Ethics from Pulpits of the Church of Norway: a Self-Report Survey of Social-Ethical Issues

Journal of Empirical Theology 31 (2018) 167-193 Journal of Empirical Theology brill.com/jet

Ethics from Pulpits of the Church of Norway: A Self-Report Survey of Social-Ethical Issues

Svein Olaf Thorbjørnsen MF Norwegian School of Theology [email protected]

Magne Supphellen Norwegian School of Economics (NHH) [email protected]

Abstract

To what extent do Norwegian ministers deal with social-ethical issues in their sermons? While we examine the frequency of such topics in this article, we primarily explore the potential determinants of their priorities in discussing these issues: their individual backgrounds, their ethical and political orientations, the local parish characteristics and the ministers’ sources of inspiration in preparing sermons. The results shows that different ethical orientations appear to be largely unrelated to the frequency of addressing social-ethical issues. Experiences in nature are the most important source of inspiration. The school at which the minister was trained has a significant impact on frequency, while political orientation has a very weak influence. Different parish characteristics—affluence and level of social challenges—and the age and marital status of the clergy do have an impact on which issues are given priority. The minister’s gender and geographical location both have no effect.

Keywords sermons – social-ethical issues – Norwegian ministers – background determinants

1 Introduction

Admonitions have been part of Christian sermons from the time of the New Testament. Throughout the centuries of the church, admonitions related to social-ethical issues have regularly been present in sermons. Pacifism in the old church and Luther’s views on trade and usury are just some examples. The social gospel movement used sermons to point to the moral crisis caused by the industrial revolution, the classical African American homiletics found its way outside its original churches in the 1950s and the preaching influenced by liberation theology focused on social protest and took the perspective of the underprivileged (Edwards 2004). Individual perspectives, however, have likely been dominant. Our situation today as human beings and as a church in a modern and globally understood world is different. The tremendous tech- nological developments of recent years offer both enormous possibilities and very serious ethical challenges. To be global citizens implies that we relate not only to our families, neighbours and fellow citizens but also to people far away and to people from far away who now live near us. We are part of global structures and systems that influence our lives in myriad ways. Today, such issues are decisive, often indirectly, for our daily lives; some, in the end, are even decisive for our survival as both individuals and as a species. The church cannot ignore these new realities. However, are they ignored in practice by pastors in the Norwegian Church or are social-ethical issues addressed in their sermons? To the extent they are, what factors inspire pastors to address such issues? For almost 500 years, the Norwegian Church was a state church. Between 2012 and 2017, these bonds between state and church have been severed, but it remains a church of national scope, and a very high percentage of Norwe- gians are members (73% in 2015). 46,540 church services were held on Sun- days and holidays in 2015, with an average of 98 people attending each service (https://www.ssb.no/kultur-og-fritid/statistikker/kirke_kostra/aar/2016-05-04). This shows that many Norwegians still attend churches and are thus likely influenced to a certain degree by the teaching of clergy in terms of both general values and specific ethical positions.1 The purpose of this survey is to describe and explain clerical emphases on various social-ethical issues, with a focus on the occurrence of these issues in sermons.2 Social ethics refers to an ethical reflection focusing on societal

1 T.M. Nteta and K.J. Wallsten show that sermons in mainline churches addressing policies on immigration influenced parishioners (Nteta and Wallsten, 2012). 2 Some investigations published before 2000 have analyzed written sermons in a Norwegian context. Their general conclusion is that social-ethical topics are rare in sermons and other

Journal of Empirical TheologyDownloaded from 31 (2018)Brill.com09/28/2021 167-193 08:04:09PM via free access Ethics from Pulpits of the Church of Norway 169 structures and processes and on how particular contexts shape morality. It ex- plores ethical dimensions of, and problems arising in, the workings of social structures, i.e. government, economics, politics and community life (Grenz and Smith 2003). Social-ethical issues include issues related to the fellowship of which we are part, its organization and structures and our relations with the non-human part of our reality, e.g. ecology and the environment, human dignity, human rights, the distribution of resources and economics. Social-ethical issues, however, cannot be isolated from more individualistic approaches.3 In social-ethical assessments, the one who assess will take into account also premises concerning communities and structures. On the other side: Individual assessments are seldom independent of assessment related to society as a whole. The climate-crisis and refugee-crisis, as well as, now from the individual side, love of one’s neighbour and respect for human dignity, are examples of this double relation. In a very distinct way the command of love of one’s neighbour incorporates this bridge between the individualistic and social obligations. In Christianity, the body-metaphor (1 Cor 12) also expresses this mutuality between the social and the personal, manifested in love. From an individualistic point of view, social ethics should contribute to a good and decent life for the individual and for the society. Socially understood social ethics is concerned with laws and institutions (rights, democratic procedures, regulation of markets and ecology) regulating social interaction, na- tionally and globally. As human beings, we are responsible in both directions. The institutions are tools for the individual to attend to its responsibility for unknown people nearby but also far away. In this way, the frontier between social ethics and individual or personal ethics is fluid. However, some ethical issues pertain primarily to the individual, even if they have social implications, i.e. responsibility for body and health, to work out one’s own life-plan etc. The same applies to ethical issues of a social character. One possibility is to define social ethics as an activity analys- ing and assessing social institutions, behaviour and processes from an ethical

Christian speeches (Thorbjørnsen and Supphellen, 2017, 27-28). This is surprising given that, especially after 1968, social-ethical issues were high on the agenda in Norwegian society, in the official church and in teaching and among students at theological institutions. 3 We presuppose that ethics has to do with as well individual as political/social conduct. G. Bexell and C.-H. Grenholm characterize this position as modified monistic: the same prin- ciples of moral are valid individually as socially, but the possibility of realizing the ethical ideals are different on the two levels. This position differs from the amoralic (only private acts are subjects to ethical assessment), the dualistic (different criteria for ethical assessment) and the monistic (the same criteria for individual and social ethics and a great optimism when it comes to the realization of the ideals) (Bexell and Grenholm, 1997, pp. 282-285).

