Inger Furseth (ed.): Religious Complexity in the Public Sphere: Comparing Nordic Countries

Abstract

This book is an empirical comparative study of the complexity of religion in the public spheres of the five Nordic countries. The result of a five-year collaborative research project, the work examines how increasingly religiously diverse Nordic societies regulate, debate, and negotiate religion in the state, the polity, the media, and civil society. The project finds that there are seemingly contradictory religious trends at different social levels: a growing secularization at the individual level, and a deprivatization of religion in politics, the media, and civil society. It offers a critique of the current theories of secularization and the return of religion, introducing religious complexity as an alternative concept to understand these paradoxes. This book is for scholars, students, and readers with an interest in understanding the public role of religion in the West. Introduction / Inger Furseth -- Changing religious landscapes in the nordic countries / Inger Furseth, Lars Ahlin, Kimmo Ketola, Annette Leis-Peters and Bjarni Randver Sigurvinsson -- Religion and state : complexity in change / Lene Kühle, Ulla Schmidt, Brian Arly Jacobsen and Per Pettersson -- Religion on the political agenda / Mia Lövheim, Jonas Lindberg, Pài Ketil Botvar, Henrik Reintoft Christensen, Kati Niemelä and Anders Bäckström -- Religion and the media : continuity, complexity, and mediatization / Knut Lundby, Henrik Reintoft Christensen, Ann Kristin Gresaker, Mia Lövheim, Kati Niemelä, Sofia Sjö, Marcus Moberg and Arni Svanur Danielsson -- Faith and worldview communities and their leaders-inward or outward looking? / Inger Furseth, Lars Ahlin, Kimmo Ketola, Annette Leis-Peters, Pài Repstad, Bjarni Randver Sigurvinsson and Sivert Skâlvoll Urstad -- Secularization, deprivatization, or religious complexity? / Inger Furseth.