Islam Has Turned the Danish Population into Believers

Bookies would probably have offered high odds 30 or 40 years ago, if somebody had wanted to bid on one of the hottest topics of conversation among the Danes in the year 2006 being faith. Today, however, it seems almost obvious that faith and religion should be debated. And hardly a day goes by without the media giving the floor to imams or priests, bishops or other opinion multipliers who have an opinion on the issue.

Censuses of the number of articles in Danish newspapers in which words such as God, Jesus or Allah occur speak for themselves. From 1995 to 2004 the number rose with more than 300 percent. During the same period the number of articles on issues such as sex, politics or computers has only risen between 80 and 150 percent.

No smoke without fire. The increased media focus on faith is not baseless but reflect an actual increase in public interest. Quite simply, more and more people have gotten faith at closer quarters in later years. And still fewer people claim to not believe in anything.

Back in 1970, 61 percent of the Danish populations saw themselves as Christian. Today, a full 72 percent do so.

In 1999, 50 percent of the Danes admitted to praying now and again. Today, the number is 57 percent.

In 1981 23 percent of the population claimed to neither believe in a personified god or in any spiritual power. This number has fallen to 16 percent today.

Right until the late nineties, approximately half the Danes said they never went to church. Today, less than a third of the population said that same thing.

Simultaneously, alternative fairs on body, mind and spirit in abound all over the country and enjoy a growing number of visitors. As late as last Friday (20th October 2006), this newspaper (Kristeligt Dagblad) informed of an increasing number of entrepeneurs wanting to get into the wellness market and offer spiritual peace and introspection.

Thus the situation. What then lies behind this new tendency to believe?

In order to answer a complex question in a simple way, the explanation must necessarily involve Islam.

In the course of the past three or four decades, the influx of immigrants has turned Islam into Denmark's second biggest religion.

The very visible way in which many Muslims practice their religion has made it both necessary and acceptable to discuss religion in public. And so it has been: at schools that receive children of immigrants or of their descendants, in housing areas whose tenants' composition has changed radically, in shops that employ immigrants or their descendants, in the political institutions and the media... And whether the angle in these discussions has been positive or negative towards the Islamic practice, the end result has been a universalization of the issue of faith.

The international situation has obviously served to strengthen this tendency, seeing that Islam versus the West has been at the top of the political agenda ever after the Cold War ended.

Today around 200.000 Muslims live in Denmark. Among them only 5000 are native Danes that have converted. In other words, the encounter with Islam has not turned the population at large into Muslims. Instead, the Danes have become a nation of seekers, more curious and more interested in their own faith.

It is said that it is the foreign that teaches us about ourselves. And it really is a case of me, myself and I.

For as it turns out, people don't go looking only for the old Christian traditions. They seek everywhere. And they themselves determine what they choose to believe in. “I am religious - but in my own way" has become the mantra.

While not many decades ago, the established church almost held a monopoly on true religion; today's situation is more that of a religious bazaar. The Danes have become consumers of religion. They take no specific faith for granted and consider nothing right beforehand. Rather, they check out what this specific faith costs and what is has to offer them. And they mix religious ideas ad lib.

The Danish National Evangelical Lutheran Church stands before its greatest opportunity and biggest challenge for years. Its wish to attract the Danish population at large is not completely farfetched in a time when the interest in faith is at a peak, and an interest in the established church certainly exists. However by sneaking a look at Islam and other offers, the customers have discovered that they can haggle over the price. And they need only cross the street to find other shops with new offers.

Translated by Sara Høyrup • www.text2text.dk