Forgotten Roots of the Nordic Welfare State in Protestant Cultures

Hardback, Pages: 264, Size:178 x 254 mm, Illustrations:3 b/w, 1 col., Language: English. ISBN 9782503612638. Summary The Nordic welfare state of the 20th century has been hailed around the world as a model of how to build democratic and egalitarian societies. It has often been described as a project of social democracy, often following a narrative of secularization and rationalization of society. However, some of the most important actors and ideas of the "Scandinavian Sonderweg" had their roots in Protestant, often Pietist and revivalist milieus that dreamed of creating an egalitarian community. The present volume explores these often forgotten roots in several case studies of phenomena from the seventeenth to the twenty-first century, focusing primarily on questioning the function of aesthetics in the creation of the welfare state model. We argue that aesthetics and what Friedrich Schiller called aesthetic education played an important, unifying role for Nordic societies. These aesthetics were shaped by Protestant ideas and practices. Through references to the then widespread circulation of educational texts based on Luther's catechism, the later pietistic catechism of Erik Pontoppidan, Nordic hymnbooks, and practices such as communal singing and preaching in church, church coffee, reading circles, and conventicle meetings, a common aesthetic language emerged that unified different social groups and their competing goals and claims. Civic actors and movements learned specific ways to engage in society, to develop practices of internalizing responsibility, (self)critique, and accountability, and to communicate and develop a more democratic modern civic sphere. We therefore propose to look at this history from the perspective of a historically changing aesthetic as an integrating principle for understanding the political, social, cultural, economic and many other aspects of the Nordic welfare state. TABLE OF CONTENTS Forgotten Roots of the Nordic Welfare State in Protestant Cultures Søren Blak Hjortshøj, Thomas Mohnike The Nordic Welfare State, the Pastoral Enlightenment, and Franz Julius Lütkens (1650-1712), Court Preacher to King Frederick IV of Denmark and Norway Douglas H. Shantz Dimensions of Trust. Lutheran Pastors on the Eve of the Scandinavian Welfare State - The Case of Norway, 1537-1814 Arne Bugge Amundsen The Role of Hymns in the Norwegian Church, Culture, and Society Vigdis Berland Øystese Bucolics, Public Welfare and Agricultural Progress. Models of an Ideal Economic Past in Eighteenth-Century Sweden Bernd Roling 'I to kan utrette store ting sammen'. The Narrative Reintegration of Protestant Thought into Norwegian Labor Movement Discourse in Two Novels by Johan Falkberget Karl Clemens Kübler The Price of Giving: Charity, Welfare, and Lutheran Alienation in Swedish Social and Devotional Fiction at the Turn of the Twentieth Century. Some Examples Beata Agrell The Protestant Pastor and the Anti?Authoritarian Rural Protest Culture in Henrik Pontoppidan's Det Forjættede Land. Hopes and Fears of the Modern Democratic Civil Sphere Søren Blak Hjortshøj Work and Salvation. Selma Lagerlöf and Protestant Ethics of Welfare Thomas Mohnike Son of a Preacher Man. Complexity and Ambivalence in Henrik Pontoppidan's Views on the Danish Church and it's Pastors Nils Gunder Hansen A Communion of Swedes? On Protestantism in Vilhelm Moberg's Emigrants series (1949-1959) Frederike Felcht From Common Prayer to Morgonsamling. Protestant Mystique in Welfare State Schooling? Piero Simeone Colla Secrecy, Conspiracy, Enchantment: The Conditions of (Dis)belief in 1980s Sweden Pehr Englén The Fantastic in the Nordic Welfare State. Secularization and rationalization in Let the Right One In by John Ajvide Lindqvist Maria Hansson A Nordic Paradox. Religion in Politics Frédérique Harry 0 g.…