Folk Churches of Tomorrow

The Revd. Dr. Carl Axel Aurelius

1. The title indicates that there really may be a tomorrow for the folk churches, a thought which everyone might not agree upon. In a Nordic, ecumenical article that I read recently (which was, however, written some years ago) the author, Ola Tjörhom, claims that we find ourselves in a new and different situation today. The close connection between imperium and sacerdotium, beginning at the time of Constantine and running through the centuries, is no longer of significance. Our situation makes the concept of a folk church "antiquarian". [ Ola Tjörhom: Kan folket vara kyrka? Om möjligheten att bedriva folkkyrkoteologi på 1980-talet. Signum 1989, 1, p 8.] Tjörhom argues that the concept of a folk church presupposes at least a unity in culture which does not exist anymore. Furthermore, the concept seems to assume the existence of a folk religion that essentially corresponds with the confession and teaching of the church. That is, however, not the case, since folk religion is by its nature private, eclectic and ritualistic (as opposed to sacramental). According to the author, the necessary point of departure on the contrary requires focusing on characteristic features of the church of the New Testament, such as a radically new way of life, the specific communio, etc., in order to describe the true nature and identity of the church.

Obviously, we have a problem that has to be explored and treated thoroughly. At the same time I am not convinced that it should be defined in the way it is above. Let’s try to do it differently.

2. Historically the concept of a folk church can be traced back to Friedrich Schleiermacher and his treatise "Religiöse Sitte" (Religious Morals). [ 1822/23] He had used the term even earlier in "Der christliche Glaube" (The Christian Faith). [ 1821/22] In both cases it stands for a kind of life in fellowship on a level between family and mankind. In its development the pious self-consciousness necessarily manifests itself as different forms of communal life, for example, as "folk churches" or "national churches" (Volks- und Landeskirchen). Schleiermacher stresses that the folk church is a natural developmental stage especially with regard to the variety of languages and cultures in the world, and that the specific form of the folk church does not abolish the communion with other Christians. Such divisions are truly "unchristian". [ Ibid. §§ 6 et 151:1]

It is characteristic of Schleiermacher´s concept of the folk church that it is construed "from below". It relates, not necessarily to folk religion as indicated above, but to shared heritage, memories, traditions, values, symbols, myths, etc. among a people. The folk church becomes something of a "Volkstumskirche". The opposite to the folk churches are, according to Schleiermacher, the churches "from above", controlled by the worldly authorities (Landesherren), the state churches.

The first interpretation of the concept of the folk church as a programme is normally ascribed to Johann Hinrich Wichern, who was the founder of the Inner Mission in the middle of the 19th century, a revival movement in the early industrial society with a strong social awareness. One could say, that in Wichern´s view the Priesthood of all Believers was both the tool and the aim in the effort to embrace the people within a folk church. His concept of the church was consciously shaped as an open, missonary church of fellow Christians in opposition to a church of the ordained (Amtskirche).

Swedes normally relate the concept of a folk church to Einar Billing, bishop of Västerås in the beginning of this century. When reflecting over the nature of the church, his point of departure was the Gospel as the gift of unconditional Grace to the people. The ideal form for the church is the one which best promotes the transmission of the gift of Grace in Word and Sacrament. According to Billing, this form is the folk church, which embraces the entire people within the existing parochial system, established in the Middle Ages and still in function, with local churches in all territories. Thus the folk church form as conceived by Billing is not defined by any special link to the state. Such a relationship would also have to be subordinated to the major concern, i.e. its capacity to promote or restrict the possibilties of transmitting the Gospel. The concept is, however, worked out in strongest opposition to the exclusiveness of the free church concept as it was presented by P P Waldenström and the Covenant Church at that time, the so-called "principle of the New Testament congregation".

The concept of the folk church as it is described by Tjörhom does not really correspond with any of these three concepts from the past. None of them seems to have been elaborated in such a way that a close relation to the state, a unity in culture, or wide-spread Christian beliefs among the people, is presupposed. Close bonds between church and state are not important to any of them. Schleiermacher is the only one who talks about such bonds and he regards them as disastrous. Relating to the culture of the people is important to Schleiermacher as well as Billing, not because culture necessarily contains or corresponds with Christian beliefs, but because it expresses our human conditions, conditions under which the "pious self-consciousness develops" (Schleiermacher) and the Gospel will be preached and heard (Billing).

