Biblebelt feature Norway: Beer drinking is no longer sinful
31-12-2024
Northern Europe
Ben Provoost, RD
The Norwegian church is important for the royal family too. Prince Sverre Magnus is held by his grandmother Queen Sonja as he was baptised by Oslo bishop Kvarme in Oslo in March 2005. Photo AFP, Tor Richardsen
Northern Europe
Norway’s southwest coast is known as the Bible Belt. Compared to the rest of Norway, relatively many active churchgoers live there. But life is changing there, too. You won’t find a council labelling alcohol consumption as ‘sinful’ anywhere there anymore.
Christianity gained a foothold in Norway around the ninth century. At least 2,000 stave churches were built in the country until the Reformation. Today, 28 of these churches still remind us of the country’s early Christian period. Until 1536, Catholicism was the state religion. After that, Lutheranism took over. The Church of Norway became the state church.
In the 17th and 18th centuries, the church and Christians were increasingly criticised from within. Religious ideas from the United States and Britain, in particular, and also as much as Germany (pietism), reached the ordinary man and woman.
‘Through shipping and emigration, the southwestern coast was particularly exposed to overseas cultural impulses,’ historian Bjørg Seland explains in an interview at the University of Agder in Kristiansand. Her colleague Nils Martinius Justvik and sociologist of religion Pål Repstad also participate.
Conversion
Lay preachers travel the country pointing the finger at the church’s increasingly liberal course and the population’s declining church attendance. With the message that people need to repent, they preach.
‘Characteristically, they employed the language of ordinary people and used metaphors from everyday life,’ Repstad knows. ‘As a result, they were very influential.’
One well-known lay preacher was Hans Nielsen Hauge (1771-1824). He is considered the foreman of a pietistic revival movement. On foot, he travelled to almost every corner of Norway.
After his death, numerous houses of worship sprang up in the country. They initially existed alongside local churches that belonged to the state church. In the first period, the most conservative Christians still attended the state church on Sunday mornings and attended their own meetings in the afternoon or evening. But from then on, they will meet exclusively with like-minded people in what Norwegians call a ‘bedehus’.
Speculation
Around about 1870, the Norwegian Biblebelt began to take shape. The message of Gospel preachers appeared to take root relatively easily in the coastal regions. There, the difference between wealthy and poor tenant farmers was smaller than in eastern Norway, Repstad argues. ‘It has been said that the Christian idea that all people are equal before God resonated more easily there for that reason.’
One speculative theory is that people on the coast are more receptive to religion. According to this explanation, life on the coast is dangerous, and sailors and fishermen regularly perish. Faith could flourish precisely on the coast, providing comfort in difficult times.
A characteristic of the Biblebelt is that 20 per cent of the population regularly attend church. So says Tore Witsø (Rafoss of the Institutt for kirke-, religions- og livssynsforskning in Oslo), a research institute focusing on church, religion and worldview. ‘Out there, it is much lower; in the east, for example, only 9 per cent.’
Besides church congregations belonging to the Church of Norway, the Biblebelt is also home to many independent groups and churches. One such church, for example, is Menigheten Samfundet in Kristiansand and Egersund, a conservative faith community of 1,750 members with its own school. The church there is under fire, partly because its members are allegedly not allowed to contact ex-members. The school has not received state funding since the end of last year.
Politics
Another feature of the Biblebelt is that the Kristelig Folkeparti (KrF), Norway’s Christian Democratic Party, has many supporters here.
On his screen, Witsø Rafoss conjures the necessary statistics from the 2023 municipal elections. While only 4 per cent of all Norwegians voted for this party in last year’s municipal elections, the percentage is more than three times higher in Kristiansand.
Kristiansand, with about 115,000 inhabitants, is the largest city in southern Norway and the most important city in the Biblebelt.
Newspapers
In the Biblebelt, the newspapers Vårt Land and Dagen are relatively widely read. Both newspapers are Christian, with the former being more ecumenical and the latter representing the voice of conservative Christians more.
Vårt Land, therefore, attracts a broader target group. The newspaper is also based in Oslo, which is geographically further from the Bible Belt than Dagen, which has its office in the southwestern city of Bergen.
Incidentally, more Christian organisations are not found in the Biblebelt but rather in the capital. This is true, for example, of the schools’ union Kristne Friskolers Forbund (KFF) and the missionary organisation Norsk Luthersk Misjonssamband (NLM).
There is more conservative thinking in the Bible Belt than outside of it. Marrying instead of cohabitation is more common there than in other regions.
There are also specific views on women’s employment. As in other Scandinavian countries, the government strongly emphasises gender equality, encouraging men and women to work equally. Although this works out quite well nationwide, women in the Biblebelt work proportionally less than their gender counterparts outside, according to Witsø Rafoss. Scholars Seland, Repstad, and Justvik endorse his statement.
Gay marriage
Progressive developments, for example, gay marriage introduced in 2009, are not readily embraced there either. For gay activists, it prompted a genuine study trip to southern Norway last year. One of its aims is to ‘unravel the status of LGBT rights in this conservative region’.
Norway is steadily secularising. Many Norwegians are still church members but rarely see a house of worship inside. Symbolically, 2012 marks the end of the Church of Norway’s status as a state church. Secularisation is also taking hold in the country’s most conservative region.
Norwegian-Canadian freelance journalist Victoria Åsne Kinsella, who grew up in southern Norway in the 1970s and 1980s, reflects on developments on her native soil on lifeinnorway.net. She notes that the Bible Belt is changing and becoming more progressive. Whereas religious education in primary schools used to be Christian-based, other religions are now also covered, as well as humanism and spirituality.
She cites another example from her hometown: at the time, drinking alcohol was labelled ‘sinful’ by the municipal council, and therefore, the local super was not allowed to sell it. This ban was lifted in 2003, a sign that times have changed.
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