The Current Norwegian Situation

The Norwegian situation the last 25 years has been marked by a larger transformation than is evident in countries that are religiously (and culturally) more diverse. Membership in the Church of Norway has declined from 88% in 1980Footnote 1 to 74% in 2014.Footnote 2 Beginning in 2017 the Church of Norway is no longer a state church, but an independent faith community. It will still maintain its privileged status as representing the vast majority of Norway’s inhabitants in the foreseeable future and receive substantial financial support from the state. At the same time the number of Roman Catholics, as well as Muslims and Buddhists in particular, has grown rapidly, first and foremost due to immigration.Footnote 3 A growing religious diversity is accompanying greater cultural diversity to some extent, an important observation I will return to later. The number of people that are religiously unaffiliated is also growing. An estimate for 2015 is that nearly one fifth of the population of 5.2 million does not have any membership in a faith or life-stance organization including the Church of Norway. Norway also has life-stance communities such as the secular humanists, who have experienced an increase of their membership during this time, now accounting for 1.7% of the population.

Religious and life-stance pluralism is mainly, but not only, a phenomenon in the country’s large cities. Norway’s capital, Oslo, with almost 650,000 inhabitantsFootnote 4 has become a city in which religious and cultural plurality are particularly visible: In the central areas of Oslo, there are numerous church buildings but also three purpose-built mosques. Nine percent of the population of Oslo are registered in Muslim faith communities, and 8 % are members of Christian churches outside the Church of Norway. The Church of Norway had 72% of the city’s population as members in 2014.Footnote 5

José Casanova stated in 2014 that the dual process of pluralization of modernities included a pluralization of western European societies due to new global migrations (Casanova 2014: 27). This internal pluralization of societies may lead to the

…discovery of the heterogeneity of the secular and to the need to rethink anew everywhere political secularism as a new configuration of the spatial arrangement of religion and the secular, and of the place of religion in public secular spaces (Casanova 2014: 27).

Regarding Norway, secularity in public space may be described as an emerging space for the expression of more than one religion, or as a space where different religious and life-stance communities negotiate their mutual presence. Oddbjørn Leirvik has suggested that secularity as a cultural precondition may be established through various forms of interreligious dialogue – formal and informal, institutional and more ad hoc – which aims at fostering constructive coexistence:

In this perspective, secularity can be seen as a way of living together in which no religion or spiritual authority has hegemony, but rather must share power and influence with other movements, institutions, and lines of thought. Regardless of how strong religion is considered to be in a given society, this is the secular condition. (Leirvik 2014: 264).

As noted earlier, Norway has kept the Lutheran Christian tradition as a state religion until now (ending in 2017). This has been disputed in many ways, but the financial support for faith and life-stance communities which has been established to compensate for its financial privileged position is interesting: All registered faith and life-stance communities regardless of their size have been granted the same amount per capita that has been given to the Church of Norway divided on its members. In this sense, we could say that Norway has many state religions. One may definitively say that that this shows a political will to encourage religious plurality so far – financially, at least. This support has had some significant effects on the Norwegian faith community landscape: It has privileged religious organizations over e.g. cultural organizations for minorities; it has legitimized other faith communities other than the majority church, and not least, it has provided them with some possibility to be self-governed and less dependent on foreign financial support for keeping up their work. To some extent it has made it more possible for minorities to have the capacity to engage outside of their own group, for instance in activities of interreligious dialogue. One may say that religion has been included in the Norwegian concept of the welfare state, and that religion has been signified over culture and ethnicity regarding integration of immigrants in this system.

Grace Davie’s “Believing without belonging” (Davie 1994) may be rephrased in order to describe the Norwegian religious landscape, “Belonging without believing” as such a high percentage of the population is still members of the Church of Norway. A recent survey conducted by Gallup Norway on behalf of the Secular Humanist Association suggests that every other Norwegian in 2015 claims that the humanistic worldview is closest to their own,Footnote 6 and closer than any religious worldview. This is presented as a significant drop of religious worldview in the population as a whole, although still not fully visible in the membership statistics. There is also not necessarily a direct, coherent line between individual worldviews and membership in a faith or life-stance organization in the Norwegian context.