The real problem with the concept of a folk church has to be described in another way, as far as I understand it, focusing on the lack of clarity of the concept. Using our three examples the concept seems to be defined preferably in negative terms. Folk church is not a state church, not a church of the ordained, not an excluisive sect. On the positive side one can, of course, stress the openess to public life as the common denominator and a true mark of a folk church. But what more is there to be said? Or should we rather try to replace the concept of a folk church with another one, more useful for today’s situation? Tjörhom and many others seem to suggest just that.

3. I would prefer to choose another path, by trying to understand the folk church concept in a way that at the same time explores the inherent possibilities of the concept and makes it correspond to our own time. It has to be a dual task. The attempt to "do ecclesiology" for our time requires both biblical reflection and analysis of contemporary society. If we don´t consider both, we might end up either surrendering to our time or denying it.

The concept of a folk church is unclear. That goes for both words. Luther spoke of "das blinde, undeutliche Wort Kirche" (this blind and obscure word church). [Luther: If the words "I believe that there is a holy Christian people," had been used in the Children´s Creed, all the misery connected with this meaningless and obscure word might easily have been avoided. On the Councils and the Church . LW 41 III, p 144.] Nevertheless, we must use it, just as we have to continue using the "blind and obscure word" folk. It is a word common to all Germanic languages. To English-speaking persons it may sound archaic. Nowadays, it seems to be used mostly in combination with other words, implying a cultural context. You talk about folklore, folk tales, folk songs, etc. (which gives "folk church" a meaning that is similar to the one intended by Schleiermacher.) In the Scandinavian languages it is certainly used in the same way, but also in all other contexts, where the English would prefer to speak about "people".

How about the New Testament? In Greek you can obviously choose among several words, each of them with its special nuances, which do not become very clear in our translations. Let us take some of these different words as a starting point for exploring what the term folk church could mean today.

Two words are more frequently found than the others. One of them is laós. It is used for "the people of God" in 1 Peter 2,9f. The opposite is oú laós, "non-people".

Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

These words were, as you surely know, of tremendous importance to Martin Luther in developing the concept of the Priesthood of all Believers as significant for the church as populus Christi (or "Christenheit"), as he preferred to say.

From the word laós we have the term laikós, i.e. "lay-man" or "lay-people". The original meaning in this context was "someone who belongs to the people of God", a meaning that disappeared at an early stage in history. In the hierarchical church of the Middle Ages it referred to the non-ordained people, and nowadays it signifies, at least in the Scandinavian languages and I believe also in English, persons who lack the ability that is required in different situations of life, those who are not able, who do not know...

I do not think it is possible to recapture the proper meaning of the word. Even if we manage to do so, we will have to beware of dividing the congregation in similar ways, as for example between those who are employed by the church and those who are "just" visitors. The awareness of our common identity as laós theo certainly has to be strengthened. To this "people of God" you belong through baptism and faith. "Folk church" in this sense means the people who live by mercy, locally manifested in the worshipping communion.

The other word frequently used for "people" is óchlos, that seems to refer especially to people without roots, history and identity. The word applies to the people who gather when something is happening, as soon as something is going on, as, for example, when John the Baptist made his appearance. Matthew (9,36) tells us that Jesus had compassion on "the crowds" (óchlous), because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.

This meaning of the word has been brought to the fore in German theology by Jürgen Moltmann and in the liberation theology. Moltmann refers to his experiences as a prisoner of war but also to his encounter with the people in Matare Valley, the slum area outside Nairobi, for his understanding of the mening of óchlos in the New Testament and for his new perspective on the church as a folk church. [ J Moltmann: Neuer Lebensstil. Schritte zur Gemeinde, München 1977.] A great deal of influence also comes from Dietrich Bonhoeffer´s Church for others. Bonhoeffer´s definition of the church, as well as Moltmann´s, could of course be understood as if the people were the object of the church´s activity, but that would be a severe misinterpretation. It would presuppose thinking in two realms, which is exactly what Bonhoeffer opposed, or it would be once again a kind of patronizing ecclesiology, totally different from the liberating one Moltmann tried to elaborate.

