religion today. When God is used to legitimize one group’s privileges, status, or rights compared to another, God is being exploited as a tool to divide humanity instead of unify it. Thus, God, as a symbol perpetuates conflicts, causes divisions and injustice, and loses credibility for those who suffer. The conviction behind such abuse – that some have privileged access to the will of God – is related to an even more dangerous and potentially destructive idea: that God is the god of only some select few, a specific group. On the other hand, the idea that God is transcendent – which is a predominant idea in both Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, not only suggests that humans should focus on something other than this world (which would, in fact, be to accept the idea about religious life as the denial of life in general). Its most profound consequence can be identified in how this idea allows for a distinction between the divine order on the one hand and the actual political order on the other hand. In turn, this distinction allows for criticizing the current political and societal order with reference to something beyond the present and which is considered sacred and a point of authority reference.

God in the tension between universalism and tribalism We need to take our point of departure in this simple but crucial idea about God as transcending the political order because it has contributed to shaping society since the emergence of the so-called Axial Age. The distinction between Pre-Axial Age and Axial Age religions originates in philosopher Karl Jaspers’ work. He observed a critical and pervasive change around the period 800–200 BCE. During this period, the big religions “developed conceptions of universal humanity over against tribal conceptions, of a unified world, of a universal set of ultimate conditions” that made it possible “to think of a universal world history, however differently these religions conceived that history. Individuals came to be understood as related individually to the universal ultimate conditions. Strikingly, all of the religions emphasized some version or other of universal justice and compassion or love.”1 DOI: 10.4324/9781003306207-8

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The developments towards the Axial age meant a shift in virtues and ideals that reduced violence, as it meant a prioritization of “universalism rather than blood-brotherhood against enemies, the transcendence of the ‘source of all holiness’ against sacralization of the earthly ruler or earthly political orders.”2 Furthermore, different religions now could develop tools for rejecting “the identification of a specific institutional order with modernity as such, and continue to act as an Axial, transcendence-focused but practical, worldly thorn in the flesh of political and social life.”3 The tribe, the group, or the nation do not necessarily take priority anymore. How significant the new ideas about God are becomes apparent when we contrast them with the imagery used by the tribal religions that preceded it. Instead of seeing God as someone who transcends the interests of the group and who recognizes all humans as equal, “tribal religions tend to conceive members of the tribe as fully human and others not to be fully human, or if not insufficiently human, the others are in outgroups, not in the ingroup defining the tribe.”4 The distinction between pre-Axial Age and Axial Age notions about God should not be seen as depicting a development that leaves the former mode of religion behind. Instead, it means that hereafter, religions display a tension between two contrary tendencies that exist within the religions in question. Thus, it can be seen as a parallel to the distinction between religions that are structured socially around differences, on the one hand, and religions that aim at a social structure that builds on inclusion and shared humanity on the other hand. For Christianity, it means that “various Christian ingroups have very often established themselves as authoritative cultures with hierarchies distinguished from others.” However, similar patterns of social structure can be found in other large religious traditions as well. “Thus, there is a terrific and often volatile tension between the Axial Age dimensions of our religions and the strongly entrenched tribal dimensions within those same religions.”5 We want to underscore that this is not an academic disagreement about how one would think about supernatural entities that have no impact on human lives: the tension between these different notions of God has an impact on how one relates to other human beings and for how one can address and criticize problems and injustices in the actual society in which one lives. It is the reason why it is so important to identify it from the start. A universalist conception of God has functioned and continues to do so under constant pressure: the attempts to absolutize power, to divinize a specific social order, or to point to one group as more sacred and worthy of respect than another – all of these traits have been expressed in modern history and are still in play. Religious fundamentalists and totalitarian dictators are contributing to it and do so in the name of religion. Hence, we cannot once and for all or in any way take the achievements of the Axial Age for granted. To make sure that there is an idea of God in play that can counter these tendencies is not an obsolete but indeed an important project in the contemporary world. It may directly impact how you relate to your neighbour next door and what you find worthwhile to pursue as

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moral, social, and political aims. If it is not to remain an abstract notion, it must be spelled out in concrete practices that address these realms of human life. In a much-quoted text where the German philosopher Jürgen Habermas discusses how the notion of God has changed and how it functions within the context of modern society, he writes: The idea of God is sublated [aufgehoben] into a concept of a Logos that determines the community of believers and the real life-context of a selfemancipating society. “God” becomes the name for a communicative structure that forces human beings, on pain of a loss of their humanity, to go beyond their accidental, empirical nature to encounter one another indirectly, that is, across an objective something that they themselves are not.6 Several elements in this compact quote are of profound importance for understanding the relation between the notion of God and society, and they need to be teased out: First and foremost, understanding God in this way suggests an instance that does not fit in, or cannot be identified, with the actual and factual existence of society. If God is to allow humans to be or become free, God has to be thought of as something different from the determining factors of society, i.e., God has to be separated from the everyday as holy, to suggest that there is something else than the everyday, and this holy then represents the potential freedom for which a self-emancipating society may be struggling. The element of transcendence in the idea of God is exactly what allows different members of society to address each other and their conditions on other terms than those who are present at hand. Hence, the symbol “God” also points to something beyond the immediacy of the finite situation at hand.7 It allows for a kind of universalism in which every human being is of equal standing. Of course, on Habermas’ part, the above is not a statement about the existence of God, but an identification of how the idea or symbol of God is manifest and may be employed on modern terms. The non-empirical and counterfactual content of the idea about God may then open up to understanding humans as more than what they are in terms of their actual empirical existence as well, a point that Habermas has developed in his criticism of contemporary science that tries to modify the human genome and develop new forms of eugenics. For Habermas, “God” indicates a structure of social communication. The participants in that communication are forced to recognize each other as more than what is given with their actual concrete existence.8 This mutual recognition implies mutual respect. In philosophical terms, this is what is often referred to as human dignity, for which theology often uses the notion of the image of God. The image of God is not an empirical feature but implies exactly the recognition of the human being as more than what is present. Hence, there is a close correspondence between human dignity and the idea of God. Although the latter may not be taken as a direct cause of the former; rather, the notion of God serves – for those who believe in it – as the symbolic warrant for

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this way of ordering communication on other terms than those of the impersonal media of power and money. Accordingly, God serves as a “placeholder” (Platzhalter) for a communicative space where human dignity and the common ground are secured for all. In that regard, utilizing the central symbol “God,” religion contributes to the critical evaluation of traits in the development of contemporary society. The universalist tendency in different – but not all – Christian traditions has developed to comprise an increasingly larger part of humankind. Hence, both reason (logos) and the recognition of all humans allows for these traditions to transcend the “tribal,” “ethnic” or nationalist conceptions of God. This fact entails a move that has implications for how one may see and address the members of a modern pluralist society. This move leads more than anything to an understanding of humanity in solidarity, and to a common moral obligation to overcome injustice no matter who suffers from it. Hence, in Habermas’ reading of the impact of religion, there is a strong tendency to interpret this impact as one in which the moral substance of universalistic ethics has been backed up by, and is developed from, the traditions mentioned above.9 Of course, he is aware that these universalist patterns are not undisputed in contemporary religion. The universalist conception of God that Habermas points to can be interpreted against the backdrop of Woodhead’s and Heelas’ categories for describing the social structuration of religion, especially the categories of religions of difference and religions of humanity.10 In the following, some theological implications of their typology will be teased out: not only because they are relevant for establishing a more profound interpretation of the precarious situation for the Axial Age achievements, but because they can provide some basis for the problem about God and morality in a society that will be discussed below, as well. If we operate with an understanding of an “ethnic” or “tribal” understanding of religion on the one hand, and an understanding of religion that is based in recognition of every human as created in the image of God, on the other hand, we may see how the categories Woodhead and Heelas use not only shape different perceptions of society and community. They are also related to different notions of God in God’s relation to humans. Thus, we can read off the impact of these different notions of God from how they contribute to human flourishing, community, and solidarity, or division and strife.11 At this point, an ambiguous element in the achievements of the Axial Age comes forth: The emphasis on God’s transcendence can be used for purposes other than the criticism of earthly powers with reference to God’s authority: Woodhead and Heelas describe how religions of difference attribute authority first and foremost to the transcendent God. The source of goodness and truth is identified in the transcendent. However, when this idea is combined with the conviction that a transcendent God saves one’s group, this God exceeds what limited human beings can grasp. God’s transcendence means that God needs mediation. “Religions of difference characteristically recognize mediating authorities through which the divine is revealed. This is normally a sacred text

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or collection of texts which give access to a past time in which the divine is thought to have been disclosed more perfectly than in the present.”12 Hence, religions of difference not only may have a hard time locating any source of goodness in the existing social order as such, but this order may also, given their theological framework, be dependent upon authorities that are not part of a democratic and equality-based way of thinking about the religious community. Accordingly, we may expect to find an understanding of God and authority in such a religion of difference-shaped social settings that is partly at odds with the modern democratic ideals. The tendencies of Axial Age religion in its universalist shape, at least, cannot embrace such ideals fully. (The ambiguous approach of the Roman Catholic Church to democratization may be a case in point here.)13 The conditions for reciprocal communication and equal recognition on the part of everyone are not present in religions of difference. Instead, some members or participants have what we may call communicative or discursive privileges that others may not have: they hold the position where they can interpret the will of God for others. Such hierarchical structures have probably been present in all religions at all times. However, in a modern society that builds on ideals about equality and democracy, such traditional structures increasingly exist in tension with these ideals. When people are confronted with them in ways that run contrary to their own convictions, they are more likely to ignore them if they are familiar with ways of relating to others besides those represented by authority and hierarchy. Moreover, the hierarchical structure may also contribute to tensions between different groups that are on equal footing in the shared and general order of society. Although all members of the community of believers are recognized as God’s children, there is nevertheless a sharp difference between intra-group and extra-group members of society. In religions of difference, one of the basic requirements for being part of the religious community is maintaining a correctly structured relationship with God and with fellow creatures. “Morality is about learning and respecting differences – differences not only between the divine and the human, but between male and female, between children and parents, and between those in and those under authority.”14 As we shall see in the next chapter with reference to the feminist criticism of hierarchy presented by Dahill and Hampson, this shaping of the social structure by means of religion has profound implications for the way religion itself is becoming totally entangled in problematic structures of society. Thus, they perpetuate the preAxial Age tribal way of manifesting religion. Woodhead and Heelas write: Characteristically, religions of difference take the form of tightly-bounded communities which differentiate themselves both from other religious communities and “the world.” These communities function to create and sustain societies of godly and enlightened people who maintain a critical distance from wider society. Such communities are generally exclusivistic in the sense that they believe themselves to be sole possessors of the truth.15

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Thus, the idea of having a specific, privileged place in the eyes of God may here contribute to creating a split between the group and the wider society – or, if one allows, a dissociation from it. This split is enhanced by the fact that the wider society here can appear as sinful and contrary to God’s will, whilst the community of believers has the privilege of being elected. The “God on our side” approach then has important and significant consequences for how one perceives the role of the believers versus society at large. When God is conceived thus, it may contribute to division among different groups within a tradition or between religious traditions. In the present climate, where the religious other is occasionally demonized or marginalized through stereotyping, the divisive dynamics at play here can only be checked if they are countered by other conceptions about society and community that build on more universalist conceptions. When religious identities are underpinned by ethnic or national elements, religions of difference can contribute to political mobilization by undergirding ethnic and national identities. We can see this case demonstrated in the Middle East and parts of Europe and Asia. The combination of the religion of difference and nationalism is perhaps one of the most significant factors for giving religion a bad reputation in today’s world. Employment of the symbol “God” for the group may contribute to sanctifying the group instead of recognizing every human as equal because they are created in God’s image. The combination mentioned may also make it harder to develop secularity in a society from which all members can benefit. Against this backdrop, it is not surprising that religions of difference have a difficult time affirming any valid secular elements of the society: Secularization means that differences between groups that are based on religion are downplayed in order to find common ground in which the one can both affirm and enable pluralism and see it as a positive quality. Accordingly, in a religion of difference, it is necessary to consider the notion of what is sacred as something that negates and exists in opposition to the secular. The secular is not possible to affirm as conditioned by God in order for all members of society to have due recognition of their equal status as humans. When God is conceived as being above every human, as someone who transcends the empirical reality in a given situation, and as the one that has designated every human being with his or her dignity, the tension between this idea of God and the religion of difference framework for interpreting God comes to the fore in a vivid manner: The latter God is tied to specific ethnic or social groups, and in such a way that what these groups have in common with other groups is not engaged positively, but has to be tuned down negatively in order to maintain the group identity. Thereby, religions of difference may – but probably need not – contribute to possible tensions in a given society. I write “need not” because the way in which difference is manifested and expressed may vary: In some cases, it may lead to a serving attitude over and against the others who are in need of being helped/redeemed/assisted/saved, while in other cases the others should be held at arm’s length at all costs.

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The social structure of what Woodhead and Heelas call religions of humanity shifts the locus of authority from a transcendent God in need of interpretation by a privileged few to humans and their recognized capacities. Therefore, this social configuration of religion is far more affirmative of human life in general, not only the lives of the believers. God is here conceived not so much as an awesome, fearful, and set-apart deity but is seen as much more approachable, tolerant, compassionate. This understanding of God also has consequences for understanding the human who is part of society: Humans are images of the divine and can even participate in the divine. Furthermore, religions of humanity may hold that we need to start with the human and human experiences in order to know something of God.16 Not surprisingly, “religions of humanity tend to be critical of competing authorities.” The hierarchical structure is not part of the social framework that constitutes the community here, and accordingly, one can approach religious institutions, scriptures, traditions, rituals, sacraments, and specialists critically and creatively. Furthermore, no tradition or authority is unquestioned, although they may continue to inform the present. What counts as true is not dictated by an external source. Instead, “The human, human experience, and human reason become the measure of truth. Since individuals must be free to choose, decide, believe, and make up their own minds where matters of religion are concerned, both tolerance and freedom are key values.”17 Thus, with regard to societal impact, religions of humanity are characterized by a strong sense of the importance of the collective dimension of human existence and by active ethical and political concern. Whilst religions of difference are equally unlikely to interpret the human apart from the social, they are more likely to think of the latter in terms of communities of believers. By contrast, religions of humanity understand human communities, including other religions, in much more inclusive terms.18 With regard to how the sacred is employed to engage in societal matters, religions of humanity have an expanded understanding of relevant cooperators and participants in the discourse, which seems to fit more with Habermas’ understanding of the conditions for communication in modern pluralist societies than do the religions of difference: The adherents to this type of religion “tend to view the only true boundaries of community as coterminous with those of the human race itself.” This optimistic view of humankind opens up to an ethical critique of different aspects of traditional (tribal) religion, as the ethical and experiential is above tradition and self-established authority. “Religions of humanity are characteristically optimistic both in their belief in the fundamental goodness of human nature and in the possibility of building the perfect human society here on earth.”19 The analysis in this section has provided us with the opportunity to qualify the notion of what is at stake in Axial Age religion: It is not only the notion of

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a transcendent God that makes it possible to criticize elements in a given society, but the fact that this God is considered to be a God for all of humanity. The conception of a universal God enables members of society to subject it to critical scrutiny. Post-Axial Age religion provides the possibility for a religion (or religions) of humanity, in which all of humankind is considered a source of goodness and moral insight, and each human is an image of God. This development can most likely explain the widespread use of the concept “image of God” in modern Western societies today. Furthermore, the critical stance against given empirical elements of society can be seen as linked to the communicative conditions within an egalitarian and democratic framework. In the contemporary setting, the resources for such theology are perhaps most clearly manifested in different types of liberation theology and feminist critiques of traditional theology. Hence, there are accessible resources in contemporary religion for countering the tribal remnants in Christianity, against which many people are now turning because of their pernicious consequences.

God in liberation theology – universal theology from a marginalized position All theology is written from a specific point of view, determined by the social position of those who develop it. However, it is not without consequences if this theology is developed in a way that wants to take responsibility for the well-being and flourishing of all people, or only one group. Therefore, the way God is understood has profound consequences for how theology can take up this responsibility. Against this backdrop, the development of liberation theologies cannot be underestimated when addressing the relationship between God and society in contemporary theological discourse. Even those who have been most critical of these types of politically engaged theology have had to relate to their claims and deal with these types of theology’s presuppositions. The essential feature of liberation theology for our discussion in this book is that it develops a clear vision of the relation between the way out of oppressive socio-economic conditions and a Christian understanding of God. The theology of Gustavo Gutiérrez20 can be employed as a basis for model analysis of this relationship. Thereby two different goals can be achieved: first, we can understand better how the symbol “God” is developed within the context of this theology, and then, second, we can see how this theology contributes to nuancing and identifying problematic elements in the lines of reasoning presented above, especially with regard to the relationship between the universal understanding of God vs. the tribal and communitarian one, as well as the relationship between theology and experience. The context of discovery and the context for justification of the symbol God as used in liberation theology is the political oppression and extreme poverty that many peoples experience. It is, however, essential to note that this type of theology is not only siding exclusively with the poor – the challenge of this situation affects “the universal Christian community.”21 Accordingly, it sees it

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as important to address the empirical situation in question. This move suggests that liberation theology is not unanimously possible to identify as a communitarian approach to the problems in question or only relevant for one group with special interests and problems. Liberation theologians explicitly employ the notion of the image of God in order to identify the causes and the power that contributes to the transformation of society in order for people to be able to realize their vocation. In the development of a more just society, they see “vestiges of the image of God in human nature as a powerful incentive.” As a consequence, when humans have their divine image recognized, it leads to “a more profound personalization and fellowship, and an encounter with the God who ratifies and deepens those values attained through human efforts.”22 Three significant elements need to be highlighted in this line of reasoning: first, God is understood as active in and through history by the Spirit, active in the processes that yearn for social transformation. Accordingly, God is related to the concrete social and political processes and affected by the concrete shape of the empirical world. Furthermore, addressing the human as God’s image contributes to underscoring the personal dimension of the human community to which the Spirit’s work leads. It makes it possible to avoid the instrumentalizing and outward way of relating to other humans that the politics that degrade the poor have as an inherent feature. Thereby, the position suggested confirms, and is in consonance with, what was already suggested earlier about the importance of the notion of God’s image as relevant for all of humanity. Liberation theology understands God’s presence in this world as manifested by the humanizing elements and the mutual recognition of humankind that we find in the true community. Here is no contradiction between human experience, reasoning and effort, and God’s will and work. Instead, there is a synergy between God’s works and the values that lie behind human efforts to improve social and political circumstances. If we refer back to what was said about the experienced lack of relevance of theology in much of established Western academic discourse, it is not surprising that many have found liberation theology an attractive alternative. Instead of seeing theology as derived exclusively from the biblical texts, liberation theology interprets reality based on the combination of the texts and the tradition on the one hand and the experiences of those who suffer and are oppressed on the other hand. Texts become meaningful only as consciously employed within a specific historical and political context, and their use aims to transform unjust conditions and circumstances. To ignore the context is to fail the purpose of theology: We are not dealing here solely with an intellectual pursuit. Behind liberation theology are Christian communities, religious groups, and peoples, who are becoming increasingly conscious that the oppression and neglect from which they suffer are incompatible with their faith in Jesus Christ (or, speaking more generally, with their religious faith). These concrete, real-life movements are what give this theology its distinctive character; in

