Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-hfldf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-06-07T02:35:21.484Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

A Homosocial Priesthood of All Believers: Laity and Gender in Interwar Sweden

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 August 2019

Martin Nykvist
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Around the turn of the twentieth century, there was a growing concern within the Church of Sweden that the church was, to a too large extent, managed by the clergy alone. In an attempt to give the laity a more active and influential role in the Church of Sweden, the Brethren of the Church was established in 1918. Since it was only possible for men to become members, the organization simultaneously addressed a different issue: the view that women had become a much too salient group in church life. This process was described by the Brethren and similar groups as a “feminization” of the church, a phrasing which later came to be used by historians and theologians to explain changes in Western Christianity in the nineteenth century. In other words, the Brethren considered questions of gender vital to their endeavor to create a church in which the laity held a more prominent position. This article analyzes how the perceived feminization and its assumed connection to secularization caused enhanced attempts to uphold and strengthen gender differentiation in the Church of Sweden in the early twentieth century. By analyzing an all-male lay organization, the importance of homosociality in the construction of Christian masculinities will also be discussed.

Type
Articles
Information
Church History , Volume 88 , Issue 2 , June 2019 , pp. 440 - 464
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Church History 2019 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Protokollsbok 1918–1932, Svenska kyrkans lekmannaförbunds arkiv, A 1: 1, National Archives of Sweden, Arninge. Unless otherwise noted, all translations are my own.

2 Not to be confused with the Anabaptist denomination Church of the Brethren/The Brethren Church or the Herrnhuter Brüdergemeine (the Moravian Church).

3 “Nybildade kårer,” Kyrkobröderna 38, no. 4 (September 1962): 107.

4 On secularization in Sweden, see for instance Zuckerman, Phil, “Why are Danes and Swedes So Irreligious?,” Nordic Journal of Religion and Society 22, no. 1 (2009): 55–69Google Scholar.

5 Welter, Barbara, “The Feminization of American Religion: 1800–1860,” in Clio's Consciousness Raised: New Perspectives on the History of Women, ed. Hartman, Mary and Banner, Lois W. (New York: Harper and Row, 1974), 138Google Scholar. An embryo of this theory was published in Welter, Barbara, “The Cult of True Womanhood: 1820–1860,” American Quarterly 18, no. 2 (Summer 1966): 151–174CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

6 Douglas, Ann, The Feminization of American Culture (New York: Knopf, 1977)Google Scholar.

7 See Busch, Norbert, “Die Feminisierung der ultramontanen Frömmigkeit,” in Wunderbare Erscheinungen: Frauen und katolische Frömmigkeit im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert, ed. von Olenhusen, Irmtraud Götz (Paderborn: Ferdinand Schöningh, 1995), 203–220Google Scholar; von Olenhusen, Irmtraud Götz, “Die Feminisierung von Religion und Kirche im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert: Forschungsstand und Forschungsperspektiven,” in Frauen unter dem Patriarchat der Kirchen: Katholikinnen und Protestantinnen im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert, ed. von Olenhusen, Götz (Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer, 1995), 9–21Google Scholar; and Langlois, Claude, Le Catholicisme au féminine: Les congrégations françaises à supérieure générale au XIXe siècle (Paris: Les éditions du Cerf, 1984)Google Scholar.

8 Schneider, Bernhard, “Feminisierung der Religion im 19. Jahrhundert: Perspektiven eine These im Kontext des deutschen Katholizismus,” Trier Theologische Zeitschrift 111 (2002): 132, 144Google Scholar; and Blaschke, Olaf, “The Unrecognised Piety of Men: Strategies and Success of the Re-Masculinisation Campaign around 1900,” in Christian Masculinity: Men and Religion in Northern Europe in the 19th and 20th Centuries, ed. Werner, Yvonne Maria (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2011), 25–29Google Scholar. The feminization thesis has been thoroughly scrutinized in Van Osselaer, Tine and Buerman, Thomas, “Feminization Thesis: A Survey of International Historiography and a Probing of Belgian Grounds,” Revue d'Histoire Ecclésiastique 103, no. 2 (2008): 497–544CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

9 Juster, Susan, “The Spirit and the Flesh: Gender, Language, and Sexuality in American Protestantism,” in New Directions in American Religious History, ed. Stout, Harry S. and Hart, Darryl G. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), 345Google Scholar.