Journal of Empirical Theology 31 (2018) 167-193 Downloaded from Brill.com09/28/2021 08:04:09PM via free access 170 Thorbjørnsen and Supphellen perspective. Another, and better, option is to choose a definition including social organisation and institutions along with people’s relation to them as persons and as communities. This is the background for our understanding and use of the concept ‘social-ethical issues’ in this article. The theological context for the discourse on social-ethical issues in Lutheran churches has traditionally been the doctrine of the two kingdoms. This doctrine distinguishes between the two ways that God promotes his will in the world: through the state authority by way of the power to uphold order and protect life (‘the sword’) and through the church by way of the gospel and the sacraments to save and redeem all people. There is, however, no separation between the two; God is active in both and the Church has a responsibility to promote God’s will in the world. This promotion, when carried out in the Lutheran pulpit, usually has a creational basis that also reflects a creational understanding of ethics. Lately, this tradition has been challenged by stressing that Christological and eschatological ethical aspects must supplement a creational focus (Grenholm 2014; Kurtén 2013). The actual context for very many social-ethical issues today is global (Widdows 2011). Several ethical problems and dilemmas are raised in a context of globalisation, such as environmental issues and ecology, just distribution and economics. Today it would reflect a kind of irresponsibility not to include them and treat them as global problems. The local and national perspective is not redundant or irrelevant. However, in a world where distance is less important than earlier, both socially and materially, and our lives are influenced by contact across frontiers and increasing international dependency, a global perspective is of the utmost importance. In the survey we didn’t ask explic- itly about this global perspective, but there are reasons to believe that the Norwegian clergy include this perspective in their social-ethical reasoning. This is the background for the two main questions we examine in this article: 1. What social-ethical issues do Norwegian clergy address most frequently in their sermons? 2. What are the potential determinants of the clerical priorities of these issues?

2 Empirical Research on Social-Ethical Issues in Sermons

Clifton F. Guthrie (Guthrie 2007) presents a review of empirical research on the content of sermons; our interest is in studies investigating the topics addressed in sermons. Stephan van Calster (Calster 1980) focuses on the relationships between ministers’ use of the Bible and preaching about social concerns and analyses written sermons by Protestant and Roman Catholic clerics in

Journal of Empirical TheologyDownloaded from 31 (2018)Brill.com09/28/2021 167-193 08:04:09PM via free access Ethics from Pulpits of the Church of Norway 171

Germany. His main finding was that German clerics primarily preached about individual moral issues in order to stimulate individual change, rather than addressing structural change in social conditions. They hoped that individual change would lead to social change. A study of French church members from the same period showed that Catholic priests were concerned with morality in practical life rather than with doctrinal or biblical exposition in their sermons (Centre Régional d’Etudes Socio-Religieuses en Lille 1980).4 In the late 20th century, there was a significant effort to investigate how often ministers in the US preached on social issues. According to David Buttrich, the emphasis on preaching from the Bible has led to a kind of silence about social-ethical issues from the pulpit (Buttrick 1994). Some research supports this conclusion (cf. Guthrie 2007, pp. 82-83), while others (Koller and Retzer 1980) found that four out of five Protestant ministers in North Carolina be- lieved it was part of their duty to speak about social issues in their sermons. Several researchers have addressed the relationship between theological conservatism and liberalism and the frequency of preaching about social issues, but the overall findings are inconclusive. While Rodney Stark (Stark 1970) observed that conservative clergy preached less often about social issues, others did not find such a pattern (e.g., Koller and Retzer 1980). However, conservative and liberal clergy do seem to focus on different social-ethical issues. Norman B. Koller and Joseph D. Retzer (Koller and Retzer 1980) observed that liberal clergy in the US were more likely to preach on the economy, the environment and justice for the poor, whereas conservative preachers tended to be more concerned about issues related to the moral behaviour of the individual, such as alcohol abuse, pornography and violence on television. These findings, mainly from studies in the US, indicate that clergy with different backgrounds and ideological positions tend to address different social-ethical issues in their preaching. However, we are not familiar with any recent empirical studies of this issue in Europe.

4 When assessing these results, it must be taken into account that sermons play different roles in Roman Catholic and Protestant contexts. The homily as moral guidance for the congregation is more important in the Catholic context than in Protestant traditions. In addition the Catholic pastor should help the congregation to obtain a deeper understanding of their common belief. He shouldn’t be a missionary in his homily. A Protestant sermon relates more to a law-gospel structure, which includes a missionary element, sustaining and strengthening faith and a moral perspective.

Journal of Empirical Theology 31 (2018) 167-193 Downloaded from Brill.com09/28/2021 08:04:09PM via free access 172 Thorbjørnsen and Supphellen

3 Potential Determinants of Clerical Emphases on Social-ethical Issues

Obviously, a large number of factors may influence ministers when preparing sermons, deciding whether to include a discussion of ethical issues and choosing specific issues to address. We include five categories of potential determinants of clergy’s emphasis of ethical issues in sermons. The sample is guided by previous research on preaching and the general literature on the sociology and psychology of religion: (1) individual background variables (gender, age, education, marital status, educational institution); (2) ethical orientation; (3) political orientation; (4) characteristics of the local parish and (5) the sources of inspiration used in preparing sermons. We make no claim that this list is exhaustive, and future research may offer alternative or addi- tional variables.

