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YOUTH and RELIGION in FINLAND Kati Niemelä Introduction in Terms

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YOUTH and RELIGION in FINLAND Kati Niemelä Introduction in Terms YOUTH AND RELIGION IN FINLAND Kati Niemelä Introduction In terms of Church membership, Finland is a fairly homogenous country. Most Finns (80.6% in 2008) are members of the Evangeli- cal Lutheran Church of Finland (ELCF). Among the young Finns the number of members of the ELFC is even higher than that. Of those 15 years old nearly 90 percent belong to that church. All other religious groups each account for less than about one per cent of the popula- tion. The next largest religious groups are Orthodox, Pentecostals and Muslims. Seventeen percent of Finns do not belong to any registered religious organisation. Their number has gradually risen. Almost two out of three Finns consider themselves religious. How- ever, public religious practice is at a low level in Finland. According to the World Value Survey 2005 one out of six (14%) attend some religious activity at least once a month. Almost half (45%) of Finns attend religious observances less often than once a month, but at least once a year. In Europe the comparison ranks very low, close to adja- cent areas—the other Nordic countries, Russia and the Baltic States. Although Finns are not very regular in attending public religious activ- ities, nevertheless religion is a prominent part of many people’s lives. Although public religious practice Finland ranks low in Europe, it is placed well above the European average in terms of how many Finns pray. All in all, Finnish religiosity is by nature private. (See Kääriäinen & Ketola & Niemelä 2005) This article is about youth and religion in Finland. First we shall look at how young Finns, in general, differ from older generations. From the point of view of these results we shall discuss whether there is a generational change under way in Finland. After that we shall go deeper into the religiosity of the young generation. We shall analyse the changes in religiosity during teenage years. One distinctive feature of youth and religion in Finland is that almost 90 percent of young Finns attend Church confirmation training and are typically confirmed at the age of 15. This is a very popular form of activity among the young 194 kati niemelä people and often regarded as a part of youth culture. We shall analyse the meaning of this confirmation period in the religious lives of young people. Next we shall analyse young people’s relation to the Church and its faith in general and in relation to other forms of religiosity or spirituality. Last we shall discuss the changes in religious upbringing which may be one factor explaining possible changes in religiosity. Data The results of this article are mainly based on five separate research projects. First, in 2003 we started a three-year research project on young adults aged 20 to 39 in the metropolitan area of Helsinki (Mik- kola & Niemelä & Petterson 2006; 2007). This was a co-operation project involving University of Helsinki, the Helsinki Parish Union, the Church Research Institute, the Diaconial University College and Efeko. The target group was chosen to be the urban young generation because it was assumed that religious and other changes would mani- fest themselves first within this group of people (see Mikkola 2003, 16; Mäenpää 2006, 318). Therefore by analysing this group we assumed that we could make some kind of predictions of the future develop- ments within the population of Finland as a whole. The basic aims of the project were (1) to increase and disseminate information and understanding of young adults’ lives and life situations, (2) to increase and disseminate information on young adults’ values and religiosity, (3) to ascertain the numbers of young adults resigning from the Church and joining the Church and the reasons for this, and to seek ways of ensuring a positive development in Church membership and (4) to learn about the relation between young adults’ experiences and expec- tations and what the parishes are offering and to make development proposals for the parishes’ activities for young adults. As a basis for the research, telephone interviews were conducted with 1,000 young adults living in Helsinki area and in addition to that 500 young adults living in a district called Kallio, in the very centre of Helsinki. Further with the telephone interviews, face-to-face interviews were conducted with more than 100 young adults who had first participated the tele- phone interviews. (Mikkola & Niemelä & Petterson 2007, 8). Secondly, the results are based on a research project on resignations from the Church in Finland. In 2003, after the renewal of the legisla- tion on freedom of religion, the number of people leaving the Church .
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