Nordic Folk Churches: A Contemporary Church History. By Bjorn Ryman, with Aila Lauha, Gunnar Heiene, and Peter Lodberg. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2005. xiv + 173 pp. $20.00 paper.

This thin volume is a welcome addition to the literature in that it introduces the contemporary Nordic

"folk churches," commonly referred to as Lutheran "state churches" (though the Church of Sweden, for example, disestablished in 2000), to a general readership that knows relatively little about the subject. Even from an historical vantage point, most church history texts and survey courses only glance, if at all, at the northern fringe of Europe. This is true from the medieval era to the present despite the complexity, richness, and relevance of these churches to the story of western Christianity.

The book is a general English-language "synthesis" of a much larger research study carried out by thirty Nordic church historians from Sweden, Norway, Denmark (the three "Scandinavian" countries), Finland, and Iceland. The project resulted in a five-hundred-page volume entitled Nordiska folkekirker i oprud. National identitet og international nyorientering efter 1945 (Aarhus: Aarhus universitets forlag, 2001). Initiated by the Nordic Council of Ministers, this comparative study by and for specialists examined the churches in regard to present European developments and in relation to each other at a time of great challenge and change for all, and their distinctive contribution in light of the expanding European Union. Nordic Folk Churches has a much more limited scope and a broader intended readership. Its four authors represent each of the Nordic countries with the exception of Iceland, which sadly for the most part is left unaddressed.

Gunnar Stalsett, bishop of Oslo and former general secretary of the Lutheran World Federation, introduces the book from the perspective of the ecumenical cooperation of Nordic bishops and the transformation of their churches, setting a tone for the analysis of Nordic church life today. Bjorn Ryman of Uppsala University is the major contributor and has taken the lead in putting the book together. His fine introduction to the history of the five Nordic churches from their inception around the year 1000 to 1940 is arguably the best summary of the topic available in English. Four general surveys of the period since the Second World War follow: Lodberg on Denmark, Lauha on Finland, Heiene on Norway, and Ryman on Sweden. These do not follow a consistent format, however, and are cursory at best, uneven in treatment and quality. Chapters follow on the general themes of ecumenical life (Ryman), church and society (Lodberg and Ryman), and theology and spirituality (Heiene). The book concludes with a chapter called "Nordic Heroes of Church and State"--a hagiographical heading that perhaps the editors might have altered. Of the eight important persons highlighted, two are women, Bodil Koch and Gro Harlem Brundtland.

Though the overall construction of the book is a bit like "beads on a string" with little attempt at integration, the reader is introduced to many fascinating dimensions of ecclesial life in countries noted generally for their degree of secularization, where official membership remains very high (85 percent or more), involvement on any given Sunday very low (less than 5 percent), and an interest in spirituality more private than public. The authors, however, do little to clarify a specific definition of the "folk church," though Lodberg does state that it is "a church structure and a Lutheran ecclesiology that lies between the state church and the free church" (18), perhaps a more Grundtvigian use of the term "folk." Ryman refers to the five Nordic churches as "an entity" (xiii). Yet this never really becomes clear beyond aspects of ecumenical life and common cultural values. A more substantive introduction or the presence of a conclusion (which the book lacks--it ends with two pages on Olof Palme) would have made clear the authors' shared presuppositions on this definitional matter, one that seeks to be a singular Nordic contribution to European religious life.

Consequently, the folk churches are generally treated as the established Lutheran bodies, with little attention historically to free church movements of renewal (no mention, for example, of Carl Olof Rosenius, who never left the Church of Sweden and is generally regarded the most influential person in the Swedish church after the reformer Olavus Petri), to the contemporary pluralistic expressions of church life in immigrant groups since the 1960s, or to the fastest growing dimensions of Pentecostal and charismatic parachurch groups (which do receive some indirect attention). With the historic Lutheran and free churches statistically in decline, the shared understanding of a folk church appears to be not only in structure but in cultural ethos, something like (apologies to Chesterton and Mead) "the church with the soul of a nation." An abiding Danish critic of this notion, Soren Kierkegaard, receives no mention in this book.

Definition and scope aside, the book certainly accomplishes its general purpose and makes for worthwhile reading. One learns much about the Nordic Lutheran churches, their spirit of ecumenical cooperation and leadership throughout the Christian Church, their openness, and responsiveness to important contemporary issues. An examination of the contours of the modern welfare state, with its social, political, and economic facets, and the role of the churches with keen global and mission sensitivity, removes any perception of geographic isolation, but reveals rather a deep involvement in contemporary European development rooted in a firm heritage broadly shared. An understanding of ecumenical pioneers like Nathan Soderblom and Eivind Berggrav, as well as Lundensian theologians like Anders Nygren and Gustav Aulen, makes apparent the vitality of life and faith in service of the wider church and world. The Nordic churches collectively provide important case studies, for example, of the challenges of secularization and globalization, social ethics, the ordination of women, same-sex unions, responses to war and violence, and the embrace of religious pluralism.

Despite the organizational problems of the book, its substance provides not only much food for thought but should grow the appetite for a far too neglected dimension of church history, one that is hardly provincial but an important contemporary voice. The authors are to be commended, and one can hope that they will continue to share the insights of their larger work.

Philip J. Anderson

North Park Theological Seminary