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Hans Raun Iversen: Church, Society and Mission

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Hans Raun Iversen: Church, Society and Mission Church, Society and Mission. Twelve Danish Contributions to International Discussions Iversen, Hans Raun Publication date: 2010 Document version Publisher's PDF, also known as Version of record Document license: CC BY-NC-ND Citation for published version (APA): Iversen, H. R. (2010). Church, Society and Mission. Twelve Danish Contributions to International Discussions. Faculty of Theology, University of Copenhagen. Publikationer fra Det Teologiske Fakultet Vol. 13 Download date: 28. sep.. 2021 Hans Raun Iversen Church, Society and Mission Twelve Danish Contributions to International Discussions Department for Systematic Theology Faculty of Theology University of Copenhagen 2010 Church, Society and Mission, Twelve Danish Contributions to International Discussions Publikationer fra Det Teologiske Fakultet 13 Licensed under CreativeCommons Hans Raun Iversen ISBN: 978-87-91838-19-4 (trykt) ISBN: 978-87-91838-96-5 (pdf) Printing and binding: Det Samfundsvidenskabelige Fakultets ReproCenter Published by Department for Systematic Theology Faculty of Theology University of Copenhagen Købmagergade 46 DK 1150 Copenhagen K [email protected] www.teol.ku.dk/ast Foreword This collection of twelve articles in English, written over two decades, has three main purposes: Firstly it will serve as a reader at courses for English-speaking guest students at the University of Copenhagen. Secondly also for other non- Danish readers it may be a source of information on the spe• cial relations between church, society and mission in Den• mark. Thirdly I hope that it can further discussions on these issues with colleagues from the non-Danish reading world. Besides the specific formulations of some of the insights in these articles that may have been sharpened by the interna• tional contexts, there is not much in this volume which can not also be found (and often in more detailed form) in my Danish publications, e.g. Grundtvig, folke-kirke og mission. Praktisk teologiske vekselvirkninger (Copenhagen: Anis 2008 with full bibliography). The only chapter with material not published in Danish is the last one. In the first four chapters of this volume the approach to the Danish scene is mainly that of sociology of church and religion. The next six chapters employ missiological perspec• tives - including perspectives on church and society, as they are crucial for the missiological discussion. The two final chapters explore liturgies of ordination as central parts of the life of the church. The twelve articles which can now be read as chapters in this book have not been revised except for minor corrections, a couple of abbreviations, where texts directly overlap, and a few footnotes to update basic information. I have therefore taken care to note the year of first printing in the list of con• tents - and given the full reference for first printing in the first footnote for each chapter and in a common list of refer• ences at the back of the book. If the reader wants to have the latest news on, e.g. church statistics, please consult the most recent chapter. The same applies if the reader is looking for my latest interpretation of the issues at stake. Readers taking time for this may find it stimulating to trace the steps of de• velopment during the two decades reflected in this book. As the situation has changed, so have my ways of understanding it. Reprinting twelve articles originally published in very different places reveals that the author is not only in the habit of recycling his arguments but also repeating his favourite quotations. One such quotation from Woody Allen appears altogether three times! I hope that the reader will bear with such repetition and maybe even take it as an opportunity to consider the significance of the argument or the quotation once more. The reprinting also means that the chapters have slightly different styles of writing, e.g. abstract, English or American spellings and references in author-date-system or footnotes - as required by the editors of the first editions of the various chapters. A warm word of thanks to Ane Bækgaard and Line Stæhr who established digital versions of older texts and did the basic part of the layout and proof reading. I am also grate• ful to Pia Skov Borch for solving my technical problems. A very special word of thanks goes to Edward Broad- bridge who for more than twenty years has taken pains to make my (East African) English appear as proper English - and even more he has created wonderful translations of my favourite quotations from Danish songs as an inalienable source for Danish studies. Hoping that it is an honour I dedi• cate this volume to him! Whenever you enjoy the language, think of him. Whatever errors you find, be sure that I am the one responsible. August 20 2009 Hans Raun Iversen, Assoc. Professor of Practical Theology Faculty of Theology, University of Copenhagen Købmagergade 46, 1150 Copenhagen K, Denmark [email protected], http://www.teol.ku.dk/afd/ast/ Telephone: 0045-35323716 Content: 1. Leaving the Distant Church. The Danish Experience 1 (1997) 2. Poverty and Churches in Denmark (2004) 29 3. Secular religion and religious Secularism, A profile of 45 religious development in Denmark since 1968 (2006) 4. Background of the Cartoon Crises in Danish Mentality 76 (forthcoming). 