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Therefore, liberation theology can be seen as a critical alternative to the strands of Western academic theology that separate theology as God-talk from the practices and the experiences of those who identify with the church. In liberation theology, only one way to rational talk about God is valid: the one located within a broader and more challenging course of action that comes from following the radical practice of Jesus against injustice and marginalization.24 Hence, experience and theology are closely linked in a spirituality that implies sharing the sufferings and joys of the oppressed, their concerns and their struggles, and the faith and hope that they live as a Christian community. This spiritual practice “feeds the very roots of a reflection that seeks to explain the God of life when death is all around.”25 To support those suffering and in need is to put into action what belief in God entails. Faith cannot avoid conflict or confrontation with evil. In the societies in which the authors of this book live, the homeless, the refugees, and those who are sick and do not get treatment in prison are all among the groups that risk being ignored or have their human dignity violated. When seen from this perspective, the protest against oppression and injustice in the name of God manifests God as somewhat different from the harmonizing “cosy Majesty” that seems attractive to those who may have little or no focus on injustices and whom we addressed in the chapter on “The Changing Christian God” earlier in this book.26 The cosy majesty can easily be perceived as the result of a version of Christianity unconcerned with social injustice and the suffering of people who live under conditions other than those in the Norwegian welfare state in Sørlandet. In liberation theology, understanding the church as a community believing and hoping in the Lord is linked to a reassertion of solidarity with the poor, identified as “the privileged members of the reign of God.”27 In other words: It is those who are at the margins who are seen as privileged. This identification of the poor and powerless makes the structuration of liberation theology more complex: Although the understanding of reality takes its point of departure in the church, some members within this church are more privileged than others: the poor. Even though it is possible to identify this theology as ecclesiocentric, it deals with God and social realities as they are imagined as part of everyone’s concerns. This inclusive way of addressing all parties concerned by using the church as their common communal framework not only charges the values of this community at large, but it also makes it possible to more closely link the relationship between God and society without being accused of doing politics from the point of view of one group and its interests. The combination of universal aspirations on behalf of the church’s mission to the poor on the one hand, and the awareness of contextual conditions in terms of political, social, and economic circumstances on the other hand, leads to an understanding of theology as God-talk that has a specific shape, and which is also critical of theologies which are ignorant of their contextual conditioning:

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Although theology is a language for communicating God, in every place it must display the inflections given it by those who formulate it and those to whom it is directed […]. Our theological language is subject to the same rule; it takes its coloring from our peoples, cultures, and racial groupings, and yet we use it in an attempt to proclaim the universality of God’s love. This accent may not be to the liking of those who until now have regarded themselves the proprietors of theology and are not conscious of their own accent (to which, of course, they have every right) when they speak of God.28 We see here that the preferential option for the poor is combined with the proclamation about the universality of God’s love. This proclamation is the task that the church as a whole has in the present world. “Unless we make an ongoing commitment to the poor, who are the privileged members of the reign of God, we are far removed from the Christian message.”29 Thus, the notion of the Kingdom of God comes into play as the symbol for the gratuitous or unmerited character of God’s love. Hence, God is related to those who are suffering, offering love to the destitute. At the same time, this offer is the vocation of the church, which is called to live out her faith. The commitment of the church is grounded in “a theocentric, prophetic option that has its roots in the unmerited love of God and is demanded by this love.”30 Hence, faith in God and love for the poor are linked as God is a God of unmerited love. We will return to the notion of God as love in a later chapter. Here, we only need to make clear that the introduction of God as love in this context is not a warrant for accepting injustice and submission to those in power as the pious mode of faith: To think of God as love in this context is to work against all that obstructs or impedes human flourishing. An ideal about love as self-sacrifice and suffering is not in place here. Accordingly, in liberation theology, Jesus’ death is interpreted as his living in solidarity with everyone else that suffers and not as a model for how Christians should model their own lives. Suffering is not idealized. Like other types of Christian theology that have salvation in focus, liberation theology stresses that salvation is linked to the work of Jesus Christ. However, its proponents want to avoid the reduction of salvation to some “disembodied spiritual union with God, or to the merely existential personalism of individual or small-group ties, or to one or another form of social, economic, or political horizontalism.”31 The concept of salvation as liberation is complex and fits more holistic approaches that recently have become more prevalent in many Western societies. Salvation includes both the political and the religious aspects of liberation. When one affirms the unity of all the aspects without confusing them, it is possible “to speak of God’s saving action as all-embracing and unmerited, without reducing it to a purely human set of activities, as well as to interrelate the political and the religious dimensions while also incorporating the necessary ethical perspective.”32 Thus, a holistic understanding of salvation allows for a conception of God as one who still matters and makes a difference for those who live their lives based on belief in this God.

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Liberation is not understood exclusively as God’s work but as the result of acts by which humankind assumes conscious responsibility for its own destiny.33 That human agency is included in, and not superseded by God’s action, allows humans to become subjects in their own lives and not to become submitted to the blind and oppressive forces of history for which they bear no responsibility nor are able to control. Moreover, this responsible-shaped approach to one’s own life is different from the idea of everything that happens being part of God’s plan. Responsibility means action and activity and not a passive acceptance of the given conditions. Hence, this idea about liberation by a God who is acting through human agency opens up to the creation of a new, qualitatively different society in which members can take their fate into their own hands. Thus, this theology contributes to the constitution of human freedom through the actual employment of this idea about how God and human agency are interrelated. The affirmative view of human agency has implications for the issue of secularization as well: a secular society is not necessarily a problem but can also be a way of affirming basic concerns of a Christian theology: A positive view on secularization implies that God is not seen as the one who sets aside the independence of the world, but includes and supports it: secularization coincides with a Christian vision of human nature, of history, and the cosmos. Moreover, according to liberation theology, biblical faith affirms the existence of creation as distinct from the Creator: Creation is the proper sphere of humankind, and God has designated humankind as stewards of the creation. “Worldliness, therefore, is a must, a necessary condition for an authentic relationship between humankind and nature, among human beings themselves, and finally, between humankind and God.”34 Above, we have pointed to the necessity of adopting a critical stance towards types of institutionalized religion that are not sufficiently self-critical or that see the political powers without reserve as institutionalized by God. When some claim that solidarity with the oppressed or marginalized is not part of the church’s calling, and base this position on the notion that the church should not deal with politics, this illustrates the challenges that liberation theology faces and the approach it has to reject. Consciousness must be maintained of how the church has often been associated with the unjust order by supporting those in power and thereby promoting an understanding of God that does not give support to the struggles of the poor. Thus, liberation theology also contributes to bringing forward the actual ambiguities that religions display on the contemporary scene and motivates the necessary warnings against the idealization of religious traditions as something that unreservedly promotes the good for all. Traditionally, nature is conceived as that which takes place according to impersonal and blind laws that operate outside of human agency and subjectivity, whereas in history, we can think of humans as acting reasonably on the basis of understanding and responsibility. However, when liberation theology stresses that God is a God of history, it is a coherent and consequent way to point out how God and the social order are interacting in a way that affirms

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both parties as acting in the process. God is not only “behind” the blind forces of nature but partaking in the human struggle for liberation that emerges out of a specific understanding of the societal, political, and economic order. Consequently, God can be identified in the liberating forces of history.35 This process is not linked exclusively to the church; God is present in the calling of every human being to act for justice – a point that is much in accordance with the developments in theology that we have already referred to above. However, the relation between church and society in terms of God’s work and presence is, as indicated above, complex: in liberation theology, a universalization of God’s presence is assumed: it is not localized and linked to a particular people. Instead, it extends to all the peoples of the earth. Moreover, the understanding of God’s universal justice is systematically built together with the idea of God’s presence in every human. Only in this way can humans reach the destiny given them by God: “The human person is destined to total communion with God and to the fullest fellowship with all other persons.”36 Thus, the processes behind societal transformation are construed in a way that integrates them with central elements in the Christian doctrine about God. God is understood as a God for all humans and present in all humans, believers or not. God affects the concrete realities under which people live.

Jesus relativizing earthly powers We should not make too hasty conclusions from our previous research, but when we analysed peoples’ belief in God in the Sørlandet project,37 they were often inclined to talk more extensively about God than about Jesus. When asked about Jesus, they were reluctant to state anything more than the formulas they had learned about him. Their faith in Jesus lacked experiential content – at least in what they said. However, in other contexts, we can see how faith in Jesus is directly related to addressing political circumstances: When some strands of American evangelicals criticize their president’s behaviour and crude statements for not being in accordance with Jesus’ preaching, they apply their belief in Jesus’ message to interpret their situation and their experiences. Thus, they also point to the above-mentioned relativization of the earthly powers that is among the achievements of the Judaeo-Christian understanding of God. This feature is also taken up by liberation theology. When Jesus preached personal conversion, he pointed to a fundamental and permanent attitude “which was primarily opposed not to a concern for social structures, but to purely formal worship, devoid of religious authenticity and human content.”38 This insight is valid in all the contexts in the world in which the Christian faith is employed for the political gain of one group, and the hypocrisy of those in power replaces the authenticity and caring attitude that Jesus calls for. Accordingly, we need to recall and ratify what we know of the universality of Jesus’ work. Its universality and totality go to the heart of political behaviour: “By freeing us from sin, Jesus attacks the roots of an unjust order. For Jesus, the Jewish people’s liberation was only one aspect of a

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universal, permanent revolution. Far from showing no interest in this liberation, Jesus rather placed it on a deeper level, with far-reaching consequences.”39 If his message is perceived as subversive, it is because it takes on Israel’s hope: the Kingdom of God is “the end of the domination of person over person; it is a Kingdom of contradiction to the established powers and on behalf of humankind.”40 In this way, God is understood as taking sides in the struggle for justice: God is a God for all, but God does not condone all that every human does, and God’s love does not imply a harmonizing ignorance of evil. Whereas the gospel proclaims God’s love for every human being and calls humans to love as God loves, this does not mean that Christians should ignore the class struggle and give up struggles against injustice. Love means “taking a position, opposing certain groups of persons, rejecting certain activities, and facing hostilities.” Peace presupposes the establishment of justice. Thus, to take an active part “on the side of justice and in defense of the weakest members of society does not mean that we are encouraging conflict; it means rather that we are trying to eliminate its deepest root, which is the absence of love.”41 In the above statements, Gutiérrez clarifies that he recognizes that his understanding of God and society may lead to, or at least make more manifest, social and political conflict. However, having provided a criterion for the mutual recognition of all members of society as created in God’s image, he also clarifies that such conflicts are overcome once injustice is overcome. It is not the church as the people of God, but those who exclude others from justice who are identified as the primary sources of conflict and struggle. God as a God of justice and peace calls for a societal order in which the exclusion of any person is not possible. However, to struggle for such a society is not incompatible with a preferential option for the poorest and most oppressed. Because God’s love embraces all without exception, no one is excluded from this love. Although there are oppositions and social conflicts between diverse factions, classes, cultures, and racial groupings, these do not exclude respect for the human beings who are loved by God and are constantly being called to conversion.42 God’s creative presence in society is thus manifested in the peace and justice that make apparent how every human is identified as created in the image of God and therefore holding the inalienable rights to justice. The God who is against poverty calls for the change of society and for solidarity among humans, because the existence of poverty represents a sundering both of solidarity among persons and also of communion with God. Poverty is an expression of sin, that is, of a negation of love. It is therefore incompatible with the coming of the Kingdom of God, a Kingdom of love and justice.43 The understanding of God in liberation theology analysed here suggests that this theology can be developed in ways that have important consequences for social mobilization as well as for concrete criticism of given societal, economic,

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and political orders in the present. For those who think that this is only relevant in societies that are remote from what we call Western societies, a challenge is present: Consider the refugees, the homeless, those with insufficient care and medical aid in major Western societies, and ask if the above analysis could not also be applied with regard to them. Furthermore, it is an understanding of God that has experiential context and universal aspiration, despite its rooting in the Christian tradition. It employs both social analysis and biblical visions, and it is clear when it comes to taking sides in a social conflict.

Overcoming the merger of national and religious interest: “A moment of truth” – Kairos Palestine The day this section was rewritten was the day after the United States moved their embassy in Israel to Jerusalem. The newspapers were full of reports about how many people were dead and wounded on the Palestinian side during the protests that this move caused. Some newspapers spoke of this event as the “last nail in the coffin for a Palestinian sovereign state.” It is striking how representatives of the Christian faith are willing to look away from the violence that the Israeli armed forces use against unarmed, protesting children, youth and adults – and do so with religious warrant. The challenge is to not avert the eyes from what happens and from the sufferings. Can it be done with a different theological voice than the one that by default assumes that God is always on the side of those who can be identified as “Israel,” thereby ignoring that one cannot identify without reserve the state of that name with the people elected byGod? One such attempt has been made in the contextually based Kairos Palestine Document. Some points from this contribution merit analysis here: The document combines a clear basis in a specific contextual situation with an approach to political questions based on the understanding of a God for all. In other words, the conception of the universality of God is employed to provide a strong warrant for the claim for justice. Instead of contrasting the God of Israel and the God of Christian Palestinians, the document sees God as one who loves and wants justice for all: We, a group of Christian Palestinians, after prayer, reflection and an exchange of opinion, cry out from within the suffering in our country, under the Israeli occupation, with a cry of hope in the absence of all hope, a cry full of prayer and faith in a God ever vigilant, in God’s divine providence for all the inhabitants of this land. Inspired by the mystery of God’s love for all, the mystery of God’s divine presence in the history of all peoples and, in a particular way, in the history of our country, we proclaim our word based on our Christian faith and our sense of Palestinian belonging – a word of faith, hope and love.44 It is worth noting that in this quote, two important points about God are kept together: First; that God loves everyone, and that the divine presence can be

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assumed in the history of all peoples – a point that indirectly repudiates the idea of God as present and loving only among certain select groups of humans. Second, this God is, nevertheless present in a specific way in the history of the country of Palestine. Hence, God’s presence in history allows for the qualification of historical events as something that can be assessed in the light of the standards given by the Christian faith. The political and historical realm is not outside the scope of what should be theologically evaluated. Therefore, the historical background of the conflict and the specific theological significance of the land itself are not ignored. Instead, the present situation of the land is identified as a call to manifest God’s will for it – as something that contrasts with the present situation. However, what is God’s will is not based on the idea about specific groups having specific privileges, but on a universal approach, where the land can be a site that is a model for peace and justice globally: Referring back to the time of the patriarchs, the prophets, and the apostles, the Kairos theologians interpret the land as the site for a universal mission to the world in a way that includes three religions: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. However, the land is interpreted in relation to, and therefore with reference to, God: “Our land is God’s land, as is the case with all countries in the world. It is holy inasmuch as God is present in it, for God alone is holy and sanctifier.” God’s will for the land is the normative basis on which one can address the challenges and liberate it from the evil of injustice and war. God’s land should display reconciliation, peace, and love (p. 8). Against the backdrop of this understanding of God as someone who loves all and wants justice for all, it also becomes possible to address the actual political situation from the point of view of idolatry. The Israeli settlement in Palestinian territories is idolatry because it depends on the abuse of God’s name. Thereby, Palestinians are also denied access to the gifts of God through nature. The exclusivist understanding of God is what provides the conditions for gridlock in the attempts to reach a political solution to the problems: “Israeli settlements ravage our land in the name of God and in the name of force, controlling our natural resources, including water and agricultural land, thus depriving hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, and constituting an obstacle to any political solution” (p. 5). Political injustices that have concrete consequences in terms of lack of access to natural resources that are necessary for survival cannot be justified. The understanding of God employed to address the gravity of the Palestinian situation is primarily drawing upon the prophetic literature of Israel. This point should not go unnoticed because it provides a common ground from which it is hard for opponents to withdraw. Thus, the conception of God is ethically qualified, through and through, with an ethos that is not sectarian, communitarian, or tribal, but which can (or presumably should) be recognized by people in different camps and contexts. Not surprisingly, the document underscores the idea that the image of God is the most important theological designation of what binds humans together. Simultaneously, it stresses that God’s

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love for all gives a strong impetus to overcoming conflict instead of perpetuating it. The universal God is ethically qualified in a way that has concrete implications for the situation: We believe in God, one God, Creator of the universe and of humanity. We believe in a good and just God, who loves each one of his creatures. We believe that every human being is created in God’s image and likeness and that everyone’s dignity is derived from the dignity of the Almighty One. We believe that this dignity is one and the same in each and all of us. This means for us, here and now, in this land in particular, that God created us not so that we might engage in strife and conflict but rather that we might come and know and love one another, and together build up the land in love and mutual respect. (p. 8) Accordingly, the same theological symbols are employed in the Palestinian context as are utilized by both Latin American and Western theologians: The image of God – when respected and recognized – is the one very symbol by which one can identify how God’s justice and care is present in society and manifests itself in different parts of the political realm. As indicated, one of the major tenets of this symbol is its ability to express a universalist form of ethics. When the universality implied in this symbol is not recognized, its moral and political impetus breaks down. Its moral impetus lies in its ethically qualified universality. Hence, an accusation against someone for not recognizing that another person is disrespected or unrecognized as created in the image of God is most likely to be on par with accusations for racism or other forms of vision for the political or social order that identifies some groups as more valuable or privileged than others. In the Kairos Palestine Document, the situation of the Palestinian church is taken to the centre of their worship of a God whom they believe has not left them. The hope is not directed primarily to a change of the political situation but to a God who will change the course of history. This understanding of God enables the vision of another reality and provides hope amid their despair, in a way that overcomes separation, fear, and hate and instead manifests a community across ethnic and cultural boundaries (cf. p. 16). This is, accordingly, not a theology that justifies division and separation, but a theology that hopes to overcome injustice by understanding God’s justice as something that only can be realized and manifest if it is justice for all of humanity. However, as we close this chapter, the insight that carries this message seems further away than ever: the vision of God’s justice for all seems more remote in the Palestinian situation than ever. Isolated and lacking resources and what they need for basic human survival, Palestinians live in a human-made hell. Theirs is a context in which it still makes sense to use that symbol. Thus, the hope for which the symbol of God provides the opportunity is counter-factual to this hell – a point that makes it no less important.

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Notes 1 Robert C. Neville, Defining Religion: Essays in Philosophy of Religion (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2018), 178. It is important here to underscore that the universalism I write about in the following is not to be understood as an imperialist option that aims for all to be assimilated into some kind of higher unity; it is instead a universalism that acknowledges difference and affirms plurality as part of the human condition, without letting go of the idea that all humans have equal dignity and worth. 2 Cf. Hans Joas, “Cultural Memory in the Present.” In Faith as an Option: Possible Futures for Christianity, 108. 3 Ibid. 115. 4 Neville, Defining Religion: Essays in Philosophy of Religion, 178. 5 Ibid., 180. 6 Jürgen Habermas, Legitimation Crisis (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1988), 121. The translation is adjusted somewhat due to comparison with the German text. 7 Cf. for a more extensive development of these points, Jan-Olav Henriksen, Finitude and Theological Anthropology: An Interdisciplinary Exploration into Theological Dimensions of Finitude (Leuven: Peeters, 2011). See also, with a harsh criticism of naïve notions of God as a finite entity in Dawkins and others, Terry Eagleton, Reason, Faith, and Revolution: Reflections on the God Debate (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2009). 8 Cf. Jürgen Habermas, Zur Rekonstruktion Des Historischen Materialismus, 1. Aufl. edn, Suhrkamp-Taschenbuch Wissenschaft 154 (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1976), 101. 9 Habermas has developed his insights into the contributions of the Christian religion to the modern world and to social solidarity further in his recently published magnum opus. See Jürgen Habermas, Auch Eine Geschichte Der Philosophie Band 1: Die Okzidentale Konstellation Von Glauben Und Wissen. Band 2: Vernünftige Freiheit. Spuren Des Diskurses Über Glauben Und Wissen (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 2019). 10 Paul Heelas and Linda Woodhead, Religion in Modern Times: An Interpretive Anthology (Oxford: Blackwell, 2000); The Spiritual Revolution: Why Religion Is Giving Way to Spirituality, Religion and Spirituality in the Modern World (Malden, MA: Blackwell Publ., 2005). 11 The distinction between universalist and tribalist conceptions of God and religion here is to a large extent parallel to what is commonly described by the distinction between liberal and conservative religion. In an interesting comment, Neville points to how these groups prioritize values differently, and in ways that mirror their basic orientation: “Toward the very conservative end of the spectrum, people tend to give more or less equal weight to the five moral projects – love, justice, ingroup identity, authority, and purity. Toward the very liberal end people tend to give very great weight to the first two and much less importance to the last three.” See Neville, Defining Religion: Essays in Philosophy of Religion, 181. 12 Linda Woodhead and Paul Heelas, Religion in Modern Times: An Interpretive Anthology, Religion and Modernity (Oxford/Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2000), 28. 13 Examples of this ambiguity can be found in how Pope Jean Paul II was all in favour of the development of democratic societies in Eastern Europe, whereas simultaneously not willing to acknowledge women’s, gays’ and lesbians’ equal human rights as those others were given. 14 Woodhead and Heelas, Religion in Modern Times: An Interpretive Anthology, 28. 15 Ibid., 28. 16 Cf. ibid., 70. 17 Ibid., 71. 18 Ibid.