Since the beginning of the 1990’s, organized faith and life-stance dialogues have been established in Norway mainly through initiatives taken by faith and life-stance communities themselves. The Church of Norway has been – and still is – part of these dialogues and in some cases it has been the initiative taker. The dialogues are diverse regarding which parties are represented as well as their perspectives and aims. Some of the dialogues are concerned with faith and life-stance politics, and they aim at achieving equal rights for religious and life-stance minorities in Norwegian legislation and state administration. Other dialogues are concerned with establishing good-neighbor relations between people across religious and life-stance boundaries, and others have concentrated on specific themes. It may be obvious that interreligious dialogue could represent a particular strategy from involved parties to encounter religious pluralism in a constructive way. But what may be less obvious is that interreligious dialogue with or without non-religious life-stance communities included is also negotiating and encountering pluralism in a broader sense. The dialogues relate to the secular and to secularity in different ways, and the dialogues themselves influence on how the secular is understood and negotiated. Oddbjørn Leirvik has stated that parties in interreligious dialogue has to establish a shared language in order to communicate – or to be more precise, that inner-religious argumentation and expressions need to go through a translation process in order to create meaning for people who are without access to the particular religious ways to argue and express that meaning. He calls this a secularization process, where language and argumentation are transformed in order to establish a shared ground of communication (Leirvik, 2012).

Interreligious Dialogue in Norway: Exploring Pluralisms and Gender Justice

In my qualitative research on interreligious dialogue and interreligious encounter, I have focused on exploring Muslim-Christian relations and dialogue. In Gender Justice in Muslim-Christian Readings. Christian and Muslim Women in Norway Making Meaning of Texts in the Bible, the Koran and the Hadith (Grung 2015), I used qualitative methods to explore the interpretative strategies of Muslim and Christian women in Norway by reading and discussing their respective canonical texts..

The project has been anchored in the emerging field of Interreligious Studies. My academic training is as a (Christian, Lutheran) theologian. Interreligious Studies includes many different methods and themes, and the empirical study of interreligious dialogue is one of its fields. The project has been part of a larger interdisciplinary research project dominated by social scientists, mostly social anthropologists. The research processes within the interdisciplinary research environment would be worth a study in itself, as both enriching and challenging. I am presently working in the intersectional field of practical theology and interreligious studies. Practical theology as a field is in many ways undergoing an “empirical turn” (Browning 1991). My empirical research experiences in this and other interdisciplinary projects has convinced me that empirical research and qualitative methods have a lot to offer to what may be called the classical Christian theological disciplines, not only to practical theology. What theology can contribute in qualitative methods is also considerable - the most significant contributions would be historical, textual and hermeneutical insights and perspectives when empirical material is analyzed and in formulation of research questions and project designs. The encounter between methods of social science and theology, however, is a disputed area. The crucial concern as far as I can see is a fear of corrupting the method and manipulating the empirical findings of social scientists. Theologians may be skeptical about their theoretical paradigms being disturbed by the empirical findings in other and different ways. The solution must be to uphold the tension and not to reduce it, not to dismiss theological insights and perspectives for the social scientists, and not to establish speculative empirical material for the theologians.

Peter Berger’s call for a new theory of pluralization, and his insight that “a secular discourse is a result from modernity but it can coexist with religious discourses that are not secular at all” (Berger 2012, 8). In his recent contribution, he views modernity to be rather a deepening process of pluralization than a decline of religion. He also states that these insights have “far-reaching practical, indeed political implications” (Berger 2012, 8).

