SOCIETY AND CHURCH IN NORTHERN EUROPE

How does the Church respond?

Gunvor Lande

This response from the Norwegian context will focus on three aspects:

1. The Identity Aspect of the church, i.e. questions related to the self understanding of the church.

2. The Dialogue Aspects, including questions related to ideology, to multireligious/multicultural developments and to the effects of an affluent society.

3. The Mission Aspect, the question of whether and how the church has a future in our modern society.

l The Identity Aspect

We are here talking of the identity of the church, particularly of those employed in the church. There is a trend in society towards stronger individualism. The more individualism advances, the more fellowship is threatened. In the end, indivualism can destroy fellowship completely.

Koinonia is a biblical concept for fellowship, and the question of identity can be highlighted by asking: should identity be sought and found in the context of koinonia or in the context of individualism? What does it mean to be a human being, and what is a human being? What is the individual's loyalty to the koinonia, and what is the individual's loyalty to one self?

The concept of human being as a test question for the true Christian koinonia is not a new one. For decades, one of the key theological test questions was the question of women`s ordination. But in this last year (1998) of the Ecumenical Decade - Churches in Solidarity with Women, 48% of all new pastors ordained in the Church of Norway were women. Because of decisions taken in the General Synod during this Decade, it can no longer be argued that if women are included in the ministry, the church is no longer a true koinonia. However, the church has not quite reached the opposite awareness: if women are not included, it is not a true Christian koinonia.

Women's full and equal partnership in the koinonia, which for a long time was a theological test question, has largely been reduced to an organizational issue with rules and regulations for cooperation worked out by the Pastors' Union. The interesting thing is that a new theological question for testing the koinonia has been introduced, a question used to distinguish between the true Christian koinonia and a fellowship that can not be called true Christian. Again the question is related to the concept of human being and is of anthropological, sexual character: the question of homosexuality. The General Synod last dealt with this issue in 1997. Both before and after, in church as well as in society, the debate has been fierce.

In a fragmented world, the church is struggling to come to terms with identity. The question is related to the understanding of a true, Christian koinonia in a context of growing individualism. The koinonia is related to and theologically tested on ethical, moral issues of anthropology, especially sex-related issues.

2 The Dialogue Aspect

This aspect relates to changing ideologies and to changes in societal set-up / context. On one hand, the Norwegian society is an increasingly affluent society. One the other hand, this affluent society is creating an increasingly wider gap between rich and poor. Many can now afford to renovate their houses, travel and buy consumer goods while others barely make ends meet. Schools are without proper, updated books; hospitals without adequate, available equipment. This reflects a shift in mentality. As a society, we are not used to this. The ideal in our social democracy was to share evenly and work for the best of all end everyone. This is not so anymore. The conflict between the rich and the poor was to us a familiar first - third world conflict. Now it has arrived on our doorsteps, and we are bewildered.

The General Synod in 1996 dealt with the issue of Consumerism and Justice. The declaration and the debate following has had its impact. But this is an issue that needs ongoing work and effort.

The shift in mentality is related to a change of values. The new government headed by an ordained minister from the Church of Norway has succeeded in raising the ethical question of value, and has appointed a broad commission to study this issue. This has really caught on, and both church and organizations have followed and appointed their commissions. The Church did not initiate this process. That may well be a point of contemplation /consideration. But the church may well benefit from this emphasis on values in the four years to come.

Norway is rapidly changing from a homogeneous society to a multicultural and multireligious one. A mounting concern is emerging in society at large: refugees and migrant workers need help, but should we help them here at home or help them in their home. Do they have to come to us? The pluralist society has become complex and people have learned from experience that naive, simple solutions hardly work.

The church is recognized for its expertise on human rights and is called upon in difficult political situations internationally. But the pluralist society challenges the church to analyse and define anew its concept of human being and work against racial, cultural and religious discrimination abroad and at home.

It may not be a coincidence that the church of Norway as well as king and government have confessed their sins of omission, negligence and active discrimination for hundreds of years towards the sami people living within Norway's own boarders. At last they are recognized and given a say formally both in political as well as in church matters. The Bible is in the process of being translated to the sami languages, and the sami people is recognized structurally by having one of three General Secretaries in the Church Council structure. This is however not the case with the a language minority consisting of 1/3 of the congregations. This minority is still not reflected in the church structure.

3 Mission Aspects

In our society today people experience many religions, many cultures and many world views. As a consequence, the question of absolute and relative truth becomes a pressing one. When tolerance and understanding are emphasized, it may be difficult to sort out the intricacies of interreligious questions and the one and only God.

Since 1969, until when the state school had shared responsibility for Christian education of the baptized, the church has worked creatively to reach the children from infancy on. This church education plan is completed, but not yet fully implemented. When on the whole more than 80% of all infants are baptized, the potential for reaching the majority of homes through such plans and programs is easily understood. Especially the invitation to all four year old to receive `My church book' in their local church has had great impacts in the folk church.

But families are not what they were. Broken homes, single mothers, the feminization of the family, these are some of the challenges for the church today. Also in the mentioned value commission, the importance of the primary and close family relations has reached political attention.

In times of joy and sorrow people turn to the church. They seem to have confidence in the church and their representatives on the local level. When ideologies and religious attitudes change, when the church at large is heavily criticized for not adopting to modem life. when individual pastors and people with responsibility in the church are on the front pages of the tabloids as sex offenders etc., it may be remarkable that people seldom file complaints on local church workers, who seem to do a good and professional job. This also has to be seen in a folk church context. People come to church on turning points in their lives, like baptism, confirmation, weddings and funerals. Especially when disaster has struck local communities or the whole nation, plane-crash, ferry-disasters etc. the church has played a professional, caring role that has created respect.

In the autumn of 1997, the new plan for the new school subject: "Christian education with orientation on religions and world views" was introduced and implemented in the Norwegian primary school. The idea is briefly to create a subject that can unite instead of separate pupils with different religious backgrounds. It has been argued that in a country where Christianity has a thousand year long history, it is necessary to know this tradition.

But this approach has evoked resistance from two opposite sides: The new subject has been criticized by the fundamentalist Christians for not being Christian enough, and by adherents of religions and world views other than Christian for being too Christian. This new school subject is causing many Christians to wake up to the pluralist reality, and to the fact that school and church approach the matter of passing on the Christian faith differently.

Norway has traditionally been a stronghold for sending missionaries to the wide world. It was said that people were more familiar with the maps of Madagascar and China than with their neighbouring countries. Although Norway is not a member of EU, the emphasis is shifting from the wide world to the European context. Exchange programs focus on Europe, and this is where the money is obtainable. Church cooperations are shaped in a European context. For the world wide church, to which we all belong, this is something to be aware of. How can we keep the world wide perspective?