Religion

ABSTRACT

Over the last couple of decades, the religious map of northern Europe has been redrawn. In Scandinavia, people previously formed by Lutheran state-church systems have today become among the most secular in the world. At the same time, immigration has pushed these countries in an opposite direction, making them multi-religious in an unprecedented way. Sweden is perhaps the most striking example. According to some estimations this country is today Europe’s most secular and most multi-religious country at the same time. It is also about to become the West European country with the largest Muslim population. Based on interviews and survey-data, this talk asks what happens when a secular, post-Lutheran majority population meets a growing Muslim minority.

David Thurfjell is professor in the Study of religions at Södertörn University, Stockholm. He began his career in the field of Iranian and Shi’ite studies. Based on ethnographic fieldwork in Iran, he has published on the grass roots activists of Iranian Islamism and on charismatic Shi’ite revivalism, (Living Shi’ism, Brill 2006). His second empirical field is charismatic Christian revivalism among Romani people, focusing on the role Pentecostalism in establishing an organisational and conceptual platform for social struggle (Faith and Revivalism in a Nordic Romani Community, Tauris 2011). Thurfjell’s more recent publications have dealt with views on religion among the secular mainstream majority populations in Scandinavia, focusing on the ambiguous discursive situation that arises as this group, while maintaining a strong connection to Lutheran Christianity in terms of practice, worldview and church membership, strongly distance themselves from religion.

The event is co-sponsored by:

The Center for European Studies

The Center for Global Islamic Studies

Izzat Hasan Sheikh Fellowship in Islamic Studies