Modernity is obviously a contested notion, and some may prefer to talk about a post-traditional state rather than modernity. The two are partly overlapping, and the term post-traditional may be more precisely communicating parts of the content of the more comprehensive term that is modernity. On the other hand, post-traditional may be less explicitly intertwined with the so-called Western world. The notion of post-traditional addresses transformation processes within societies that can open up for groups and individuals their choices regarding religious affiliations, self-expression, family life, education and that can open up a focus on the individual and not only on the group one is born into. The establishing of Islamism as an ideology and the use of the so-called “new hijab” are by some scholars seen as a modernization of Islam (Utvik 2011) and represent the contrast between “modern” and “post-traditional”. Others may dispute this, but most would agree that these developments certainly can be identified as post-traditional. Some would then claim it to be re-traditional. When it comes to the term “plurality,” I believe it has at least three uses: As description of contexts (slightly more positive than the term diversity), but also as a concept, and as a value.

Interreligious encounters and particularly organized interreligious dialogues can be seen as one way for faith communities to engage actively and constructively with increased religious pluralism, as already mentioned. In this way it may well be seen as relating to a “deepening process of pluralization” in the sense that it may deepen and explore the relations between different faiths both on a personal and an institutional level. It may deepen knowledge and mutual understanding, and provide a shared space. In the Norwegian context, where we have included the life-stance council for secular humanists as an integral part of the national consensus-run organization for interreligious (and life-stance) dialogue, the dialogue also has regional and local councils.Footnote 7 This organizational model has had some particular impacts on the dialogue scene in Norway, and I believe one of them is a process of establishing a shared secular language in these dialogues, marked by a human-rights oriented discourse and language (Leirvik 2014). There has been a concentration on discussing themes of shared concerns, and freedom of religion and belief has particularly been a principal focus. Generally, themes that may stir up existing differences between the religious and life-stance traditions represented have not been addressed in this multilateral forum. The forum’s decisions are based on consensus, with every life-stance or religious community having one vote, regardless of its membership number. Some of the themes that are generally not addressed in the forum because of the forum’s focus on achieving consensus are what I now consider, namely themes connected to discourses on gender that include gender equality, gender justice, gender models, gender roles, religion and feminism, and the possible conflictual political values of freedom of religion and feminism. My question will be: What happens with these issues when “a deepening process of pluralization” takes place?

How a religious tradition views gender issues may be seen as a catalyst for revealing the religious traditions’ stance on post-traditionalism, or modernization. Gender equality and gender justice within faith communities are often negotiated between secular and religious language and values. How might this be performed in an organized Muslim-Christian dialogue? Are gender issues located within the religious or the secular discourse in such a dialogue?

My example here rests on the qualitative research in my book (Grung 2015), and the reflection on how to view religious differences -or plurality in interreligious dialogues and the consequences it may have. The discussions in the group I studied between Muslim and Christian women with diverse cultural and geopolitical backgrounds on the prescriptive texts from Sura 4,34 and 1.Tim 2, 8–16 and the Hagar narratives from Genesis and the Hadith went on in six intense, four-hour-long meetings that were recorded, transcribed and analyzed. The texts read from the Koran and the New Testament were these:

1 Timothy 2:8–15Footnote 8:

8 I desire, then, that in every place the men should pray, lifting up holy hands without anger or argument; 9 also that the women should dress themselves modestly and decently in suitable clothing, not with their hair braided, or with gold, pearls, or expensive clothes, 10 but with good works, as is proper for women who profess reverence for God. 11 Let a woman learn in silence with full submission. 12 I permit no woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she is to keep silent. 13 For Adam was formed first, then Eve; 14 and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor. 15 Yet she will be saved through childbearing, provided they continue in faith and love and holiness, with modesty.

Sura 4:34Footnote 9:

Men are in charge of women,Footnote 10 because Allah hath made one of them to excel the other, and because they spend of their property (for the support of women). So good women are the obedient, guarding in secret that which Allah hath guarded.Footnote 11 As for those from whom ye fear rebellion,Footnote 12 admonish them and banish them to beds apart, and scourge them. Then, if they obey you, seek not a way against them. Lo! Allah is ever High, Exalted, Great.