3.1 Individual Background Variables Several individual variables may influence ministers’ focus on social-ethical issues, including gender, age, education, marital status and experience outside church. For instance, previous American research suggests that men and women may hold different values, with young American women showing more concern about altruistic and social values, whereas men place greater value on material benefits and competition (Beutel and Marini 1995; Marini, et al. 1996). Women were previously excluded from serving as clergy in Norway and most other Western countries. When this changed and women were invited in, the profession may have attracted a particular segment of the female population that was more concerned with discrimination and more willing to challenge the establishment. Marital status is another variable potentially related to the ethical topics that clergy address in their sermons. It is conceivable that clergy with children would be more concerned with ethical issues related to the social life of the family and family relations. Single and married people also have different health issues, which in turn may influence their focus on ethics and values. For instance, research shows that single people report more symptoms of anxiety and depression on average than married people (Lau, et al. 2002). Age appears to be related to values in two ways. First, there is some evidence indicating that older people focus less on specific and instrumental values and more on overall terminal values than younger people (e.g., Ryff 1989). Secondly, historical cohort membership also affects values. For example, many of the ‘68ers’, the generation born right after World War II, protested against the establishment and the conventional norms of society, making a political left

Journal of Empirical TheologyDownloaded from 31 (2018)Brill.com09/28/2021 167-193 08:04:09PM via free access Ethics from Pulpits of the Church of Norway 173 turn. Education is an important variable in the sociological literature because it determines people’s access to occupations and thus to social class (Hitlin and Piliavin 2004). Even though we are examining only clergy, education is still an important variable because there are different schools in Norway with different theological profiles.5 We also suggest that experience from other professions and from voluntary work outside the church may influence clerical perspectives on ethical issues. Organizations and companies have their own cultures and value systems that may or may not overlap with the core values of the church. When repeatedly exposed to other cultures and value systems over time, clergy may adjust their own values or priorities.

3.2 Ethical Orientation Among the clergy, there are not only different moral points of view on current ethical questions, but also different basic ethical orientations. There are reasons to believe that these orientations, related to different school of thought within Christian ethics, influence clerical prioritizing of social-ethical issues in their sermons, in terms of both frequency and the issues that are addressed. In the survey, clergy were asked to choose among four different statements, each representing a basic ethical orientation.6 The first takes its starting point in creation. God is creator and has a will for his creation, a will valid for everyone, whether or not one has a relation to God. His will is universal; everybody can perceive to some extent this will through reason and conscience. The revelation in the Bible of God’s will is a necessary clarifying supplement. In Norway, this orientation has been influential among theological students and clergy since the 1970s, especially but not exclusively those who trained at MF Norwegian School of Theology in Oslo. The second orientation is of a communitarian type and is virtue-oriented (Hauerwas 2003). The Christian community (communio), through its traditions and stories, is constitutive when it comes to the content of ethics. This kind of

5 Norway has three main institutions that train pastors, one run by a public university and two private, both of which are considered specialized universities. The two private institutions reflect a more conservative tradition than the school run by the University of Oslo. In recent years, the differences among them have decreased, but ethical issues may be an area where differences are more prominent than elsewhere. 6 Most Norwegian clergy know well the creational orientation, the orientation determined by the human mind or temper and the orientation rejecting a specifically Christian ethics. The communitarian orientation, however, was not as common in 1970s and 1980s Norway as it has since become due to the greater theological influence of the English-speaking world in Norway. This orientation, therefore, may be more unfamiliar to parts of the older clergy.

Journal of Empirical Theology 31 (2018) 167-193 Downloaded from Brill.com09/28/2021 08:04:09PM via free access 174 Thorbjørnsen and Supphellen ethics is limited to the Christian congregation, even if it is the responsibility of Christians to make this will of God known to others. In the Norwegian context, this orientation has been reinterpreted to focus more on attitude (relational) than on virtue (reflexive), a shift making the orientation more social-ethically relevant (Asheim 1997, Asheim 1998). The third ethical orientation is determined by the human mind or temper. Here, attention is concentrated on the motives behind actions, motives that are understood to be reflections of the qualities in the actor’s character. The actor’s spiritual qualities determine what is ethically right; only if the mind or temper is good can an action be good. A legitimizing reason for this orientation, formerly and today, is the linkage to following Jesus, as manifested in the Pauline hymn in Phil 2:5. The fourth orientation differs from the three others in that it denies that there is a special Christian ethics. All ethics is universal because all ethics has its foundation in the reality of human life and the presuppositions for ethical reflection and commitment that lie within that reality. In the Nordic context, this orientation is especially connected to the Danish theologian and philos- opher Knud E. Løgstrup. His program is to determine, quite humanly, the attitude to one’s fellow human beings that is presupposed in the proclamation of Jesus, an ethical demand available as something unspoken in every encounter between people (Løgstrup 1997). This orientation has been especially influential in the theological education offered at the University of Oslo.

3.3 Political Orientation Previous research shows that political and ethical attitudes often correlate. For instance, Heaven and Connors (Heaven and Connors 2001) found that left-wing—but not right-wing—political beliefs correlated positively with values such as international harmony and equality. Similar relationships may exist in the sermons of left-wing preachers. Several studies have found relationships between the religious positions, whether liberal or conservative, of Americans and their political attitudes and engagement (e.g., Smith 1996; Staggenborg 1991).

3.4 Sources of Inspiration when Preparing Sermons When preparing a sermon, clergy may be inspired by many kinds of sources in addition to the Bible, such as Bible commentaries, other types of Christian literature, fiction, conversations with other clergy, the media, etc. The type of sources that a given minister prefers may influence the extent to which he or she preaches about social-ethical issues and the priorities of the specific issues discussed. For instance, Bible commentaries focus primarily on the biblical

Journal of Empirical TheologyDownloaded from 31 (2018)Brill.com09/28/2021 167-193 08:04:09PM via free access Ethics from Pulpits of the Church of Norway 175 text with no or little application to other ethical issues or dilemmas. Clergy also use books and journals dedicated to help pastors take further steps from the Bible to the contemporary challenges that their congregations face. Here, it is more common to deal with ethical issues actualized by the biblical text and situations in the congregation and society. Fiction reading as a preparation for the sermon is also a source in which social problems and ethical issues of modern life are addressed. From the media, environmental problems, poverty and human rights issues receive regular attention from clergy.