10 Braude, Ann D., “Women's History Is American Religious History,” in Retelling U.S. Religious History, ed. Tweed, Thomas A. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997), 87Google Scholar.

11 Ibid., 87–88. Cf. ibid., 93, where Braude concludes: “While the size of the female majority may vary, its presence is a constant, not a trend.”

12 Ibid., 92–93.

13 Ibid., 93.

14 Ibid., 94–96, quotation from p. 94.

15 For example, in 1899, the Church of England Men's Society was established in Britain and in 1910, the Men and Religion Forward Movement was established in the United States. See Delap, Lucy, “‘Be Strong and Play the Man’: Anglican Masculinities in the Twentieth Century,” in Men, Masculinities and Religious Change in Twentieth-Century Britain, ed. Delap and Sue Morgan (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), 119–145CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Allen, L. Dean, Rise Up, O Men of God: The “Men and Religion Forward Movement” and the “Promise Keepers” (Macon: Mercer University Press, 2002), 15–133Google Scholar.

16 Lipman-Blumen, Jean, “Toward a Homosocial Theory of Sex Roles: An Explanation of the Sex Segregation of Social Institutions,” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 1, no. 3 (Spring 1976): 16CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

17 Van Osselaer and Buerman, “Feminization Thesis,” 508–511.

18 I agree with historian Tine Van Osselaer that the concept “re-masculinization” is inappropriate, since the use of it “may all too easily follow the idea of a constant binary opposition with a permanent ‘masculine’ and ‘feminine’ character that would be imposed on historically, socially and geo-politically different discourses.” Van Osselaer, Tine, “‘From That Moment on, I was a Man!’: Images of the Catholic Male in the Sacred Heart Devotion,” in Gender and Christianity in Modern Europe: Beyond the Feminization Thesis, ed. Pasture, Patrick, Art, Jan, and Buerman, Thomas (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2012), 135Google Scholar.

19 Blaschke, “The Unrecognised Piety of Men,” 34.

20 Sedgwick, Eve Kosofsky, Between Men: English Literature and Male Homosocial Desire (New York: Columbia University Press, 1985), 25CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

21 Hammarén, Nils and Johansson, Thomas, “Homosociality: In Between Power and Intimacy,” SAGE Open 4, no. 1 (January–March 2014): 5CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

22 Ibid., 5–7.

23 Johansson, Thomas, Det första könet: Mansforskning som reflexivt projekt (Lund: Studentlitteratur, 2000), 138–141Google Scholar. Cf. Seidler, Victor J., Transforming Masculinities: Men, Cultures, Bodies, Power, Sex and Love (London: Routledge, 2006), 26CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

24 Winter, Thomas, “Crisis of Masculinity,” in American Masculinities: A Historical Encyclopedia, ed. Carroll, Bret E. (Thousand Oaks: Sage, 2004), 118–119Google Scholar. See also Winter, Thomas, Making Men, Making Class: The YMCA and Workingmen, 1877–1920 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002), 1Google Scholar.

25 Tjeder, David, The Power of Character: Middle-Class Masculinities, 1800–1900 (Stockholm: Stockholm University, 2003), 287Google Scholar.

26 Delap, “‘Be Strong and Play the Man,’” 138.

27 The statutes can be found in Timelin, Erik, Lekmannagärning i Sveriges kyrka: Kyrkobröderna 1918–1938 (Stockholm: Svenska kyrkans diakonistyrelse, 1938), 143–145Google Scholar.

28 Timelin, Lekmannagärning i Sveriges kyrka, 149–150. See also Nykvist, Martin, “‘Vi män höra ock Guds rike till!’: Manlighetsideal inom Kyrkobröderna, Svenska kyrkans lekmannaförbund 1918–1929,” Kyrkohistorisk årsskrift 113 (2013): 76Google Scholar.