All the women readers in the group identified themselves as religious. They were Christian or Muslim of different denominations, including Lutherans and one Catholic, Sunni and one Shi’a Muslim. At the same time they all claimed to be feminists. Is feminism part of modernity, of the post-traditional, of the secular? Or could it be seen as part of a religious practice, through the influence of the post-traditional and the secular, negotiated into an integral position? The women in the group struggled to hold “being a believer” and “being feminist” together, not particularly for themselves or for their own consciousness’ sake. Their reflections showed that they had already done this kind of identity work over many years. The challenge arose among themselves: The Christian women challenged the Muslim women on their feminist stance, and the Muslim women challenged the Christian women on their religious practice, particularly when the Christian women clearly criticized and abandoned parts of their own canonical text, the Bible. This observation may entail that the label “feminist” and the label “religious” have a certain tension between them, also in this group. It was reflected through how the participants interpreted their respective texts: If the Christian women criticized the texts they were perceived as more secular by their Muslim partners, and when the Muslim women made efforts to avoid criticizing the texts themselves and instead criticized other interpretations of the texts, they were seen as more religious – and less feminist – by their Christian partners.

All the women in the group shared some of the interpretative tools in use in their meaning-making and their discussions over the texts. They established themselves as authoritative readers and interpreters of the texts, having the right to read as well as the right and the duty to interpret the texts. This could be described as taking on a moral responsibility for their respective text’s content, criticizing it or interpreting it contextually in a way they ethically could defend and which made sense to them. The terms I used to describe this interpretative tool is “analogical reasoning”, distinguishing it from the term “ethical critique” of the texts, based on Elizabeth Schlüssler Fiorenza’s (Schlüssler Fiorenza 1988) idea, and of the “moral enrichment” of the text developed by Khaled Abou el Fadl (Abou el Fadl 2002). Both these strategies firmly place the interpretative authority and the interpretative responsibility on the reader. The ethical resource my readers shared but used in different ways could be named gender equality or gender justice. Their presupposition was that both the Christian and the Islamic original message when correctly interpreted conveyed gender equality or gender justice. Despite their description of how their respective religious traditions and male interpretations of their traditions’ canonical scripture, they viewed these traditions and interpretations had tampered with this ethical value in the past or in the present, and they thus claimed this to be a misrepresentation of Christianity or Islam. Then their ways parted regarding how they viewed the Bible and the Koran respectively. The Christians were ready to dismiss the Biblical texts that did not encourage gender justice (on the basis of what they found to be Jesus’ teachings), while the Muslims wanted to use the Koranic texts to fight for gender justice within their tradition.

But the readers also differed regarding what they considered to be the significant context of their interpretations. This was not due to their religious affiliation, but to their geopolitical and cultural background. The readers with a Norwegian background mainly used the Norwegian context when they took ethical stands related to the texts, and they declared that the Norwegian context was gender equal, and that gender discrimination in general belonged to the past. Their view was that the secular and political discourse on gender equality in Norway had influenced and changed the church, but that this transformation of the church although coming from a secular discourse was helping the church return to Christianity’s original message proclaimed by Jesus, which they believed preached gender equality. For them, there was no conflict between the Christian discourse on gender issues, and the secular discourses on gender. One may say that gender equality has become a political and cultural identity marker for Norwegianness, (and for parts of Norwegian Lutheran Christianity, too). For the other readers, being Christian and Muslim migrants originally from East Africa, the Middle East, Iran, and Pakistan, the significant context was defined more broadly. To them, the relation between the secular and the religious discourse on gender issues was constructed differently. What they mostly related to was particular transnational religious discourses on how gender justice and their own faith could be reconciled in their consciousness and religious practice. Their examples of secular or intertwined secular and religious discourses regarding gender issues in their contexts of origin was marked by traditional ways of relating to gender issues – both Christian and Islamic. One of the consequences of broadening the significant context for the meaning making of the texts in the group was that the Christian religious discourse of gender appeared more complex. For the Muslims in the group, the engagement with both traditional and post-traditional contexts showed a great variety within the Islamic tradition itself concerning the interpretation of gender models and gender justice based on the Koran.