3.5 Characteristics of the Local Parish All choices, including the choice of topics for sermons, are embedded within social contexts that influence decision-making. The religious climate and level of religious knowledge and devotion may vary across regions within any country. In the US, there is more religious participation in the South than in the West (Sherkat and Ellison 1999). In Norway, a coastal area stretching from the South up the west coast to the Møre region is called the ‘Bible Belt’; it has more religious participation than the rest of the country (Botvar, et al. 2010). Even within regions, there are different segments of church members with different needs and social problems. To make sermons interesting and relevant, clergy are likely to adapt their preaching to the everyday needs and challenges of the members of their particular congregations. If there are many social problems in a parish, clergy may try to assist members in dealing with these problems. By contrast, if a parish is affluent, clergy may spend more time and effort on motivating members to help the less fortunate.

4 Method

4.1 Data Collection and Measurement A questionnaire was distributed on-line in December 2015 to all 1,347 registered clergy of the Lutheran Church of Norway via the administrative regional offices in the different dioceses. Clergy received an email with an invitation to participate and a link to the survey. About 22% (N = 296) of recipients filled in and returned the on-line questionnaire. The use of online-questionnaires is a common and efficient method for data collection. Because online questionnaires are self-administered, responses are less sensitive to social desirability biases than methods involving personal interaction with an interviewer (Harmon, et al. 2009). The main drawbacks of on-line surveys are representativeness (depending on the access to Internet in the population), lack of control over the response process, and lack of control

Journal of Empirical Theology 31 (2018) 167-193 Downloaded from Brill.com09/28/2021 08:04:09PM via free access 176 Thorbjørnsen and Supphellen over who actually provide the responses (Birnbaum 2004). These problems are less important in our study. We had a defined population of clergy who all had access to the Internet. Only the clergy themselves would be in a position to an- swer the questions on sermons and sources of inspiration. The freedom offered by on-line surveys to take breaks and collect information on topics of sermons probably added to the validity of our findings compared to other methods re- quiring more prompt responding. The first part of the questionnaire contained information on the purpose of the study and assurances of anonymity. The second part measured the frequencies of addressing different ethical issues in sermons. An expert group of key informants consisting of two consultants from the Lutheran Church of Norway who were both theologians, a bishop and the authors developed a list of 24 social-ethical issues (see Table 1). The use of key informants is common in social science research, including research on the sociology of religion (see e.g., Kraus 2007). Overall, our group of key informants were in the satisfactory score range on common criteria for key informant quality: several had special knowledge of the Norwegian Church and occupied central roles in the development of church policies. Some had long experience in preaching and of su- pervising of clergy. Our key informants (except for the authors) were also blind to the true purpose of the study, were motivated to participate and had good communication skills (see Marshall 1996). While we make no claim that our list of topics is exhaustive, we do believe that it includes major social-ethical issues. The issues reflect our understanding of social ethics and thus include an individualist as well as a social perspective. The emphasis, however, is on issues that primarily pertain to the social, i.e. how people as persons and communities relate to social organisation and institutions. To simplify the analysis, the authors grouped the twenty-four issues into six categories (see Table 1). The consultants and the bishop reviewed and ap- proved the categorization scheme. There are certainly other ways of grouping the issues; it would be possible to place some of the issues in more than one category, but we tried to assign them where they seemed most fitting. However, the characteristics of our classification scheme should be kept in mind when interpreting the results of the study. The survey instructed the respondents to ‘estimate how many times they had addressed each issue in sermons or devotions during the last Church year’ (the Church year begins in November, with Advent). The instructions underscored that one sermon or devotion could address several issues. An important question here is whether clergy would be able to recall topics addressed in sermons delivered several months before they completed the survey. However, most clergy keep records of appointments and copies of sermons and devotions.

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TABLE 1 Grouping of issues

Human Human Ecology and Human Just distribution Economic ethics compassion dignity environment rights and of wealth equal status

– Who is my – Human – Climate – Human – Global – Economic growth neighbor? worth challenges rights distribution of – Economic crime – Immigrants – Retarded – Pollution – Equal resources – Unemployment – Refugees people – Biodiversity status – Local – Tax – Drug addicts – Protection – Green distribution of – Privatization – Community of human life economy resources with other – Exclusion – Common religions society services in health care

The response time was registered for all respondents and can be considered an indicator of their level of involvement and dedication in providing accurate responses. On average, respondents took 36 hours and 30 minutes to finalize the questionnaire. This long response time suggests that many respondents took long breaks, possibly in order to look up records of appointments and sermon manuscripts. Still, our measure of frequencies is limited by the ability of respondents to remember their recent preaching history and to identify issues in written records of sermons and devotions. Such records could be more or less complete. Errors of memory may have led to either under- or over-reporting. However, we are chiefly concerned with the relative frequency of different issues, and we see no obvious reason why some issues would be more affected by under- or over-reporting than other issues. The following sections of the questionnaire contained measures of factors that could explain the frequencies of social-ethical issues in sermons and devotions. In section three, participants indicated how much they agreed with statements describing four different ethical orientations, using a ten-point scale (1 = completely disagree; 10 = completely agree): a) Christian ethics is an expression of God’s will for his creation; b) Christian ethics is limited to the congregation (communitarianism); c) The crux of Christian ethics is the mind and temper behind actions; d) There is no specific Christian ethics. We are not familiar with any previous attempts to measure these ethical orientations and thus could not rely on established scales. Our first choice would

