Pentecostal Migration in Secular Sweden; Multi-disciplinary Perspectives on a New Religious Cosmopolitan Landscape; Enkvist; Westerlund

Edited by

Victoria Enkvist [+–]

Uppsala University

Victoria Enkvist is Associate Professor in Constitutional Law and Senior Lecturer in Public Law at Uppsala University, Sweden.

Katarina Westerlund [+–]

Uppsala University

Katarina Westerlund is Associate Professor and Senior Lecturer in Practical Theology at Uppsala University, Sweden.

Religious renewal takes place in several major cities around the globe. New vital Pentecostal churches, worship groups, and religious communities are established. This mainly cosmopolitan movement is also visible in the Norden part of Europe, changing the religious landscape in modern fluid globalized societies like the Swedish.

In this book, this global phenomenon is analyzed from different disciplinary perspectives, with the Swedish capital Stockholm as an example. The analyzes build on extensive field-work in one Arabic, one African, and one Latin American Pentecostal church in Stockholm. A demographic mapping of the rise of International Pentecostal churches and other migrant churches in Sweden is also included. New knowledge about these ongoing transformations of the religious landscape in urban Sweden, gives perspectives on the global cosmopolitan religious change.

Foreword

Grace Davie

University of Exeter

Grace Davie is Emeritus Professor of Sociology at the University of Exeter.

Chapter 1

International Pentecostalism in Sweden – Researching a New Cosmopolitan Landscape [+–]

Victoria Enkvist,Katarina Westerlund

Uppsala University

Victoria Enkvist is Associate Professor in Constitutional Law and Senior Lecturer in Public Law at Uppsala University, Sweden.

Uppsala University

Katarina Westerlund is Associate Professor and Senior Lecturer in Practical Theology at Uppsala University, Sweden.

In this introductory chapter the multidisciplinary research project Pentecostal migrants in Secular Sweden: impact and challenges? is introduced and some overall findings of the project are presented. Furthermore, the complex Swedish religious and legal landscape is depicted, situating the results from the research project presented in the different chapters in context. Finally, an outline of the volume and the different authors contributions are given.

Chapter 2

Desecularization of Stockholm? Changes in Numbers of Churches and International Pentecostalism 1980–2020 [+–]

Magdalena Nordin,Torbjörn Aronson

University of Gothenburg

Magdalena Nordin is Associate Professor, Sociology of Religion, University of Gothenburg.

Uppsala University

Torbjörn Aronson is professor-at-large at Southeastern University (Lakeland), professor of church history at Scandinavian School of Theology (Uppsala) and associate professor in the same discipline at Uppsala University.

In recent decades, Swedish society has become religiously diverse. However, it is not known whether this diversity has led to an increase in religion. Research into religious changes in cities shows how religion is still important in shaping them, and the aim of the chapter is, with a focus on number of local churches, is to explore processes of change in the ecclesial landscape in Stockholm Region. We also conducted an in-depth analysis of how international Pentecostalism is part of these processes. Processes of change in the ecclesial landscape could be seen in Stockholm Region during the 1980–2020 period, with a geographical shift in the number of local churches from northern to southern Stockholm. This shift clearly relates to a decline in the number of older local churches, for example, of the Church of Sweden and Classical Free Churches, and the growth of number of local churches closely related to contemporary immigration, that is Pentecostal, Catholic and Orthodox churches, in which international Pentecostal churches have an important role.

Chapter 3

Ecclesiology with Unintended Consequences: Pingströrelsen and the Integration of International Pentecostal Churches in Stockholm 1980–2020 [+–]