A third word is éthnos. In recent years we have heard a lot about "ethnic cleansing" in the former Jugoslavia. Ethnic awareness is certainly typical for many countries in Eastern Europe. This has sometimes led western observers to talk about the fragmentation of the East as a phenomenon parallel to the integration of the West. When listening to Swedish politicians it sometimes seems as if the historical heritage of our nation were just a burden in this new multicultural context and an obstacle for the necessary integration. How wrong they are!

Ethnic diversity should not necessarily be looked upon just as a problem. It could very well be a richness on the condition that there is mutual respect and sharing. This is actually in full agreement with the thoughts of Schleiermacher as presented above. So the question is: What role could the churches play in such a process? Folk church as the church of the nations?

We can certainly make use of the word éthnos for our elaboration of the concept of a folk church. However, we cannot do it in an exclusive way. We will use it in its plural form, in accordance with the Great Commission in Matthew 28 (pánta ta éthne), or the anthiphon from the Middle Ages: Veni Sancte Spiritus ...., qui per diversitatem linguarum cunctarum, gentes in unitate fidei congregasti.

A fourth word at our disposal is óikos, which means "house". It is used in expressions like "the house of Jakob" and "the house of Israel", which apply to a people with a history built upon common memories of events, encounters with God, experienced by older generations.

The word signifies transgression in time, linking together the past with the present, one generation with the other.

The relations between the generations are different today. Modern society is said to be an open, mobile and anonymous world, characterized by individualism and individual freedom, disintegration of primary social relations, fragmentation of social life, etc. It is true that we do not sleep, eat and work at the same place as many did in the pre-modern, agrarian society. Urban life certainly consists of many, short and shallow contacts with others, whom we don’t really come to know. It is, however, not the whole truth. (The reason way it often is presented as such, has probably more to do with the thought patterns that are used for the analysis than with the actual situation. Sociologists still seem to be operating with the distinction between "Gemeinschaft" and "Gesellschaft" made a century ago for quite another purpose. [ This explanation, or perhaps rather "accusation," is delivered by Kirsten Simonsen in "Modernity, community or a diversity of ways of life: A discussion of urban everyday life.", Cities in Transformation - Transformation in Cities. Social and Symbolic Change of Urban Space (ed. by O.Källtorp) 1997, pp 162-183.] ) It is important even to modern man to know his roots, to belong to a fellowship, to have a personal identity in the local community and in the family, which includes also those who are long since gone. Indications of this is, for example, the popularity of genealogy or the graveyard cult that you can experience at a Swedish cemetery any day of the week. In that case one can almost speak of "a church around the church" for a silent, caring cult. [ Lena Johannesson: "Kyrkan runt kyrkan.Om kyrkogårdens kult och konst", in: Kyrka i bruk . Östergötlands länsmuseum 1996.]

A special problem, when it comes to the relation beween the generations, concerns the transmission of traditions. In the old society many Christian stories, songs, prayers, etc. were transmitted from the older generation to the younger. This was of tremendous importance. The younger were supplied with narratives, songs and prayers to be used for interpreting whatever they would meet in life. Thus they were able to preserve their faith, their courage and their hope. When this transmission did not take place at home, the church could always rely upon the school. Today both the family and the school are weakened institutions. We are in a state of great oblivion in Europe today, when it comes to the words of prayer, hymns and biblical narratives. This loss of language is of course very serious, if faith is relational, which Luther, as well as many others, usually stress:

Ja, was ist...Glaube überhaupt anders denn eitel Gebet. (What is faith on the whole other but sheer prayer.) [ WA 8,360,26-32]

The word óikos implies not only a transgression in time, but also in space, a fact which becomes obvious when we talk about oikuméne and ecumenism. Both nuances of the word have their special relation to the worshipping congregation and the holy communion as the event when time and space is transcended. Folk church in this sense becomes a transcending communion, bringing together people from all different times and places.

Our fifth and last word is démos. It is used only twice in the New Testament. In both cases it has a rather negative ring to it. There is the story in Acts 12 about King Herod, who delivered a public adress to the people (démos), who, in turn, responded by shouting: "This is the voice of a god, not of a man." And in chaper 19 we read about the great disturbance caused by the silver-smith Demetrius and the crowd (démos) shouting: "Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!" It seems that Luke used the word in a way that was not uncommon in Antiquity.