Journal of Empirical Theology 31 (2018) 167-193 Downloaded from Brill.com09/28/2021 08:04:09PM via free access 178 Thorbjørnsen and Supphellen have been to follow standard procedures of scale development by developing a pool of items, performing factor analysis, refining the scale, collecting more data and executing confirmatory analysis and tests of discriminant and convergent validity. However, we used single-item measures in this study for three main reasons. First, the questionnaire is already quite demanding, so including a full set of potential scale items would likely have led to respondent fa- tigue. Second, the measures of ethical orientations are not the central focus of the study. Third, previous research indicates that single-item measures have comparable validity with multiple-item measures when the core of the phe- nomenon is easy to grasp and not very complex or multifaceted (Bergkvist and Rossiter 2007). We believe that this assumption is at least partly met in our case. Still, we acknowledge that our measures are early tentative attempts at measuring the four ethical orientations. None of the four single-item measures correlated highly, indicating satisfactory levels of discriminant validity. We measured political orientation according to a simple but common distinction between left-, centre- and right-oriented parties. Participants were asked to indicate the orientation of the party they voted for in the most recent election. The media commonly uses the left-centre-right distinction, so we as- sumed our participants would know it well. The expert group developed a list of relevant sources of inspiration in addition to the Bible, such as Bible commentaries, other kinds of literature, sermons by other clergy and experiences in nature (see Table 2). Using a ten-point scale, respondents indicated how important each source was in preparing sermons (1 = not at all important; 10 = very important). We also included two measures of social conditions in the local community: level of social challenges (items: ‘there are many social problems in my parish’, ‘there are many unemployed in my parish’, ‘there are many immigrants in my parish’), and level of affluence (one item: ‘there are many wealthy people in my parish’). Cronbach’s alpha for the level of social challenges measure was .71. The last part contained questions on age, gender, county in which the parish was located and the institution at which the respondent received theological education. Geographical location was transformed into a dummy variable, with counties in the South and West (Bible Belt counties) coded 1; all others were coded 0.

4.2 The Sample Table 2 (N = 296, response rate: 22%) shows the characteristics of the sample. We observe that all of Norway’s counties are well represented. The young- est participant is 27 years old; the oldest is 82, with a mean of 51 years of age. About one-third of the sample is female, and the majority of respondents were

Journal of Empirical TheologyDownloaded from 31 (2018)Brill.com09/28/2021 167-193 08:04:09PM via free access Ethics from Pulpits of the Church of Norway 179 educated at MF Norwegian School of Theology (65.2%). Politically, 59.5% belong to the parties in the centre of the political spectrum. This is a much higher figure than found in the general population (typically about 20-25%). Four times more participants identify politically with parties on the left (28.4%) than on the right (7.1%). When we cross political preference with gender, we find that female clergy sympathize more with the left than males: among female clergy, 42.5% prefer leftist parties and 40.8% parties in the centre.

TABLE 2 Characteristics of the sample (N = 296)

Variable Percent

Gender Females 33.1 Males 66.9 Age 25-40 19.9 41-60 53.0 60+ 27.1 Social status Single 17.2 Married 82.1 Co-inhabitant 0.7 Education University of Oslo 24.0 MF Norw School of Theology 65.2 VID Specialized University, 18.2 NLA University College 5.4 Other 14.9 Political preference Left 28.4 Center 59.5 Right 7.1 Don’t know 5.0 County Akerhus 8.8 Aust-Agder 3.0 Buskerud 4.4 Finnmark 1.0 Hedmark 4.4

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TABLE 2 Characteristics of the sample (N = 296) (cont.)

Variable Percent

Hordaland 10.8 Møre & Romsdal 6.8 Nordland 5.4 Nord-Trøndelag 2.4 Oppland 5.4 Oslo 10.1 Rogaland 9.1 Sogn og Fjordane 3.0 Sør-Trøndelag 5.1 Telemark 5.4 Troms 4.1 Vest-Agder 2.7 Vestfold 3.7 Østfold 4.4

5 Results

5.1 Descriptive Statistics Table reports mean scores on all scaled variables. The most popular ethical topics addressed by clergy are human compassion and human dignity. The least popular are human rights and equal status issues, the just distribution of wealth, and economic ethics.7 One of the ethical orientations scores notably higher than the other orientations: the notion that Christian ethics is an expression of God’s will for his creation. The most important sources of inspiration are pastoral experience, conversations with other clergy, local community experience, Bible commentaries and other theological literature.

7 A report and overview of the frequency of the different social-ethical topics in sermons and a discussion of them, related to the same survey, have been published in Norwegian (Thor- bjørnsen and Supphellen, 2017). In the present article, the focus is the determinants of the preaching frequencies; that analysis is unique to this study.

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TABLE 3 Means and standard variation of preaching frequencies for the six topic categories and for scaled variables

Variable Mean (stv)

Preaching frequencies by topic Human compassion 22.2 (28.9) Human dignity 14.8 (17.0) Ecology and environment/ 9.7 (14.6) Human rights and equal status 7.3 (11.1) Just distribution of wealth 7.0 (8.3) Economic ethics 7.1 (8.0)

Ethical orientations (scale: 1-10) Orientation: God’s creational will 8.19 (2.19) Orientation: Communitarian 4.11 (2.65) Orientation: Mind and temper 5.94 (2.75) Orientation: No Christian ethic 3.61 (2.72)

Perceived importance of sources (scale: 1-10) Bible commentaries 6.45 (2.27) Other theological literature 6.42 (2.23) Other disciplines 5.84 (2.29) Other Christian literature 5.23 (2.35) Fiction 5.20 (2.32) Local community experience 6.51 (2.09) Pastoral experience 7.20 (1.85) The media 6.00 (2.01) Sermons of other clergy 4.98 (2.33) Conversations with other clergy 7.02 (2.06) Experience in the nature 5.15 (2.36)

Social conditions in parish (scale: 1-10) Degree of affluence 5.54 (1.96) Degree of social challenges 4.06 (2.03)

5.2 Determinants of Clergy’s Emphases on Social-Ethical Issues Table 4 shows the results of regression analyses in which the demographic variables, ethical orientations, importance of inspirational sources and parish

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characteristics are regressed against the frequencies of addressing ethical topics in sermons. All variance inflation factors are below five, indicating that multi-collinearity is not a serious problem in the analyses. The thirty determinants explain a significant amount of variance in preaching frequencies for all topics; the adjusted R2 ranges from 4.7% to 20.3%.