Torbjörn Aronson

Uppsala University

This chapter explores how the growth of international Pentecostal local churches has impacted the native Classical Pentecostal movement in Sweden, Pingströrelsen, in the Stockholm Region. Pentecostal immigration, and the resulting growth of international Pentecostalism, is analysed from the perspective of Pingströrelsen and with the help of church historical methodology. The ecclesiology of Pingströrelsen was developed in the 1910s. It was a congregationalism emphasizing the possibilities of Christian unity and effective evangelism on the local level and presumed a homogeneous population. But Pingströrelsen’s inroads among old national minorities displayed an openness to adapt to a more culturally diverse situation. Pingströrelsen proved a readiness to accommodate the immigration of Finnish Pentecostals after the Second World War within the movement. They were allowed to create worship groups under the umbrella of a mother church and later they could start their own autonomous churches, while at the same time being a part of the movement. This occurred although the practical ecclesiology developed in a restrictive direction, dissuading the founding of new churches in cities were local churches belonging Pingströrelsen already existed. When later the immigration of Roma and Latino Pentecostals increased, they were accommodated in the same way. But no autonomous Roma or Latino churches were founded before 1997, probably because of the restrictive ecclesiology. From 2001, Pingströrelsen has abandoned this ecclesiology and developed a legal denominational structure with a process for new member churches, networks for pastors and acceptance of transnational networks of local churches. This has facilitated the integration of a growing number of international churches. But at the present a majority of the local international Pentecostal churches in Stockholm are not part of Pingströrelsen.

Chapter 4

“Living Theology” – Everyday Life, Challenges and Resources among International Pentecostals in Stockholm [+–]

Katarina Westerlund

Uppsala University

Katarina Westerlund is Associate Professor and Senior Lecturer in Practical Theology at Uppsala University, Sweden.

This chapter explores challenges and resources among international Pentecostals living in the capital of Sweden. The analysis builds on fieldwork carried out in 2019 in an Arabic and an African Pentecostal church the Stockholm. Using lived religion as a theoretical tool, challenges related to the Swedish culture are explored, revealing experiences of discrimination and intolerance of both the informants’ origin and Pentecostal faith, and thereby questioning personal and religious identity. Resources among the international Pentecostals are found in the church community forming an extended family with both practical, emotional, and spiritual support, that provides meaning and purpose. Furthermore, the spiritual dimension of lived religion is highlighted as foundational for the international Pentecostals as Living theology expressed in their lives. The chapter contributes by a strong practice approach and by highlighting the meaning of social and cultural context for Pentecostal Christianity.

Chapter 5

Suburbia and the Subway: Pentecostalism and Migration in Stockholm [+–]

Émir Mahieddin

Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris

Emir Mahieddin is a Franco-Algerian anthropologist, CNRS researcher and member of
the Centre d’études en sciences sociales du religieux (CéSor) at the School of Advanced Studies in Social Sciences (EHESS) in Paris. He is the author of a monograph on Swedish Pentecostalism, Faire le travail de Dieu. Une anthropologie morale du pentecôtisme en Suède (2018, Karthala), and recently edited a special issue of the French journal Multitudes, offering a comparative gaze on the political engagements of Evangelicals in five continents (Evangéliques: combien de division?, 2024). In 2022, he was awarded with the CNRS Bronze Medal.

Based on 20 months of fieldwork in Stockholm’s Arabic-speaking and Spanish speaking Evangelical and Pentecostal churches between 2017 and 2020, this chapter intends to give an account of the different ways in which the figures of the “immigrant” and the “refugee”, as well as the question of migration at large, are conceived in the Pentecostal congregations I visited between 2018 and 2020 in Stockholm and its outskirts. I propose to reflect further on the effects of urbanity on Pentecostalism, and reciprocally on the interpretations that Pentecostals make of the city. In so doing, this chapter aims to contribute to one of the research questions raised by the collective project “Pentecostal Migrants in Secular Sweden”, which was concerned with highlighting the fluidity of the contemporary logics of religious belonging in a late modern cosmopolitan landscape such as the contemporary urban Swedish society.

Chapter 6

Legal Regulation of Religious Minorities in Sweden – The Example of International Pentecostals [+–]

Victoria Enkvist

Uppsala University

Victoria Enkvist is Associate Professor in Constitutional Law and Senior Lecturer in Public Law at Uppsala University, Sweden.