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19 Ibid., 72. 20 Gustavo Gutiérrez, A Theology of Liberation: History, Politics, and Salvation (London: SCM Press, 1988). Another text in which Gutiérrez explicitly develops his understanding of God on the basis of Scriptures, and in the social context of Latin America, is The God of Life (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1991), where he develops his understanding of the God of life in relation to concrete societal problems. 21 Ibid., xiii. 22 Ibid., xvii. 23 Ibid., xix. 24 Ibid., xxxii. 25 Ibid., xxxii f. My emphasis. 26 See especially the section “God – closer, friendlier, and less almighty” in Chapter 4. 27 Ibid., xviii. 28 Ibid., xxxv. 29 Ibid., xxxiii. 30 Ibid. 31 Ibid., xxxix. 32 Ibid., xl. 33 Hence, this theology facilitates human responsibility rather than hiding behind a higher, divine authority for the legitimation of practices. 34 Gutiérrez, A Theology of Liberation, 42. 35 Cf. ibid., 106ff. 36 Ibid., 113. 37 Cf. the chapter on “The Changing Christian God” above. 38 Gutiérrez, A Theology of Liberation, 133. 39 Ibid., 133. 40 Ibid., 134. 41 Ibid., 159. 42 Cf. ibid., 160. 43 Ibid., 168. 44 The document is cited from “A Moment of Truth. A Word of Faith, Hope and Love from the Heart of Palestinian Suffering,” a.k.a. the Kairos Palestine Document (2009) and the page numbers refer then to the pdf. version. Here p. 5. Our italics. References in brackets in the text in the following are to this document, until further notice.

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God as she? Why can’t she be?

Destabilizing voices Sometimes, you experience what you had not thought was possible: One of us, Jan-Olav, sat in the pew in his church in the eastern part of Norway, and the minister’s sermon turned out to be of the type he had warned students and clergy about for most of his career: idealizing a woman who suffers from an abusive husband, saying that she then suffers like Christ and that this is part of what Christians should humbly endure. The message was put forth clad in nice words like “forgiveness” and “self-sacrifice.” The shock of hearing it was not only due to the content itself but because this is not what one would expect anyone in their right mind to say anymore in the Lutheran church in Norway. Also present on that occasion was someone who worked for the church’s Resource Center for Victims of Abuse and Violence. After the service, the minister was told what we thought of his message. His idea about what God demands from us was not something to let pass without a clear response. The incident reported here is testimony to what can happen in many churches today: Whereas the male voice is still dominant, it is no longer a voice that can be allowed to make such remarks without necessarily being challenged. However, it is unlikely that one would hear a male minister turn the tables and say that “It is part of a Christian man’s burden to be tortured and abused, and he should suffer in silence.” This lack of sensitivity is only possible when it comes to the “other” gender and when the walls of the private home shield the instances of violence. The female voice would be destabilizing, and in many contexts, women’s experiences do not seem to count as something that should inform theology and reflections from the pulpit. That information of relevance could come from a woman is not a given. Religions often try to control and structure practices related to gender and sexuality. Presently, questions about the role of women in the church and its LBGTQ+ members’ status are among the most controversial issues within the ecclesial domain. The discussions about these issues are not unrelated to the understanding of God – and these discussions are also an essential context for identifying in what respect and to what extent God “still matters.” However, as gender roles change and experiences of those who previously were considered to DOI: 10.4324/9781003306207-9

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be on the margins become more strongly expressed, it has become clear that the male-based discourse about understanding God is no longer easy to maintain. Nevertheless, gender roles have been part of what constitutes the structure and order of churches for most of the Christian church’s existence. God has mostly been associated with the male gender. To speak of God as “she” is still perceived as controversial, sometimes even as heretical, although every theologian would agree that God is not gendered. Hence, why can we not talk about God as “she”? Is gendered language contributing to destabilizing the order and structure many take for granted? Is such language necessary for maintaining patriarchal privileges and upholding the authority that defines what should count as valid and not to address and speak about? Even within the different European countries, we can identify a nuanced picture of how the change in gender roles has changed peoples’ ideas about God and the church. In the UK, many women, gays, and lesbians have left the church because they find it hopelessly biased in favour of male rule. It has been a long struggle for women to be ordained to the ministry and to become bishops. We have had a similar development in Norway, but it was earlier: Today around one third of Norway’s clergy are women (36 per cent in 2020, and rising), and likewise one half of all bishops. Moreover, in Norway, it seems like not all who are offended by the male image of God have seen it as an opportunity to leave the church: Women, as well as gays and lesbians, have entered studies for the ministry, thereby signalling that “God is our God as well.” Their numbers are increasing in the Lutheran church. They tell us that the voices of those who were once considered marginal are no longer so. They are contributing to change and to destabilizing gendered images of the male God. The God of male control, or the male control over God, finds itself in jeopardy.

God and male hierarchy The resources for an understanding of God that is not captured by hierarchical structures or gender-biased ways of perceiving the self in society may become accessible through critical scrutiny of essential features that have lain at the centre of understanding God and humanity. At the centre is the idea that God is love, that human life and life in God are relationally constituted, and that humankind is created in the image of God. As for the latter point, it is important to note that the biblical text affirms that both men and women are created in the image of God (Gen. 1, 27–28) – and no distinction is made as to what this means for either gender. In the type of religion that was identified earlier as a religion of difference, one of the main elements in the societal order is some version of hierarchy. Hierarchy presents itself almost naturally as part of religion: God is superior to humans, and God has an authority that does not apply to humans in the same way. Moreover, God has a power not shared by humans, and God is also not dependent upon someone else, as are humans to a greater or lesser extent. All these elements together, superiority, authority, power, and sovereignty, are usually

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considered traits of those who are above others in a hierarchical order. A question that follows naturally from this conception is to what extent it opens up to perceiving a model of hierarchy that is also present in the actual way people envision parts of the social order. Accordingly, this section pursues issues related to thinking about God along two lines: First, by tracing examples of how this idea about God opens up to thinking about God and politics in general. Then, second, it will look at how notions of God open up to specific ways of ordering gender relations.

Barth’s analogies for societal order Thinking of God as part of some hierarchical world order is as prevalent in religious worldviews as it is in systematic theology. Theologians have themselves contributed much to this situation. However, there are inherent problems in this way of thinking about God that also have a profound impact upon the relationship between religion and society: This way of thinking about God suggests that theology and religion are more entangled in the predicaments of gender- and power-biased society than one usually likes to think. In the following sections, I will show how this is the case also with prominent theological “heroes” of the former century, Karl Barth and Dietrich Bonhoeffer. These theologians are not usually considered as belonging to the conservative side of theology, and they have offered many resources for revitalizing thinking about God in the modern world. Nevertheless, the analysis will show that even progressive theologians are entangled in societal conditions that shape their thinking about God and gender, and hence, their theologies call for critical scrutiny. Karl Barth was one of the most prominent theologians of the last century. His theology continues to influence dominant theological circles in Europe, Asia, and the USA. Furthermore, Barth’s theology was one that – in many respects – took another route than the German theology of orders prevalent under the Nazi regime, which sanctioned almost every type of social order as an expression of God’s will. Hence, Barth’s theology provided an alternative to understanding the ruling government as something the church and Christians should adapt to in obedience. This latter, Nazi-friendly theology allowed for a strong emphasis on the theologically legitimate independence (Eigengesetzlichkeit) of society, which entailed that society and the political order were shielded from any interference or criticism from theology or Christians. Therefore, Barth is still embraced by many who look for a more “progressive” approach to issues in society. He is considered one of the “big names” to whom one should still listen. In Barth’s theology, the church and the kingdom of God (as those are understood and interpreted by him, of course) provide the model from which the social order should be shaped. Theology cannot let society go its own way without asking about God’s will and how God relates to the content and the order of society. In his book Christengemeinde und Bürgergemeinde, Barth, therefore, draws several analogies between what he sees as structures given

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through the revelation in Jesus Christ and what he sees as principles for the societal order. These can be summarized as follows:1            

The kingdom of God is not of this world – the state should as much as possible reflect the kingdom of God. God has become human – hence, the state should safeguard humanity. God justifies the sinner – hence the state should protect justice. The spirit makes us free – hence, citizens should have political freedom. The church is answering to Christ – freedom is also always a responsibility. In the church there are different gifts and offices – there should be a separation between legislative, executive, and judicial powers. Christ is the light of the world – no censorship and no secret diplomacy! Because everyone is baptized to the one Lord, all citizens should also be granted the same rights and freedoms. The Word of God is the basis of the congregation – hence freedom of speech should be protected and safeguarded. “Not reign, but serve” – no absolute power in politics. The church is catholic – universal – hence, international cooperation between nations is necessary. The Wrath of God lasts a moment, but his grace forever – use of force as a way of resolving conflicts is only the last resort.

Barth’s line of argument is clear: it goes from the special revelation in Christ, witnessed in the Scriptures, and then moves on to the societal order. Hence, the social order as such gives us no clue as to how society should be ordered. In this way, one could accuse Barth of developing a theology that makes the will of God – as understood in Scripture and independent of human experience – the criterion for what is right and just. Thereby, he also falls under the same problems we identified above in our discussion of the Divine Command Theory. The theologically legitimized moral and political decisions appear as arbitrary or post hoc. Before we develop this analysis further, I also want to point to the fact that Barth here writes from a position in which it is taken for granted that the Christian religion is the one that provides all the answers. There is no trace of acknowledgment of religious pluralism or potential insights from other religious traditions in Barth’s line of reasoning. He develops a universalist approach to theology, but this is exclusive in the way that the only legitimate way to order a society comes from the sources of Christianity, as interpreted by him. However, it is also worth noticing that despite the problems connected to Barth’s version of a Divine Command Theory way of thinking, his concern is that a most of German society went astray in their ethical and political judgment during the Nazi rule. Hence, despite the problems related to the functions of DCT in a pluralist society, Barth’s theology is a deliberate attempt to say

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“No” to a theology that simply adapts to the given structures and orders of society, be it the Weimar Republic or the Nazi regime. His theology was articulated as a critical voice that relies on different sources to those found in the population’s common opinion. Thus, he exemplifies how theology can draw on critical sources outside of the actual empirical situation to criticize the given political powers – a point we identified previously as one of the gains of the Axial Age’s version of religion. From a more critical angle, however, one could say that Barth would have strengthened his position regarding the problems mentioned above if he had been willing to allow for independent and empirically-based human reasoning as part of what constitutes relevant theological and moral sources in general. As it now stands, his theology appears as if this is not the case – but of course, to some extent, it is! We can see it clearly in how the above list, where many of the expressed political values are shared by people who do not believe in the revelation in Christ. Furthermore, the inferences in the above list from revelatory content to the actualizations for concrete politics, seem to be arbitrary and rather open-ended, to say the least. It is also hard to imagine why they could not emerge from insights into a democratic society’s concrete qualities in one way or another. Hence, his understanding of God’s reality as a model for ordering society is – at best – a post-hoc approach to the given political order, as we now can see and understand it from a contemporary point of view. Moreover, a theology that wants to maintain and keep together the idea of the authority, sovereignty, freedom, and power of God and establish this configuration as politically relevant can hardly choose any other option than Barth – unless one allows for other sources than the “Word of God” to inform us of the relevant reasons for developing a specific social order. As it now stands, though, Barth’s theology establishes a type of hierarchy where God is “on the top” – and where every insight into what is good for the societal order is preconditioned by the works of God in history. Critically put, a true insight into what is good for society depends on human listening in obedience to God’s word. As God’s word judges all sinful human behaviour, there is no legitimate approach to any alternative sources for ordering society that can ignore this word. God’s word is not only the principle upon which society may be built; it is the only principle upon which the society can be legitimately built from a Christian point of view. Seen from the perspective of those who have not been in a position where they could be recognized as “God’s mouthpieces,” i.e., women, third world theologians, and those with less academic credentials, a theology based on “The Word of God” appears as one in which it is actually the word of the established theologian that counts. One can see much of the struggles that different “marginal” theologies have had in voicing their concerns vis à vis this model of theology: black, feminist, womanist, liberation, and queer theology all speak from a point of view where elements other than deductions from “The Word of God” play a role in determining what a given society should look like. Of course, other critical questions emerge from this understanding as well. One is: How it is possible to find out what is the will of God, given humanity’s

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sinful condition? Simply answering that we need to listen to the Word of God will not suffice, as this is not only a very un-hermeneutical approach to the text, but also an approach that ignores the fact that the text is written under, and reflects, quite different societal and political circumstances than those of a Western, more or less democratic and secularized society. Furthermore, if one is pointing to someone as having been elected to interpret the will of God on God’s behalf, then another human may present himself as having the authority of God – a move that will, in turn, present problems for any kind of critical scrutiny of his interpretation. Consequently, despite its attempt to develop a legitimate understanding of the social order based on the implications from the conception of the Kingdom of God, the Barthian approach seems to exclude the validity of human experience and reason to secure the authority of God in society. Furthermore, this conception reproduces a hierarchical order that may be hard to subject to critical scrutiny if it is theologically legitimized. Its understanding of the relationship between God and the societal order is one that only can function if historical circumstances coincide in a specific manner: There is no clear way from understanding the sovereignty, authority, and power of the God of the Bible, to what is a good and given order of modern, post-industrial society. In order to safeguard such a link, one has to establish hermeneutically based considerations that will have to draw on insights and experiences established later than the biblical texts. Hence, this model fails. Thereby, this theology may contribute to covering up more profound problems. It will only function in a predominantly Christian society. Once we exist in a more diverse and pluralistic society, it loses convincing power, plausibility, credibility, and legitimation.

God and the self – more gendered than you might think! People often think about theology and society in terms of theology’s relation to politics. However, there are other ways of looking at society that may also be influenced by politics, but which nevertheless also have a pervasive influence in all realms of society. Among these is the relationship between men and women. Perhaps just as strong a challenge as that of the political and societal order in general, is the one that faces Christian religion when it comes to expressing and manifesting equality between women and men. This challenge is important, especially since Christianity has mostly expressed these relations in terms of inequality more than equality during its history. Accordingly, we need to address the topic of Christian body politics. This topic has been much debated in both church and society over the last half-century, but it cannot in any way be said to be fully resolved. Feminist theology has made a strong case for including women and for reordering both societal and ecclesial structures, but still many churches, including the Roman Catholic one (which is the largest church in the world), does not recognize women as equal to men when it comes to their contribution to ecclesial matters. Looking back on the debates over the last half-century, it is evident that some

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of the ways of thinking about men and women that previously were dominant no longer can be said to have the same degree of theological plausibility. They are nevertheless still prevalent. This situation is the reason for going somewhat deeper in this chapter by analysing two thorough critiques of theology’s configurations of gender issues.We should note from the outset that these critiques draw on other sources than those accepted by the type of Barthian theology described in the previous section: among the advantages of essential strands of present day theology is that it is far more engaged in interaction with other disciplines, including social sciences and psychology. These alliances with other scholarly disciplines may help us see more of the theological problems at stake. What has the understanding about God to do with the role of women and men in church and society? Quite a lot, it can be argued. Understanding God always implies a particular way of looking at society from the perspective of hierarchical order. As already demonstrated above, it may also have an important bearing on how theology can address societal issues in general. The present sub-section analyses and pursues this point further in two steps. First, it presents features in Lisa Dahill’s analysis of the psychological elements that can be traced behind Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s theological writings and shows how they reflect a certain gendered and social standing in society that does not allow other voices to come fully to the fore. Second, it takes up some points from Daphne Hampson’s book After Christianity, because this book highlights many issues on which Christian theology still needs to work to address the topic of women and religion in society seriously. Like Barth, Bonhoeffer is one of the theological heroes of the 20th century. He was a member of a group active in the resistance against the Nazi regime and was imprisoned and executed. As a writer of thought-provoking notes and letters during his imprisonment, after his death he gained much influence on theologians who struggled with issues of resistance and secularization. However, he was also a child of his age, as Lisa Dahill points out. Her analysis of Bonhoeffer identifies some disturbing factors related to gender inequalities. Dahill employs an analytic distinction developed by Catherine Keller, who has proposed that Western men tend to be socialized into what she calls “separative” selves and women into “soluble” selves. A “separative” self’s identity is defined by separation, originally by being “not mother/female.” This self develops “its sense of itself as separate, as over against the world, the Other, and even its own body endows it with its identity. It is this, not that.”2 However, as Dahill says, “This sense of paradigmatic and all-defining separation is illusion, not reality, since, of course, no being is in any meaningful sense truly separate from others.” However, this form of selfhood desires autonomous independence, apart from the demands of others. “It is correspondingly marked by extremely firm, even rigid, ego boundaries set up to defend against all insubordinate claims on one’s time or affections.”3 If we consider the notion of the separate self in a theological light, it becomes clear that it can serve as a model for understanding God as independent of and separated from the world, and as transcendent. Because of these traits, this God

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can control and direct the world. At the same time, this idea of God may contribute to an understanding of the human self that is a mirror of God’s selfsame attributes, albeit the fact that such a self, on the side of humans, is an illusion. The selfhood traditionally conceived as the feminine is almost opposite of this separative, male self: In the classical dyad, it complements the separative self, which works upon it as a solvent. Women’s tendency to dissolve emotionally and devotionally into the other is a subjective structure internalized by individual women, but imposed by the [patriarchal] superstructure. Woman is to wait: for her very self, her self-definition, and the advent of the hero who will bring her joy.4 The relevance of this distinction for the present purpose is only visible if we keep in mind that we want to see how different conceptions of God work together with different conceptions of the human in society. There is arguably a tendency in theology to identify the separative self with God – and with the male – while the soluble self is the one who is most identified with women – and with humankind in general, when humankind is described in relation to God (as submitted, submissive, or as lacking in terms of agency and capacities). Thereby, a specific understanding of humans in relation to each other is sustained or maintained by this model. It is also enforced by traditional conceptions about God as independent and sovereign. Hence, we are provided with an imaginary that lends credence to those who understand God in male categories and see the male and female gender as complementary. Although Dahill’s employment of Keller’s analytical distinction may be considered overly simplistic, there are nevertheless good reasons for using the different concepts of the self as part of a critical analysis of how the relationship between women and men is configured in religious terms. It is well known that traditional gender roles ascribe to the male gender those features that belong to the separative end of the spectrum, and to females the features that belong toward the soluble end.5 However, the gain from employing this distinction is that it helps us name each pole’s experience on a spectrum in other ways, where we need not speak of either men’s or women’s experience. The alternative to the language of “men’s/women’s experience” or “dominating/submissive selfhood” is to speak of “boundaries and their excessive (separative) or inadequate (soluble) development.” Hence, questions are not primarily about gender or hierarchical power: On the one hand, this allows for the more expressive language of fluidity, dissolving, permeation, in describing the soluble pole, expressions that characterize the experience of traditional femininity more broadly than the language of explicit “submission.” On the other hand, “separative” terminology captures the experience of the rigidly imprisoning ego.6

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Accordingly, it is possible to see “separative” and “soluble” forms of selfhood as human capacities and not as strictly gendered. Identifying “separative” selfhood can provide a fruitful analysis for those in a similar situation or social context, and they may be male or female. Furthermore, a description of what characterizes “soluble” selfhood, paradigmatically found in victims of abuse, may prove insightful for both men and women who in a particular context find themselves on what Dahill calls “the underside of selfhood.” Hence, these categories allow for “the possibility of seeing both the separative and the soluble dimensions of one’s own complex being: aspects of every person that either dominate other aspects of oneself or are coerced into silence.”7 Now, consider again the features of God as described above: a God with superiority, authority, power, and sovereignty. This God has features similar to the privileged male of Western society – a separate self that needs no other. God is a God with a separate self. However, in Bonhoeffer, Dahill finds a theologian who is not entirely content with this understanding of the self. Interestingly, Bonhoeffer combined sociology and theological anthropology to understand social structures, including the relation between the sexes.8 Although some problems remain in his understanding of these topics, his theology is informed by sociology and tries to overcome the negative separative elements of selfhood. Bonhoeffer’s theological understanding of personhood implies that the individual is confronted with a barrier to the world as initially perceived by his intellect. This barrier is the other person. In order to enter the social world, this barrier must be overcome. Hence, social personhood, but not individuality, is relationally constituted. Furthermore, only when the self is confronted with the other who is manifesting this barrier to the self can a person enter the ethical sphere.9 This conception of selfhood makes it possible to consider an individual as pre-existing before any relations, without relations to others and emotions shaped by such relations. Thus, it is also totally detached from any sociological approach to humans and their agency. Moreover, it is also worth recognizing that the ethical enters the scene only due to the other’s appearance, by which the social world is constituted. Critically put, this conception of the individual in relation to society has similarities with social contract theory. In it, the natural human condition is non-ethical and everyone has to negotiate his or her individual interest only when confronted with the will of others. This Hobbesian understanding of the relationship between the individual and society fails to recognize that the individual is constituted from the outset by taking part in relations, institutions, and societal structures that require cooperation and mutuality. However, there is even more to this notion of the human in relation than Dahill extracts: This idea about the individual as a self-sufficient and self-relying human sees him as in no initial need for others to become fully rational. The ethical dimension of reality enters the scene only because there are elements in society that need to be handled to resolve conflict. Ethics and morality are

