Nordic Journal of Practical Theology publishes peer-reviewed articles within the whole field of practical theology, with emphasis on, but now exclusively for, a Scandinavian context. NJPT is published and financed by MF Norwegian School of Theology, Religion and Society in cooperation with NLA University College and VID Specialized University. ISSN 3084-1135.
A values-conscious facilitator lacking a cohesive strategy
Like other civic organizations, the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Norway extensively engages volunteers. This article presents findings from a survey among church employees who lead volunteers. It aims to determine which leadership practices are in use, whether leadership is conducted in a values-conscious way, and the prevalence and use of strategic plans for voluntary work. The research question is: To what extent do employees in the Church of Norway utilize leadership practices identified in Sporsheim and Sirris’ (2018) model for church volunteer leadership? A total of 89 employees in the dioceses of Oslo and Stavanger responded to a questionnaire. Our data show that practices such as facilitating and informing are prioritized over leading and motivating. We find a high degree of values consciousness, reflected both in the prevalence of congregational core values and in respondents articulating and expressing them. Plans and structures for voluntary work are less well developed and lack a cohesive profile. There are only small variations between the dioceses and professional groups.
Copyright (c) 2025 Nordic Journal of Practical Theology https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
The article examines collective leadership where individuals share leadership functions. Considering perspectives on plural, shared leadership, and leader role theory, it explores co-leadership in the Church of Norway. The church is organized into two employer lines. The dioceses manage the clergy on behalf of the national legal entity, while the local parochial church councils manage other church employees. The organization of two entities in the same location requires good collaboration between the leaders to create one well-functioning local church. The article is based on an interview study among local church leaders, investigating how co-leadership becomes a tool to address challenges and opportunities within the dual organizing. The research question is: How do senior pastors and general managers understand each other’s leader roles, and how can their shared role space develop co-leadership within the Church of Norway’s dual employer organizing? The article provides a definition of co-leadership as well as a model showing how the duos emphasize three dimensions in co-leadership: building role understanding, ensuring communication infrastructures, and developing the organization.
This article explores the declining role of the Church of Sweden through an in-depth analysis of its contemporary Church language. Drawing on previously collected empirical material, the study shows how Christian language today often fails to connect with people’s everyday lives. The analysis identifies three core problems, each contributing to a gap between abstract expressions and lived experience. The findings challenge earlier research that primarily attributes the church’s decline to a lack of knowledge about Christian doctrine. Instead, the article suggests that secularization may partly stem from a distancing from a dysfunctional religious language, rather than from societal modernization alone.
The article examines 44 sermons delivered in the Church of Norway and asks what makes a sermon feel existentially important to listeners in our time. Based on Jan-Olav Henriksen's theories of hermeneutic experience and Hartmut Rosa's theories of resonance, it contributes to the understanding of an existential oriented homiletic theology. The analysis shows that the sermons direct attention to questions that concern life here and now, rather than traditional themes such as sin and grace, or eternal life. Such concepts are not absent or without significance. But instead of using images from human life to illustrate or explain a divine reality, the tendency is for the sermons to use theological motifs to interpret the life people live now. The sermons with the strongest rhetorical dynamics are those that reflect a resonant relationship to people's experiential reality and at the same time show what is existentially at stake
The Bible in the liturgy: Mark 10:13-16 as "the liturgical text"
This article explores how Mark 10:13–16 acquires meaning as a liturgical text. The notion of the “liturgical biblical text” underscores that the text as rendered in the baptismal liturgy may be regarded as distinct from the text as it appears in the Bible. This distinction arises because the text is shaped through selective excerpts and paratexts, intertextual connections within the liturgy, and its ritual enactment. The study aims to investigate how the materiality of the context of use—in this case, the baptismal liturgy—configures both the biblical text and its interpretation. The research question is: In what ways does the baptismal liturgy shape Mark 10:13–16? The primary source material comprises the baptismal liturgies of the Church of Norway from the late nineteenth century to the present. The article demonstrates how Mark 10 acquires meaning through its interplay with Lutheran baptismal theology and the culturally established narrative of Jesus and the children, a dynamic that ultimately influences contemporary Bible translations.
