Richard Neuhaus once said that the habit of associating Lutheranism with Germany–then blaming Lutheranism for what’s bad in German culture–is misplaced. Germany has always had a mix of many religious traditions: not just Lutheranism but Roman Catholicism, Calvinism, anabaptists, etc., etc. If you want to see Lutheranism’s cultural influence, he said, look at the Scandinavian countries, whose only church, pretty much, has been Lutheran. More than Prussian militarism, he said, you could argue that Lutheranism helped inspire the Scandinavian welfare state. (More on that welfare state later!)
I met a member of the conservative theological faculty at the University of Aarhus who studied at Concordia Theological Seminary in Ft. Wayne, IN. He fondly recalled the classes of Dr. David Scaer, who told him, “I love Denmark. Everyone is Lutheran. Even the cows are Lutheran.”
And yet, the Scandinavian state churches, with their near religious monopoly, have become extremely liberal in their official hierarchy. I don’t know about the cows, but the churches are not always confessionally Lutheran any more. And yet, there are confessional Lutherans in the country, not just in Inner Mission, but in the state church. I’m going to run a series of posts telling about some of the paradoxical things I’ve learned about the church situation in Denmark (where I spent most of my time) and the other Scandinavian countries, in the course of which I’ll also pose some questions that you can help me with.
Here in the United States, we have a different church from a different theological tradition on every corner. It isn’t that way in Denmark, Norway, Sweden, or Finland. There are lots of churches on lots of corners, but they are virtually all Lutheran. That is, they are congregations of the state churches–or Volkkirche, as they call themselves, “people’s churches”: the Church of Denmark, the Church of Norway, etc. On a tour of Oslo, we were shown the Catholic church, one tiny building that served the tiny Catholic population. I was told that there are a few
Pentecostal and American-style evangelical congregations in Denmark, but I didn’t see any. We saw a Moravian church. There is a “free Lutheran church” in Denmark–as in the other Scandinavian countries–that the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod is in fellowship with. (That is where commenter Gabriel here goes, and he invited me to attend his church. I wanted to very much, but the schedule didn’t work out.) That body only has a few congregations, though, and can’t be found in most of the country.
For the most part, though, the national church is all there is. Here in the United States, different religious movements create their own institutions. In countries with state churches, different religious movements–Pietism, the Enlightenment, Romanticism, revivalism, the various strains of liberalism, etc.–manifest themselves within the established churches. For us English speakers, we are most familiar with how this has played out in the Church of England and in its Anglican tradition. We also see it in Germany, though the different principalities had and still have their own distinct state churches. It is true too in the Scandinavian state churches, though they have still managed to be in at least some sense Lutheran.
Today 80% of the population of Denmark belongs to the state church. I suppose all church bodies even here would like 80% of the population to belong to it. How nice for everyone to belong to the same church, to have their religion in common, something to unite rather than to divide, and all that. Not that everyone believes the same thing, or even believes in Christianity in the state church, which will be the topic of tomorrow’s post.
For now I’d like to raise the following question: What is the theological basis for a state church? As an American who takes for granted the separation of church and state and as a Missouri Synod Lutheran, whose religious forebears fled the state church, it’s hard for me to understand. And yet, the golden age of Lutheran orthodoxy in the 17th century took place in state churches. Doesn’t the concept violate the doctrine of the Two Kingdoms? I understand the historical reasons for it, but there must be theological reasons for it as well, even if I don’t agree with them. Did Chemnitz, say, have anything to say about this? Surely the Anglicans did. Can anyone help me with this? The American free market-style religious diversity seems to be the exception rather than the norm, and I’m curious what reasons have been put forward for the norm.
Tomorrow: Why do so few Europeans go to church?
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