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not inbuilt and constitutive positive qualities of society. Morality exists to curb and regulate individual human interests. If we join this with the idea about God as the source of morality, we then get the idea of God as a God of control: God is the one who obstructs and impedes individual self-expression, and morality is not about enabling human freedom and flourishing. It comes as no surprise, then, that Bonhoeffer develops his idea of human community in light of the notions of conflict and hierarchy: Community is a community of wills, built upon the separateness and difference of persons, constituted by reciprocal acts of will, finding its unity in what is willed [i.e., in mutually willing one another’s presence; this does not refer to secondary purposes or goals], and counting among its basic laws the inner conflict of individual wills.10 Hence, the tendency to conceive of human relationality using metaphors of confrontation or conflict is pervasive in Bonhoeffer. As a consequence, he seems unable “to conceive of human relations (certainly not person-forming ones) based fundamentally on cooperation, or shared creativity, or mutual affection.”11 He explicitly denies the possibility of an authentic community founded on mutual affection. The lack of emotion that can be found in the conception of God is thus identified as an important element in understanding a truly human community, as well. Writes Bonhoeffer: “Isn’t the commitment to the church, to Christian love, most unmistakable where it is protected in principle from being confused in any way with any kind of human community based on mutual affection?”12 We can note here how far this conception is from what I tried to develop in my previous chapter about God as love and human love and affection as qualities related to God. It is likely to suggest that the underlying idea about God in Bonhoeffer presents a version of society that is not open to emotion, empathy, and mutual human bonds as qualitative and constituting bonds of community. Although Bonhoeffer recognizes these as valuable qualities, they are complementary and secondary, and only a corrective to some lack in an already established state. Accordingly, the resources necessary for building an emotionally and rationally rich society are not sufficiently considered. The notion of God simply does not offer access to such ideas and resources and does not provide sufficient critical resources to critically oppose this model of self and society. As Dahill writes about Bonhoeffer, “In his model, confrontation and demand are what forms persons; love, when it appears, functions within this fundamental assumption of basic ethical oppositionalism.”13 At this point, we must ask if Bonhoeffer’s position is not more prevalent in some strands of contemporary society than is usually recognized. Religiously legitimized conceptions of masculinity fit well with this understanding of society. Despite the occurring accusations against Western Christianity as feminized, one should ask if it is not a more significant problem that there still are conceptions of God that lend plausibility to an understanding of society in

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which empathy, trust, and emotional engagement are not constitutive of social relations. The tendency in much of evangelical Christianity to consider human emotions as religiously problematic contributes further to this predicament. A consequence of this complex is the understanding that God as someone devoid of emotions fits well with a conception of a society built on ideals about masculinity that draws heavily on the imaginaries of the separative self without emotions. Moreover, endorsement of hierarchy is a fundamental element in Bonhoeffer’s understanding of the human community. His conflict-oriented view of personal formation implies that hierarchy comes to the fore in his assumption that the conflict of wills results in a person either subjecting the other or being subjected. Accordingly, the two models of communal authority that he proposes are both hierarchical: “the Gewaltsverband (association governed by force) or the Herrschaftsverband (association of dominion or rule, defined as service of the subordinated party). Thus, his assumption of the hierarchical nature of all human relations shows up implicitly in various ways.”14 It is only a short step from this to the assumption that God wills hierarchies. And indeed, this step is taken. Bonhoeffer insists that Christians acknowledge that God intends hierarchies. This may be something of a paradox, given that he, in many ways, sided with Barth in the criticism of the so-called theology of orders that legitimized the Nazi rule. Although he is critical of racial discrimination, he nevertheless argues in favour of class distinctions and patriarchy. Moreover, he also attacks socialism as an attempt to wipe out created distinctions and impose an artificial “egalitarianism” among people,15 thus seemingly contradicting a position like the one suggested previously, which is based on the notion that all humans are created equal in the image of God! Furthermore, he identifies the patriarchal family as the very basis of society, in close analogy with the church as the communio sanctorum. Seen from the perspective of how families have developed in our Western societies over the last decades, Bonheoffer’s position on family appears not only as male-based but also as dated: families are not like this anymore, in most cases. Furthermore, we have sufficient evidence that children and women have had much trouble living in patriarchal families. Today, families are far more mixed in the way they exist: with single parents, with two parents of the same sex, and half of the households in Norway and the United Kingdom countries are single-parent households. Therefore, to say that the patriarchal family is the basis of society is just as dated as its more recent version: the claim that the nuclear family is. When theologians continue to hold on to such ideas, they are, in fact, saying that the God who has established this patriarchal order is of no relevance to the lives of those who live in other types of families or alone. Their contribution to society is not recognized or validated. Bonhoeffer is not alone in claiming that marriage and family are the most basic social forms and willed by God. He traces the fact that these institutions’ members are unequal back to how they were created as unequal! Inequality is part of creation! So is reproduction and “subordination” in marriage and

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family – they are seen as good and necessary (consider the implications of this claim for single people and those who are infertile!). Hence, although Bonhoeffer sees human sociality as a necessary condition for forming human beings as persons, the ways in which he develops the arguments for this understanding “manifest his own blind spots, particularly his blindness to patriarchy as a problem […] for actual Christian communities.”16 In the following, this link between a specific way of understanding the hierarchically structured society and the (male) self requires further scrutiny. Both these elements may help us identify specific problems related to the understanding of the relationship between God and society. In Dahill’s work, she sees Bonhoeffer’s understanding of the self as shaped by his early experiences. He saw the self “as a place of lonely, empty isolation, of terrifying boundlessness, and of distorted projections out of touch with reality itself, a reality that can encounter a person only from outside in the shattering and redemptive experience of touch.”17 This background provided him with a separative self. Consequently, the applicability of Bonhoeffer’s theology of the human self would be most significant for those whose experience is similar to his own and potentially less so for those whose experience diverges from his. In his experiences, Dahill also identifies the basis for an androcentric bias. “This is the theology of a particular ‘man’ whose experience is explicated in terms and language that are intended to address other ‘men,’ his brothers in sin and faith.” The flipside of this is that such experiences may not be that relevant for people who do not have such experiences, as would be the case for many women. Accordingly, Bonhoeffer’s writings are intended not for her, nor for “all people,” but for his “brothers,” whose experience of selfhood may more closely correspond to his.18 In other words: the androcentric bias presents itself here as an obstacle to and a limitation for a theology that should have universal relevance and address the human condition as it is experienced by everyone, regardless of gender. A theology shaped by and for male and separate selves displays the problem that these selves are locked up, separate from others, and have a hard time relating to others in terms of other options than domination. The consequence of a notion of God that builds on similar premises is that it will continue to manifest and reinforce patriarchal structures in society. Accordingly, such theology has not much to offer for those who are determined by or subjected to such selves – nothing to contribute to their liberation and offer them better chances for self-actualization and flourishing. The hierarchical orientation and the male bias of the self, together with the concomitant conception of God, suggest that even prominent and often-read theologians such as Barth and Bonhoeffer are affected by a general problem inherent in the way modern theology, in general, is construed. It is developed with reference to the male position and building on conditions for shaping a male self by means of specific types of socialization. We may be able to address these problems only if we dig even deeper into them. For that task, we need a further critical approach.

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The necessary, critical approach to theology from the point of view of feminism can be found in Daphne Hampson’s book After Christianity.19 This book was written after she expressly said goodbye to Christianity because of its inability to deal with fundamental questions about gender and exclusivism. Parts of her critique can also be read as pointing to how pervasive societal problems shape religion in different ways. Hence, instead of only blaming religion developed based on male experiences, one needs to look at the bigger societal and cultural picture of which religion is part. The male bias in religion and society is both caused by, and the effect of, more comprehensive societal and cultural conditions. Hampson’s critical analysis of Christianity sheds much light on the predicament in which Christianity, including its God-talk, presently finds itself concerning gender. She claims that Christianity is construed in a way that makes it unable to fully integrate the interests, perspectives, and concerns of women. What she calls “the Christian symbolic myth” is a male religion through and through.20 Moreover, she argues that Christianity has a bias against women.21 Her arguments on these matters may help us to see not only the predicament in which contemporary Western Christianity finds itself; it may also help us understand why women leave the church and instead find the new religious movements far more attractive in terms of what they see as spiritually valuable.22 Hampson’s views on theology and religion are much in accordance with the understanding of constructive theology sketched earlier: it should help people to express and articulate important experiences of the sacred. The Christian story has, to some extent, contributed to this aim, but mostly for men, and mostly in a way that silences the vital content of women’s experiences. A religion founded in history and literature like the one we find in Christianity will have a hard time embracing women as equals because it continually needs to refer to its past patriarchal history. The literature and history that constitute Christianity are shaped by a specific type of male approach to the world, so that “The recital of that history or the concrete examples of the parables, or the understanding of God contained in the purportedly sacred literature, must continue to distort relationships today and exclude or disadvantage women.”23 Rhetorically, she asks, “If Christianity is true, then how come God can be thought moral or good, given the harm that this myth (as I believe it to be) has done to women?”24 Thus, we can also identify in her line of reasoning the morally intolerable God that we have addressed earlier, and which people refer to as their reason for leaving the church. Among the advantages of Hampson’s analysis is that she pays attention to the Christian understanding of God – including God as Trinity. This idea about God is deeply masculinist and related to a “masculinist universe.” In this universe, one should nevertheless not ignore “how fundamental the conception of ‘woman’ is to the male creation which is his religion.”25 She writes, in a text that deserves to be quoted extensively; She is in a sense hidden, yet the need to escape her and the desire for her may be key to the whole. She is the “other” to what is the norm (the male),

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sometimes placed on a pedestal in idealized form, at other times associated with all that is adrift or unclean (particularly in the form of sexuality). It is always she who “complements” him, and not vice versa. We should be clear that what we have to do with here is the male construct of woman: it has very little to do with women themselves in their everyday actuality. It becomes clear how far religion (particularly in regard to something which was not so much given but rather elaborated, such as Mariology) is a projection of male desire; a large canvas on which he paints his innermost needs. But the position of woman in the religion is only the consequence of […] that the Christian religion is written from the perspective of the male and takes for granted that he is the norm for humanity. Thus the whole understanding of God and the human relation with God and the conception of women are the obverse and corollary of one another: woman is what she is because God is what He is.26 Although the reference Hampson makes here is to Christianity, it is not hard to see how similar ways of perceiving women in religious contexts can also be detected in other religious traditions, such as Hinduism, conservative Judaism, or Islam. Hampson’s central presupposition here is nevertheless that Christianity cannot be understood apart from its highly gendered structure. The only way to overcome women’s problems is to establish a symbolic universe that does not privilege men, and does not legitimize patriarchy. One should not underestimate the power of such a symbolic universe – precisely because it serves to structure society and make the structures in question plausible. Hampson thereby recognizes how religion contributes to the shapeing of human culture, determines human relationships, and lends society a specific selfunderstanding. Furthermore, as part of culture and society, the conception of God “is a large canvas onto which human beings can project their conception of reality.”27 Religion thus legitimizes the societal structure. Hampson does not exclude the possibility that religion is grounded in more than male interests in power and hegemony and that there is a reason why humans have created figurative projections of diverse kinds, like the ones we find in religion. She calls herself a theist because she is open to spiritual phenomena that transcend the given, male expressions. However, this point does not exclude that “the particular forms which religion has taken, its motifs and dogmas, its doctrines and paradigms, reflect the society, and more particularly what has been the male reality.”28 Against this backdrop, one needs to recognize how theology has kept in place the respective positions of men and women within society.29 The structure of thought provided as a vehicle for women’s consciousness of God was developed by men. Hence, “women have been largely assimilated, or have assimilated themselves, into the male religion.”30 Hampson directs strong criticism against Western religion’s central notion, namely the idea about a monotheist God. Theism can be understood as the doctrine that the ultimate ground of things is a single supreme reality that is the source of everything other than itself and has the character of being intrinsically

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complete or perfect. Consequently, this supreme reality is an adequate object of unqualified adoration or worship. However, a feminist perspective will problematize how this God is conceptualized as “free,” “able to do anything,” “autonomous,” or acting “according to no discernible rule of law,” “the source of everything other than itself, not needing to “take into account anything else whatsoever,” an “object of unqualified adoration or worship.” According to Hampson, such a God is the reflection of the male”s wildest dreams. Moreover, the idea that God is self-sufficient, alone, not in any way constrained, and does not need to take into account what is other than “himself” is consonant with Dahill’s employment of the idea of a separative self as well as with the God of the Divine Command Theory. In traditional theology, God’s aseity implies that God is complete in God’s self. Hampson asks, “What kind of fears of entanglement have been projected? Why, indeed, should such a situatedness be thought necessary for the exercise of power (if by power we simply mean the ability to bring about change)?”31 The problem here is not merely the projected model of God at work. More important is that God represents some kind of understanding as to what perfection would entail. This image of God may mirror what many men would like to be, but there is more to it than this idea of God as inspiring perfection because God is perfect. The conception also contributes to a bi-polar construal of reality, where God is perfect and powerful, and humanity is construed as weak and sinful. “Consequently, humanity, as we shall have reason to consider, is often conceptualized as ‘female,’ in relation to a God for whom male metaphors are employed. Monotheism is thus instrumental in consolidating a gendered ordering of reality.”32 It creates that which is “other” than itself. One is, of course, tempted to ask how that could be otherwise, given that God is conceived as the one who creates the world (it would be an obvious task for a contemporary theology to try to overcome this impasse).33 However, the most crucial problem following is that “monotheism makes for hierarchical structures, in which what is God and what is not God are understood by contrast with what the other is.” Thus, according to her, monotheism backs a model of the world and of a society marked by domination and dependency. Furthermore, it gives reason for thinking in dualist terms, dividing the world into insiders and outsiders. This division of the world contributes in turn to what we can call tribal communitarianism, features of which are also described in Woodhead and Heelas’ category of the religion of difference. Therefore, Hampson argues that monotheism has had a fundamental impact on the ordering of Western society. Accordingly, it is not easily combined with the society that she and other feminists aim to develop.34 Is there an alternative? A feminist approach that emphasizes relationality, heterogeneity, multiplicity, and a lack of control, and which supports fundamental equality in which each gender is valued and enabled to come into his or her own seems to be the opposite of the Western monotheist God as described by Hampson. This God seems “fundamentally inimical to relations of interchange and reciprocity. It says much about Western culture, so we may think,

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and also about women and men, that it is inconceivable that the Western God could have been primarily conceptualized through female metaphors.”35 Furthermore, one can no longer imagine that the language employed in the church can be used in the same way in society. Developments in culture and society now increase the tensions between cultural and religious conceptions of society. It is not difficult to imagine what Hampson addresses here. Church liturgy and hymns speak of might, power, majesty, glory, splendor, victory, and obedience in ways that make it more difficult and less plausible to employ religious language for societal matters. In Hampson’s view, such language not only suggests male fear of intimacy but is also “a world away from what one might think women would want to use (and certainly from feminist values).” Nevertheless, this vocabulary for articulating humans’ view of and relationship with God’s relationship is often taken for granted as axiomatic. It pervades the language of sermons, prayers, liturgies, and hymns, not least in traditions that have emphasized the majesty of God on the one hand and the depravity of humans on the other. “Hence it must seem only natural to envisage a hierarchical relationship between God and humanity and consequently also to employ a language of worship and obedience for the human relationship to God.”36 Christian thought-forms, therefore, embody a conceptualization of reality that is, first, patriarchal, and second, masculinist. Language and society’s order are interdependent and mirrored in religion and the hegemony expressed there. The hegemonic control of men has, in Hampson’s view, resulted in a male theology where the expression of ultimate meaning reflects “the needs and aspirations, the terror and the joy of men, as they have experienced what has been their reality.”37 Theology has been the “master” discourse that has exercised power in order to keep women in their place and has deprived them of the chance to write their reality, their sexuality, and their sense of relationality into their conception of the ultimate.38 It is notable that by pointing out this silencing of women so strongly, Hampson contributes significantly to bringing the voice that is otherwise silenced to be heard. Hampson’s criticism of how conservative Protestant and Catholic circles assign women to a subsidiary and secondary role is a specific point that needs to be addressed. Thereby, they make apparent how these religious ways of ordering the world shape social structures in ways apt to describe as a religion of difference by giving women a particular “place” within an ordered totality. From the point of view of a normatively oriented theology, which wants to suggest better ways of perceiving God–human and human–human relationships, the most fundamental problem here is that in this context, the notion of all humans as created in the image of God is employed. This idea was previously introduced as one that otherwise serves to secure human equality. However, similar to what was pointed out in the analysis of Bonhoeffer, the way this idea is employed in conservative circles undermines its primary function in a modern, democratic society. In conclusion: as long as the difference between the sexes is seen in theology as a reason for ordering society in a specific way, neither society in general, nor

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religion in particular, will be able to overcome the limitations that now restrict, structurally as well as symbolically, the possible equality between men and women. A more viable conception of God needs to be cut loose from both the hierarchical order and from the gender-biased structures that determine the content of theology. Only then can theology and religion have a more poisitive impact on society. However, to suggest that “biblical faith” or recourse to “the Word of God” can offer a possible solution to contemporary problems in this realm is not only wrong: It may even be an indication of how it is not yet realized how these texts themselves are steeped in the very problems that they tend to recreate and reinforce. Not only are the given interpretations of texts problematic, but the texts are, as well. Hence, a theology that is aware of how different understandings of God shape different and alternative ways of ordering society needs to be pursued constructively by reflection that acknowledges this fundamental problem. We started this chapter by asking why we cannot speak of God as she. We have identified many reasons why this has been troublesome in the past. But more constructive venues have been suggested, at least implicitly and in passing. Although Daphne Hampson does not make much of love as a phenomenon, she favours a relational approach that supports awareness and mutuality as basic elements for experiencing God. In this theology, the symbol of God as love, specified in the various ways that we attempt in the other chapters in this book, must be at the centre. The task of developing this kind of theology is not only carried out for the sake of society. For believers it may also be for the sake of God – because it can contribute to disclosing the type of idolatry that serves male dominance instead of a God that struggles to make possible freedom, flourishing, and equality for every member of society.

Notes 1 Karl Barth, Christengemeinde und Bürgergemeinde, Theologische Studien (ZollikonZürich: Evangelischer Verlag, 1946). See sections 14–26. Here only briefly summarized. For extensive analyses of the relations between theology and politics in Barth, cf. Ulrich Dannemann, Theologie und Politik im Denken Karl Barths, 1. Aufl. edn, Gesellschaft und Theologie: Abteilung systematische Beiträge (Munich: Kaiser, 1977); and George Hunsinger, Karl Barth and Radical Politics (Philadelphia, PA: Westminster Press, 1976). 2 Lisa E. Dahill, Reading from the Underside of Selfhood: Bonhoeffer and Spiritual Formation, Princeton Theological Monograph Series (Eugene, OR: Pickwick Publications, 2009), 12, quoting Catherine Keller, From a Broken Web: Separation, Sexism, and Self (Boston: Beacon Press, 1986), 9. 3 Dahill, Reading from the Underside of Selfhood, 12. 4 Keller, op. cit., 13, quoted in Dahill, 13. 5 Ibid., 13. 6 Ibid., 14. 7 Ibid., 14. 8 Ibid., 31f. 9 Cf. Ibid., 33. 10 Bonhoeffer, Sanctorum Communio, 86, cited in ibid., 39.

