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150 8 Cultural Religion A traditional religion is not necessarily one fraught with deep theological conviction for its followers, nor one followed with devout piety. It is rather the religion which in the final analysis lies at the deepest level of consciousness and cultural identity. —Hans Raun Iversen1 w h aT d o e s I T mean to be Christian? Many people might suggest that a Christian is someone who believes that Jesus is the Son of God and also simultaneously God, and that about 2,000 years ago he was crucified for the sins of humanity but was subsequently resurrected. They might go on to suggest that if we believe in him we will spend eternity with God in heaven after we die, as is all more or less explained in the book that came from God, the Bible. This account of Christian identity is all well and good. But during my year in Scandinavia, I came face to face with a very different version of what it means to be a Christian. Most Danes and Swedes will say that yes, they are Christian. But few will say that they believe in the traditional tenets of the Christian faith as stated above. After all, only about 30 percent of Danes and Swedes believe that Jesus was simultaneously both man and God, only about 30 percent of Danes and Swedes believe in life after death, and less than 10 percent of Danes and Swedes believe that the Bible is the actual word of God.2 And yet at the same time, the vast majority—around 80 percent of Danes and Swedes— are dues- or tax-paying members of their national church. Whereas Grace Davie has described many contemporary Europeans as being implicitly religious in that they may be believers without actively belonging to a church or congregation,3 the situation is just the opposite in Scandinavia where, in the words of Ole Riis, the majority of men and women actually “belong without believing.”4 For contemporary Danes and Swedes, to be Christian is simply not limited or confined to the acceptance of a narrow set of supernatural beliefs. Being Christian is linked to their culture, it is part of their collective heritage, and it is manifested in their childhood experiences and family traditions. Being Christian is a conduit for significant rites cultural religion 151 of passage: birth, confirmation, marriage, and death. It has to do with holidays, songs, stories, and food. It is perhaps akin to what Daniele Hervieu-Leger refers to as a “chain of memory.”5 As for the redeeming blood of Jesus, or the Virgin Birth, or heaven and hell, or “justification by faith,” or the Book of Revelation—these things are marginal if not downright absent from their subjective experience of what it means to be Christian. Talking to Danes and Swedes about their beliefs, worldviews, and identities actually reminded me a lot of Jews. I grew up in a Jewish family and was raised among Jews—none of whom actually believed in the literal teachings of the Jewish religion. All my relatives were Jewish , nearly all of my parents’ friends were Jewish, many of my friends at school were Jewish, I attended years of Jewish summer camp, as well as years of Hebrew school—and yet I rarely (if ever?) came to know a single Jew throughout all of these experiences who sincerely believed that Moses actually received the Ten Commandments from God on Mount Sinai. In Hebrew school we learned about the story of Abraham nearly killing his son as a sacrifice to God. But no one—not even the teachers—actually believed it ever happened. At Passover every year, my extended family—aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, cousins, grandparents , friends—gathers around the Seder table to celebrate the story of how God delivered the Jewish people from bondage in Egypt. We recite the biblical story and say the prayers that go along with it, and yet no one actually believes the darn thing. This Passover ritual is essentially about getting together with family, eating good food, and participating in a Jewish cultural tradition. But it isn’t about worshipping God—not at all. I should also mention that while in graduate school I spent two years doing qualitative research among a Jewish community in Oregon;6 of the many Jews that I observed and interviewed during that time, only a handful were religious believers. The majority were nonbelievers. Active in their Jewish community...

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