Lutheranism and the Nordic Spirit of Social Democracy

Professor Robert H. Nelson has written a thought-provoking book on Lutheranism and the Nordic social democracy. The five Nordic countries—Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden—are renowned for the long history of Lutheran state churches, on the one hand, and the social democratic welfare states on the other. These two characteristic features of the region are often treated as two separate phenomena of Nordic history. Nelson, however, argues that “a Lutheran ethic provided a powerful normative foundation that underlay the political and economic rise of Nordic social democracy” (p. 23). For Nelson, Lutheranism and the Nordic social democracy are interrelated to such an extent that social democracy becomes a secularized version of Lutheranism or a secular religion that carries on the Lutheran legacy of the Nordic countries. This is not the first time that scholars aim to link Lutheranism and Nordic social democracy. In 1997, the Nordic historians Øystein Sørensen and Bo Stråth commented: “it is not particularly difficult to imagine the social democrats as a secularized Lutheran movement” (p. 37). In the same volume, their Danish colleague Uffe Østergård was also ready to call social democracy a secularized version of Lutheranism. Since the 1990s, more research on Lutheranism and the Nordic welfare states has been published. A thorough analysis of Lutheranism and social democracy, however, has been missing. Therefore, I was eager to read this book to learn more about social democracy and Lutheranism.

Danish · Democracy · Political science · Politics · Protestantism · Secularization · Sociology · Welfare state · Historical Geopolitical and Social Dynamics · Law · Philosophy · Reformation and Early Modern Christianity · Religious Education and Schools · Religious studies