Through the ages we have come to set greater hopes to "democracy". The meaning of the word had already changed during the feudal Middle Ages in the direction of "representative assembly" without any secondary stress. This meaning was confirmed even more through the growth of parliamentarism, and it has also become important in the churches.

Today the word gives us good reasons for reflecting upon the relation between the outward structure of the church and its "inner side". In my library there is a book with the title Spirit versus Structure (by Jaroslav Pelikan). It is an interesting Luther study, but the title is totally misleading, since it gives the impression that things become more "spiritual", when structure is lacking. The opposite is clearly demonstrated already in the early church, for example, when the congregation is "restructured" in order to make sure that some widows should not be overlooked in the daily distribution of food (Acts 6). But if spirit does not contrast with structure, how then is the relation to be understood?

To find an answer, it might be fruitful to return to what is already said above about the people as óchlos. I come to think of a scene out of a book by the Swedish author, Vibeke Olsson. The title is Forecourt of the pagans. The main character is a female slave by the name Callistrate, who is fighting for her new-born, deformed baby. At the same time she is struggeling with her Christian faith, which she encounters in the family she serves. These things belong together in her great struggle for existence, as we can see in the following passage:

The story about the death of Jesus is different from everything else. The stories about his miracles and his resurrection fade totally from my mind. But the memory of the crucified ones, of the stench of blood and of the cries of agony remains in my mind. If this humiliation, this nausea, has befallen the one who was the son of a god - then slaves will lay at table with their masters, like Thomas, Euelpistus and Callas. Then one cares about the deformed child of a slave, then one gives such a child the milk of the free-born son. Then nothing is the same anymore. [ Vibeke Olsson: Hedningarnas förgård (1982) 1986, p 117.]

I am convinced that Vibeke Olsson has caught something fundamental in the life of the early church, a loving solidarity, which certainly could not be accomplished through organization, but nevertheless had its structure. Perhaps it is right to say, that every structure can either open up for and reveal or prevent and conceal such a communion, where marginalized people also are included. In the latter case, the structure does not become a "pure vessel" for the Gospel.

I guess this was a very Lutheran standpoint. As a matter of fact I quoted the Swedish response to the Anglicans in 1909, when closer relations between the churches were first dicussed. [ Einar Billing was a member of the Swedish delegation. He was probably the author of the Swedish reply, which was very positive. The words quoted above belong to the following passage: "The value of every organization of the ministerium ecclesiasticum , and of the church in general, is only to be judged by its fitness and ability to become a pure vessel for the supernatural contents, and a perfect channel for the way of Divine Revelation unto mankind. That doctrine in no way makes our Church indifferent to the organization and the forms of ministry which the cravings and experiences of the Christian community have produced under the guidance of the Spirit in the course of history. We not only regard the peculiar forms and traditions of our Church with the reverence due to venerable legacy from the past, but we realize in them a blessing from the God of history accorded to us." Kyrkohistorisk Årsskrift 1923, p 376.] It means that no organizational form (spiritual or secular) is legitimized by the Gospel - no one stands above criticism.

4. To sum up, we have seen that the "folk church" is a very meaning-full word: worshipping communion, church for others, church of the nations, transcending and solidaric communion; I do not think we have to choose between these different meanings; I do not even think it is possible. We have already seen how the different meanings are interwoven.

It might be fruitful, however, to consider the different options, with which our "exegesis" has provided us, when reflecting upon church-life in modern society. It is a complex society today. Perhaps a folk church cannot be the same everywhere. Perhaps it has to develop in different ways in the plurality of settings, since the communal life differs in many respects from one place to another, from one suburb to another or between suburbs and the inner city. "Divided cities" was the title of a public investigation of unemployment in Sweden in its relation to the housing environment.

To be able to grasp the "life world" of a certain community, there is a story to be told, and this story will certainly be different from other stories of the same kind to some degree. The five key-words are simply thought of as possible means for reflection upon what the folk church could mean at my place, in my local community today. There will necessarily be many answers to the question about the folk churches of tomorrow. And that is quite in order.