29 The Revivalist movements gained ground throughout the Nordic countries in the first half of the nineteenth century, which eventually in Sweden resulted in a religious schism and the establishment of free church congregations. The largest of these were the Swedish Mission Covenant and the Baptist Union of Sweden, who in 1895 had 72,500 and 38,000 members, respectively. By 1932, membership had increased to 112,500 and 62,200. The Pentecostal movement, the Salvation Army, and the Methodist Church also had sizeable memberships. Their critique of the Church of Sweden was, in other words, gaining ground and became something to which the representatives of the state church actively had to relate. Österlin, Lars, Churches of Northern Europe in Profile: A Thousand Years of Anglo-Nordic Relations (Norwich: Canterbury, 1995), 153–165Google Scholar; Bexell, Oloph, Sveriges kyrkohistoria, ed. Tegborg, Lennart, vol. 7, Folkväckelsens och kyrkoförnyelsens tid (Stockholm: Verbum, 2003), 251Google Scholar; and Brohed, Ingmar, Sveriges kyrkohistoria, ed. Tegborg, Lennart, vol. 8 Religionsfrihetens och ekumenikens tid (Stockholm: Verbum, 2005), 84Google Scholar.

30 Westin, Gunnar, “De religiösa folkrörelsernas uppkomst i vårt land,” in Svenska folkrörelser, ed. Westin, vol. 2, Missionssällskap, Svenska kyrkans frivilliga arbete, Frikyrkosamfund (Stockholm: Lindfors, 1937), 3–6Google Scholar.

31 Clason, Fredrik, “Kyrkan och lekmännen,” Vår Lösen 10, no. 24 (December 1919): 322Google Scholar.

32 Brown, Callum G., The Death of Christian Britain: Understanding Secularisation 1800–2000 (London: Routledge, 2001), 73Google Scholar.

33 Allen, Rise Up, O Men of God, 37–41.

34 Enochsson, Ernst, Den kyrkliga seden: Med särskild hänsyn till Västerås stift (Stockholm: Svenska kyrkans diakonistyrelse, 1949), 241Google Scholar.

35 Bergfeldt, Börje, Den teokratiska statens död: Sekularisering och civilisering i 1700-talets Stockholm (Stockholm: Almqvist och Wiksell, 1997), 79–84Google Scholar.

36 Lundin, Johan A., Predikande kvinnor och gråtande män: Frälsningsarmén i Sverige 1882–1921 (Malmö: Kira, 2014), 38–42Google Scholar.

37 Fredrikson, Tuve, “Församlingsarbetet och männen: Några ord om Svenska kyrkans lekmannaförbund,” Julbok för Västerås stift 21 (1926): 145–146Google Scholar. Cf. Allen, Rise Up, O Men of God, 72–73, where he quotes the Baptist minister Justin Dewey Fulton (1828–1901) who claimed that a parson who is “impelled, guided, [and] censured by women . . . turns woman himself.”

38 Cf. Braude, “Women's History Is American Religious History,” 96–97.

39 Van Osselaer, Tine, “‘Such a Renewal’: Catholic All-Male Movements in Modern Europe,” in Secularization and Religious Innovation in the North Atlantic World, ed. Hempton, David and McLeod, Hugh (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), 157–172, esp. 171–172Google Scholar.

40 See, for example, Fellenius, K. G., “Generalsekreterarens rapport,” Kyrkobröderna 8, no. 8 (October 1932): 138Google Scholar; and Fellenius, K. G., “Generalsekreterarens rapport till 1937 års generalkonvent,” Kyrkobröderna 13, no. 6 (October 1937): 87–88Google Scholar.

41 Killander, Ernst, “Manlig kristendom o. kristen manlighet,” Kyrkobröderna 6, no. 7 (September 1930): 89Google Scholar.

