How many Catholics live in Denmark today? How many marriages took place in Pentecostal churches in 2009? And which groups have been approved as a religious community?

These questions exemplify the information that you can find in this edition of e-Yearbook Religion in Denmark. And we also take a good look at what is hidden behind the figures, the trends emerging from the information we have collected.

In the first volume of Religion in Denmark we described some significant trends for religion in Denmark today. We did so on the basis of data collected from a wide range of established and recognized religious communities in Denmark. We have chosen to focus on the recognized and approved faiths, because they represent a group of communities, which have sought and obtained official approval, and thereby agreed to be part of a more formal relationship to the Danish government and play a role in the public sphere. And the public has a legitimate desire to find out what these communities represent. Not all religious communities in Denmark have applied for and received recognition, but approx. half of the churches and half of mosque associations have done so. The number for Buddhist groups is somewhat lower. Only about one fifth of the Buddhist groups applied for and obtained a position as approved faiths (commented in the Buddhist groups’ section), for the majority of them it is simply not desirable to obtain any governmental approval. The same applies to many of the groups labelled as new religions. By and large, all major religious communities have gained recognition / approval, but it should be noted that there are significant differences among the various religious communities in their efforts to organize and interpret themselves as a recognized religious community.

Now the second edition of the e-Yearbook is ready for presentation. Again we have collected data from a wide range of communities and interpreted the figures. This is undertaken by a number of researchers associated with the Centre for Contemporary Religion through a series of specific comments to the collected data, and a series of articles highlighting the key phenomena of religion in the present.

As a topic of special interest, marriages as an aspect of the recognized and approved denominations are featured in Religion in Denmark 2010. We have, where possible, collected data from weddings and blessings of civil marriage, enabling us to compare the figures from 1999 (and in some cases even 1989) with those we have now collected from 2009. In an overall perspective, this is done in order to take a closer look at the activities of each religious community. And precisely because marriage is an authorization of legal rights and thus often highlighted as one of the main privileges that a recognized or approved religious community can enjoy, it is of utmost research interest for us. In Denmark only civic authorities and recognized and approved faith communities can be in charge of juridical authorized marriages; this excludes associations like Humanistic Society. Accordingly, we wanted to find out the consequences of this legislation: Do the faith communities make use of this right? In general, throughout the different religious traditions, we can conclude that the marriage designation has not been used in particularly large scale. In her article, "At the city hall, the church - or deep in the heart of the forest? Marriage Authorization in Denmark", Lene Kühle examines the history of the civil marriage: How it was introduced in the years after the first constitution in 1849 as a sort of 'emergency marriage' for people who were not members of a religious community. Among politicians at the beginning of the 20th century there was consensus that only civil marriage should be valid. Due to public pressure, however, they decided to maintain a system of two different types of marriage: civil and ecclesiastical, the latter in a great variety today, including marriages by the Free Church clergy as well as imams and lamas, each described as ecclesiastical. Despite a large increase in the number of recognized and approved communities, the figures we have collected, does not indicate any corresponding increase in the number of church marriages among them.

A couple of article headlines in this e-yearbook share the scope of "Optional Religion". The articles illustrate different aspects of religion and freedom in Denmark today, including freedom from religion, and different options within and outside organized religiosity.

Tim Jensen's article "Central government approval of (from church perspective) 'deviant faiths'" focuses on the legal aspects and acceptance principles and procedures applicable in relation to the approved faiths. In 1970 the procedure of recognizing communities stopped, and instead the communities were given the opportunity to perform marriages with civil validity (now designated approved if authorized). And since then officials have hailed the principle that communities outside the state church should be treated equally. Tim Jensen acknowledges that much has happened in that direction, but The Department of Family Affairs, the agency handling congregations outside the state church, in some ways can make it better.

Kirstine Helboe Johansen's article "The new atheism" highlights the groups that want to be free of religion, i.e. the atheist and humanist groups in Denmark. The establishments of associations for atheists, agnostics and other people who are in favour of a secular humanist world view in the last several years represents an innovation in the Danish religious landscape. One of these new associations, Humanist Society, established in 2008, has chosen a very offensive style to present itself, and they offer self-humanist rituals, naming, confirmation, wedding and funeral. The Norwegian Humanist Association, a similar association, has achieved a position which corresponds to religious communities in Norway, and The Humanistic Society in Denmark wants to enjoy the same privileges as the authorized denominations do. This proposal confronts the idea of special privileges for religious communities compared to secular ones.