5. Becoming a Christian in a Non-Christian Age. An 100 Attempt to Answer an Old Question from a Modern Grundtvigian Standpoint (1992) 6. Folk Church as Mission to Culture Christians (1997) 120 7. Incarnation, Congregation and Mission (1998) 130 8. Ten Theses on the Diaconia of the Cross-Cultural 154 Missionary (2003) 9. How can a Folk Church be Missional Church? (2008) 179 10. Fluctuating Congregations - Christ in us, and we in 203 Christ (2008) 11. Rites for the Ordination of Pastors and Bishops in 219 the Evangelical-Lutheran Church of Denmark: A Communicative Perspective (2006) - 12. Theological and Liturgical Considerations behind 250 Research on Rites for Ordination and Commitment (2006) References for the first printing of chapters in this book 269 1. LEAVING THE DISTANT CHURCH: THE DANISH EXPERIENCE1 Abstract The European Value Studies confirm that the Danes rank at the top of the scale in relation to social solidarity and willingness to pay high taxes in order to maintain their welfare state, but at the bottom when it comes to confi• dence in collective decisions on moral and ethical ques• tions. This paper explores how far this is interrelated with the status of the Danish Folk Church as the weakest mo• nopoly church in the world. It concludes that the Danish Folk Church is a sort of tribal Church and that the Danes will therefore not leave it as long as the church does not question the Danish tribal welfare society. Introduction On December 7, 1994, Danish TV announced the national rate of tobacco consumption and its resulting deaths, a subject which had received prominence at a medical con• ference in Copenhagen. The former Health Minister, Ester Larsen, a member of the Liberal Venstre party, was asked insistently by the interviewer. "Why is Denmark lagging behind the rest of the world in banning tobacco advertise• ments and smoking in public places?" The answer she gave was, first, to the effect that all moral decisions in Denmark must be made by the individuals themselves. Then, she stated:"When the Swedes are told to wipe their feet on the mat and stop smoking, they do so. We Danes ' First printing in Bar-Lev, Mordechai and Shaffir, William (eds.): Leaving Religion and Religious Life, Jai Press Inc, Greenwich Con• necticut, 1997, p. 139-158. 2 Leaving the Distant Church do not." Now, although Ester Larsen is more or less cor• rect in her characterization of the difference between Danes and Swedes, it is striking that when confronted with the enormous costs involved in smoking related deaths, she insisted that the individual alone must decide ethical and moral questions. Apparently she believed that there were votes to be gained in Denmark from this view, even though she and the Liberal party are not nearly so liberal in their social and financial policies as, for instance, the Americans, who nevertheless take a strong line on moral offenses such as smoking in public places.2 The European Value Studies (Gundelach and Riis 1992) confirm that the Danes rank at the top of the scale in rela• tion to social solidarity and willingness to pay high taxes in order to maintain their welfare state, but at the bottom when it comes to confidence in collective decisions on moral and ethical questions. The Danes are to a high de• gree ethically, existentially, and also partly religiously committed, but they do not seem to believe in joint au• thorities and institutions that can decide moral and ethical issues on behalf of the nation (Petterson and Riis 1995). It is the origins of this anomaly that we seek to trace here, while at the same time examining why the Danes find it hard to resign from the Danish Folk Church, a phenome• non which probably makes this both the weakest and the strongest church in the world. Danishness and Norwegianness A Norwegian Catholic priest (Grevbo 1987, p. 14) has aptly stated that the Norwegians "believe too much in too little." In other words. Cultural identity and Christianity are more or less separate entities in Norway. Conversely, 2 In recent years Danish politics on smoking has been changed in line with most European countries. Leaving the Distant Church 3 it seems that the Danes believe too little in too much, inso• far as in Denmark Christianity and cultural identity are mixed into a thin gruel of commonsensical, each-to-his- own philosophy. The very fact that the Danes have no strongly held indi• vidual, let alone collective, attitudes towards religious faith, helps explain why, with a weekly church attendance of 2 percent, they are among the least religiously obser• vant people in the world, even though 87 percent are for• mally members of the Danish Folk Church.
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