42 Hughes, Thomas, The Manliness of Christ (Boston: Riverside, 1880), 8–16Google Scholar. See also Gay, Peter, “The Manliness of Christ,” in Religion and Irreligion in Victorian Society: Essays in Honour of R. K. Webb, ed. Davis, Richard W. and Helmstadter, Richard J. (London: Routledge, 1992), 102Google Scholar; and Troughton, Geoffrey M., “Jesus and the Ideal of the Manly Man in New Zealand after World War One,” Journal of Religious History 30, no. 1 (February 2006): 45–60CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

43 Södling, Maria, Oreda i skapelsen: Kvinnligt och manligt i Svenska kyrkan under 1920- och 30-talen (Uppsala: Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis, 2010), 335–339Google Scholar.

44 Holmberg, Teodor, “Manlig kristendom,” Kyrkobröderna 4, no. 2–3 (March 1928): 18Google Scholar.

45 Blaschke, “The Unrecognised Piety of Men,” 36.

46 “Männens aktiva insats i församlingsarbetet,” Kyrkobröderna 13, no. 5 (September 1937): 56.

47 Erik Timelin, “Manlig bön,” Kyrkobröderna 15, no. 7 (November 1939), 117.

48 Dahl, Harald, “Kristus och männen,” Kyrkobröderna 6, no. 9 (November 1930), 121–122Google Scholar.

49 Holmberg, “Manlig kristendom,” 18. Emphasizing the role of Christian heroes of the past was a common strategy in nineteenth-century Sweden, too. At that time, it was connected to the establishment of what theologian Kjell Blückert has called an “ecclesial nationalism”: why exemplary Swedish Christians such as Gustavus Adolphus (1594–1632) often were brought to the fore together with Jesus and Luther. Van Osselaer, Tine and Maurits, Alexander, “Heroic Men and Christian Ideals,” in Christian Masculinity: Men and Religion in Northern Europe in the 19th and 20th Centuries, ed. Werner, Yvonne Maria (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2011), 63–94CrossRefGoogle Scholar, esp. 77–92.

50 Clason, “Kyrkan och lekmännen,” 316–322; “Vad vilja Kyrkobröderna,” Kyrkobröderna 5, no. 3½ (April 1929): 33; and Fellenius, K. G., “Kyrkobröderna, Svenska kyrkans lekmannaförbund,” in Vår Kyrka från början av tjugonde århundradet periodvis skildrad, ed. Rodhe, Edvard, Hasselrot, Per, and Bergström, Gunnar, vol. 4, 1921–1925 (Stockholm: Svenska kyrkans diakonistyrelse, 1926), 340–341Google Scholar.

51 “Från våra kårer,” Kyrkobröderna 2, no. 7–10 (December 1926): 34.

52 Cf. Clason, “Kyrkan och lekmännen,” 318–321.

53 Eastwood, Cyril, The Priesthood of All Believers: An Examination of the Doctrine from the Reformation to the Present Day (Minneapolis: Epworth, 1962), 254Google Scholar.

54 “Våra uppgifter,” Kyrkobröderna 1, no. 3 (May 1925): 2.

55 “The Smalcald Articles (1537),” in Concordia: The Lutheran Confessions; A Reader's Edition of the Book of Concord, ed. Paul Timothy McCain, 2nd ed. (Saint Louis: Concordia, 2006), 278.

56 Alner, Hjalmar, “Kyrkobrödernas Sigtunakonferens,” Kyrkobröderna 2, no. 5–6 (October 1926): 18Google Scholar. On Luther's own understanding of masculinity and gender, see for example, Boyd, Stephen B., “Masculinity and Male Dominance: Martin Luther on the Punishment of Adam,” in Redeeming Men: Religion and Masculinities, ed. Boyd, Longwood, W. Merle, and Muesse, Mark W. (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1996), 19–31Google Scholar.

57 Protokollsbok 1918–1932, Svenska kyrkans lekmannaförbunds arkiv, A 1: 1, National Archives of Sweden, Arninge.

58 Cf. “En afton bland Kyrkobröder,” Kyrkobröderna 1, no. 1 (January 1925): 3, where the “customary chain of brethren” is mentioned.