As a state church, The Church of Denmark (The Evangelical Lutheran Church in Denmark) has unique characteristics. One of them, the huge freedom that exists within the church, came from the religious revival in the 1800s, which ensured both the Inner Mission and the Grundtvigians under the same umbrella, i.e. a single national church. Steen Marqvard Rasmussen's article "How all-encompassing is the state church?" scrutinizes freedom and inclusiveness within the church, in terms of the different legal limits to your beliefs and practices within the state church, depending on whether you are a pastor, church official (f. ex. a sexton or an or organist), member of parish council or ordinary member. Whilst the first three member functions are subject to certain restrictions regarding their beliefs and practices there are no state church demands on its ordinary members apart from their paying church tax. Marqvard Rasmussen argues that the rather wealthy national church had no serious problems dealing with the financial crisis, but it needs to respond to what you may call a 'relevance crisis' with two challenges: first, to relate to what its members believe in, and second, to formulate and implement a new 'inclusive politics'.

Marie Ramsdal-Thomsen's article on elective congregations, a kind of fringe congregations of The Church of Denmark, gives another clue to how the idea of freedom unfolds in the state church. The idea of elective and independent congregations that celebrated its 100th birthday long time ago keeps a strong relationship to Grundtvig's ideas of spiritual freedom. Nobody should be forced to listen to a priest they don’t like, or celebrate worship in a way that does not support one's faith. In her article "Free churches - old and new elective congregations and their views on the state church" Marie Ramsdal-Thomsen presents her results from a field study of free and elective congregations. In an overall scheme, there are about 20,000 members of The Elective Churches in Denmark. Simultaneously, these 20,000 are members of the state church. But they represent groups of church members who have come together to employ their own priest. But although their beliefs are similar, the 3,500 members belonging to Evangelical-Lutheran Free Church congregations have no affiliation with the state church, because they want more freedom to perform the service exactly as they want. Independent congregations are likely to uphold the status of approved religious communities. Since 1989, 40 new elective and independent congregations have emerged, often charismatic in nature. This growth represents a high degree of innovation within the Danish church life.

The article "Evangelist - on a mission in Denmark" by Rikke Gottfredsen presents another novelty within our field. In recent years, the organisation Evangelist received much attention in Denmark. Evangelist has no intention to apply for recognition as a religious community, but they see their role as a church going beyond what one associates with a traditional church with church attendance on Sundays. With emphasis on glossolalia and healing, they want to transform and heal people spiritually and physically. Just as the growth of elective and free congregations, Evangelist represents a Danish branch of a more charismatic and Pentecostal church movement worldwide, which counts nearly 600 million Christians in particular in Latin America, U.S. and Africa.

Other kinds of religious change are registered, too. This time Lars Ahlin, in the article "What does it really mean to describe themselves as 'believers'?" discussing some results from the so-called 2008 European Values Survey. Based on some general results, Ahlin observes how these fit together with other variables. In sociological surveys, demographic variables such as gender and education are often selected. But in this case, the question concentrates at some "religious" variables, such as the religious self-understanding, and how they are linked with other "religious" variables, such as church attendance or belief in reincarnation. The interpretation of these variables is constantly connected to whatever differences occur between four distinct generations.

Ahlin’s assertion that there is significant change in Danish religion is also an important agenda for Iben Krogsdal’s article. Under the heading "religiosity within women's magazines" she takes a closer look at religious phenomena outside the organized religious institutions. Through an analysis of various women's and family magazines in week 7, 2010: Femina, Alt for Damerne (Laidies’ Exclusive), Søndag (Sunday), Familie Journalen (Family Journal), Ude og Hjemme (At Home and Out), Hjemmet (The Home), Psykologi (Psychology) and Lime (distributed free of charge from Netto, a discount store), a distinct pattern how the media disseminate religion emerges. Or you may question what is actually disseminated: While overflowing with spirituality, mysticism and spiritual dimensions, religion in its traditional sense is rather absent in the weeklies above. Only a few articles do mention religion, but unfavourably: 'religion has nothing to do with god'. Iben Krogsdal concludes that compared to the state church, Danish women subscribe to other kinds of religiosity, although the majority of them still are members of it. This point reflects the crisis of relevance that Steen Marqvard discusses in his article; church members still uses heavily the church for the feasts, but in their everyday life, the promotion of spirituality and spiritual issues in popular culture apparently play a major role.

The link between popular culture and religion is also the main point in Markus Davidsen's "Reborn and blue: religiosity based on James Cameron's Avatar." Scarcely, science fiction adventure Avatar had hit cinema screen markets, turned over for more than 14 billion dkr and received nine Academy Award nominations (of which only three statuettes were given) before it gave rise to such myths and ritual that it has created preconditions for a new religion to blossom. It's happened before that books and films delivered the basis for religious formation; particularly Star Wars has given rise to a religious identity, The Jedi, who – according to census – counted more than 500,000 supporters in Great Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Although we rightly may question the serious mood that people who describe their religion as Jedi are in, you can actually find Jedi-groups recognized as religious communities in the U.S. and Canada. We ask ourselves whether the Committee dealing with applications for approval as religious communities can expect an application from an Avatar-Society in Denmark in the near future.

