Forgotten Roots of the Nordic Welfare State in Protestant Cultures

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.

1. Søren Blak Hjortshøj (Syddansk Universitet), Thomas Mohnike (University of Strasbourg): Introduction
2. Arne Bugge Amundsen (University of Oslo), Dimensions of Trust. Lutheran Pastors at the Wake of the Scandinavian Welfare State – The Case of Norway, 1537-1814
3. Douglas Shantz (University of Calgary), The Thought, Ministry, and Influence of Franz Julius Lütkens (1650-1712). Court Preacher to King Frederick IV. of Denmark and Norway
4. Bernd Roling (Freie Universität, Berlin): Bucolics, Public Welfare and Agricultural Progress: Models of an Ideal Economic Past in Eighteenth-Century Sweden
5. Vigdis Berland Øystese (University of Bergen), The role of hymns in the Norwegian church, culture, and society
6. Karl Clemens Kübler (University of Basel), 'I to kan utrette store ting sammen'. The narrative reintegration of Protestant thought into Norwegian labor movement discourse in two novels by Johan Falkberget
7. Beata Agrell (University of Göteborg): The price of giving: charity and Lutheran alienation in Swedish devotional social fiction of the turn of the century 18/1900. The Example of Mathilda Roos
8. Søren Blak Hjortshøj (University of Southern Denmark), The Protestant Pastor and the Anti-Authoritarian Rural Protest Culture in Henrik Pontoppidan’s Det Forjættede Land: Hope and Fear of the Modern Democratic Civil Sphere
9. Nils Gunder Hansen (University of Southern Denmark), Son of a Preacher Man. Complexity and ambivalence in Henrik Pontoppidan’s views on the Danish Church and it’s pastors
10. Thomas Mohnike (University of Strasbourg), Work and Salvation. Selma Lagerlöf and Protestant Ethics of Welfare
11. Frederike Felcht (University of Frankfurt), A Communion of Swedes? On Protestantism in Vilhelm Moberg’s Emigrants-series (1949–1959)
12. Pehr Englén (Albert-Ludwigs-University of Freiburg), The (Re-) Enchanting Conspiracy: The Swedish Welfare State and its Literary Discontents
13. Maria Hansson (Sorbonne University), The Fantastic in the Nordic Welfare State. Secularisation and Rationalisation in Let the Right One In by John Ajvide Lindqvist
14. Piero Colla (University of Strasbourg), From Common Prayer to Morgonsamling: Protestant Mystique in Welfare State Schooling?
15. Fréderique Harry (Sorbonne University), A Nordic Paradox: Religion in Politics