59 See “Samlivet i församlingen och kyrkobröderna,” Kyrkobröderna 1, no. 6 (October 1925): 1–2.

60 Fellenius, “Kyrkobröderna,” 343.

61 Fridrichsen, Anton, “Gudsriket i Jesu förkunnelse,” Kyrkobröderna 5, no. 2–3 (February–March 1929): 25Google Scholar.

62 Cf. John Mott, “Vad världen behöver,” Kyrkobröderna 4, no. 6 (August 1928): 54; and Holmberg, “Manlig kristendom,” 19.

63 Prestjan, Anna, Präst och karl, karl och präst: Prästmanlighet i tidigt 1900-tal (Lund: Sekel, 2009), 113–114Google Scholar.

64 Rosenwein, Barbara H., “Worrying about Emotions in History,” American Historical Review 107, no. 3 (June 2002): 842CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed.

65 Langhamer, Claire, “‘The Live Dynamic Whole of Feeling and Behavior’: Capital Punishment and the Politics of Emotion, 1945–1957,” Journal of British Studies 51, no. 2 (April 2012): 421CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For an introduction to gender in emotions history, see Boise, Sam de, Men, Masculinity, Music and Emotions (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015), 22–44Google Scholar.

66 The conception of countertypes is introduced in Mosse, George L., The Image of Man: The Creation of Modern Masculinity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), 56–76Google Scholar.

67 Timelin, Lekmannagärning i Sveriges kyrka, 144–145.

68 Fellenius, K. G., “Generalsekreterarens rapport till 1928 års Generalkonvent,” Kyrkobröderna 4, no. 9–10 (November 1928): 89Google Scholar.

69 Österlin, Churches of Northern Europe, 224, 267.

70 Timelin, Lekmannagärning i Sveriges kyrka, 138.

71 Quoted in Nykvist, “‘Vi män höra ock Guds rike till!,’” 78.

72 Timelin, Lekmannagärning i Sveriges kyrka, 57–58.

73 Timelin, Lekmannagärning i Sveriges kyrka, 87; Fellenius, K. G., “Generalsekreterarens rapport,” Kyrkobröderna 3, no. 11 (December 1927), 59–60Google Scholar; and “Den 30 juni funnos i Sverige 3,900 kyrkobröder och 170 kårer,” Kyrkobröderna 15, no. 6 (October 1939), 103–104.

74 Malm, Erik, Kyrkobröderna, Svenska Kyrkans Lekmannaförbund: Matrikel 1/7 1953 (Stockholm: s.n., 1953)Google Scholar; and Statistisk årsbok för Sverige 1939 (Stockholm: Statistiska centralbyrån, 1939), 5.

75 Fellenius, K. G., “Generalsekreterarens berättelse,” Kyrkobröderna 7, no. 8 (October 1931): 125Google Scholar; Fellenius, K. G., “Generalsekreterarens rapport,” Kyrkobröderna 8, no. 8 (October 1932): 138–140Google Scholar; Fellenius, K. G., “Generalsekreterarens rapport,” Kyrkobröderna 9, no. 7 (September 1933): 135–136Google Scholar; and Fellenius, K. G., “Generalsekreterarens rapport till 1937 års generalkonvent,” Kyrkobröderna 13, no. 6 (October 1937): 87–89Google Scholar.

76 Fellenius, “Generalsekreterarens rapport,” Kyrkobröderna 8, no. 8 (October 1932): 138–140.

77 Fellenius, “Generalsekreterarens rapport,” Kyrkobröderna 8, no. 8 (October 1932): 140; and Fellenius, “Generalsekreterarens rapport,” Kyrkobröderna 9, no. 7 (September 1933), 136.

78 Prestjan, Präst och karl, karl och präst, 51–55.

79 “Den tidiga bönens kraft,” Kyrkobröderna 6, no. 2 (February 1930): 14–16.