How migrant congregations evolved as one of the main phenomena within the transformation of the religious landscape in Denmark, was presented as a central issue in the former volume of the e-yearbook including Christian, Buddhist, Muslim and Hindu congregations. In this 2010 volume, we remain focused on migrant congregations through the article "Religion, migration and integration". Here Jørn Borup closely examines the role of religion in the context of living in a new community as a migrant. The importance of religion in integration processes have long been neglected in research, but evidently, the impact of religious commitment has no such distinct negative character, as often ascribed to it, sometimes to such an extent that declining religious commitment in itself is seen as a sign of integration. It is difficult to put religion, migration and integration on a formula. On one hand, Muslims and Catholics both believe and practice more intensely, compared to Buddhists and Protestants. On the other, ethnically Danish convert-Buddhists attend Buddhist centres more often than the ethnic immigrant Buddhists, and ethnic immigrant Christians go to church more often compared to the Danish national church members.

The new material from 2009 conveys new perspectives on migrant religion. We associate very often migrant religion with immigration from areas far from Denmark, but there are also communities within this category from our closest neighbouring countries. The Church of Sweden and The Norwegian Sjømannskirke (Sailors’ Church) in Copenhagen are two examples of such communities. Both these churches can report very high figures for marriages in general (though with a decline in 2009 from 2008, something they both attribute to the financial crisis). More detailed studies show that almost all couples are migrant couples, i.e. Swedish- Swedish or Norwegian-Norwegian, except for a few couples with a Danish citizen as the other half. Likewise, other parts of their agenda reflect that they function as migrant churches, most significant as the framework for an ethno-cultural identity, "a home away from home". This is reflected for instance in Sjømannskirken’s website "are you missing Norwegian groceries?" referring to the church store with Norwegian goods (Http://www.sjomannskirken.no/kobenhavn/aktuelt/2010/02/norsk-butikk), and in The Church of Sweden’s homes for older Swedes who have been living in Denmark, too. They take care of their fellow countrymen and give them a familiar framework for their lives in the unfamiliar surroundings, even though the geographical distances are not very large. See comments by Marie Vejrup Nielsen to Christian groups for more on this phenomenon.

The purpose of the e-yearbooks, Religion in Denmark, is primarily to collect useful data for research. It may allow for comparisons over time, as we have done: what has happened during the last 10 years to these communities? Or it may involve studies of very specific issues, how a particular group has developed? It could also be a comparison, for example, how the member concept is perceived of different faiths accordingly. Or an examination why these groups have applied for status as approved at all? Why is it important for them? Is it to achieve some of the succeeding economic rights? Or rather the religious rights, if you like, to conduct weddings and funerals? Or are we looking for some completely different motif?

The vast majority of data is given by the groups themselves. We have only little opportunity to check their accuracy. In the commentary sections to the various groups of communities you can find more information on membership and activities, and contact information: Christian and Christianity-inspired communities and congregations (comment by Marie Vejrup Nielsen), Islamic and Islam-inspired communities and congregations (comment by Lene Kühle), Buddhist communities and congregations (comment by Jørn Borup), Hindu and Hindu-inspired communities and congregations (comment by Marianne Qvortrup Fibiger). Unfortunately it has not been possible to get information from all communities. If the community responded last year, we refer to their figures from the 2009 yearbook. And in a few instances we have asked other people to give an estimate of community membership. Normally membership figures change quite slowly, therefore we have accepted figures from the 2009 yearbook in our tables and in some cases even slightly older figures. But it is always clearly marked where the figure comes from.

Since the statistics published in the e-Yearbook 2010 especially treats communities outside the church, we have to a large extent used the approved communities lists from the Department of Family Affairs' website. As much as possible we operate with the designations and categorizations from the Department of Family Affairs, although they can be questioned, as Tim Jensen points out in his article. We differ, however, in one aspect from the Department of Family Affairs setup, since we for the sake of clarity have chosen to list them alphabetically rather than in the order appearance on the Department of Family Affairs website, which largely reflects the chronology of achieved recognition to the communities. We have also chosen to define the different categories of the communities by size.

We hope with this edition of e-Yearbook to highlight some of the trends that are helping to shape the development of religion in Denmark today.

Links (activated later):

To learn more about our methodology

To read more about the name approved and recognized communities.