The example above from the Muslim-Christian group of readers showed possible ways to negotiate gender justice, religious traditions and secularity between readers and texts (the canonical scriptures) and between readers. What emerged was not only a diversity regarding religious (Christian and Muslim) interpretation strategies of the texts, but a diversity related to cultural and geopolitical backgrounds related to the traditional and the post-traditional in the interpretations.

Interreligious Dialogue – Two Models

Interreligious groups or interreligious dialogues do not necessarily open up spaces of negotiation of plurality or of new interpretations of texts and religious practices. I will outline two possible models of interreligious dialogue as an organized activity. These models can be analyzed regarding how they relate to “the double plurality.” Both models have as a premise that religious difference among the participants is what constitutes interreligious dialogue, and that this difference is wanted, required and expected. But on the question of representation and on the openness for religious and secular plurality the models differ. Included in religious plurality there is not only inter-religious pluralism, but also intra-religious pluralism.

The first model is “religious difference as constitutive” or “confirming dialogue”. In this model, the participants are seen as representatives of their religious traditions, and religious traditions are seen as relatively stable entities (Grung 2015). The boundaries between the traditions are also seen as stable, and there is no particular attention on other human differences than the religious differences. Social, cultural, intra-religious and gender differences are not addressed. Some of the dialogues framed by this model take place among religious leaders and have been characterized by Jeannine Hill Fletcher’s term the “parliament model” (Hill Fletcher 2013). The Practice of Scriptural reasoning (SR), which may also be framed by this model, has an explicit aim not to criticize other traditions or other traditions’ texts. In SR the focus is on finding the resources in the traditions that the traditions share and that can – as they see it – restore the place of religion in society in order to heal the world (Ford and Pecknold 2006). SR, just like other encounters and dialogues that may be framed in this model, often has an aim to establish a religious discourse marked by religious plurality against a secular discourse. If religious and secular discourses do not intersect, and religious discourses do not affect each other, what would then happen to “gender issues”?

The second model is “religious difference as challenge” or “challenging dialogue”. In this model, the participants represent their various religious traditions, but they also represent themselves as individuals (Grung 2015). The dialogue may be aimed at some form of mutual transformation, and the religious traditions and the boundaries between them are seen as more fluid. Also the boundaries between secular and religious discourses are perceived as more porous, and to establish a shared religious discourse up against a secular discourse is not an aim within this model frame. This entails that human differences other than religious affiliation may surface in the conversations (social, cultural, gender), and people participating may identify with each other across religious boundaries on this basis. Because there is more focus on the individuals in dialogues framed in this model, the plurality within the religious traditions becomes more visible, possibly opening up intra-religious dialogues. As religious traditions and the boundaries between them are seen as less stable, mutual criticism and self-criticism are also encountered in this model, which may aim at diapraxis concerning mutual challenges that are defined in the dialogues. Jeannine Hill Fletcher’s “activist model” and the “storytelling model” could fit within this frame (Hill Fletcher 2013).

Within the frame of the first model in its pure form there is not much space for transforming religious traditions towards a more gender fair interpretation of religious texts and practices. Creating a shared front against secular discourses is also to dismiss influence from post-traditional gender views existing in these discourses. In addition, discourses marked by identifying gender justice/gender equality as a value are often marginalized within the religious traditions except for parts of Protestant Christianity. The second model is preferable for religious feminists of all kinds. This model may also be seen as a model for transreligious dialogue, because the boundaries are less stable and the participants from different religious traditions may create new alliances and communities across religious affiliations to a higher degree.

Concluding Remarks

Theorizing over plurality may take many forms. Transnational migration of various kinds and the increasing development of post-traditional societies increase human plurality, including religious plurality. Studies of interreligious encounters and interreligious dialogue can contribute to the continuing theorizing of plurality, for instance through various interdisciplinary research efforts. I believe that exploring what the “Double pluralisms” really consist of empirically may be an important and hopeful contribution. To explore how the deepening of pluralization will shape human encounters and challenge both the traditional, the post-traditional and the modern is significant in order to interpret our own contexts and the challenges we face in the present and will face in the future concerning constructive human co-existence and efforts to perform transformative justice, including gender justice.