80 Holmberg, “Manlig kristendom,” 18–19.

81 “Ur årsrapporterna,” Kyrkobröderna 4, no. 7–8 (September–October 1928): 71–72. Similar reasoning can be traced already in nineteenth-century Sweden when high church clergy claimed that defending the creed in a time when the revival movements were growing and the state church was losing power demanded courage, strength, and self-denial. Maurits, Alexander, Den vackra och erkända patriarchalismen: Prästmannaideal och manlighet i den tidiga lundensiska högkyrkligheten, ca 1850–1900 (Malmö: Universus Academic Press, 2013), 105–108Google Scholar.

82 [Högquist?], Gunnar, “Några intryck från 1930 års generalkonvent,” Kyrkobröderna 6, no. 9 (November 1930): 126Google Scholar.

83 Carstensen, Gustav, “Kyrkobröderna 1918–1958,” in Alltså arbeta vi vidare: Minnesskrift vid Kyrkobrödernas fyrtioårsjubileum 1958, ed. Bromander, Axel (Tierp: s.n., 1958), 50Google Scholar.

84 “Från våra kårer,” Kyrkobröderna 6, no. 10 (December 1930): 145.

85 Holmberg, Teodor, “Folkkyrkotankens förverkligande,” Kyrkobröderna 1, no. 6 (October 1925): 5, 8Google Scholar.

86 Holmberg, “Manlig kristendom,” 21.

87 “Vårt emblem,” Meddelanden till Stockholms Kyrkobröder 1, no. 1 (1922): 1–2.

88 Forshem, Simon, “Männen och kyrkan,” Kyrkobröderna 15, no. 1 (February 1939): 1–4Google Scholar.

89 DeBerg, Betty A., Ungodly Women: Gender and the First Wave of American Fundamentalism (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1990), 93–95Google Scholar.

90 Blaschke, “The Unrecognised Piety of Men,” 35–36; Delap, “‘Be Strong and Play the Man,’” 127–130; and Allen, Rise Up, O Men of God, 91–93.

91 Björkquist, Manfred, “Innerlighet,” Kyrkobröderna 3, no. 11 (December 1927): 53–55Google Scholar.

92 Edquist, Carl, “Kristen gemenskap i liv och arbete,” Kyrkobröderna 1, no. 4–5 (September 1925): 5–8Google Scholar; and Killander, “Manlig kristendom,” 91–92.

93 Holmberg, “Manlig kristendom,” 19. Cf. Killander, “Manlig kristendom,” 90.

94 Tjeder, The Power of Character, 199–206.

95 Dahl, “Kristus och männen,” 121–122.

96 Källander, Josef, “Trons frukter,” Kyrkobröderna 6, no. 4–5 (April–May 1930): 55Google Scholar.

97 “Från våra kårer,” Kyrkobröderna 6, no. 6 (June 1930): 82.

98 “Från våra kårer,” Kyrkobröderna 3, no. 4–5 (May 1927): 16.

99 Fellenius, K. G., “In memoriam,” Kyrkobröderna 4, no. 7–8 (September–October 1928): 69Google Scholar. Cf. “Eko,” Kyrkobröderna 6, no. 3 (March 1930): 49–50 where, in an obituary notice on Axel Lutteman (1880–1920), Olle Nystedt (1888–1974) mentions Lutteman's courage, chivalry, and humility.

100 See “Stridsberedskap,” Kyrkobröderna 4, no. 11–12 (December 1928): 103–105.

101 Karlsson, Klas-Göran, “Historia, historiedidaktik och historiekultur: Teori och perspektiv,” in Historien är närvarande: Historiedidaktik som teori och tillämpning, ed. Karlsson and Ulf Zander (Lund: Studentlitteratur, 2014), 73–74Google Scholar. For a discussion about the use of history within church history, cf. Nordbäck, Carola, “Kyrkohistorisk historiebruksforskning,” in Minne och möjlighet: Kyrka och historiebruk från nationsbygge till pluralism, ed. Claesson, Urban and Neuhaus, Sinikka (Gothenburg: Makadam, 2014), 14–43Google Scholar.