This chapter focuses on the legal framework that exists in Swedish society regarding religion, in particular freedom of religion and the rules on support to religious communities, as these rules are central to the ability of religious people to believe and live their religion. Rules on religious freedom can be found in both the Instrument of Government (IoG) and the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). The Convention is an obligation under international law and has also been law in Sweden since 1995. The dual protection of the right has affected the opportunities for religious individuals and groups to manifest their faith in different ways. In the encounter with Swedish society, the rules can sometimes seem difficult to understand and difficult to penetrate, which can lead to anxiety and a feeling of exclusion. Knowledge of how the systems are structured and what rights and opportunities one has as a group and as an individual can help to create an understanding of the rules and provide opportunities for more communication with society, which in turn can affect the opportunities for individuals and groups to participate in the public discourse.

Chapter 7

International Pentecostals in Metropolitan Stockholm – Rethinking Relations between Voluntary and State Religion in Urban Sweden [+–]

Anders Bäckström

Uppsala University

Anders Bäckström is Professor emeritus in Sociology of Religion, at Uppsala University.

The view that religion is disappearing in cities and persisting in rural areas endured until the end of the 20th century. Due to growing migration this view is now challenged in metropolitan areas such as Stockholm. Here, international Pentecostals from different parts of the world offer examples of a global market in religion, containing new forms of spirituality largely detached from institutions. By applying theoretical models from the sociology of religion to the material, the author indicates that religions have, once again, become an area of interest to the state, whilst remaining themselves voluntary networks. Today metropolitan areas increasingly accommodate diasporic people, displacing the native population. In these areas, religion is shaping identities that are located between the state and global society networks – a fact that can explain its growing vitality.

Chapter 8

Broadening the Perspectives – An International Outlook [+–]

Allan H. Anderson,Simon Coleman,Kim Knibbe,Pamela Slotte Russo

University of Birmingham

Allan Anderson is an Emeritus Professor of Mission and Pentecostal Studies at, the Department of Theology and Religion, University of Birmingham, UK. Most recent monographs: To the Ends of the Earth: Pentecostalism and the Transformation of World Christianity (2013), An Introduction to Pentecostalism (2014), and Spirit-Filled World: Religious Dis/Continuity in African Pentecostalism (2018).

University of Toronto

Simon Coleman is Chancellor Jackman Professor at the Department for the Study of Religion, University of Toronto. His research interests include pilgrimage, Pentecostalism, cathedrals, ritual, and religious infrastructures. He has carried out fieldwork in Sweden, the UK, and Nigeria. Recent books include The Anthropology of Global Pentecostalism and Evangelicalism (NYU Press, 2015, co-edited with Rosalind Hackett) and Pilgrimage and Political Economy (Berghahn, 2018, co-edited with John Eade). He is co-editor of the journal Religion and Society. Simon is currently completing a comparative book on pilgrimage as a field of study.

University of Groningen

Kim Knibbe is Associate Professor Anthropology and Sociology of Religion at Groningen University. She is currently directing the project “Sexuality, Religion and Secularism” with Rachel Spronk (funded by NWO). Previous research focused on Catholicism and spirituality in the Netherlands and on Nigerian Pentecostalism in Europe and the Netherlands. She has also published a series of theoretical and methodological reflections on studying religion. Her most recent co-edited books and special issues are Secular Societies, Spiritual Selves? (with Anna Fedele, 2020) and ‘Theorizing Lived Religion’ (with Helena Kupari, Journal of Contemporary Religion, 2020).

Helsinki University

Pamela Slotte Russo is Professor of Religion and Law, Helsinki University, Finland

In this final chapter international scholars in the field will comment and responses to the material and results presented in the previous chapters, providing a wider international outlook.

Reviews

I am more than pleased to recommend this volume, which looks in detail at three groups of Pentecostal Christians who have settled in the Stockholm area. The book concludes with a series of interesting reflections from Pentecostal scholars from different parts of the world.
From the Foreword by Grace Davie, Emeritus Professor of Sociology, University of Exeter

Religion

Books and Journals in Humanities, Social Science and Performing Arts

Pentecostal Migration in Secular Sweden

Multi-disciplinary Perspectives on a New Religious Cosmopolitan Landscape

Victoria Enkvist [+–]

Uppsala University

Katarina Westerlund [+–]

Uppsala University

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