Editorial for NJPT, edition 1, 2025.
No abstract for "other articles".
This article develops a typology of hymn genres focused on how the hymns themselves depict their own communicative situation. Hymns address God through “prayer” and “praise” (sacrificium). But they also address the created world through “hymns of preaching,” “hymns of witness,” and “hymns of contemplation,” allowing God to speak to the congregation through human words about God (sacramentum). The purpose of this genre typology is to contribute to the foundation for future hymnological explorations. Focusing on communicative genres in hymns can aid in literary theological analyses of hymns and facilitate discussions of hymn genres in church services. Finally, the genre typology can invite empirical explorations of the thoughts and feelings of hymn singers. The genre typology emerged from an abductive analysis of 117 Danish hymns, in dialogue with genre theory and hymnological literature, particularly the works of Norwegian hymnologists Sigmund Mowinckel and Dagfinn Zwilgmeier.
The paper argues for the significance of smaller groups for congregational theory through an empirical reconstruction of a charismatic group active in Oslo from the late 1970s. The group is contextualised within its local and historical environment and models of church theory are referred to. The group will also be analysed using Jean-Luc Nancy’s theory of community. In accordance with Nancy, the dissolution of the group reveals potential that is tentatively pursued in an outline of an onto-theological congregational theory.
Can a faith-based service providing (“diaconia”) organisation be world-view affirmative (“livssynsåpen”)?
I etterkant av NOU 13:1 Det livssynsåpne samfunn har livssynsåpenhet blitt et begrep som ulike kristne aktører bruker for å beskrive sin virksomhet. Blant disse er Kirkens Bymisjon, som har produsert veilederen En livssynsåpen diakoni (2021). I veilederen fremsettes påstanden om at Kirkens Bymisjon er en livssynsåpen organisasjon som driver livssynsåpen diakoni. Artikkelen analyserer og drøfter påstanden i lys av livssynsåpenhet slik det forstås av Sturla Stålsett. Argumentasjonen i artikkelen viser problematiske sider ved påstanden, særlig når dette gjelder analogi-tenkning mellom Kirkens Bymisjon og staten. I siste del peker artikkelen på alternative strategier for hvordan livssynsåpenhet kan anvendes i diakonale organisasjoner. Èn av disse fortolker livssynsåpenhet som en invitasjon til å gjøre en skjønnsmessig likebehandling av andre religioner. Dette kan skje ved å ansette ikke-kristne religioners religiøse ledere i Kirkens Bymisjon for å drive progressivt ikke-kristent religiøst arbeid.
During the Covid-19-pandemic, the Church of Sweden (CofS) adjusted its eucharistic practices, and congregations practiced a variety of adjustments. These adjustments were motivated and problematized in relation to community, often referencing a metaphor crucial in the development of CofS theology during the 20th Century: “the body of Christ.” Scholars also speculated on how these adjustments could affect theology in the long run. This article aims to describe the state of these practices one year after the pandemic, analyzing whether the various adjustments remain. By comparing two nationwide surveys from 2020 and 2023 within the CofS, the article shows that while some adjustments have declined, many remain. The theological implications of these changes are discussed in relation to the metaphor of the body of Christ, drawing on how the metaphor has been developed by theologians reflecting on the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the African context.
Den amerikanske psykologen Kenneth Pargament ble på 1990-tallet kjent for sin teori om religiøs mestring. I to forskningsbidrag, The Psychology of Religion and Coping (1997) og Spiritually Integrated Psychotherapy – Understanding and Adressing the Sacred (2007), beskjeftiget han seg med hva religiøs mestring er. Primært fokus var på positive resultater av å bruke religion som mestring. I denne nye boka, Working with Spiritual Struggles in Psycotherapy, tas «religionens mørke side» opp som tema. Pargament skriver den sammen med en annen psykologiprofessor, Julie J. Exline. I de tidligere bøkene har folks strev med religiøse spørsmål, både praktisk og teoretisk blitt omtalt som negativ religiøs mestring, men i samarbeidet med Exline har Pargament byttet terminologi til hennes karakterisering av temaene som «spiritual struggles». En direkte oversettelse av dette begrepet vil være «åndelig kamp» eller «troskamp», men det er begrep som er for vide og omfattende til å kunne brukes i faglig sammenheng. Derfor foretrekker jeg å benytte spiritual struggles som uoversatt fagterm.