God as she? 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28

29 30 31 32 33

34 35 36 37 38

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Ibid. Bonhoeffer, Sanctorum Communio, 246. Dahill, Reading from the Underside of Selfhood, 41. Ibid. Ibid. Dahill, Reading from the Underside of Selfhood, 43. Ibid, 64. Ibid. Daphne Hampson, After Christianity, new edition (London: SCM Press, 2002). References in brackets in the following are to this work until further notice. Cf. ibid., xiv. Ibid., xv. Cf. Woodhead and Heelas, The Spiritual Revolution (2005). Hampson, After Christianity, xv. Ibid. Ibid, xvii. Ibid., xvii–xviii. Ibid., 121. Ibid, 121. Hampson quotes sociologist of religion John Bowker, who writes: “Religions are the basic systemic means through which individuals and communities have organized and protected their own continuity and survival, and have identified the worth and value of being human. Religions are the basic and primordial cultural achievements, through which gene replication is secured, enhanced and protected. But also religions have been validated to their adherents and participants, not simply because they create stable contexts for breeding and nurture, but because they have in any case identified (and continued to make available to others in later generations) particular achievements and opportunities in the exercise of this particular human energy.” Ibid., 121f. Hampson, After Christianity, 122. Ibid. Cf. ibid., 124f. Ibid., 125. One way to do it would be to develop a more relational, panentheistic model of God. See for an attempt, Jan-Olav Henriksen, “The Experience of God and the World: Christianity’s Reasons for Considering Panentheism a Viable Option,” Zygon 52(4) (2017). Hampson, After Christianity, 128f. Ibid., 129. Ibid., 131. Ibid., 167. Ibid., 167.

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Pluralism challenges notions of God and religious truth

Most people do not relate to others, including religious others, exclusively from the perspective of what they believe. If the neighbour is a Methodist and I am a Lutheran, then what counts is how well we get along in sharing a place and some interests in our local community. Things may sometimes seem more complicated if the neighbour is a Muslim or a Hindu, but even then, everyday concerns and cooperation may often overcome the feeling of difference or alienation one might initially experience when engaging with someone known to be a religious other. Everyday practices and concerns trump differences in doctrine or confession. Neighbours share their common belonging to the human race no matter what they believe. This fact has implications for how they think about and experience what their belief in God entails for relating to those of other faiths. The present chapter reflects on these matters. Understanding God cannot be developed from a contemporary perspective unless one considers the multi-religious context. The understanding of God and the social reality of religious pluralism interplay. Thus, to maintain privileged religious positions, or to relate to religious others exclusively from the point of view of established religious doctrine, is something that many find difficult. Accordingly, they try to find new ways to relate to religious others that are more inclusive and accommodating. This chapter will deal with some of the possible resources for achieving this aim.

“God” in light of Lessing and pragmatism Not everything is new under the sun. In G. E. Lessing’s dramatic work of 1779 on religious tolerance, we find considerations about religious pluralism and its challenges. Although the play was written in a culture much different from today’s globalized world and set in an even more distant past, Nathan The Wise nevertheless reflects concerns that remain relevant still. In the play, Lessing reworks an ancient parable about a ring.1 This parable, which is told by the main character, Nathan, holds a central place in the narrative, and it also serves as a key to understanding the whole play. It is about a father with three sons, whom he loves equally. The father has one ring, which one of them will inherit. However, he knows that there will be conflict among the sons about the real heir to the ring. Therefore, he makes two identical DOI: 10.4324/9781003306207-10

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copies, and this move makes it impossible for anyone to recognize the original ring. The ring symbolizes the true religion and the privileges related to it. The father symbolizes God, while the sons represent three major religions: Judaism, Islam, and Christianity. Since the father, according to his love for all his sons, makes it impossible to recognize the original ring (the true religion), all are put on the same level, with no way to find the truth, or, with the same lack of possibility to find the truth. Already here, we can see how the presence of religious pluralism entails a conception of God as one who puts all humans on an equal footing and who has made it impossible for one religion to claim superiority over others. Hence, God does not grant privilege to one group or faith over others. Nevertheless, the parable hints at different ways in which belief in God may work: To possess the ring makes it possible to either absolutize or relativize one’s position. In the former case, if someone thinks they are the only one privileged with the genuine ring, to possess it may lead to hatred, struggle, exclusion of others, and separation. In the latter case, if someone realizes that there is no way to identify the true ring and that we are all in the same position, ideally, this will lead to charity, recognition of the Other, and establishing a humane community. There are hints at the end of the parable that a possessor can only prove themselves worthy of holding the ring if it leads to the second type of behaviour. Lessing’s play takes religious pluralism seriously. There is no attempt here to reduce the different religions to one common core. Instead, he sees them as diverse expressions due to different cultural and historical contexts. Moreover, the way he reworks the parable indicates that Lessing assumes pragmatic criteria for determining what can count as the authentic or genuine contents of religion. For him, a practice that mirrors the love for the father and establishes a human community indicates religious truth. Thus, he introduces a pragmatic (ethical) criterion for religious truth. It is how faith in God works in practice that is the criterion for determining its truth. The pragmatic approach implies that instead of being about doctrine and authority, religion is, in Lessing’s view, primarily about a specific mode of being in the world – the one that shows itself in benevolence towards others. Consequently, his message is that the self-understanding of the ring’s possessors will have to change focus: religions are not about being right or having privileges but about providing a specific mode of living. True religion expresses itself in practices of charity and benevolence. Religious opinions and positions function as ways to motivate or offer reasons for how to live and is not a self-contained and separate realm of dogmatics that can be understood apart from practices. Lessing thus makes the implicit argument that religions exist only as practices. The symbols and signs by which a religious self-understanding is developed are manifest in a person’s behaviour towards a neighbour and engages their world. Lessing does not shy away from discussing the question of religious truth. In the play, the discourse on this topic is founded upon the trivial but not unimportant presupposition that more than one religion exists. This fact also presupposes the possibility of talking about true religion. Hence, implicitly, others

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may be false. Nevertheless, such judgments are conditioned by several factors. First, an evaluation needs not to conclude that one religion is true and another false, e.g., Christianity is false, Islam true. It could just as well lead to the conclusion that there are true and false forms of Christianity and Islam alike. Second, evaluations about truth claims of religious traditions also presuppose that different religions can be dealt with on the same basis. Thus, the criterion for discussing truth in religion must in some way be external to, or at least not only based on, the position of a specific religious tradition. Nevertheless, concerning the ultimate nature of religious truth, Lessing seems to prefer an agnostic position. This position is well articulated in the following quote: If God held all truth in his closed right hand, and in his left hand only the ever-active drive to seek the truth, even under the condition that I would ever and always go astray in the search, and he said to me. “Choose!” I would humbly fall before his left hand and say: “Father, give! The pure truth is reserved for you alone”2 In this quote, Lessing makes the point that pure truth is for God alone. It corresponds well with a pragmatist approach to religion. The “practical testability” of religious ideas in how they result in practical action and ways of life is at the forefront. Religion is “practically testable qua motives for action” and by the practical implications to which they lead. They may be accepted insofar as their practical results are defensible.3 This point about a possible defence is important. Although pragmatism explicitly denies the possibility for humans to access a “God’s eye view,” it does not exclude normative judgments about what positions and ideas are good or not. The main element in pragmatic normative assessments is the focus on how practices enable and support human flourishing. In light of the quote above from Lessing, it is also notable that he seems to concur with the pragmatist emphasis on human fallibility. “Crucial to pragmatist pluralism is the denial of infallibility or the singularly proper to this process of judgment and its results.”4 Thus, to acknowledge the finite character of any human position and judgment and the preliminary character of all our positions. Because of this preliminary character, it always recommends itself to be open to other and new perspectives and resist the temptation to rely on or be content with the place in which one already finds oneself. The inevitable inadequacy of all our conceptions and understandings, entails that a theological position needs to combine openness to other perspectives than those already established. In Lessing’s play, the emperor of Jerusalem, Saladin, seems to presuppose that one must evaluate the truth of religion from the basis of reason. For him, reasons and arguments make it possible for the wise man to choose his religion, and contingent circumstances of birth, race or location (in short: historical, cultural, and social contextual conditions) are irrelevant when the wise person considers their choice of religion.5 However, Lessing seems to question such an

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abstract way of approaching the issue of choosing religion by allowing his protagonist, Nathan, to suggest that history, family, localization, and community bonds cannot be ignored by those who have a religion. Hence, one should accept contingent circumstances as unavoidable: they are not to be overcome but rather respected and given adequate form. This approach implies that we can presuppose, and therefore try to find, the truth in any religion.6 God cannot be restricted to one of them. The bottom line is then that one should not leave one’s own tradition but instead make sure that it functions properly. In other words, tradition is to be appropriated and reworked, reconstructed, in a way that recognizes the plurality of religions and validates the point that it is acceptable to believe in God as God is understood in different religious traditions insofar as the pragmatic assessment suggested above is recognized. Lessing, through Nathan, anticipates Kierkegaard’s position decades later, that the important thing in religion is not its objective truth but to relate in truth to what one believes – or as it is also possible to state it: how the assumed truth is manifest in practice. For Lessing, truth seems to be almost exclusively related to the practical sphere. It is a question of practising love and tolerance – of openness to the other. Religious truth manifests itself in relationships with the Other. Hence, Lessing poses the question: In what ways should belief in God be practised in the face of religious others? For most people in the present world, there is no alternative to engaging with religious traditions other than their own. Religious pluralism is part of the everyday. How such encounters with the religious other should take place may nevertheless differ and are partly determined by the different traditions’ images of God. To address the pragmatic consequences of belief in God is to ask what such practices are offering its members in terms of a normative path that “teach people how to act wisely, properly, or best. Religion is therefore here defined not simply as a set of beliefs about religious realities but also as a set of practices that promise right living,” and help people solve the problems they face.7 Furthermore, this approach means that to believe in God is primarily understandable from the point of view of human practices. It is not only what people may or may not think that allows us to have an idea about who or what God is, but how they put their thoughts into action and how their thoughts guide, inform and shape their lives. It is action and practice that makes it possible to explicate to what extent a specific notion of God matters, what the implications of a belief in God have, and how one notion of God may differ from other ideas about God. This pragmatic approach considers the actual effects of the ideas about God and the religious other as those which make them similar to or different from each other.8

Who is God when we face the religious other? “God” is, no matter if God exists or not, a symbol that may guide the actions of those who believe. It provides resources for orientation, goals for life, values, identity, and much more. Explicitly or implicitly, it entails how you relate to

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people with another faith than your own or with no faith at all. Hence, what we believe when we believe in God shapes our relationship with the religious other. These relationships can be developed in a wide variety of ways. One of the consequences of approaching the religious other based on your own belief in God is that your own belief, to some extent, determines how you label him or her. Although she or he is far more than what his or her beliefs entail, religious labels are often used in the contemporary world, and people are, accordingly, understood as specimens or representatives of such labels. They often serve as a priori determinations of the other in ways that impede understanding and chances for developing relationships built on mutuality, trust, and recognition. Labels should, therefore, be met with some resistance.9 When someone appears to me like a “stranger,” “other,” “neighbour,” “relative,” “foreigner,” “enemy,” these ways of appearance are not dependent only on his or her religious stance. Jeannine Hill Fletcher points to the fact that our identities are constituted by more than our religious allegiances. Moreover, there is a dynamic interplay between my own identity and the identity of the other. It means that “our sense of self and identity is continually reconstructed in the multiplicity of our interactions. Identity – even religious identity – is not given once and for all with a collective label of our ‘religion.’ Rather, the process of identity development takes place throughout one’s life.”10 Hence, a person is more than her religious affiliation as a Christian or Muslim. She may be a spouse, a mother, a daughter, a wife, a teacher, a soccerplayer, heterosexual, left-oriented, middle-aged and middle-class, German, etc. All these elements shape her identity and are part of the larger canvas of the life story. Within this frame, her religious affiliation may contribute to shaping how she lives and perhaps also have some bearing on her political views or how she is a mother to her children. Influences go in all directions.11 This multi-layered understanding of identities can be used as a criticism against relating to the religious other in ways that downplay the variety and the composite character of religious identity and see a person exclusively from the point of view of the God in whom she believes.12 Because religious elements are interwoven with so many other aspects of human life, it is a grave reduction to try to pin down someone’s identity to only one, or a few elements. Feminist theorist Iris Marion Young’s identifies the problems such reduction may lead to: Any move to define an identity, a closed totality, always depends on excluding some elements, separating the pure from the impure. Bringing particular things under a universal essence, for example, depends on determining some attribute of particulars as accidental, lying outside the essence. Any definition or category creates an inside/outside distinction, and the logic of identity seeks to keep those borders firmly drawn.13 The complexities I address here entail that when a person says that she believes in God, the statement does not give you very much information unless specified further by relating it to other components of identity and to what practices such

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belief entails. Here, it is relevant to point back to the distinction between the a priori approach mentioned and an a posteriori approach. Adopting an a posteriori approach to the religious other is an essential requirement if one is to be able to distance oneself from views received from others and which hitherto have shaped one’s understanding of him or her. The conceptions used for relationships with religious others and their belief in God is of crucial importance here. The category “stranger” is an example. Someone is a stranger because I do not know her. However, she must not remain a stranger, but she could be an acquaintance, depending on what kind of relationship I am willing to enter into with her and what I learn about her and about what her belief in God entails. In such cases, “stranger” becomes a transitory description that may be overcome by other categories that tell us about the development of the relationship. The other can only remain a foreigner if we realize that we have nothing in common in terms of what our belief in God entails. Then, her way of acting and living remains alien and difficult to understand. However, this conclusion is only possible to establish a posteriori. We cannot consider the religious other a stranger or a foreigner prior to knowing him or her. Another description along similar lines maintains that the other is exactly that – i.e., an Other. It recognizes difference but need not do so in terms that only mark distance and lack of relation. Recognition of otherness can be a profound gateway to engaging in learning processes, and the outcome of such processes may still be that this notion is upheld, even if one has gained significantly more understanding of why this is different. Hence, contrasting one’s belief in God with that of others may actually lead to a more profound understanding of what one’s own belief in God entails. Otherness can enrich, complement, and sometimes even provide insights that one lacks. Thus, the category of otherness should be considered one that allows for both openness to growth, understanding and potential similarities, and resistance to making too hasty conclusions about sameness. The most problematic casting of belief in God is the one that presents the religious other as the enemy. This notion draws on a conflict imaginary that sees religious difference as not only causing competition but antagonism, agonism, and hostility. God is situated on my side and understood as the source of motivation for fighting against others’ beliefs. In such a context, the religious other is considered a threat to my god, and sometimes as one who wants to eradicate my religion. The enemy’s god and my god are placed in fundamental and hostile opposition. No point of contact or common world is possible. We see tendencies in this direction in populist, nationalist, and anti-muslim groups in contemporary Europe. They employ religious imagery of this kind to support their causes. Belief in God may therefore provide a basis for different ways of perceiving the religious other, although it is probably rarely the only component that determines this perception. Differences in belief may also point to different ways of perceiving the potential transformations that the presence of the other

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calls for. Such transformative processes may be on a spectrum: from engaging in dialogue, learning processes, and common prayers, to withdrawing from, and even trying to eradicate, the religious other. In present-day Europe, these descriptions are not mere academic exercises. Perceptions of Islam are heavily influenced by imagery that portrays Muslims as enemies of Western secular culture or the other way around. Their assumed religious otherness is described in fixed and not very flexible ways that sustain differences and separation. What falls under the table is, among other things, how Muslims may also appreciate the more secular and differentiated way of regulating the role of religions in society, or the more relaxed ways of living that are possible here, compared to some of the more traditional cultures in which Islam is the predominant religion.14 The opposite of describing someone as an enemy is to approach the religious other as a “friend.” To say to someone that “I want to become friends with you” is an open invitation that shows interest and benevolence, no matter how different he or she is from you. Although the outcome of such an invitation is not given, there is no pre-established pattern of development in a dynamic relationship between friends. Spending time and resources on a friend is a good way of developing something worthwhile for all parties. Friends visit each other, learn about each other, criticize each other, encourage and support each other. Furthermore, friendships come in many forms. This variety is itself a testimony to the possible richness and variety of engaging in friendship with the religious other. In a good friendship with someone who has a different story from yours, you are given almost endless chances of exploring the world of the other. Friendship contributes to the resources necessary for human growth.15 In a friendship, how belief in God plays a role may differ and express itself in a wide variety of ways. Here, the notion of God will not necessarily play a determining role from the outset, although your belief in God may also determine with whom you want to become friends. Two other potentially fruitful descriptions of the religious other provide different ways of understanding what belief in God may entail. The first is “neighbour.” A neighbour is someone that actually finds themself in the same area as yourself – but not in the exact same spot. Nonetheless, you have something in common – and you may orient yourself according to some of the same issues. A neighbour is close to you, space-wise. He or she is not someone you can distance yourself from or pretend is not there. He or she will meet you in the street or when you are shopping, and you may have kids on the same soccer team. Thus, you partake in the same world, although you may see and experience it differently, given your differences in religious practice. Moreover, you want to have good relations with your neighbour because that is among the conditions for a thriving community. Good relations also contribute to less suspicion and problems with communications. Thus, when applied to the religious other, the notion of a neighbour may open up to new ways of relating to him or her because you share a common world. In this scenario, belief in God seems to play a less important role in the relationship.

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Like the notion of neighbour, the notion of relative may take on both concrete and metaphorical associations: to be related means that one has something in common in terms of origin. There are family relations between Christianity, Islam, and Judaism, just as there are common background sources for Hinduism and Buddhism. To construe a relationship with others by this metaphor suggests that the actual differences do not exclude a common origin in a divine reality that I share with those who are others. Relations may still imply differences and conflicts, and they often do. Nevertheless, there is something shared that should make it possible to explore common elements in history and the present. However, there is no reason to overemphasize what bearings such a description of the religious other may have on understanding differences and commonalities: sometimes relatives try to distance themselves as far as possible from others in the family. That may also be the case for religious traditions that are occupied with maintaining their identity in ways that mostly emphasize differences to others. But for someone who is interested in engaging the religious other, this may sometimes be a useful metaphor or a good default position on which to establish a relationship. These considerations about what conceptions of “God” do in a pluralist context do not suggest that there is only one fixed and given stance in this context. Religious identities are dynamic and developed in relationship with others, and various components are included in their constitution. Thus, the understandings of “God” are among many different variables that determine who the other is as a religious other. However, the presence of the religious other implies that I can understand my own belief in God in various ways. Religious traditions consist of processes and practices. They are not fixed entities and static frameworks of belief and behaviour that pre-determine whom we understand the religious other – or God – to be. The above suggests that interaction and engagement with the religious other is itself a religious practice shaped by and shaping belief in God. It requires an understanding of and a commitment to your own tradition as the influences shaping your identity and practices. In openness to others lies also the possibility of exposing your own tradition and faith to transformations that may follow from the expansion of your world as the other’s contribution. Although you may be challenged to transform something in your own (previous) commitments and beliefs, it does not make redundant a critical resistance to problematic elements in the traditions of the other. Furthermore, you still have to resist making the other’s position too similar to your own. To reject the reification of religion and a static notion of religious identity implies that no one can be understood or categorized only regarding one’s religious faith and the God in which one believes. This point is not of academic interest only: All too often, we see how people are expected to behave, think, believe, or feel only based on what others are convinced that their religious faith implies. This grave reduction of identity, in general, contributes to the dehumanizing of the religious other. For this reason, it is essential to underscore that in recognition of the religious other, he or she is more than a representative

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of a religion and a belief in God. Belief in God always has individual form and exists in concrete, personal, and processual forms, and not as fixed patterns. To accept a view that sees religions as clusters of practices dependent on historical, social, psychological, and cultural variables implies that belief in God must also be understood against the backdrop of such contexts.

