Historisk tidskrift 123:3 • 2003
Innehåll (Contents) 2003:3
Uppsatser (Articles)
Väckelse och sekularisering. Exemplet Umeås Evangelisk-Lutherska
Missionsförening 1850–1910
Stefan Gelfgren
Fulltext (pdf)
Summary
Revivalism and Secularisation. The Local Congregation
in Umeå of the Swedish Evangelical Mission Society 1850–1910
This article deals with how organised Christianity transformed
during the second half of the 19th century. The transformation
is described in terms of secularisation in the sense that religious
affiliation became voluntary, optional and individual. The paradoxical
relation between revivalism and secularisation is especially
stressed. The Swedish Evangelical Mission Society (EFS) was founded
in 1856 in order to revitalise the confession of the State church,
through emphasising laymen participation and the individual relation
to God. However, through establishing an autonomous body within
the Church, EFS undermined the Church and its interpretations
of Christian doctrines.
This development is studied through a
local EFS congregation of Umeå, a small town in the northern
part of Sweden. When the congregation was founded in mid 19th
century its activities consisted mainly of prayer meetings twice
a week, which included singing hymns and reading from the Bible
and texts by Luther. The congregation also had a Sunday school.
By the end of the 1880s the variety and content of the activities
had changed. It became possible to spend every day of the week
in the prayer house. Occasions for religious socialising in pleasant
forms increased, and the congregation now started to turn into
a denomination. From being an open and self-evident association,
integrated with the Church and society, it became in a way more
closed and started to define itself in relation to other contemporary
associations and phenomena. The congregation developed a specific
culture. An awareness developed that the congregation could only
constitute one alternative among others in an increasingly pluralistic
society.
This change was a result of an adaptation to the changing
context in which the congregation worked. Locally, in Umeå, this
transformation primarily relates to the increasing number of
different popular movements (temperance and revivalist movements)
and their ways of gathering and providing entertainment to its
adherents. This led to a pluralisation of the town’s life and
to a more competitive situation, to which the congregation had
to respond. Hence, previous forms of activities were not enough
to attract new and keep old adherents. In this way, the religious
content became less prominent. In the more diverse situation
EFS’s local congregation became one voluntary and optional choice
among other religious and non-religious alternatives.
|
|