TABLE 4 OLS regression. Dependent variable: Number of times topics were addressed in sermons (standardised coefficients). N = 295

Total Human Human Ecology and Human Just Economic (all topics) compassion dignity environment rights and, distribution ethics equal status of wealth

(constant) 291.43** 556.48* 169.12** 255.76* 268.55** 158.60* 95.88 Ethical 0.072 0.068 0.075 0.060 0.061 0.092 0.012 orientation: God’s creational will Ethical 0.057 0.072 0.081 0.008 0.043 0.060 −0.016 orientation: Communitarian Ethical 0.094 0.071 0.100* 0.097 0.087 0.084 0.066 orientation: Mind and temper Etihical −0.028 −0.042 −0.040 −0.001 −0.041 −0.023 0.048 orientation: No Christian ethics Source: Bible −0.095 −0.114* −0.098 −0.019 −0.161** −0.001 −0.048 Commentaries (importance) Source: Other −0.016 0.025 −0.032 −0.058 0.063 −0.109 −0.041 theological literature Source: Other −0.007 −0.016 0.051 −0.072 0.013 0.014 −0.021 disciplines Source: Other −0.031 −0.034 −0.044 −0.007 −0.007 −0.059 −0.002 Christian literature Source: Fiction −0.076 0.071 0.107 0.042 0.007 0.074 0.093

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TABLE 4 OLS regression (cont.)

Total Human Human Ecology and Human Just Economic (all topics) compassion dignity environment rights and, distribution ethics equal status of wealth

Source: Local 0.132* 0.115 0.096 0.160** 0.159** 0.104 0.050 community experiences Source: Pastoral −0.121* −0.102 −0.088 −0.124* −0.087 −0.177** −0.097 experience Source: The −0.013 −0.040 −0.062 0.069 −0.009 0.020 0.020 media Source: 0.057 0.074 0.068 0.005 0.070 0.026 −0.028 Sermons of other clergy Source: 0.049 0.087 0.053 −0.017 0.070 −0.008 −0.011 Conversations with other clergy Source: 0.143** 0.101 0.152** 0.168** 0.065 0.198** 0.110 Experiences in the nature Other kinds 0.036 0.042 0.032 0.075 −0.025 0.036 −0.006 of payed work (dummy) Voluntary work −0.007 0.027 −0.011 −0.012 −0.009 −0.089 −0.019 outside church (dummy) Theological 0.194** 0.177** 0.192** 0.208** 0.104 0.127* 0.194** school: University of Oslo Theological −0.140** −0.138* −0.112 −0.075 −0.162** −0.205** −0.063 school: MF Norwegian School of Theology

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TABLE 4 OLS regression (cont.)

Total Human Human Ecology and Human Just Economic (all topics) compassion dignity environment rights and, distribution ethics equal status of wealth

Theological −0.027 −0.026 −0.072 −0.010 −0.035 0.006 0.004 school: NLA University College Theological −0.029 −0.001 −0.001 −0.003 −0.051 −0.022 0.013 school: VID (Stavanger) Political 0.025 0.008 0.053 0.079 0.055 −0.091 0.117 orientation: Left Political −0.034 −0.001 0.023 −0.005 −0.033 −0.147 0.062 orientation: Center Political 0.097 0.149* 0.159* 0.046 0.077 0.013 −0.003 orientation: Right Degree of 0.085 0.090 0.080 0.062 0.080 0.171** 0.029 affluence in parish Degree of social 0.076 0.029 0.004 0.042 0.128** 0.055 0.073 challenges in parish Age 0.135** 0.146** 0.123* 0.110* 0.149** 0.112* −0.073 Gender 0.012 0.002 0.050 0.025 0.042 0.031 −0.036 Marital status −0.116** −0.112* −0.166** −0.085 −0.121** −0.108* 0.062 (single=0; married=1) Geography 0.077 0.053 0.074 0.056 0.158** 0.040 0.043 (0=South/West; else=1) R2 (adjusted) 0.176** 0.133** 0.183** 0.129** 0.203** 0.151** 0.047*

*p < .1, **p < .05

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The four ethical orientations measured in this study appear to be largely unrelated to the frequencies of addressing social-ethical issues in sermons. We observe only one effect at the 10% level, a positive effect of the mind and temper orientation on the frequency of preaching about human dignity issues (β=.100, p<.1). However, there are interesting significant effects of several of the inspirational sources. The source with the greatest impact in our sample of Norwegian clergy is experiences in nature. The more important this source of inspiration is to our participants, the more they preach about human dignity (β=.152, p<.05), ecology and the environment (β=.168, p<.05) and the just distribution of wealth (β=.198, p<.05). Clergy who value experiences in the local community as an inspiration when preparing sermons preach more on human rights and equal status (β=.159, p<.05) and ecology and the environment (β=.160, p<.05). Two types of sources relate negatively to preaching frequencies. Clergy who are more inspired by Bible commentaries preach less about human compassion (β=−.114, p<.1) and human rights and equal status (β=−.161, p<.05), whereas participants who value their own pastoral experience as an inspiration source preach less about human rights and equal status (β=−.124, p<.1) and ecology and the environment (β=−.177, p<.05). Experience from other paid work or volunteer efforts outside church has no significant effect on preaching frequencies, but the school at which participants were theologically educated does have a significant impact. Specifically, participants trained at the University of Oslo preach more frequently on all topics, except human rights and equal status, when compared to participants educated at other institutions. Clergy trained at MF Norwegian School of Theology preach less frequently than other clergy do on three out of six topics (human compassion, human rights and equal status and the just distribution of wealth). Political orientation has a weak influence, if any, on preaching frequencies. Only two effects are significant at the 10% level: right-wing orientation is positively related to preaching frequencies on human compassion (β=.149, p<.1) and human dignity (β=.159, p<.1). The (perceived) level of affluence in the parish has a positive significant effect on the frequency of preaching on the just distribution of wealth (β=.171, p<.05). The level of social challenges in the parish has a positive effect on preaching frequencies on human rights and equal status issues (β=.128, p<.05). Gender has no effect, but age relates positively to preaching frequencies for several topics: human compassion (β=.146, p<.05), human dignity (β=.123, p<.1), ecology and the environment (β=.110, p<.1), human rights and equal status (β=.149, p<.05) and the just distribution of wealth (β=.112, p<.1).