God: A reason for pluralism, exclusivism, or inclusivism? In theologies that interpret Christianity’s relationship with other religions, one often operates with a typology that identifies the positions inclusivism, exclusivism, and pluralism.16 These positions also entail specific assumptions about what belief in God entails. Thus, they focus on doctrine. We can supply this typology with other notions, such as relativism, universalism, and particularism. The following is a discussion of the implications of the first threefold distinction.17 Pluralism sees a divine reality behind all religious traditions. It can be divided into three different strands: Unitary pluralism considers all religions as potentially “equal and valid paths to the one divine reality.” The distinction “Unitary” “indicates a single unitary divine being behind the different plural religious phenomena.”18 Pluriform pluralism is similar to the previous position, except that it sees the different religious traditions’ task to provide different paths to different plural divine realities.19 Finally, ethical pluralism addresses primarily religious differences from the point of view of ethical practice. It holds that “all religions are related to the divine insomuch as they contain certain ethical codes and practices, and religions should not be judged according to the conceptual pictures of divine reality they profess.”20 Hence, we see here a position that to no small extent is similar to the one Lessing articulated in the first section of this chapter. An important implication of pluralism is that humans can learn from each other about the divine or ultimate reality to which all traditions relate. Moreover, it is a position that opens up to God as manifesting Godself in different revelations. The God one believes in is mirrored in other religious traditions – at least to some extent. However, pluralism may risk rendering difference into sameness because all the different religious forms are ultimately expressions of the same. Thus, this approach may tend towards downplaying the differences between different ways of believing in God – both within a tradition and between different traditions. Furthermore, pluralism as a theological position can be developed in different religious traditions and need not emerge out of Christian theology. It also allows for a more distanced, ethical position concerning how to assess religious pluralism, even when it presupposes the assumption about the divine to which religious practitioners relate. Inclusivism is a distinctively Christian position. Gavin D’Costa suggests that one differentiates between structural inclusivism and restrictivist inclusivism. The first considers Christ as the normative revelation of God but is also open to the possibility of salvation outside of the Christian church. However, even if

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salvation is possible in religious contexts other than Christianity, it is always based on Christ. Hence, “This type of inclusivism contains the pluralist legitimation of other religions as salvific structures while also holding to the exclusivist claims of the causal saving grace of Christ alone.”21 On the other hand, restrictivist inclusivism affirms Christ as the normative revelation of God and is open to the possibility of salvation outside the Christian church, but does not legitimize other religions as possible or actual salvific structures. Accordingly, this position affirms God as inclusive, but not in a way that recognizes God as working in or through other religious traditions! Restrictive inclusivists affirm that “Christ is ontologically and causally exclusive to salvation, but not necessarily epistemologically.”22 The focus on Christ as the only cause of salvation downplays the significance other traditions may have for understanding salvation, its content, and its conditions. The religious other is only interesting insofar as he or she is the object of the salvation in Christ. Hence, the Christian God remains the exclusively proper way to understand the divine reality and its impact on human salvation. Inclusivism, therefore, only works on one of the parties’ premises, and there is no chance for mutual recognition between traditions of beliefs in God here. Inclusivism may then, in fact, turn into a form of exclusivism, where there is only one exclusive path to salvation, to which everyone may relate, be it acknowledged or not. Although the inclusivist position is favourable towards the other in principle, its consequence is that the other is not an equal partner. The reason is obvious: the main concern of this position is to maintain belief in Christ and the Christian God as the only way to salvation. Exclusivism can be divided into two sub-categories. Restrictive-access exclusivism does not orient itself from the point of view of religious pluralism. It is based on the doctrinal conviction that the Christian God has elected some for salvation and others for damnation. Like the former, this position will maintain that God has revealed the possibility of salvation only through Jesus Christ. Non-Christians and others who lack faith in Christ are destined for damnation.23 Universal-access exclusivism also sees God as exclusively revealed in Christ. Only those who profess Christ can be saved. The notion “Universal” here refers to the conviction that all will be given a chance to confess Christ – even if it is at the time of death or after death.24 Insofar as it bases itself on the idea of God’s pre-ordained, sovereign election, the restrictive position offers no positive motivations for engaging the religious other in mutual or reciprocal relationships. Given the right context, it can also provide reasons for demonizing the religious other and considering them to be an enemy or a foreigner with whom there are no reasons whatsoever to interact. The universal position builds on a more benevolent attitude towards the other, but there is still not much potential for recognizing resources in the religious other that can expand and enrich my own faith. Two more categories for relating to the religious other must be mentioned. Particularism renders all religious traditions incommensurable. According to this view, each religion expresses its own cultural-linguistic paradigm and can

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only be understood on its own terms. The pragmatic implication of this position is that it may provide for some self-restraint concerning the evaluation of other traditions since all traditions can only be evaluated based on their own criteria. Another effect of the same position may be a type of relativism that considers all religious traditions to be of value relative to their own context and concerns, without raising the question about their truth in general. The Christian tradition has always maintained the claim Deus semper – God is always more than what we can think. This claim has its anthropological correlation in the realization of human finitude. Given the increasing recognition of how theologies – as expressions of human understanding and reflection aimed at coming to grips with experiences of reality – are always contextually and historically shaped, it should not be a hard task to argue for adopting a humble attitude.25 Indirectly, it may also, as Catherine Cornille suggests, imply “at least a recognition that one may still grow in understanding or expressing the fullness of truth.”26 However, this attitude appears irrelevant for the exclusivist. The exclusivist has precluded themselves from the practice of humility in relation to how other traditions express their beliefs in God. Cornille may also be right when she points to the fact that “such epistemological humility goes against the grain of most religious self-understanding.”27 The main reason why epistemological humility is a challenge to many religious traditions is that “religions tend to claim the fullness of truth and the definitive and unquestionable way to the highest goal” to maintain their authority and legitimate position.28 The instantiation of one’s religion as the exclusive (sic!) way to truth or salvation is regularly backed up with reference to a transcendent source, which forms the basis for religious self-confidence and certainty. Insofar as this non-humble, exclusivist position is combined with a demand for commitment and personal surrender, it is often considered the necessary condition for experiencing spiritual growth and affiliation. But from the point of view of the consequences of belief in God on a societal level, such approaches may foster division and conflict, and may actually impede the chances for spiritual growth. The more pluralist religious features that societies develop, the more problematic these ideas may prove themselves to be.

Notes 1 This section contains material that is reworked from a more extensive context in Henriksen, The Reconstruction of Religion: Lessing, Kierkegaard and Nietzsche (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2002). 2 Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, Gesammelte Werke (Munich: Hanser, 1967), 8: 33. My translation. 3 Cf. Sami Pihlström, The Bloomsbury Companion to Pragmatism (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2015), 28–29. 4 John McGowan, Democracy’s Children: Intellectuals and the Rise of Cultural Politics (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2002), 209. 5 Lessing, Gesammelte Werke, 2, 374. 6 Lessing here seems to speak through Nathan. Ibid., 2, 278.

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7 Cf. K. Schilbrack, “What Isn’t Religion?” The Journal of Religion 93(3) (2013): 300. Hence, a pragmatic understanding of religion should not be identified with a mere functional one, as the substantial content of religious belief is determining for peoples’ religious agency, including the determination of what can count as “right living.” Schilbrack’s understanding of religion as a combination of functional and substantial elements entails that religion cannot be mere function or mere belief – but has to include both, cf. ibid., 318. 8 Cf. William James, Pragmatism, a New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking; Popular Lectures on Philosophy (New York, etc.: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1907), 28. Unless some “practical difference” would follow from one or the other side’s being correct, a dispute between different notions or positions is idle. James goes on: “[T]he tangible fact at the root of all our thought-distinctions, however subtle, is that there is no one of them so fine as to consist in anything but a possible difference of practice. To attain perfect clearness in our thoughts of an object, then, we need only consider what conceivable effects of a practical kind the object may involve – what sensations we are to expect from it, and what reactions we must prepare” (ibid., 29). 9 Lambkin, “Learning from Religious Others: The Problems and Prospects of Interreligious Hermeneutics,” 2014, 12, points to how those “who pursue an a priori approach proceed by looking into the sources of their own tradition in order to discover what is the correct theological response to religious diversity and what potential there is for salvation and/or truth to be available through other religions, before engaging with religious others.” Accordingly, in this doctrinal context the typology of exclusivism, inclusivism and pluralism is employed “in order to make sense of the multiplicity of religious truth claims.” The a posteriori approach, on the other hand, “argue[s] that we cannot make judgments about other religions and religious others until we first get to know them. Applying theories about the meaning of religious diversity before learning about religious others prevents us from being able to appreciate the real distinctiveness and particularity of other religious traditions.” 10 Jeannine Hill Fletcher, Monopoly on Salvation?: A Feminist Approach to Religious Pluralism (New York/London: Continuum, 2005), 96. 11 It is interesting, though, that in the USA, peoples’ political views seem to determine their religious affliliations, more than the other way around. See Mark Chaves, American Religion: Contemporary Trends, 2nd edition (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2017), 110. 12 The following paragraphs represent a reworking of a much more extensive treatment provided in Jan-Olav Henriksen, Religious Plurality and Pragmatist Theology: Openness and Resistance (Leiden: Brill, 2019). 13 Young, Iris Marion, “The Ideal of Community and the Politics of Difference.” Social Theory and Practice 12(1): 1–26, here p. 3. The quote by young is taken from Jeanine Hill Fletcher, Monopoly on Salvation?: A Feminist Approach to Religious Pluralism, 84. 14 This reifying approach to Islam is by no means restricted to those who see their competing religious faith threatened by it. Richard Dawkins contributes to it, as well. 15 To employ the notion of friendship in this context is not new or original. See e.g., J. L. Fredericks, “Interreligious Friendship: A New Theological Virtue,” Journal of Ecumenical Studies 35(2) (1998). 16 For presentation and discussion of this typology, and the increasing realization of its shortcomings, see Gavin D’Costa, Christianity and World Religions: Disputed Questions in the Theology of Religions (Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009), especially chapters 1 and 2. The ways these categories, and their relatives, are presented, understood, and discussed varies considerably, though, and D’Costa’s way is only one of several possible. See for other ways of discussing this also Lambkin,

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18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28

Pluralism challenges notions of God “Learning from Religious Others,” passim, and Perry Schmidt-Leukel, Religious Pluralism and Interreligious Theology: The Gifford Lectures – an Extended Edition (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2017). These different positions can also be correlated with other theological positions. See Paul Hedges, Controversies in Interreligious Dialogue and the Theology of Religions, Controversies in Contextual Theology series (London: SCM Press, 2010). He suggests, for example, that each of these “is marked by a different motif, exclusivist approaches typify ‘discontinuity,’ inclusivist approaches typify ‘fulfilment,’ pluralist approaches typify ‘openness,’ and particularist approaches typify ‘difference.’ Indeed, we may say they represent radical discontinuity, radical fulfilment, radical openness and radical difference.” Ibid., 30. D’Costa, Christianity and World Religions, 6. Ibid. Ibid. D’Costa, Christianity and World Religions, 7. Ibid. Ibid., 7. Ibid. Catherine Cornille makes a similar point, see Cornille, “Conditions for Inter–Religious Dialogue,” in The Wiley-Blackwell Companion to Inter-Religious Dialogue, ed. Catherine Cornille (Chichester: John Wiley & Sons, 2013), 22f. Cf. ibid. 21. Ibid., 21. Ibid.

10 When God becomes irrelevant to society’s challenges

If belief in God is to prove relevant to people’s lives, it must address topics, challenges, problems, and values about which they care. The most profound expression of this point was articulated by Paul Tillich in his understanding of religion as being about humans’ “ultimate concern.” The ultimate represents that to which people orient themselves and assess other, less ultimate topics. One would assume that God is, in some way or another, of ultimate concern for most religious people, and hence, the idea about God would be guiding other interests and concerns. Such guidance could be positive or negative. This chapter will look into how there may or may not be a connection between people’s imagery of God and their environmental concerns. Hence, we look into how understandings of God allow people to engage with issues that are crucial for all of humankind and life on Earth – or are not.1 To approach a topic like the one just mentioned allows for several different layers of attention: on the one hand, we can identify how God is perceived by those who do not care about the environment and by those who do. On the other hand, it allows for reflecting on the difference between academic and official theology that seems to express concern for the environment (Pope Francis’ encyclical letter Laudato Si being one of the recent and most prominent examples), and the everyday religious reflection expressed by informants in empirical samples. The gap between the two seems to suggest some challenges ahead for theological work. Moreover, if and when religion separates itself from elements of significance for human life, it can be interpreted as an expression of secularization. If we paint with broad strokes, we can say that secularization entails that belief in God becomes increasingly less relevant for the sectors of society that have been differentiated from the religious. Thus, secularization is possible to understand as a process in which God is rendered irrelevant to the everyday. Separating belief in God and all that such belief entails from everyday practices and the knowledge required for living in society contributes to secularization. However, this process entails that believers seem to support or enhance secularization processes insofar as their religious views, including their view on God, allow them to detach their belief from societal concerns. Against this backdrop, the present chapter aims at mapping how believers may make God irrelevant. DOI: 10.4324/9781003306207-11

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Nevertheless, it will also point to differences between different societies in the Western world insofar as such lack of relevance is considered.

Olivier Roy on secularization as separation of religion and culture For those who think of religion as a part of human culture, Olivier Roy’s claim that religion has presently become separated from culture entails a challenge to rethink their relationship. In one way, Roy’s thesis is no more than a reframing of the secularization thesis.2 However, in another respect, it implies more. Hence, there is a valid reason for looking into it, also from the perspective implicit in this chapter’s title. According to Roy, secularization has given religious traditions the autonomy to reformulate themselves in a mode that separates them from the cultural environment. He calls this “pure religion” – religion that has left behind its connection to a specific culture. He contrasts this development with “the old type of religion” from which it has transformed itself and in which culture and religion were still joined and intertwined. Previously, religions coincided with a cultural community where people lived in proximity and conformity: “Religious allegiance is not considered to be a question of personal choice; it is a community identity, and individual belief does not come into it.”3 However, with the transformation from traditional forms of religious practice to more fundamentalist and charismatic forms of religion, religion becomes deterritorialized, claims Roy. Migration and globalization leave the original cultural context behind. Religion needs to be purified of culture, and culture is considered an obstacle to true religion. The communal aspect is left behind, and religious adherence becomes a question of choice and conversion. In their analysis of Roy, van Herck and Drigo summarize the consequences of this situation as follows: Sharing a common culture with non-believers becomes difficult. … Religions can only extend beyond their original cultures when they deculturalize themselves. Religious markers and cultural markers disconnect. Literalism is a consequence: the sacred texts must be able to speak outside any cultural context. The possibility of a middle ground vanishes. The gap between believer and non-believer becomes a barrier, since the two share neither religion nor culture.4 There are two important markers in this analysis that are important to note: The first is that in this “new,” deterritorialized and deculturalized form of religion, there is no common ground for believers and non-believers or those who believe otherwise. Furthermore, the importance of religious doctrine becomes linked to literalism – an approach to religious sources that does not see the need for interpreting these in light of other, commonly accessible forms of knowledge. It can be argued that these two markers belong together. In the following analyses, we shall see how these markers play out.

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Before entering into more concrete examples, we need to note that Roy’s interpretation of secularization, in fact, does see religion as connected to culture: Religion is not freed from the cultural and societal variables, although it tries to shape an impression that this is the case. The deterritorialization and deculturization of religion result from secularization processes that take place under cultural and societal conditions. Nevertheless, his analysis of the features mentioned here may also shed some light on the religious responses to environmental concerns and climate change.

A God who makes it less important to care for the environment: The USA In Robin G. Veldman’s empirical study of evangelical Christians and their opposition to climate change, her point of departure is in the polls that show that white evangelical Christians are the most sceptical religious group in the USA concerning climate change.5 This fact immediately presents us with the question of how the imaginaries of this group about God can help us understand why this is so. This group sees the Bible as the ultimate authority, and thereby, their notion of God is linked closely to the literalist approach to religion mentioned by Roy above.6 Veldman investigates the often-reported claim of environmentalists that evangelicals do not care about the environment because they believe they are in living at end of time and that Jesus will return soon. She names this assumption the end-time apathy hypothesis.7 She nevertheless finds limited warrants for this hypothesis.8 Veldman’s negative findings concerning the end-time apathy hypothesis led her to research another imaginary: She found that talk about climate change was primarily framed within a context that juxtaposed faith and secular society – in which the latter also included elements from science. She writes: The end-time apathy hypothesis was not the best way of conceptualizing the relationship between my informants’ faith and their environmental attitudes. A small number of the evangelicals I met were so convinced the end is near that they cared little about environmental decline, viewing it as one of many indicators that history was drawing to a close. But a larger, more politically engaged contingent was convinced that the climate was not changing at all – or, if it was changing, that humans were not the cause and/or that the changes would not be catastrophic. For these individuals, climate change was not evidence that the end times were beginning, but instead a hoax – a competing eschatology concocted by secularists who sought to scare people into turning to government instead of God.9 Hence, God appears on the scene as the counterpart to government. Combined with a literal reading that entails that because the biblical eschatology does not contain imaginaries about climate change, the rejection of climate change

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knowledge can be motivated by the fact that there is no common ground of knowledge between believers the rest. So far, the determining factors seem to concur with those described by Olivier Roy. Literalism, us-and-them constructions, detachment from culture, lack of recognition of a shared knowledge base, and lack of trust in government all seem to work together. This neglect or rejection of climate change builds on and reinforces actual experiences of how life as a believer can be in a society experienced as secular and in which religion is in decline. Veldman identifies an “embattled” mentality among her informants that reinforces the experience of a divided world. Those who care about climate change and the environment stand opposite those who believe in God. Thus, climate scepticism is built into a much larger framework that has to do with politics, “social conservativism, attitudes toward collective action, community norms and media consumption habits.”10 This division is also mirrored by how the church is depicted as existing in its separate sphere, distinct from the larger society.11 Again, we note the parallel to Roy’s analysis. Furthermore, many of Veldman’s informants rejected the idea that humans can change the Earth’s climate. To justify this rejection, they pointed to the notion of an omnipotent God “in control.”12 Any idea about climate change, or actions to counter it, would challenge this notion. Hence, seeeing God as in control contradicted the notion that people themselves need to take responsibility for climate conditions. God works as the one on whom one can unload responsibility for climate change. Through mass media, leaders of the Christian Right have been using religious imaginaries and not arguments based on actual scientific knowledge to dismiss climate change.13 However, Veldman is careful in pointing out that traditionalist evangelicals are climate sceptics only or even primarily for religious reasons and not political ones. By explicitly framing climate change as a religious issue, right-wing leaders helped transform climate scepticism and denial from a political opinion into an aspect of evangelical identity. Not only was scepticism the more reasonable position, it was also the socially acceptable position.14 Accordingly, Veldman’s analysis presents us with a story about how climate scepticism was employed within a religious-political framework to overcome the evangelicals’ sense of marginalization in American culture. Leaders cultivated a particular vision of evangelical identity as normative and convinced evangelical audiences that certain environmental attitudes were the natural expression of their identity.15 Hence, withdrawal from pressing social and environmental concerns resulted from secularization, but at the same time, this withdrawal made belief in God irrelevant for addressing pressing concerns adequately in ways that would matter for all of society. Critically put: Believers contributed to further secularization and to making God irrelevant to these concerns. Veldman, therefore, historicizes climate scepticism with a religious warrant by placing it in a distinctively religious context: She shows how religious imaginaries and conceptions are variables that work within a larger framework of cultural and political conditions. She writes:

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Against the tendency to view Christians’ environmental attitudes as the product of ahistorical religious doctrines, I underline that it was not inevitable that so many evangelicals would come to regard climate skepticism as a matter of faith. This view was cultivated by specific individuals operating in unique historical and political circumstances in order to achieve specific ends. I hasten to add that this is not merely a cynical view of religion and religious actors, but one that invites a dynamic conception of how religions are related to environmental attitudes and behavior. Not by nature, but by convention. And what is conventional can be changed.16 Veldman speaks of the absence of interest and concern regarding climate issues for the people she studies.17 Other things matter more. Like many other Americans, the evangelicals lack the environmental skills or literacy that would allow them to perceive the biosphere and the magnitude of changes there.18 To the extent that they practise anything that comes close to caring about climate and the environment, it is within a framework where other things matter more and science and politics are excluded from attention. She calls this “practical environmentalism,” which is mainly concerned with the local and immediate situation. Her informants give other topics priority: “Worrying about the environment or focusing on environmental problems as problems in and of themselves would indicate a lack of faith in God, and a subversion of the true purpose of life on earth: to seek redemption from sin and thereby attain salvation.”19 It is possible to further deepen Veldman’s analysis by connecting it to earlier work on God’s relationship between imaginaries of God and ecological concerns. Andrew Greely20 has looked into this relationship in detail and found elements that go beyond what Veldman finds when her informants talk about God’s sovereignty and “God being in control.”21 Greely refers to Eckberg and Blocker’s study from 1989. This study linked “environmental concern” with different variables. They found that “the crucial predictor of lower levels of environmental concern was a belief in the literal interpretation of the Bible.”22 Moreover, “Biblical literalism correlates negatively with environment concern, as do belief in God and Christian affiliation.”23 However, it is possible to further nuance these results: Greely finds that “[t]hose with a more gracious narrative image of God (Mother, Spouse, Lover, Friend, as opposed to Father, Master, Judge, and King) are more likely to support increased spending on the environment.”24 He also claims that “Catholics are more likely to be concerned about the environment because they are more likely to have gracious images of God, and because their picture of God is more likely to affect their environmental concern than is the Protestants’ picture of God.”25 It is reasonable to think that an image of God that depicts God as a detached master, king, judge, and so on correlates better with biblical literalism than the other notions listed in the quote above. Hence, a sovereign God “in control” will be a predictor for less environmental concern, just as Veldman found decades after Greely. However, Greely does not consider the social and cultural

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situation in which those with such images of God feel embattled by a secular culture. Furthermore, religious literalism and a secular culture may not be the only variables determining how images of God work in relation to environmental concerns – as we shall see below when we compare the US with the Norwegian situation.

