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Fig. 27.1: the Nordic Flags. from Left to Right: Iceland, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, and Norway

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Fig. 27.1: the Nordic Flags. from Left to Right: Iceland, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, and Norway Fig. 27.1: The Nordic flags. From left to right: Iceland, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, and Norway. The Nordic cross flags are examples of Christian heritage still present in the symbols of the nation state. Although the myth of the Danish flag, the Dannebrog, falling down from heaven during a crusade in Estonia in the early thirteenth century is a much later fabrication, the Dannebrog is indeed among the world’s oldest national flags currently in official use, dating back to the fourteenth century. Originally a military banner, it was adopted as an emblem of the state in the mid-nineteenth century. The Dannebrog served as a model for the other Nordic cross flags established in the sixteenth century (Sweden), the nineteenth century (Norway and Finland), and the twentieth century (Iceland) respectively. Photo: Jan Rietz/pixgallery.com. Open Access. © 2021 Anna Bohlin, published by De Gruyter. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110639476-028 Anna Bohlin Chapter 27 God’s Kingdom on Earth: Liberal Theology and Christian Liberalism in Sweden The social movements and political ideas that shaped the Scandinavian welfare states were manifold, yet in the narrative of the secular, democratic, Nordic coun- tries of the twentieth century, the notion of the Kingdom of God is often neglected. This chapter aims to highlight the Jerusalem code in the genealogy of the welfare state by focusing on one case: Sweden. The Kingdom of God on earth was a concept promoted in public debate primarily by the Christian Liberals from the 1840s and onwards, and this idea was also discussed and elaborated in theology by liberal theologians. The views of Viktor Rydberg (1828–1895), a writer and liberal Member of Parliament, merit special attention. Rydberg influenced the Social Democrats, whom were the architects that devised what was to become close ties between folkhemmet (the people’s home) and folkkyrkan (the national church). These close ties provide an example of the simultaneous secularization and fragmentation of the Jerusalem code. The Kingdom of God was a key issue at the first ecumenical meeting in 1925, which took place in Stockholm. The meeting was instigated by the archbishop of the Church of Sweden, Nathan Söderblom (1866–1931) and it gathered 600 dele- gates from 37 different countries. Most Christian denominations were repre- sented, except the Roman-Catholic church and the Pentecostal Movement. As a response to the ravages of World War I, the Christian churches recognised the need to work together for peace – for the Kingdom of God – despite their differ- ences.1 The Kingdom of God also became a model for the future society and the national church envisioned by Harald Hallén (1884–1967),apriestandamember of the Social Democratic Party. 1 Torsten Bohlin, Den kristna gudsrikestanken under 1800-talet och i nutiden (Lund: C. W. K. Gleerups förlag, 1928), 2; Urban Claesson, Folkhemmets kyrka: Harald Hallén och folkkyrkans genombrott: En studie av socialdemokrati, kyrka och nationsbygge med särskild hänsyn till perioden 1905–1933 (Uppsala: Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis, 2004), 323. Note: I am grateful to church historian Urban Claesson for his insightful reading of an earlier draft of this article, and his many useful suggestions. Remaining mistakes are of course my own. Anna Bohlin, Associate Professor of Nordic Literature, Department of Linguistic, Literary and Aesthetic Studies, University of Bergen, Norway 542 Anna Bohlin In Sweden, new government directives on Christian education in schools had been issued in 1919, which removed the Catechism and Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount from the curriculum, and stressed the ethical rather than the eschato- logical aspects of Christian beliefs.2 Backed up by these new approaches to Christian teachings, Hallén’s efforts would result in close ties between the Church of Sweden and the welfare state – the so-called Swedish folkhem (people’s home).3 The Kingdom of God was on the agenda. This chapter will track the Jerusalem code as one of many different paths leading into the secular welfare state, by focusing on one case: Sweden. It seeks to highlight some instances of how the idea of the Kingdom of God on earth was used and trans- formed from the interpretations by Christian Liberals in the 1840s – such as Fredrika Bremer (1801–1865) and Carl Jonas Love Almqvist (1793–1866) – to the split into, on the one hand, an eschatological interpretation, and, on the other, a civic interpreta- tion that merged with the welfare project. The understanding of the Kingdom