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Geographical location is not a major factor in explaining preaching frequencies. We observe only one significant effect on preaching about human rights and equal status issues. Clergy in the Bible Belt preach less frequently on this topic than clergy elsewhere Norway (β=−.158, p<.01). Finally, marital status (single or married) has a significant impact on preaching frequencies for four topics (human compassion, human dignity, human rights and equal status and the just distribution of wealth). Single clergy preach more frequently on these topics than married clergy.

6 Discussion

From previous research, we know little about the social-ethical topics that Norwegian clergy address in sermons. Neither do we know which specific issues they address more frequently, and why these issues are preferred. The present study provides new insights in this area. We find that human compassion and human dignity are the topics most frequently addressed in sermons. This is not astounding; human compassion or love of one’s neighbour is a core feature of Christian belief. Several of the texts prescribed for sermons are directly or indirectly about this topic. In addition, many topics related to human compassion (migrants, refugees, addicts) are high on the public agenda, making it natural for the clergy to refer to them in their sermons. Human dignity has a similar profile. Within the church, there is a long tradition of taking up challenges related to human life and human dignity. When it comes to protecting human life from conception to natural death, the church has been very active. Human dignity is also central in the church’s attitude to and assessment of migrants and refugees. Therefore, it is clearly a topic to be dealt with from the pulpit. The reason for this has less to do with prescribed biblical texts that directly relate to human worth and the protection of life; its relevance in sermons relates more to the general Christian obligation to protect life, so it is often used as an example of urgent ethical challenges for both the church and ordinary Christians. The third most frequent issue is ecology and the environment. In society as a whole, this is perhaps the most debated and challenging social-ethical issue. There are texts prescribed for the ecclesiastical year’s sermons that make it natural to discuss ecology and the environment, especially from the Old Testament. In the last thirty to forty years, the Norwegian church has devoted significant attention to this issue, both locally and centrally. Nevertheless, it is only in third place in our survey. Perhaps this has to do with the fact that the consequences of the environmental crisis are at a distance. People experience

Journal of Empirical TheologyDownloaded from 31 (2018)Brill.com09/28/2021 167-193 08:04:09PM via free access Ethics from Pulpits of the Church of Norway 187 it more as a theory, as a reality in faraway places or as something relevant at first in a remote future. This distance from the problems related to issues may also explain why human rights and equal status, the just distribution of wealth and economic ethics have a low frequency. To some extent, they are topics in the general social and political debate but may not be experienced as directly related to the daily lives of specific clergy or their parishioners. To other groups of people, however, they can be deeply relevant. The regression analyses provide insights into the determinants of preaching frequencies. Though we use the terms ‘determinant’ and ‘effect’, we make no claims of causality. The coefficients represent co-variation between preaching frequencies and several other variables, and a significant coefficient simply means that two variables are related. However, for some variables, causal in- ference is more relevant because we know that changes in the determinant occurred before the observed effect in the dependent variable. Education is one example; we find that educational background has a significant effect on the frequencies of preaching about social-ethical issues. Specifically, clergy educated at the University of Oslo preach more on most social-ethical issues than do clergy educated at MF Norwegian School of Theology. This observation could be due in part to a selection effect: the University of Oslo may attract students who are already more interested in social-ethical issues. Still, the two institutions also belong to different schools of thought. Possible explanations of the difference could be other pivots in teaching: the theological teaching at the University of Oslo generally includes more ethical and social-ethical issues and its exegetical, hermeneutical and homiletical work with texts has been more focused on their ethical relevance. This result is not only valid for clergy of a specific age; it also includes those educated at MF Norwegian School of Theology in the 1970s, a period when social-ethical questions were central to the institution’s teaching. The effects of the inspirational sources are noteworthy. To our knowledge, this study is the first to explore the effects of different inspirational sources on the preaching frequencies of social-ethical topics. Study participants rated the importance of eleven different sources, two of which relate positively to frequencies of addressing social-ethical topics in sermons: experiences in nature and local community experiences. First, clergy who are more inspired by nature preach more often about human dignity, ecology and the environment and the just distribution of wealth. This observation is not surprising given the importance of nature to the Norwegian national identity. Norwegians are very proud of the scenery in the country, and many go hiking on weekends. More than half of the population has access to a cabin in the mountains or coastal areas (Eriksen 1996).

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Second, the perceived importance of local community experience as an inspirational source relates positively to preaching frequencies for the following topics: ecology and the environment and human rights and equal status. Notably, we observe these effects when all other variables are held constant and cannot be explained by differences in other variables like political opinion, gender, age or education. Thus, ceteris paribus, there appears to be a positive relationship between personal experiences in nature and the local community and an emphasis on social-ethical issues in sermons. However, we cannot conclude that subjecting clergy to more experiences in nature or the local community would necessarily lead to higher frequencies of preaching on social-ethical issues. The reverse logic is also possible: clergy who are concerned with social-ethical issues in their preaching could be more interested in the local community and consider experiences in nature to be more important than other clergy do. There is likely a reciprocal relationship between the importance of experiences in nature and the community and a focus on social-ethical issues in sermons. The perceived importance of Bible commentaries as an inspirational source relates negatively to preaching frequencies for two social-ethical topics: human compassion and human rights and equal status. One possible explanation for this finding is that clergy who use Bible commentaries as a primary source of inspiration are more concerned with core issues of Christian faith, such as grace, salvation, sanctification and Bible history, rather than with the social-ethical issues in the temporal realm. We observe few and weak effects of political orientation. A right-wing orientation is weakly, but positively related to frequencies of preaching on topics of human compassion and human dignity, but the coefficients are only mar- ginally significant (p<.1). The relation between views to the political right and human compassion could be understood as limited to a very individualistic perspective and not including solidarity as an aspect of human compassion. Hence, the results of this survey do not support the contention that clergy’s political orientation influences the frequency with which their sermons address social-ethical topics. Notably, political orientation may have an impact on variables other than preaching frequencies, such as type of argument and opinion on social-ethical issues. This is an interesting topic for future research. This survey is also the first to reveal that the level of affluence in a parish relates to the frequency with which Norwegian clergy preach about the just distribution of wealth. When a parish is affluent, clergy address the issue of the just distribution of wealth more often. We also find that, when there are social challenges in the local parish related in part to immigration issues, clergy preach more about human rights and equal status. These findings indicate