A contrast: The Norwegian case In terms of support for the environment, a look at Norway might reveal an illuminating contrast to the findings from the USA referred to above. If we compare the American situation with that of Norway, the commitment to environmental issues is radically different. Whereas those Americans who most strongly believe in God are those least concerned about such issues, some studies suggest that the opposite is the case in Norway. In the USA, the atheists are those most committed to the cause, while in Norway, it is the Christians.26 In general, Norwegians are close to nature, and the population is in general agreement about taking care of the environment. Norwegian bishops and diocese councils have supported initiatives to prohibit oil companies from drilling in the Barents region. The Christian backing of such positions is often articulated with reference to nature as part of God’s creation. However, in a Norwegian context, we do not see references to God as “sovereign” or “in control” in a way that precludes people from taking a stand and engaging in environmental protection practices in order to prevent further climate change. The contrast between Norway and the USA is a cause for reflection: Norway is a highly secularized country. However, it would be an exaggeration to say that most Christians in Norway feel embattled and perceive the government as a threat to their beliefs. Even though many Christians in Norway may have a conservative religious background, the average Christian supports the government and sees it as legitimate. Few can be labelled literalists when they interpret the Bible, although many will do so in ways that still have much in common with American evangelicals. In a report from 1998, and in his later studies, Pål Ketil Botvar found that the Norwegian population segment that most frequently attends religious services or meetings is more concerned about the environment than the average Norwegian population. On the other hand, they are also less worried about the consequences of environmental degradation.27 Botvar’s explanation of these findings is worth reporting: It is not participation in religious communities as such that causes the high level of environmental concern, but values such as consumer moderation, anti-materialism, and social morality.28 These values may be shared with people who have no religious commitment, a fact that can explain why committed atheists in Norway also score high on concern for the environment. Although there are differences between religious groups in Norway concerning these topics, it is unnecessary to enter into these here. Instead, the above contrasts seem to suggest that belief in God, and even belief shaped along fairly

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conservative patterns in interpreting the Bible, is not an independent variable for determining peoples’ commitment to environmental causes. Veldman’s conclusions seem to support this point. Hence, we have to ask: What are the societal conditions that determine such different employments of the belief in God concerning the environment? First of all, Norwegians have a high level of trust in their government. Not many people see the government as an opponent of their religious beliefs. Hence, the “embattled” perception we find among believers in the USA is not likely to appear in the same way. Norwegian politicians also express their belief in God, from the far right and across the spectrum to the far left. Second, Norway has a public school system that provides all members of society with a common ground for discourse, knowledge and understanding, including those related to environmental issues. There is not much controversy over issues related to science in Norwegian schools. Consequently, students must negotiate elements of their faith within a common ground of knowledge, and must relate their beliefs to what they know from other sources. It is likely that this also impacts to what extent they perceive a mere literalist reading of the Bible as plausible. Moreover, the public school system and the high level of education in general (university education is almost free in Norway) precludes religious beliefs from being established in mere opposition to the knowledge on which society functions. Consequently, believers must negotiate their belief in God in relation to a broader sphere of knowledge and concerns than that established by the religious community. Society and the religious communities are not juxtaposed in a way similar to that experienced by conservative evangelicals in the USA. Usually, God is not seen as competing with the government. The high level of education and trust in its content may also be the reason why belief in God has not been the cause of controversy to any great extent when it comes to discussing curricula in public schools or universities. Belief in God is not in any significant way a reason for fundamentalist opposition to teaching about evolution. Similarly, when vaccine scepticism has been promoted in Norway by preachers who urge people to believe in God’s protection alone, this has also been brushed off quickly in public by other believers. When controversy arises in Norway about religious beliefs and reasons for protecting the environment, it is usually not the inner-Christian groups that express concern but political conservatives who accuse bishops or others of politicizing religion.29 Sometimes, however, low-church groups also respond in similar ways. These controversies are nevertheless not much related to or questioning of peoples’ belief in God. In conclusion, then, we see that belief in God is not made operative to the same extent in a society with high levels of trust and shared values across different beliefs. Although Norway is a highly secularized country, it is not so in the way Olivier Roy understands secularization: instead, Norway displays to a large extent the “old” mode of religion, in which religion and culture cooperate and are merged. That at least applies to the dominant Christian religion. The

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negotiation of their beliefs within a broader cultural setting allows Christians in Norway to experience their beliefs as still relevant to their participation in society, whereas in the USA, for the groups that Veldman and others have researched, their beliefs are established as relevant to them, but not to society. It leads to God becoming isolated from society, and thus, belief in God has no relevance in facing dilemmas on the everyday public scene.

Conclusion Sigurd Bergmann concludes an article about how environmental change changes religion by observing that “Christian theology seems to offer a wide range of different and even inconsistent theological responses.”30 This chapter has shown how this is the case and how Christian theology operates on different conditions in different societies with different forms of secularization. The “US mode of belief in God” described above seems to enhance secularization insofar as it separates belief in God from pressing societal issues, whereas the “Norwegian mode” allows for belief in God to remain part of a more comprehensive understanding of religion that includes societal issues with which every member must deal.

Notes 1 The following is not a discussion of the topic of “the greening of Christianity” as such, but only about how notions of God may or may not be related to environmental concerns. For a discussion of the data about “greening” of religion, see David M. Konisky, “The Greening of Christianity? A Study of Environmental Attitudes over Time,” Environmental Politics 27(2) (2018). 2 Olivier Roy and Ros Schwartz, Holy Ignorance: When Religion and Culture Part Ways, Comparative Politics and International Studies Series (London: Hurst & Company, 2010). 3 Ibid., 67. 4 Walter Van Herck and Angelika Drigo, “The Plausibility of Pure Religion: Olivier Roy’s Thesis about the Separation between Religion and Culture,” Toronto Journal of Theology 35(2) (2019): 152. 5 Robin Globus Veldman, The Gospel of Climate Skepticism: Why Evangelical Christians Oppose Action on Climate Change (Oakland: University of California Press, 2019), 2. 6 Ibid., 3. 7 Ibid., 7. 8 Ibid., 26ff. One important contribution of her work is how Veldman is able to trace the origin of this idea more to environmentalists than to actual believers. 9 Ibid., 8. Cf. ibid., 101, on climate change as a competing eschatology. 10 Ibid., 8–9. 11 Ibid., 89. The embattled mentality is also, according to Veldman, what frames scepticism about evolution. “It was the embattled mentality, not distrust of science, that was the common thread connecting opposition to evolution with opposition to global warming.” Ibid., 109. 12 Cf. ibid., 97f. 13 Ibid., 11.

When God becomes irrelevant 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21

22 23 24 25 26

27 28 29 30

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Ibid., 11–12. Cf. ibid., 13. Ibid. Ibid., 48ff. Ibid., 49. Ibid., 48. Our italics. Cf. also 62f., where the religious framework spiritualizes the situation to such an extent that the main concern is for the souls of those who suffer from climate change, and not for the embodied suffering itself. Andrew Greeley, “Religion and Attitudes toward the Environment,” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 32(1) (1993). So also Zaleha, who says about the informants in his dissertation: “Their God directs everything, including environmental despoliation. Being a good steward of God’s creation requires nothing more than not littering.” See Daniel Bernard Zaleha, A Tale of Two Christianities: The Religiopolitical Clash over Climate Change within America’s Dominant Religion (2018), 121. Greely, 19. Ibid., 22. Ibid., 22. Ibid., 26. Pål Ketil Botvar, Gud Og Grønne Skoger: En Undersøkelse Av Sammenhenger Mellom Religiøsitet Og Miljøvernengasjement, Kifo Rapport (Trondheim: Tapir, 1998), 87. Cf. Botvar, Grønn Vekkelse? Kirkefolkets forhold til miljøutfordringene, Unpublished report, Oslo: Kirkerådet, 2001, 19. Ibid., 60f. Ibid., 61. Cf. Pål’s claim about how Christian leaders in Norway display a left-wing orientation when addressing political issues above, in the section “Politization of religion” in Chapter 2. Sigurd Bergmann, “Climate Change Changes Religion,” Studia Theologica – Nordic Journal of Theology 63(2) (2009), 103.

11 God as vulnerable love?

In the Froese and Bader study America’s Four Gods, the authors suggest close links between social conditions, social structure and position, and how people perceive God as authoritative, judgmental, critical, or benevolent.1 This insight, we argue, should not be left to sociologists only, though, however important their insights are. If constructive contemporary theology fails in its task of discussing different religious views of God and (groups of) society critically, it hands over these religious positions to those who hold them without presenting them with a critical perspective. Hence, constructive and critical theology aims to address issues related to religion and society to present alternative options for thinking about religion and society in a pluralist context. It should present reasons for upholding conceptions of God that enable human flourishing in the present and the future. Then, we argue, is it necessary to listen to voices from the margins and to those who suffer from abuse by practices rooted in religious traditions. This is what this final chapter aims to do. Here, the normative strands of constructive theology will become even more visible than in some of the previous chapters. The following proposals are inspired by many others’ work, and not least by some of those who were previously not recognized as voices that could speak with competence about God. These voices are critical because they can tell us about how people still find reasons to think of the Christian god, even when the church has lost some of its control over the discourses that previously defined God. When people face challenges and predicaments, they intuitively relate to a god from whom they expect the good. This god that is not only related to specific and extraordinary experiences (like Rudolf Otto’s mysterium tremendum et facinans). It is a god who is present in the quotidian practices of everyday life. God is the one to whom one turns for consolation, healing, and hope, and not the God of prosperity religion (expressed in “Believe, and you will become rich, healthy, successful!”). This is a god who cares about the small things in human life and who does not withdraw when things are not as they should be. Or, to put it more negatively: why should we expect anyone to believe and trust in a god if this god is not providing you with something that opens up to the possibilities of goodness in life? To think of God as an enabler of human freedom and flourishing is an alternative to the vision of God as judge and controller. It makes it possible to DOI: 10.4324/9781003306207-12

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see how humans created in the image of God realize God’s will when they flourish in just communities and societies, and not when they submit to the control of others and live in compliance with external expectations to conformity and obedience. A constructive theology that recognizes these points as central motifs is resonant with the basic features of human experience. These motifs should not be stated as externally based theological facts that one must appropriate and accept, but rather be considered as prescriptions of how God wants humans to experience life. Furthermore, these motifs are closely related to essential experiences of what it means to be a human being in society, irrespective of whether one is a believer. Love is a central part of everyone’s life story. Not in the sense of some ideal, romantic, feel-good presence, but in how we thrive when loved, how we seek to love and be loved, and how the absence of love or our love being exploited makes us vulnerable, lacking, seeking compensatory ways of getting what we think love should have given us. Love seems to be an overarching occupation of humans. Because we want to love, want to be loved, hunger for love, and desire the love of the other, our love stories define us: be it the love stories with parents, children, lovers, friends, spouses, or others – and be it the successful ones as well as those love stories that ended up in failure and misery. Love is an (almost) all-determining occupation of ours. Love shapes our lives – both in its presence and its absence. However, love should not be idealized or seen as an unqualified element that always works for the good. Love is not always present, and not all love is good. Nevertheless, as any psychologist will tell you, love is crucial to human life and thriving and flourishing. The experience of love – which is indisputably vital to all humans – may also be relevant for how we talk about God and understand God as related to our perception of society.2 In other words: Christian theology builds on the assumption that if we know something about love, we also know something about God. Love is thus an experiential pathway to knowledge about God. Experience of love is, in one way or another, an experience of God, and also if this love is experienced as finite and taking part in human conditions. Bearing this in mind, we can look at Martin Luther’s definition of what it means to have a God: What does it mean to have a god? Or, what is God? Answer: A god means that from which we are to expect all good and to which we are to take refuge in all distress, so that to have a God is nothing else than to trust and believe Him from the [whole] heart; as I have often said that the confidence and faith of the heart alone make both God and an idol. If your faith and trust be right, then is your god also true; and, on the other hand, if your trust is false and wrong, then you have not the true God; for these two belong together: faith and God. That now, I say, upon which you set your heart and put your trust is properly your god.3 Luther’s old, albeit still relevant definition tells us which is an idol and which is God. Similar to what we pointed out above, God is the one from whom you

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expect the good. When people in the name of God provide for experiences that you cannot expect to lead to the good, to flourishing, or a better life, then their God is not the one Luther presents to his readers. Suicide bombers and clergy who abuse others sexually are not worshipping the God of love. They block others’ chances of experiencing the good that comes from God. Sometimes, the dis-belief that “representatives” of God have created in others is the main reason why we have to hope for and believe in a God that looks favourably on those who cannot and will not believe in God. Consider what it would mean to set one’s heart and put your trust in love. Then, it becomes evident that love is something from which we may be expecting all that is good – as Luther says about God. We do not love something unless we have such expectations. It would also not be wrong to put one’s trust in the healing and creative powers of love. If this is a valid argument, one can say that the human struggle to have someone to love, and the desire to be loved, is connected to the experience of God. We expect good things from love, and it is also because we expect goods also from God that it may make sense to say that the god in which Christians put their faith is the god that is love. Love is the positive experiential horizon within which it makes sense to speak of and relate truly to God. One of the reasons for taking the point of departure here in the phenomenon of love is that it can provide a strong motivation for deconstructing existing asymmetries, at least to the extent that these do not support human flourishing. Furthermore, love is a strong motivation for the struggle for social justice and to overcome any division and injustice between humans in terms of position, access to resources, exploitation, and destruction of the environment. Hence, even though some constitutive differences between God and humans manifest a fundamental asymmetry between them, these differences are relativized and shaped in a specific manner if we can see our counterpart, God, as love and not primarily as a judge, an authority, or a detached supreme being, who is not engaged in creation. The God of love is “other” but not totally other because we can see God as the condition for our own experience and our own participation in a loving relationship with the world. Then we can see the connection with God as one based on a mutual and engaged relationship – and as we shall see below, this approach even opens to thinking of God as a vulnerable part in a love story and not as separated from or unafflicted by this relationship. The God of love cannot be in total control – a point most vividly expressed in the crucifixion of Jesus. The approach suggested here implies that one cannot genuinely love someone and simultaneously be indifferent to the injustices under which others suffer. From a normative point of view, being created in God’s image means to be called into the struggle for justice. This struggle is based on how others are recognized as being images of God, just as I am myself. Hence, the God of love calls us to represent this love in the world, thereby witnessing God and being God’s image. Accordingly, to be an image of God means being called to be a living witness to the loving creator of all good things and to give testimony to a

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god from which we may expect goodness and justice to flow. One cannot hold this view of oneself and simultaneously ignore injustices and divisions, lack of access to essential life resources, or gender inequality. Love is always personal. There is no such thing as un-personal love. Even when I love something that is not personal, my love is nevertheless personal – and this is not the case, for example, in all types of human desire, which may arise out of less personal drives or concerns. Moreover, experiencing something as personal is to experience it as more than a mere thing, a mere given. A person is more than they appear to be; she is a sign of transcendence and surplus compared to what is ready at hand. This fact is expressed in the very notion of persona, which originally meant mask: The one who bears a mask appears in a specific way, while simultaneously – by the way she appears – also indicates that there is more than the mask, that there is someone behind it who cannot be grasped instantly or in the same manner as the immediate presence of the persona. If we say that God is personal, and as personal also is love, this statement means that the spectrum for understanding God is widened considerably, if not to say infinitely. God is not finite love; God is infinite love, because God is personal love. God’s love surpasses our finite experience but can nevertheless be experienced in our concrete finite experiences – the ones in which we may participate with each other as members of a given society. Therefore, believing in a personal God who is love implies a vision of the world where we can see all that is taking place as an expression of love’s struggle to constantly express itself in concrete acts of creation, redemption, and hope. Love tries to find ever new ways to break through in the midst of sin and injustice. We are not limited to finding instances of pure love and saying that God is there – instead, we may see that all that happens is related to love’s struggle to express itself, even when it is in the mode of protest against injustice or in the fight for equality. To envision the world in all its expressions as related to God and/as love means that in faith, the world is conceived of as the place where love should be promoted, witnessed, expressed, fulfilled, expected, and anticipated. Thus, to have faith in God as love is to live in a specific manner in the world – directed or guided by a vision of love and oriented with love in mind. From this vision, God may be understood as the infinite source of that which is directing the world toward its future – and we need not identify God with specific finite instances of love, as would be the case if we declare “Love is God.” The most radical alternative to the Christian conviction that God is love is the statement that death is god. This alternative is striking in more than one way: first of all, considering the quote from Luther above, it is not possible to place your heart and trust in death: death destroys life and does not enhance life or allow for human flourishing or the flourishing of creation in general. To put your trust in death is thus to orient yourself to what closes us off from life as we know it in our expectations. To trust in death is really to trust nothing – because nothing is where death rules. Death creates nothing and nothingness. It is also hard to relate positively (trustfully) to death. Oppressive rule leads to death, as do inequality, abuse, and violence.

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Therefore, we can fairly quickly put aside the alternative theological formulation; to say that God is dead is – from all possible angles – a contradiction in terms. It is very hard to imagine that anything we would find sensible to call God, and from which we would expect the good, could be declared dead – because that would mean that something else than this God was determining the life and death of “God” – and hence be the real God. To say that death is God is, on the other hand, to state that the all-determining reality of the world is death: It is death that has the last word, it is with death we can reckon; it is, in the end, nothing else that awaits us than death. Death is indifferent; death does not care; death is the all-pervasive reality to which we all must relate. But if death is God, then there is no hope, no reason to expect goodness to emerge. When we spell out the alternatives like this, it becomes crystal clear that whom you believe in matters, and why God still seems to matter in our societies. From a fundamental point of view, most people do not orient themselves from the unavoidable fact of death, but they constantly relate to the fountain beyond life that we can understand as the source of all that is good in life, and which Christians express by the symbol “God is love.” The latter, love, may keep us open for the continuous gifts that we may receive through life from others and from participating in a world that is understood as so much more than being limited by death. To understand God as love is thus not a contingent or arbitrary designation of what we mean when we speak about love: love goes to the core of what faith means as a way of being in the social world. Emmanuel Levinas profoundly expressed this point. He said: “Faith is not the question of the existence or nonexistence of God. It is believing that love without reward is valuable.” Against this backdrop, it is also possible to say that there is a gospel in the statement: “God is the commandment to love.”4 Thereby, Levinas underscores the close relationship between faith in God and works of love. It makes no sense to speak about faith in God if this faith is not expressed in love, just as the author of John’s first letter writes (1 John 4:7–12). According to the line of reasoning above, to believe in God would, in one sense, be a matter of life and death: It matters and makes a difference if I understand the person I face as someone I will eventually lose to death, someone I can exploit or subject to my power, or if I see him or her as my chance for living and loving in a world that consists of mutual and reciprocal relationships. This point should not be read as if faith is a warrant for ignoring death – it is not. But faith is the insistent conviction that we lose ourselves and the world God has given us if we orient ourselves basically from the perspective of death: such an approach to the world closes us off from living truly in a world that is so rich with opportunities because it is so much more than an intermediate period between birth and death. To believe in God as love is a protest against death as God. It is also a protest against the temptation to let death be the last word or the absolute and determinate power that guides all our efforts and activities. The love of God is not cosy. This God calls us to eradicate the hells that people experience in the present.

