Example research essay topic: Second World War 19 Th Century - 1,443 words

NOTE: Free essay sample provided on this page should be used for references or sample purposes only. The sample essay is available to anyone, so any direct quoting without mentioning the source will be considered plagiarism by schools, colleges and universities that use plagiarism detection software. To get a completely brand-new, plagiarism-free essay, please use our essay writing service.
One click instant price quote

Religion Freedom of religion and Human rights are secured in various ways in different European states. Human-rights debates and actions take place in historical and philosophical contexts inspired by various economic and political agendas. We have seen how Denmark has its own part of this dispute and is challenged to find a way forward to secure the rights of the popular religions. This must be done on the basis of the debate in the 1840 s that lies behind the present constitution.

This debate was not at all as old-fashioned as one might think: many of the arguments of today were already heard during the revolutionary year of 1848. The main issue for the Danes is whether to continue the Nordic pattern or to decide that the old paradigm of state church and freedom of religion can no longer meet the pluralistic realities of the present. The answer depends mainly on the continuation of the process of nation-building in Denmark. Will this take place in a more and more European context? Will Danish Christianity follow the nation-state in an international development that automatically involves ecumenical fellowship among the churches in Europe today?

So far the established church has been very reluctant to engage itself in ecumenical cooperation, but on the other hand it has always been good at accommodating itself to social and political realities. In the course of the development illustrated by the case of Denmark, the Nordic Lutheran churches changed from territorial churches to state churches, folk churches or national churches. These new ecclesiological concepts presuppose that a church is somewhat different from a state and its governance. Along with the concept of "free churches" (which replaced older terms such as "sects" and "separatism") these new concepts reflect changes in the understanding of the church which evolved in Europe during the 19 th century.

At the same time they expressed the new relations between state, people, nation and church. As a simplification one might say that free church and state church are contrary concepts about the organization of the church, whereas folk church and national church deal with the qualitative aspect of being the church. Dag Thorkildsen points out that among modern ecclesiological concepts, "state church" expresses continuity with pre-modern society, whereas "national church" and "folk church" are regarded as linking with the new popular reality. The Nordic vision In the 19 th century and well into the 20 th century many people in the Nordic countries shared a common vision of unity and cooperation among the Nordic peoples. Especially after the second world war, it was hoped that the common Lutheran heritage would strengthen Nordic unity. However, attempts to gather Nordic countries in political and ecclesial fellowship had little success, and today the Nordic countries and Lutheran churches are more separated than for a long time.

If the realization of the Nordic vision was a failure, however, the modernization of the Nordic state churches into democratic folk churches and the establishment of social welfare states was more successful. The result was not a separation of church and state, as in other European countries, but both a state-supported national church and freedom of religion at the same time. An important presupposition of this was that Christianity in its Nordic Lutheran shape yielded its function of legitimation of the state and the order of society to a nationalism that was open to religious legitimation. Religious-based nationalism became the new civil religion in the period after the second world war.

In this civil religion Christianity and the Nordic national churches came to be seen as part of an historical heritage rather than the Truth, as in pre-modern society. This development of a new Lutheran-inspired civil religion was supported by the establishment of the social welfare society -- the most important political project in the Nordic countries after 1945. Again, Denmark can serve as an illustration. According to Danish journalist Henning Fons mark, the Danish social welfare project owes its success to the core of a secularized "love for neighbour" philosophy shared by the Christian part of the labour movement, the Liberals and the Conservatives alike. All wanted the Christian understanding of the human person to be visualized in a non-confessional, secularized way in politics. As a consequence, a deal was struck between the state and the Lutheran folk church, in which the state promised the church good financial circumstances as part of the official state administration and freedom of preaching, and the church would concentrate on its inner life and worship, leaving all diaconal and social work to the welfare state.

The church became invisible in public life and concentrated its energy on Sunday. The result was the establishment of a welfare society and a welfare church, legitimated by a welfare theology, of which the major emphases are that no one can speak on behalf of the Lutheran church, that the true church is the invisible church and that the local parish is the real church. The serious implications of this welfare theology for the ecumenical involvement of the Lutheran church of Denmark over the past thirty years can be illustrated by the fact that it was the only Nordic Lutheran church which refused to sign either the Porvoo common statement or the joint declaration on justification by the LWF and the Roman Catholic Church. The responses from Danish local congregations to the Porvoo common statement show what is at stake in the Lutheran Church of Denmark when it comes to making binding decisions on theological matters in a Nordic ecumenical context. The Danish No to Porvoo The Porvoo common statement is an ecumenical text that was agreed on unanimously by representatives from the Anglican churches in England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales and from Lutheran churches in Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania, on 13 October 1992 at Jairvenpaa. (Its name comes from the Finnish city in whose cathedral they had celebrated the eucharist together on the previous Sunday. ) In the foreword to the statement Anglican bishop David Tustin and Swedish Lutheran bishop Tore Furberg note that the conversations leading to Porvoo sought "to move forward from existing agreements towards the goal of visible unity. By harvesting the fruits of previous ecumenical dialogues we hoped to express a greater measure of common understanding, and to resolve the long-standing difficulties between us about episcopacy and succession. " Tustin and Furberg identify several impulses which influenced the Porvoo common statement: (1) new links between the Nordic/Baltic and British/Irish regions in commerce, education, tourism and environmental concerns; (2) Anglican-Lutheran theological conversations from 1909 to 1951, Anglo-Scandinavian theological conferences from 1929 to the present and pastoral conferences from 1978 to the present; (3) the new theological climate created by global bilateral and multilateral ecumenical dialogues in the 1970 s and 1980 s involving both Lutherans and Anglicans; (4) the Lutheran-Episcopal agreement of 1982 and the Meissen common statement of 1988 between the Church of England and the Protestant churches in Germany.

Each participating church was asked to discuss and adopt the Porvoo common statement according to its own practice and church law. The two Danish representatives, Bishop Henrik Christiansen of Aalborg and Gerhard Pedersen, director of the church's pastoral institute, sent the text to the bishop of Copenhagen, who then had special responsibility for ecumenical contacts with churches abroad. Since there was no established practice of how to deal with ecumenical texts and officially adopt them, the bishop of Copenhagen, Erik Norman Svendsen, decided together with his 11 colleagues to send a Danish translation of the text to all 2116 parishes and 2095 pastors on 1 May 1994. In their foreword to the translation the bishops stated: "Herewith the bishops present this statement for open debate and ask for responses before Easter 1995. Thereafter we will decide how to proceed. " Since the bishops did not have a plan for the process, they did not pose specific questions about the text but turned it over for a free debate.

I think this was because they could not agree on a process and did not agree about the importance of ecumenical texts or the necessity of structured ecumenical cooperation between Anglican and Lutheran churches. A long and heated debate about the Porvoo common statement took place in many congregations, in the media and in meetings around the country. For the first time in Denmark, ecumenical theology and relations with other Christian churches were discussed on a broad scale at the grassroots. Because the debate was so intense, the bishops had to postpone the deadline for responses. Finally, at a meeting on 28 - 29 August 1995 they decided that from the responses and the

Research essay sample on Second World War 19 Th Century