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The Secularization of Norwegian Society

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 June 2009

John. T. Flint
Affiliation:
San Fernando Valley State College

Extract

Conceptions of the nature and process of secularization have ranged in scope of reference from those encompassing all aspects of social change to those limited to alterations in the religious order of human societies. General theories of social change in modern sociology remain schematic. Indeed, until recent years, concern with this once central problem has been peripheral to the main trend in sociological research and theory construction. Howard Becker, whose conception of the process of secularization was intended to encompass all aspects of social change, remained, until his death, one on the very few American sociologists devoted to this once classical problem.

Type
Secularization
Copyright
Copyright © Society for the Comparative Study of Society and History 1964

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References

1 Becker, Howard, Through Values to Social Interpretation (Durham, N. C: Duke University Press, 1950).Google Scholar Also, Becker with Boskoff, Alvin, Modern Sociological Theory in Continuity and Change (New York: The Dryden Press, 1957).Google Scholar

2 For examples see The American Catholic Sociological Review, June, 1954.

3 Gerth, Hans and Mills, C. Wright, Character and Social Structure (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1953).Google Scholar

4 General References: Bull, Edvard, Det Norske Folks Liv og Historie gjennom tidene fra omkring 1000 til 1280 (Oslo: Forlaget av H. Aschehoug and Co. [W. Nygaard] 1931),Google Scholar Bind II. Larsen, Karen, A History of Norway (New York: Princeton University Press for the American Scandinavian Foundation, 1950).Google ScholarGjerset, Knut, History of the Norwegian People (New York: 1915), Vol. I.Google ScholarShetlig, Haakon and Falk, Hjalmar, Scandinavian Archaeology Oxford: Clarendon Press. 1937).Google Scholar

5 Phillpotts, Bertha, “Temple Administration and Chieftainship in Pre-Christian Norway and Iceland”, in Saga Book of the Viking Society (London, 19131914), Vol. VIII, pp. 275–76.Google Scholar

6 Williams, Mary W., Social Scandinavia in the Viking Age (New York: The Macmillan Co., 1920), pp. 3536.Google Scholar

7 Ibid., p. 379.

8 Ibid., p. 385.

9 Ibid., pp. 274–275.

10 Orfield, Lester B., The Growth of Scandinavian Law (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1953), p. 152.Google Scholar

11 Holmsen, Andreas, Norges Historie (Oslo: Gyldendal Norsk Forlag, 1949), Vol. I, p. 120.Google Scholar

12 Williams, op. cit., p. 274.

13 Phillpotts, op. cit., p. 274.

14 Williams, op. cit., p. 385.

15 Phillpotts, op. cit., p. 265.

16 Flint, John T., State, Church and Laity in Norwegian Society: A Typological Study of Institutional Change (Unpublished Doctoral Dissertation, University of Wisconsin, 1957), pp. 1938.Google Scholar

17 Welle, Ivar, Norges Kirkeshistorie (Oslo: Lutherstiftelsens Forlag, 1948), Vol. III, p. 26;Google ScholarAarbok for den Norske Kirke, 1953 (Oslo: Forlaget Land og Kirke, 1953), p. 86.Google Scholar

18 Willson, Thomas B., History of Church and State in Norway (Westminster: Archibald Constable and Co., Ltd. 1903), p. 252.Google Scholar

19 The present discussion of the Reformation in Norway derives largely from Holmsen, op. cit., pp. 492–99. This dependence ranges from paraphrase translations to general reference. See also, Flint, op. cit., pp. 38–45.

20 Nissen, R. Tønder, De Nordiske Kirkers Historie (Kristiania: Th. Steens Forlag-Expedition, 1884);Google Scholar Welle, op. cit.

21 The foundations of Dano-Norwegian absolutism were located in the Danish mercantile strata, not in Norway.

22 Danish involvement in the Thirty Years War.

23 Mirbt, Carl, “Pietism”, in Jackson, S.M. (ed.), The New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House, 1953), Vol. XI.Google Scholar

24 Hovde, B.J., The Scandinavian Countries, 1720–1865 (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1948), Vol. I, p. 93.Google Scholar

25 Mannsaaker, Dagfinn, Det Norske Presteskapet i det 19 Hundreaaret. Sosialhistoriske studiar (Oslo: Det Norske Samlaget, 1954), p. 69;Google Scholar see also p. 70, table 5. “Prester og Folketal i Riket”. One clergyman to every 1300 persons in 1750 to one for every 2978 in 1825.

26 Indeed, by the end of the 18th century, the term laere (teacher) rather than prest (priest or pastor) diffused among the peasantry as a term of role reference for religious functionaries.