This is an electronic reprint of the original article. This reprint may differ from the original in pagination and typographic detail. ”Still, I Can Hardly Believe it” Wolf-Knuts, Ulrika Published in: Folklore : Electronic Journal of Folklore DOI: 10.7592/FEJF2020.79.wolf_knuts Published: 01/01/2020 Document Version Publisher's PDF, also known as Version of record Document License Publisher rights policy Link to publication Please cite the original version: Wolf-Knuts, U. (2020). ”Still, I Can Hardly Believe it”: Reactions, Resources, and Religion in Conversations about Sexual Abuse of Children among Laestadians in Finland. 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Oct. 2021 https://doi.org/10.7592/FEJF2020.79.wolf_knuts “STILL, I CAN HARDLY BELIEVE IT”: REACTIONS, RESOURCES, AND RELIGION IN CONVERSATIONS ABOUT SEXUAL ABUSE OF CHILDREN AMONG LAESTADIANS IN FINLAND Ulrika Wolf-Knuts Emeritus Professor, Åbo Akademi University Turku, Finland [email protected] Abstract: There are innumerable nuances in people’s behaviour when they be- come frustrated. In this article I analyse interviews about a specific case when, in a relatively small Lutheran community, it turned out that a highly respected person, a leader and preacher, was a paedophile. The reluctant accepter, the disappointed accepter, and the explaining accepter are three types of narrators. What were their reactions, what resources did they apply in our conversation? Partly, religion played the role of an obstacle for further belief, but partly it was also a support for the members of the community. Keywords: belief-disbelief, coping, Finland, Laestadianism, paedophilia, resources INTRODUCTION There are several ways of handling a critical situation. Some people deal with it by shrugging their shoulders. In some it even awakens a serious feeling of deceit, which must be processed. Others surrender to their feelings and give up. Sometimes frustration and disappointment lead to aggressiveness and/or a fighting spirit. In this article I analyse a specific case when, in a relatively small Lutheran community, it turned out that a highly respected person was a paedophile. I interviewed three members of the community about their reac- tions when they heard about the case. What resources did they apply in order to get a grip of the situation? Did their religion influence their reactions?1 The events of interest to me happened in a Laestadian revivalist group, a so-called association of peace, holding some 1,200 members2 and belonging http://www.folklore.ee/folklore/vol79/wolf_knuts.pdf Ulrika Wolf-Knuts to the Lutheran congregation in Jakobstad, western Finland. One of the most influential leaders, preachers, and Sunday school teachers turned out to have been a paedophile. He abused his own grandchildren, a couple of small boys. In fact, the molestations ended a little over twenty years ago, in the 1980s, but only in 2009 they became publicly known, when one of the abused children, now an adult man, spoke to the press (Lampa 2009). According to him, it turned out that his own grandfather used to sexually harass him and other small boys in his house. The news caused a shock to many of the members of the association of peace. At the time when the press published their articles, the grandfather- preacher had passed away and also the period for prosecution had expired. In 2012, I had the opportunity to interview a number of members in the Jakobstad association of peace. None of the interviewees had been a victim of the paedophile but all of them had lived near the victims and some of their rela- tives were married into his house. When I asked some members how they had reacted when they first learned that their leading preacher and their beloved teacher at Sunday school was sexually interested in small boys, they stated that they could not believe it. One of them was reluctant to believe what she heard, another one was deeply disappointed and almost disillusioned, and the third one found plenty of explanations for what had happened. I discuss what resources they made use of when they told me how they reacted to the paedophile’s acts. In this case, their belief in a revivalist association might be a support for the members, but it might also play the role of an obstacle to further belief.3 Kenneth I. Pargament’s (1997) research about coping highly inspired me to concentrate my analysis around the interviewees’ reactions towards the narratives about this case of paedophilia in a small Laestadian community in Finland. According to him, we cope or find a way to reduce tension in a prob- lematic situation many times a day. People choose between several possible options, all of which aim at significance for the coping person. Consequently, the components of the coping process are not generally fixed. In a situation of distress, people must choose among several options and pick out the one that is significant so that they can accept their choice and acknowledge it as the best one in the specific situation. Pargament states that people create orient- ing systems in accordance with which they conduct their coping process. An orienting system is a general worldview consisting of customs, values, rela- tionships, beliefs, and personal characteristics. People pick the factors in their process of coping according to their personalities, their former experiences, their orientation to life, their resources, both material and mental, and their cultural context. Consequently, coping is a cultural process. However, it is not necessarily logical or sensible, and the chosen factors or the outcomes are not always positive – from an outside perspective. People’s capacity to tolerate disappointment and crises is very different. 204 www.folklore.ee/folklore Reactions, Resources, and Religion in Conversations about Sexual Abuse of Children THE ASSOCIATION OF PEACE AND ITS RELIGIOUS AFFILIATION The Swedish clergyman Lars Levi Laestadius (1800–1861) introduced a Chris- tian revivalist movement around the middle of the nineteenth century. He worked in northern Sweden, mainly among the Sámi people (Talonen 2014: 20–34; Raittila 1969: 99–101; Suolinna & Sinikara 1986: 15). The movement spread all around the Arctic area in Europe and in the USA. Today it is in- ternational but it is most significant in Finland. There are seven different fractions of the Laestadian movement holding more than 1,000 members, and groups consisting of a smaller number of members are numerous (Talonen 2014: 19). The movement is faithful to the Bible. A strong personal recognition of sin, emotionally charged confessions and forgiveness are its characteristics (cf. Brännström 1962). The subdivision mostly represented in Finland (around 90,000 members), to which the Jakobstad association of peace belongs, is called Old Laestadianism (gammallaestadianismen; cf. Snellman 2011: 49.) This as- sociation of peace is part of a specific subgroup calledRauhan Sana (The Word of Peace), and holds some 10,000 members (Talonen 2016).4 THE INTERVIEWEES AND RESEARCH ETHICS Astrid is a local politician and housewife, a lady around eighty years old, whereas Per is an entrepreneur in his fifties and Tim, also an entrepreneur, is some ten years younger. Each interview lasted about one hour. There was no hurry and, which is quite common, many good pieces of information emerged after the interview. I wrote them down as soon as possible. Each of the interviewees is a parent so they can imagine what it is like to have children that have been abused by an adult. The interviews dealt with paedophilia. The interviewees told me about a grandfather who was a paedophile. Certainly, one might wish details about what happened. However, in this study I am not interested in what “really” happened. In this context sexual abuse does not need any detailed definition, and the interviewees also expected me to understand what they meant with- out any further descriptions. I was not able to interview the preacher, for he had passed away many years ago. Neither did I contact any of the victims, for their narratives were not in my focus. My main interest lay in the reactions among those who were not directly involved as victims or family members, but who were affected as a third party. Gossip, rumours or other kinds of nar- ratives functioned as their sources. My interviews are my research material, Folklore 79 205 Ulrika Wolf-Knuts and therefore I focus on them. There is no need or reason to doubt my inter- viewees’ narratives about their experiences. I do not want to construct a series of “real” events that can only be conjectures, for the interviews do not contain any detailed information of what happened. Instead, I want to concentrate my investigation on my interviewees’ reactions to the stories. A special emphasis lies on the reflections that people had when they thought of and told me about what they had heard. I concentrate my study on the information that, to the interviewees, was so important that they found it worthwhile to formulate it orally and communicate it to me.5 During the three years that passed between the disclosure and the inter- views, the informants had certainly discussed the case both within and outside the community.