Trygve Wyller

Rosemarie van den Breemer

Jose Casanova

Shaped by five hundred years of Lutheran impact and with a strong influence of big majority churches, Scandinavian secularity is a very interesting and fruitful material for the historical and contemporary theoretical debate on the secular. It can be discussed, for example, whether the strong position of Human Rights and of the Scandinavian welfare state might be interpreted in continuity with the historical influence of Protestant traditions. Is there something like a hidden sacrality implicit in the Scandinavian secular?

The Scandinavian Case of Religion in Human Rights, Law and Public Space

Secular and Sacred?

Kaspar Villadsen

Hans-Joachim Sander

In the present situation in the world, values of tolerance, compassion and hospitality appear to be more contested. The debates among European leaders have come to center around how to "protect us" from refugees, rather than protecting the precarious lives of the refugees.The authors agree that we should not stop looking for practices of hospitality. We need to better understand what hospitality is, where it is practiced and also why it is practiced. Hospitality is not necessarily something we possess as an inner quality or as something disconnected from others. Rather it is practiced in specific ways in in particular spaces. The thesis is that we have to look for the characteristics of hospitality in "the other spaces" that Michel Foucault once called heterotopias.Five specific cases are analyzed: - a monastic garden for interreligious dialogue in Austria, a Lutheran congregation that accommodates a project for undocumented migrants in Western Sweden, a busy intersection in downtown Oslo where substance-users stay (and most others pass by), a voluntary organization that works for the creation of alternative life forms in inner city Copenhagen, and, finally, some aspects of the Occupy Wall Street movement in New York City.The authors are theologians, sociologists and a PhD candidate in diaconia, an illustration of the interdisciplinary composition of the book.

Practicing and Theorizing Hospitality and Counter-Conduct beyond the Religion/Secular Border

The Spaces of Others – Heterotopic Spaces

Hans-Günter Heimbrock

Stefanie Knauss

Daria Pezzoli-Olgiati

Carla Danani

In democracies of advanced plurality, religion is a contested and powerful part of public discussions and practices. Today, religious difference is articulated and negotiated controversially in interaction with other spheres of society. While there are clear tendencies of increasing polarization, we also encounter moments of acknowledgement and appreciation of plurality. Facing these complexities and challenges of our time, this volume scrutinizes contested practices where religious difference matters. Committed to an interdisciplinary exchange between theology, the study of religion and political philosophy, this volume is grounded in the attention for concrete practices and phenomena as well as the conviction that difference is both a productive concept and an enriching experience. Exploring practices of shared places, sexuality, justice and the commitment to the human being in education, migration and violent conflicts, the volume as a whole contributes to the analysis of contested social and political practices in order to investigate the significance and role of religion in contemporary societies, and thus it further develops theoretical reflection about religion in contemporary research.

Contested Contemporary Issues

Religion and Difference

Niels Henrik Gregersen

Bengt Kristensson Uggla

The movement of Scandinavian Creation Theology was shaped by its three founding figures: the philosopher K.E Løgstrup, and the systematic theologians Regin Prenter, and Gustaf Wingren. In their appeal to Martin Luther, all three of them were deeply inspired by the Danish theologian N.F.S. Grundtvig (1783-1872), seing him as a creative mediator between Luther and contemporary Christianity. The program of Scandinavian creation theology is not a naive call for an additive theology, as if to merely say: “we need more creation.” Nor does it represent a creation theology linked to a traditional theology of the orders of creation. Rather, Scandinavian Creation Theology claims that a theological interpretation of the shared conditions of humanity is to be considered a prerequisite for any interpretation of the Christian faith in the present religious situation. This volume aims to reformulate the potentials of Scandinavian creation theology for the 21st century, arguing that Scandinavian creation theology adds significantly to the body of theological reflection on the future shape of Reformation theology. The reader will find fresh interpretations of the sources, critical elaborations, and sustained attempts to reconfigure Reformation theology for a post-secular age.

Reformation Theology for a Post-Secular Age: Løgstrup, Prenter, Wingren, and the Future of Scandinavian Creation Theology

Synnøve Bendixsen

This book explores the duality of openness and restriction in approaches to migrants in the Nordic countries. As borders have become less permeable to non-Europeans, it presents research on civil society practices that oppose the existing border regimes and examine the values that they express. The volume offers case studies from across the region that demonstrate opposition to increasingly restricted borders and which seek to offer hospitality to migrant. One topic is whether these practices impact and transform the Nordic Protestant trajectory. The book considers whether such actions are indicative of new sensibilities and values in which traditional categories and binaries are becoming less relevant. It also discusses what these practices of hospitality indicate about the changing relationship between voluntary organizations and the Nordic welfare states in the time of migration. As such, it will appeal to scholars of sociology, anthropology, and religious studies with interests in migration, civil society resistance and social values.

Religious and Secular Counterspaces in the Nordic Region

Contested Hospitalities in a Time of Migration

Trygve Wyller

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