Christianity in a Post-Christian Context: Immigration, Church Identity, and the Role of Religion in Public Debates

Abstract

Against the backdrop of increased immigration into Sweden, this chapter discusses the different positions that are defended when religion and religiosity take center stage in public and political debates in a secularized country like Sweden. Johanna Gustafsson Lundberg analyzes the understandings of religion—especially Christianity—that clashed in the so-called #mycross debate that developed during August and September 2016, at the height of the current refugee crisis. Drawing on Chantal Mouffe’s distinction between antagonism and agonism in the public sphere, Gustafsson Lundberg points out how such debates could be opened to more complex and more complicated positions.