Copyright (c) 2024 Nordic Journal of Practical Theology https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
Prest Ellen Hageman har vært synlig som prest og aktivist i mange sammenhenger og over en årrekke. Hun har vakt oppmerksomhet i media og kirke og har bidratt med en teologisk tilnærming til sivil ulydighet i klimakampen. Hun har hatt begravelse for en skog som skulle bli motorvei, forstyrret en påskegudstjeneste da hun gikk inn med et kors med døde dyr. Og nå i august vigslet hun området som skal bli Viken park i Fredrikstad. Det ligger en teologisk tenkning og kirkekritikk til grunn for hennes engasjement. Hennes perspektiv er et viktig bidrag til diskusjonen om hva kirkelig og spesielt liturgisk handling kan og bør være i en raskt forverrende klimakrise.
Ord til å vakne av? (Og kanskje også til inspirasjon til å kvile med godt samvit?)
Det går ikkje lenger å lukke augo eller prøve å bolte igjen øyra: Vi er nøydde til å ta alvoret inn over oss. Alt liv på kloden er truga og dersom ikkje vi, menneska, handlar raskt og målmedvite saman, vil dei menneskeskapte klimaendringane kunne føre til ein katastrofe av ufattelege dimensjonar. Vi kan merke det på kroppen, på uveret med regn og storm og i lange periodar med ulideleg varme. Vi kan høyre og sjå det på nyheitene og også i vervarsla. FNs generalsekretær tar i bruk dei heilt store orda for det internasjonale klimatoppmøtet: «Vi er på veg til klimahelvetet med foten på gasspedalen». Vi kan sjå det i augo til dei vi møter: Mange unge er redde, fleire av dei ser ikkje anna råd enn å arbeide dag og natt for å hindre den store katastrofen. Nokre er lamma av angst og motløyse, andre er slitne på kropp og sjel. Og det heile set sit preg på den måten vi snakkar med kvarandre på og dei orda vi gjer bruk av: klima-angst, klima-skam og miljøkatastrofar til dømes.
Transforming Moral Oblivion to Moral Agency
It is a rare and precious gift to be alive as human beings at this crucible point in time. “The next five years may be the most important in human history,” declares a South African climate expert. Decisions and actions taken by human beings in the next few years will determine the fate of life on Earth. Never has the need to see clearly “what is going on” so that we may respond wisely borne more long-lasting and morally weighted consequences. Nevertheless, most of “us” (myself included) fail to face squarely the climate-related realities at hand and our role in them. This is most odd: Our house is burning. Though the fire has not yet reached our rooms, it is raging through many others’ rooms, and our children are in the house. Yet, we pour fuel on the fire.
In the face of ecological crises, we are largely still living in what Joanna Macy calls “Business as Usual,” even as global systems are shifting and irreversible tipping points nearing or already even past. I explore here how, if at all, the practice of corporate confession empowers Christians to engage these questions, arguing that we need a much richer liturgical repertoire of practices. I approach these questions through Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s resistance to “cheap grace” in relation to the tangle of structural sin, complicity, and inextricability involved in contemporary eco-justice questions and in relation to eco-anxiety and other eco-/climate emotions. I use this lens to analyze forms of corporate confession from the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America’s liturgical resource Sundays & Seasons. In the conclusion, I point to larger forms of practice that could complement confession and help restore it to its proper role in fostering costly grace.
