Magdalena Nordin

Secularization, religious plurality and position: Local inter-religious cooperation in contemporary Sweden

Swedish society is characterized by secularization, and at the same time, as a result of migration, the country has become more pluralistic. An important consequence of this is the increasing possibilities for cooperation between different religious communities, and a variety of inter-religious cooperation are currently taking place in Sweden. The aim of the article is to show how inter-religious cooperation arises and is maintained at a local level in Sweden today, but also to highlight what the hurdles are. The article is based on interviews with people who in different ways were involved, or had chosen not to be involved, in inter-religious cooperation at a local level in Sweden. It is also based on participation in five local inter-religious groups during 2010 and 2011. The study shows that inter-religious cooperation at local level in Sweden is largely influenced by differences in conditions between religious communities. These differences mainly derive from the positions the religious communities have in society, i.e. there is a strong power imbalance between the religious communities that is clearly reflected in the inter-religious cooperation.

Routes and relations in Scandinavian interfaith forums: Governance of religious diversity by states and majority churches

In the Scandinavian countries of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden, as elsewhere in Europe, governance of religious diversity has become a matter of renewed concern. A unique aspect of the Scandinavian situation is the hegemonic status of the respective Lutheran Protestant majority churches, usually referred to as ‘folk churches’, with which the majority of the population associates, alongside a prevalence of high degrees of regional secularism. As such, the majority churches have played a key role as both instigators and organisers of several interfaith initiatives, and have thereby come to interact with the public sphere as providers of diversity governance. Based on country-level studies of policy documents on majority-church/interreligious relations and field studies, this article sets out to explore the prompting and configuration of majority-church-related interfaith initiatives concerning church–state relations and the governance of religious diversity.