Journal of Empirical TheologyDownloaded from 31 (2018)Brill.com09/28/2021 167-193 08:04:09PM via free access Ethics from Pulpits of the Church of Norway 189 that Norwegian Church clerics are sensitive to the specific characteristics of their local parishes and are comfortable in addressing the day’s most pressing social-ethical issues. Finally, we observed that older and non-married clergy preach more frequently about most social-ethical issues than do younger and married clergy. We speculate that younger clergy feel less free to address such issues, assessing them to be not natural concretizations of the texts prescribed for the ecclesiastical year’s sermons. They also have less pastoral experience and may have less knowledge about their parishes. Non-married clergy occupy themselves less with family and children and may have more time to process information about, and reflect upon, social-ethical issues. Another possible explanation for the higher frequencies found in this group is that non-married people on average feel more lonely and have more psychological problems than do married clergy (Lau, et al. 2002). This could make them more attentive to social-ethical issues than married clergy. We need to conduct more research to explore these speculations.

7 Practical Implications

With reference to earlier studies of written Norwegian sermons, this study has shown that Norwegian ministers today deal more with social-ethical issues in their sermons than before. This finding indicates that ministers are sensitive to the problems and the characteristics of their present time and their parishes. There is, however, reason to ask why so important issues in today’s world as human rights and equal status, just distribution of wealth and economic ethics are rated so low. The importance of economics in our society require that eco- nomical ethics is given more attention, also in sermons. It may be that many ministers experience a kind of personal distance to these issues. The wealth and the extensive welfare system in Norway may also keep these issues in the background. We find it timely to ask whether something should be done with the list of texts for the ecclesial year, perhaps also focus more on these issues in education, particularly in homiletics but perhaps also in ethics. This seems more necessary for the country’s private training institution (MF) than the public one (TF). Here we find a considerable difference. The priority of human compassion and human dignity reflect a traditional way of thinking. The environmental challenges and the climate-crisis are so urgent that it is natural for a minister in his or hers sermons to address them. The survey also shows something encouraging: the ministers are not afraid to talk about just distribution of wealth in affluent parishes and connect

Journal of Empirical Theology 31 (2018) 167-193 Downloaded from Brill.com09/28/2021 08:04:09PM via free access 190 Thorbjørnsen and Supphellen human rights and equal status in parishes with social challenges. Sermons like that can make a difference and generate new ways of thinking and prosocial behaviour among parishioners (Nteta and Wallsten 2012). The negative correla- tion between the use of Bible commentaries in preparations and the frequency of addressing some social-ethical issues should not, of course, be viewed as a reason for not using the Bible. Rather this finding suggests that clergy also need other sources of inspiration or more training in using the Bible when dealing with social-ethical issues.

8 Limitations and Future Research

There are several limitations of our survey. The sample of 296 clergymen and women represents about 22% of the total population of Norwegian Church clergy. Comparisons between our sample and official figures from the Church of Norway National Council show that our sample closely reflects the population of clergy in terms of gender, age and geographical distribution.8 Still, our participants are probably somewhat more interested on average in ethical issues than the rest of the clergy population. We based our dependent variables on clergy’s subjective reporting of the number of times they had addressed social-ethical issues in devotions and sermons over the preceding church year. The ability of participants to remember, or find records of, sermons that had been delivered several months earlier in time is limited. Clergy typically keep records of assignments and sermons and the long response time (36 hours and 30 minutes) suggests that many respondents did take the time to check their records. Still, both records and memories were likely incomplete. Some participants may have over-reported incidents of preaching about social-ethical issues in order to appear ethically conscious, in a form of socially desirable responding. Thus, our frequency data could be biased due to under- or over-reporting. Another potential bias in our frequency data is variation in the interpretation of the six content categories. Respondents may have perceived the categories somewhat differently and thus placed similar topics in different categories. For instance, some may have classified compassion for immigrants as a human dignity topic, whereas

8 The figures from the Church of Norway National Council’s annual report 2017 are as follows, with figures from our survey in parentheses: age of clergy: Below 40: 16% (19.9%), between 40 and 60: 54% (53%), above 60: 30% (27.1%); female clergy: 31% (33.1%), male clergy: 69% (66.9%). (https://kirken.no/globalassets/kirken.no/om-kirken/slik-styres-kirken/kirkeradet/ 2018/mars/aarsrapport_for_den_norske_kirke_2017.pdf (13.06.2018)).

Journal of Empirical TheologyDownloaded from 31 (2018)Brill.com09/28/2021 167-193 08:04:09PM via free access Ethics from Pulpits of the Church of Norway 191 others may have defined it as a human rights and equal status issue. This kind of bias is only a serious problem if variance in interpretation affected some categories more than other categories, and we have no reason to believe that this is the case. Alternatively, we could have asked clergy to keep records of their sermons for a year and then identified frequencies through the analysis of these records. We recommend this procedure for future research in this area. Some correlations are surprising. Why do experiences in nature correlate strongly with a focus on human dignity in sermons? We rather expected a cor- relation with ecological and environmental issues. More research is needed here. The lack of correlations between the four ethical orientations and the preaching frequencies for different social-ethical issues is another issue for future research. We only used single question measures in this study. In future attempts to study such relationships, researchers should develop multi-item measures of ethical orientations and perform confirmatory analyses to test for convergent and discriminant validity before exploring relationships with preaching variables.

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