of God also became a key issue in theological debate in the second half of the nineteenth century. Liberal theology, promoting the idea of the Kingdom of God on earth, would gain influence in leading circles of the Church of Sweden at the beginning of the twentieth century. Granted, the conflict between a future, eschatological Kingdom of God versus a realisation of the Kingdom in the present time dates back to the Gospels themselves.4 Furthermore, as Howard P. Kainz makes clear, a whole range of political ideologies has been “buttressed by variant interpretations or misinterpretations of the concept of the Kingdom,” including Marx’s “final ‘communist’ stage” and the Nazi import of “external accoutrements . from the Judaeo-Christian tradition for the construction of [a] secular-nationalistic Kingdom.”5 Nevertheless, the second half of the nineteenth century and the first decades of the twentieth century appear in- tensely preoccupied with the Kingdom of God. The wide range of simultaneous inter- pretations suggests the pressure on, and consequent fragmentation of, the Jerusalem code. In what way, then, did the Kingdom of God contribute to the Swedish folkhem? Folkhem The concept of folkhemmet, “the people’s home,” was prominent in Swedish debate across all political ideologies long before the Social Democrat leader Per Albin 2 K. G. Hammar, Liberalteologi och kyrkopolitik: Kretsen kring Kristendomen och vår tid 1906-omkr. 1920 (Lund: CWK Gleerups bokförlag, 1972), 193–209. 3 Claesson, Folkhemmets kyrka. 4 See Chapter 2 (Walter Sparn), 55–73, Chapter 10 (Vidar L. Haanes), 189–211; Howard P. Kainz, Democracy and the “Kingdom of God” (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1993), 62. 5 Kainz, Democracy and the “Kingdom of God” 2, 133, 136. Chapter 27 God’s Kingdom on Earth 543 Hansson (1885–1946) claimed it for his own party in 1928. Furthermore, this notion is directly linked to Bremer and to the Swedish women’s movement of the early twentieth century. The home as a model for society – a fundamental idea for Bremer and many of her contemporaries – was equally fundamental to, for exam- ple, Selma Lagerlöf (1858–1940), in her famous speech at the international suffrage conference in Stockholm 1911, entitled “Hem och stat” [Home and State].6 Bremer’s idea of the “second mother”–a person with nurturing qualities rather than the birth mother – was developed into the concept of “social motherhood” in 1903 by Ellen Key (1849–1926), a controversial feminist and “early folkhem ideologist.”7 Political scientist Fredrika Lagergren observes that virtue constituted the moral un- derpinning for the folkhem ideology. As opposed to an individualistic, liberal state, where the state is supposed to be neutral, the folkhem is collectivistic in the sense that the individual is understood as formed by the community. Consequently, the state is tasked with fostering citizens that will subject to the needs of the commu- nity, while politics will be based on virtues.8 The similarities to the storyworld of Christian salvation history are striking, but the transcendental aspect – still the mo- tivating goal for Bremer’s utopian city – had to a large extent transformed into ma- terial ends. A feminist take on the Kingdom of God, was set forth by Emilia Fogelklou (1878–1972), the first woman to obtain an academic degree in theology in Sweden. Fogelklou suggested that the realisation of the Kingdom of God was dependent on women: the exercise of social motherhood is a prerequisite for God’s Kingdom on 6 Selma Lagerlöf, Troll och människor I (Stockholm: Albert Bonniers förlag, 1915); Anna Bohlin, Röstens anatomi: Läsningar av politik i Elin Wägners Silverforsen, Selma Lagerlöfs Löwensköldtrilogi och Klara Johansons Tidevarvskåserier (Umeå: Bokförlaget h:ström, 2008); Inger Hammar, “Kvinnokall och kvinnosak: Några nedslag i 1800-talets debatt om genus, medborgarskap och offentlighet,” in Kvinnor på gränsen till medborgarskap: Genus, politik och offentlighet 1800–1950, eds. Christina Florin and Lars Kvarnström (Stockholm: Atlas Akademi, 2001), 116–48; Inger Hammar, “Fredrika Bremers Morgon- väckter. En provocation mot rådande genusordning,” in Mig törstar! Studier i Fredrika Bremers spår, eds. Åsa Arping and Birgitta Ahlmo-Nilsson (Hedemora: Gidlunds förlag, 2001), 141–64; Lisbeth Stenberg, “A star in a constellation. The international women’smovementasacontextforreadingthe works of Selma Lagerlöf,” in Re-Mapping Lagerlöf: Performance, intermediality, and European transmis- sions, eds. Helena Forsås-Scott, Lisbeth Stenberg, and Bjarne Thorup Thomsen (Lund: Nordic Academic Press, 2014), 24–38. Lagerlöf was among those women who signed a petition in support for the Swedish Jerusalem Society and the Swedish School in Jerusalem: see Chapter 26 (Inger Marie Okkenhaug), 518–39. 7 Key renounced the Christian faith and developed her own belief in Life. Ellen Key, Lifslinjer I. Kärleken och
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