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God as love is not possible to reconcile with the notion of hell As we have pointed out in Chapter 4, the notion of hell has almost no bearing anymore on most peoples’ religious lives. It is also sometimes used as an argument against believing in God because the notion of a God who sends people to a place of eternal suffering and damnation contradicts the notion of a God who is love. Hell symbolizes the situation that emerges when humans are separated from the goodness they expect from life. Hell contradicts the struggles of the God of love to realize God’s will in the world. When people no longer believe in hell, as we have seen, it is because they perceive it as a “place” for those under God’s judgment. Recent experiences of torture and other atrocities have made the belief in a hell set up by God unacceptable. Traditional conceptions of what happens to people after death profoundly impact how one thinks about God. Among the sociological reasons for the decline in belief in hell is the fact that people increasingly do their theological reasoning without reference to established religious authorities and instead try to think about God in ways that also can incorporate their experiences of interaction with people of other faiths, as well as the atrocities experienced in Auschwitz, Darfur, Syria, and Gaza, to name a few contemporary instances. Then, conceptions may change. Such experiences may also make it possible to think otherwise about hell: Hell is where the opportunities for love and goodness are destroyed and where people lose hope and faith in the future of goodness and love. The close relationship between faith and love means that God’s goodness is realized in human acts of love and compassion. It allows for a rethinking of what the symbol of hell might mean: Not a place for the non-believers, but the state of affairs that contradicts the God of love. Hell is not a future place but is present where it becomes impossible to experience a God of love. A good example of a recent way to re-appropriate the symbol of hell within a theological context is the reasoning found in Marilyn McCord Adams’ reflection book Christ and Horrors,5 where she criticizes traditional conceptions of hell based on a specific understanding of God.6 She writes about the conditions for human life in a way that vividly depicts the predicaments the notion of hell presents to the idea of God when God is understood in this context: Traditional doctrines of hell err again by supposing either that God does not get what God wants with every human being (“God wills all humans to be saved” by God’s antecedent will) or that God deliberately creates some for ruin. To be sure, many human beings have conducted their antemortem lives in such a way as to become anti-social persons. Almost none of us dies with all the virtues needed to be fit for heaven. Traditional doctrines of hell suppose that God lacks the will or the patience or the resourcefulness to civilize each and all of us, to rear each and all of us up into the household of God. They conclude that God is left with the option of merely human penal systems – viz., liquidation or quarantine!7

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Adams furthermore claims that “Traditional doctrines of hell go beyond failure to hatred and cruelty by imagining a God who not only acquiesces in creaturely rebellion and dysfunction but either directly organizes or intentionally ‘outsources’ a concentration camp (of which Auschwitz and Soviet gulags are pale imitations) to make sure some creatures’ lives are permanently deprived of positive meaning.”8 Against this notion of a post-mortem idea of hell she reconstructs the conception in a way that builds on the idea that “ante-mortem horror-participation is hell enough.”9 Humans experience how horrors destruct the positive meaning of life. It means that “for God to succeed, God has to defeat horrors for everyone.”10 Instead of hell, God’s realization of the aim of God’s creation means that “God will have to establish and fit us for wholesome society, not establish institutions to guarantee that horrors last forever in the world to come!”11 The above considerations have the consequence that it makes sense to talk about God as both love and as personal, simply because love is such a fundamental aspect of what orients us and opens us to the gifts of life. In such a conception of God, the notion of hell can have no place – and the increasing realization of this among people who still believe in God is testimony to the fact that the conception of God as love is still one that matters and is prevalent in Western societies. To face and engage in reality from the perspective love offers is the most rewarding way to live a life. To concentrate on hell is not. Moreover, it is by understanding the creative and sustaining power, a power that is present in all of reality and which is struggling to come to the fore, that we can uphold a vision of the world and life that continually may manifest itself in new forms of community, creativity, and renewal. With love as the basis for living, it makes sense to keep on the quest for justice, goodness, and integrity of creation without giving in to the powers that threaten the efforts to achieve these aims. In short: to live as if love is the most profound meaning of it all is to live a meaningful life. It requires faith and hope, but these two are made possible from the perspective of love (cf. 1 Corinthians 13:13).

God is vulnerable and beyond our control To allow an understanding of God as love to come to work – to preach God as a God of love – makes possible a specific experience of the world and one’s own life with others in society – and makes it possible over and against an alternative that also is lent support by how life shows itself. Hence, articulating that God is love allows us to see and engage with the social and natural world in a new way. The symbol “God” should open us up to what the world offers and not be a tool for controlling it – or others. In a profound sense, this point is expressed in the ancient phrase that “God is always more” – Deus semper major. God as a person cannot be conceived as a being present at hand or possible to capture in limited conceptions or scriptures. What distinguishes a personal being is precisely the opposite of what is present at hand, under our total

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control, or entirely determined by us. Humans become persons because they are recognized as more than what is present at hand. The ability to experience oneself in this manner is given when we can relate to someone else as a person. Furthermore, and consequently, to be a person is to be able to experience one’s own freedom – not one’s determination by some force present-at-hand. Thus, we have to presuppose that there is something other than impersonal forces that makes me a person with freedom and the ability to be responsible for my own life. This line of reasoning entails that one has to see God as a person if we are to simultaneously believe in our own freedom. Human freedom is never something established only by what is present at hand – it requires that we relate to ourselves and reality as more than a fixed set of determinants. The problem is then apparent: If we understand something as God, but not as personal, we lack the symbolic resources for interpreting our own lives and what we do as expressions of freedom and for seeing ourselves as persons in any true sense. Thus, such a notion of God cannot make sense of that which appears to be among the most essential traits of human life, including the capacities for developing personal love relationships. If I do not have access to a religious symbol (“God”) that allows me to understand myself in this manner, religious symbols will provide no more than the acquiescence to life as it is. If there is one common way to describe a Christian approach to human life, however, it is that life in the present is not something fully decided by factors and incidents of the past and present. Faith is a belief in a future that is open to something new. Thus, freedom and the future belong together. Against this backdrop, we may consider again the possibility of understanding God as personal, as love, and as creativity – in that order. This approach entails that we can always see God as more than present at hand, and as at work also where we cannot experience God. God is beyond our grasp and our control. The persona of God the creator would imply that in instances where we cannot detect love, there is still hope for love and something better: All there is to say about love cannot be based on our experience of what is present at hand. Moreover, seeing God as a person, and thus as love in a manner that surpasses our experience, allows us to perceive the world as the continuous process of creative love, where the result is not yet at hand. To relate to the world as such a process makes it, in turn, possible for humans to find their place in the work as free lovers of the universe where God is at work. It allows us to see the importance of love, the impact of love, and search for new chances for love, where love is lacking, where love is denied to those who need it; and to be ourselves creative in finding ways for love to be articulated. The model for this approach to the world, Christian theology finds in Jesus, who is God’s true image (Colossians 1:15). The gospel of John 3:16 states that God is the world’s lover. God is the lover that creates out of surplus – for no other end than love itself. When God becomes human, God engages with the world, and we can detect in this engagement a desire for community and full relationship. This relationship is

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only possible based on freedom and the recognition of personhood. The incarnated, incarnating, and embodied God thus appears in Jesus Christ as a God desiring another mode of fellowship with creation than had hitherto been the case in salvation history. One element in this love story may bespeak the character of love and personality more than anything else: The open-ended character of any love story – including God’s story with humanity – implies that the parts engaged are in some ways susceptible to the experience of vulnerability. When God becomes human, God opens up to the vulnerability of a love story. It means that God might be rejected, and God’s desire for a community may fail. This negative risk ultimately manifests itself at the crucifixion. Here, when confronted with human sin, God’s vulnerability comes to its foremost expression when Christ is delivered into the hands of those who take his life. The vulnerable love of God implies a willingness not to control the outcome of the process of incarnation. Accordingly, even God may be seen as the one who for the sake of love opens up to that which is not controlled beforehand (note how this corresponds to the link between freedom and person suggested above). This point might be taken as an indication of God’s desire for a genuine relationship and a true community with humankind, where humans are not coerced instruments of God’s will but real and personal participants in God’s story. The openness of God’s desire for community with the world is reflected in God’s desire for the world’s desire for God: “… that whoever believes …” God desires our desire for God. God wants us to want God – God desires our faith in God. The desire God desires from us goes under other names in Christian theology, usually faith, hope, love. This desire for our desire is part of what makes God vulnerable in the incarnation. I can reject another’s desire for me. So also with God’s desire for me. This relation is constituted by the desire for the desire in the other. It implies not only openness and mutuality but also vulnerability and attentiveness. We can also see God’s desire to become human as a desire to become material (carnal), loved, and saving. Humans do not love what they cannot experience as part of their world. One cannot love a promise (although I may love what a promise does to my being in the world). This backdrop is the one against which we can understand why God materializes in the incarnation. Moreover, God’s materialized or incarnated desire for the other’s desire is constitutive of the recognition of the other as other – and thus a profound expression of the love that God has for humans. By becoming human, God is incarnate in a way that both presents (makes present) and re-presents God as love. God’s presence is still a surplus of God’s re-presentation in Christ. God is fully present there but is nevertheless more than what is present there – in a way structurally similar to what I developed above in the understanding of love as more than present-at-hand. The human response to God’s loving desire for the world is most clearly present and modelled in Jesus’ desire for the reality of God, which he sets above

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anything else. In the teachings and practice of Jesus, there is a desire for the reality of God, for his kingdom. No one can pray “Thy kingdom come!” (Matthew 6:10) without expressing a desire for that which transcends the given. Jesus’ desire for God is the true answer to God’s love for the world: it is by seeking the Kingdom of God prior to anything else that something beyond the world can direct our love and open up to the impossible, to justice, to something more than mere calculation and return of favours might make possible by what is present. Jesus points to God as an object of love unlike any other love object: God is invisible and someone we cannot control or grasp. Christ is the ultimate icon of God, or even more: He is the face of the invisible: “He is the visible image of the invisible as invisible.” Hence, the love of God is different from the love and desire we have for possessions, for ourselves, or other humans. At least to some extent, these can all be parts of (however, not necessarily fully parts of) our world. To love God is to love the point of orientation from which we can see that our love and life are not based on us but on the gifts of the loving and gracing God. Hence, to love God is to recognize the one who can shape our whole world, given that we let this point of view be expressed and witnessed as gracing, giving, loving. The love for God is what can make our desire and love for the natural and social world something more than an expression of our own love, desire, and need: By loving God more than any other, we are enabled to love those whom God loves and the world that God creates. By loving others as God loves them, we are realized images of God, and we are conformed to the true image of God, who is Christ. The revelation in Christ is thus a place where we may become fully aware of the concrete gift of the world as a gift of love. In the community of love that Christ initiates, even those who are destitute can now have a positive experience of the transforming powers of love. This experience is not one captured in immanence but one that testifies to the constantly transcending power of God’s love compared to what is at hand. This is God at work in the social world. In the community that Jesus Christ invites all humans into, our experiences of love are given a full context of signification. Such a context is what Jesus offers and signifies when he connects the love of the ineffable, personal God with love for the concrete neighbour. Thus, he witnesses to love and is a true image of God as lover. This approach to understanding God and society aims to achieve an approach to theology that takes seriously the human experience of what is good. The character of surplus or “more-than” in the above proposal suggests that a society shaped by such a strong emphasis on love can provide essential conditions for a society that may frame difference and plurality positively, and not see them as something to be rejected or declared as counter-Christian. Differences and plurality provide opportunities for experiencing more about what it means to participate in the world that God has given us to share. Moreover, this proposal for a constructive and experience-related theology of God and society is presented while realizing that religion and religious discourse

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reflect different and ambiguous symbolic frameworks for society. Religions contribute to shaping society in many different forms. From the point of view of Christian theology, considerable challenges to developing Christian visions of God and society further exist in the present. Resources for dealing with these challenges also exist, as we hope to have shown in the material presented in this book. There is no way back to the past in order to “rescue” Christianity from these challenges. Instead, the way forward is a way where theology relates to, and is attentive to the experiences of humans in a society that has, for better as well as worse, been shaped by, and shapes, the Christian tradition’s understanding of God.

Notes 1 Froese and Bader, America’s Four Gods: What We Say about God – and What That Says about Us, passim. 2 Some of the suggestions about God as love in the following pages are a reworking of Jan-Olav Henriksen, “It’s Personal – or Not At All: On God as Love/R,” Dialog 50 (1) (2011). 3 Concordia: The Symbolical Books of the Ev. Lutheran Church (St. Louis MO: Concordia Publishing House, 1921), 565. 4 E. Levinas, “The Paradox of Morality.” In Robert Bernasconi and David Wood (eds), The Provocation of Levinas: Rethinking the Other (London: Routledge, 1988), 177. 5 For the following, see Marilyn McCord Adams, Christ and Horrors: The Coherence of Christology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 229–230. 6 Hence, McCord Adams tries to overcome some of the problems related to previous imaginaries of hell. Thus, hers is an attempt to overcome the problems caused by the Hell-strife that Pål refers to several times in the above. 7 Ibid., 230. 8 Ibid., 230. 9 Ibid., 230. 10 Ibid., 230. 11 Ibid., 230.

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Subject index

Note that these are not lists of all the places where names and concepts occur in the book. We, the authors, have limited ourselves to instances where there is given information about names and key words. abuse 81, 96, 100, 140 aestheticization of religion 16–17 Agder 38 agency, human 25, 92 annihilation 43 apokatastasis 43 atheism 12; methodological 2, 26 authority: divine 84, 105; religious 3, 4, 10, 26, 61, 63, 66, 74–79, 85, 87, 101, 128 axial age 81–82, 84–85, 87–88, 104 bible 42–43, 47, 59, 61, 67, 75–76, 105, 133, 135–137 charismatic leaders 22–23 Christmas concerts 17 compassion 65, 81, 87, 145 competition 12 Confessio Augustana 37 conflict 12, 65, 74, 78, 81, 90, 94–95, 97, 108, 109–110, 118, 128 cosy majesty 50, 90

feminism, feminization 16 freedom 15, 83, 87, 103–104, 109, 116, 140, 147–148 fundamentalist, fundamentalism 31 gender 40, 59, 66, 73, 100–102, 105–108, 111–114 golden rule Christianity 29–30, 32 hell 17, 32, 37–38, 44–45, 97, 144, 145–146 hierarchy 78, 85, 101–102, 104–106, 109–111, 114–116 images of God 10–14, 16, 22, 24, 27, 30–31, 33, 48 immigration, immigrants 12, 15 individualization 10–11 Israel 14 Jesus 17, 51–54 Kairos Palestine 95–97 kingdom of God 91, 94, 102–103, 105, 149

death 22, 143 democracy, democratic 15, 74–75, 77–79, 85, 88, 104–105, 115 desire 112–113, 143, 147–149 determinism 34 dialogue 15; with God 28 diversity 12 divine command theory (dct) 75–78, 103

laudato si 131 liberal, liberalization 17, 41–42 lived religion 32–33, 40

evangelical 65–66, 73, 93, 110, 133–136 everyday religion 22, 29

nationalism, nationalist 13, 84, 86, 95, 123 Northern Europe 8

media 13 monotheist, monotheism 113–114 moralistic therapeutic deism 29 Muslims 12, 15

Subject index 159 Palestinians 14 perdition 32, 44 Pietist, Pietism 41, 55 plurality, pluralism, pluralization 1, 11–12, 25 polarization 15–16 politicization of religion 13 practice, practices 4, 58, 61–62, 65–68, 70, 78, 83, 90, 118–122, 125–126, 140; clusters of 4, 126 pragmatic, pragmatism 60, 62–63, 67–70, 73, 119–121, 128 priests 23 privatization 11 prophets 23 psychology of religion 20–21 qualitative studies 46 quantitative studies 45–46 rational choice theory 24–25 reductionist, reductionism 26 religions of difference 21, 55, 79, 84–87 religions of humanity 21, 55 religious innovators 22 religious trends 8, 18 revelation 64, 69, 76, 103, 126–127, 149

sacred canopy 24 salvation 22, 91, 126–128 same-sex partnerships, same-sex unions 33, 42, 59 secularization 9–10, 12, 24, 86, 92, 131–134, 136–137; of morality 74 self, selfhood 105–111 sexual abuse 64, 73, 108, 142 sociology 2 spirituality of life 21 Sunday school songs 50 Sørlandet 38–40, 45 theology 2, 51; constructive 58, 65, 112, 140; contemporary 58, 61–63, 69–70, 79, 88, 114, 140; deductive 66–67; explorative 58, 67; feminist 25–26, 59, 69, 88, 105; liberal 22–23; liberation, 69, 88–93; open-ended 61–62; systematic 58, 102 tribe, tribalism 81–82, 84, 85, 88, 96, 114 umbrella organizations 14 violence 64–65, 82, 95, 100, 143 vulnerable, vulnerability, 148

Name index

Note that these are not lists of all the places where names and concepts occur in the book. We, the authors, have limited ourselves to instances where there is given information about names and key words. Ahlin, Lars 20 Ammerman, Nancy 29–30, 32 Andersen, Nils-Tore 26

Glebe-Möller, Jens 27 Greely, Andrew 135 Gutierrez, Gustavo 88

Bader, Christopher 30, 33, 140 Bainbridge, William 25 Barth, Karl 102–106, 110, 111 Bauman, Zygmunt 31 Bellah, Robert 78 Bendix, Richard 23 Berger, Peter 2, 12, 24, 66 Bergmann, Sigurd 138 Blocker, T. Jane 135 Bonhoeffer, Dietrich 102, 106, 108–111, 115 Botvar, Pål Ketil 136 Breistein, Ingunn F. 43 Bruce, Steve 31

Habermas, Jürgen 83–84, 87 Hallesby, Ole 37–38 Hampson, Daphne 85, 106, 112–116 Heelas, Paul 21, 36, 84–85, 87, 114 Henriksen, Jan-Olav 1–2, 59–60 Herck, Walter van 132 Hodne, Hans 42

D’Costa, Gavin 126 Dahill, Lisa 85, 106–109, 111, 114 Dawkins, Richard 65 Denton, Melinda L. 29 Dobbelaere, Karel 27 Douglas, Mary 20 Drigo, Angelika 132

Keller, Catherine 106–107 Kelley, Dean 25 Kierkegaard, Søren 121 Kirchhoffer, David 68

Eckberg, Douglas 135 Feuerbach, Ludwig 20 Finke, Roger 25 Fletcher, Jeannine Hill 122 Francis, Pope 131 Freud, Sigmund 20 Froese, Paul 30, 33, 140

Iannaccone, Laurence 25 Inglehart, Ronald 28 Joas, Hans 30–31

Leer-Salvesen, Bjarte 49 Leer-Salvesen, Paul 32, 43 Lessing, Gotthold Ephraim 118–121, 126 Løvland, Anne 48 Marx, Karl 28 Mencken, F. Carson 33 Neville, Robert C. 71 Nicholls, David 24 Norris, Pippa 28

Name index 161 Repstad, Pål 1, 38–39 Rauschenbusch, Walter 24 Rizzuto, Ana-Maria 21 Roy, Olivier 132–134, 137

Taylor, Charles 65 Tillich, Paul 67, 131 Trump, Donald 73 Trysnes, Irene 48, 51

Schjelderup, Harald 21 Schjelderup, Kristian 21, 37–38 Skjegstad, Øyvind 44 Smith, Christian 24, 29 Stark, Rodney 12 Sødal, Helje 50

Veldman, Robin G. 133–135, 137–138 Weber, Max 21–23 Whitehead, Andrew 33 Woodhead, Linda, 2, 21, 54, 84–85, 87, 114 Young, Iris Marion 122