Liturgy and rituals do not seem to be the obvious tools for fighting against climate change. It might even make the situation worse by providing false hopes at a time when several tipping points already have passed. But, in the words of eco-theologian Larry Rasmussen, “religion addresses the big questions of life through elaborate symbol systems—rites and rituals, sacraments, and stories» dealing with death and renewal (Rasmussen, 2013, 34). I will thus argue that liturgy still have something to offer in the face of ecological crisis. Building on insights from performance studies, ritual studies and the works of thinkers such as Diana Taylor and Sara Pike, I apply an eco-liturgical approach for interpreting two diverse ritual expressions. The first is an altarpiece by Gunnar Torvund, “Tree of life” in Voksen Church, Oslo. The other is a “march of grief for extinct species” arranged by Extinction Rebellion in Oslo prior to the 2021 parliamentary elections in Norway. I conclude by arguing for eco-liturgical practice in the intersection of contemplation and activism.
Care for creation as practical-theological challenge
This article focuses on the local parish as a practical-theological resource in relation to the acute climate crisis and crisis for biological diversity. The author argues that theologizing grown out of local experiences has special strengths compared to statements developed on national levels of the church. This has to do with how local parish life is rooted in local circumstances, human lives as well as the richness of other forms of local biological life which makes parish life possible. The source of the argument comes from experiences in a local parish on the Swedish East Coast, where the extreme draught in the summer of 2018 gave rise to a continued engagement, which has contributed to theological changes. The understanding of the parish has been widened to include human and non-human creatures alike, which in turn is affecting patterns of praying, from praying for, to praying with the whole creation, of which humans are a part.
Pastoral care encountering climate emotions
The climate crisis represents an existential threat, necessitating adaptations in pastoral care to address its complex emotional landscape. This article explores the integration of two key concepts—emotional granularity and existential resonance—into the field of pastoral care, enriching established grief models such as Kübler-Ross's stages of grief and Stroebe and Schut's dual-process model. Drawing from Lisa Feldman Barrett's theory of emotional granularity, which enhances psychological flexibility by differentiating emotional states, and Hartmut Rosa's resonance theory, which emphasizes meaningful connection to the world, the article offers innovative frameworks for addressing climate-related emotions like eco-anxiety, ecological grief, and active hope. These approaches aim to expand pastoral care's capacity to foster emotional awareness and reconnect individuals with their environment and spirituality. By integrating these theories, pastoral care can provide tools for navigating the emotional and existential challenges of the climate crisis, promoting emotional resilience and deeper existential engagement.
Practical theology confronting the crisis in nature and climate
Nature and climate issues are not in the news. News media offer constant reports about storms, floods and disturbing research findings. When it comes to people's practical and political engagement, it still seems to be the immediate things that matter. We do not need to go to the recent American election to make such observations. In October 2024, the analysis agency Kantar presented its annual climate barometer, which shows that climate engagement among the Norwegian population is falling in all age groups. While climate engagement was a top issue a few years ago, it now ranks fifth in the list of challenges Norwegians believe the country is facing. The economy, crime and health issues are more worrying. The analysis agency wonders if there is a resignation spreading. What consequences should the situation have for theological work?
This is an interview with professor in practical theology at the University of Rostock, Manuel Stetter, about his research on funeral practices. The interview is conducted by professor Tone Stangeland Kaufman, Oslo.
The article discusses how funeral practices develop between being binded by tradition and being seen as places for personal expression and free choice. Building on research that shows how tradition is the main reason for people to choose a church funeral, the analysis explores the conceptualisation and role of tradition in the material. Further, we look into how newer funeral logics come to expression, and how different actors in the practice field understand and negotiate these concepts. The article argues that tradition and personalised choice are complex phenomena, and that there is a risk that they are compared before they are understood. We find that tradition for many families is an important concept but their articulation of what it means is ambigous. Further, families perceive newer funeral practices not so much within logics of choice as arenas for expression of meaning. Both funeral directors and clergy meet the new development with varied opinions and strategies, but where tradition and innovation are in constant interplay.
Emotions in Finnish funerals during COVID-19 restrictions
Rituals are a way to express both personal and relational emotions. The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted funerals around the world. Although the pandemic was not very severe in Finland, the restrictions on organizing and attending funerals were quite strict. This article seeks to uncover what kinds of emotions participants experienced when organizing and attending funerals during COVID-19, as well as what these emotions may reveal regarding funerals during a pandemic. The 45 letters that form the qualitative data of the research offer some important real-time insights into how funeral practices were experienced during the pandemic. Thematic analyses revealed the following main themes: irritation when organizing a funeral, contradictory emotions about attending a funeral, embodiment of emotions, and funeral ritual as a channel of meaning. The strongest negative emotions were directed towards the restrictions, rather than being the type of painful emotions normally connected with funerals and bereavement. Even though the letters focused on funerals, they additionally revealed reflections on the pandemic. This shows that the funeral acted both as a normal life cycle ritual and as a disaster ritual, which helped the writers to cope with the pandemic itself.
Church of Sweden funeral practices in change
The number of funerals conducted under the auspices of the Church of Sweden, as well as the attendance at Church of Sweden funerals, has steadily declined since the turn of the millennium, including among members of the Church of Sweden. Drawing on current statistics and interviews with parish staff and funeral directors, this article highlights these changes and discusses the following aspects which we argue are crucial: the opportunity for individual customization of funeral services and the relationship to the Church of Sweden. Insights from four parishes/dioceses reveal both similarities and differences, emphasizing the geographical context's influence on funeral customs. The post-secular condition presents both opportunities and challenges for traditional religious institutions such as the Church of Sweden to navigate.
Northern-European Funeral Practices in Change
This is the editorial for this issue of Nordic Journal of Practical Theology. It is a thematic issue about changes in Nordic funeral practices.
Funeral, Participation, and Participants
This article analyses and discusses funeral participation and participants in funerals in Denmark. Through a data material consisting of survey data, observations and personal interviews, it asks: who participates in funerals, in terms of social background variables and in terms of relations with the deceased? What do participants do in the course of and in relation to the funeral? Which patterns are there between types of participants and patterns of actions? Through engaging theoretical concepts suggested by Bailey and Walter, as well as O’Rourke et al., as well as a practice-theoretical perspective, it suggests that not only are there quite clear patterns in participation and participants actions, but that these are also essential for the pursuit of funerals’ purposes as well as for forming funerals’ subjects. By doing that, it contributes to the so far rather limited research on funeral participation.
The Christian spiritual practice called ‘centering prayer’ is growing in popularity internationally, and today it is also offered by some congregations in Church of Norway. However, compared to the vast literature on resemblant forms of spirituality, like mindfulness and meditation, there is a scarcity of research on centering prayer. With this study, we seek to make this lacuna a bit smaller. More specifically, we want to shed light on the participants’ experiences of centering prayer in comparison to regular church services. Our material combines qualitative and quantitative data. In the analysis, we combine inductive and theory-driven approaches. One of our main findings is that the participants’ experiences of centering prayer is more overlapping with experiences of Sunday services than we expected. Our findings challenge Woodhead and Heelas´ influential theory of a discrepancy between ‘religion’ and ‘spirituality’. These findings also challenge commonly shared conceptions of what ‘authenticity’ means in spiritual life.
Copyright (c) 2023 Nordic Journal of Practical Theology https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
Bokanmeldelse: Jan Ove Ulstein. Sosiologi, teologi og Helge Hognestads doktoravhandling: Møte og konflikt på det lange 70-talet
Anmeldelse av Jan Ove Ulstein: Sosiologi, teologi og Helge Hognestads doktoravhandling: Møte og konflikt på det lange 70-talet. Cappelen Damm Akademisk, 2023. 450 s. Anmeldt av Jan-Olav Henriksen.
Book review: Birgit Weyel, Wilhelm Gräb, Emmanuel Lartey and Cas Wepener (eds.). International Handbook of Practical Theology
Book review: Birgit Weyel, Wilhelm Gräb, Emmanuel Lartey and Cas Wepener (eds.). International Handbook of Practical Theology.