Religious Freedom and Restrictions in the Nordic countries
Ensuring equal treatment for the different religious communities in Norden is challenging.
Summary: All of the Nordic countries have enshrined religious freedom in their constitutions and other legal instruments, and they are also known for espousing human rights. On the other hand, some freedom of religion studies have found them to be quite restrictive. It is true that some countries – like Denmark – have favoured regulations that apply unequally to religious minorities (mainly Muslims). But the Nordic countries may also score badly on particular aspects for other reasons, such as registering being required to access funding. Some practices considered to be restricting freedom of religion are actually intended to expand the rights of religious minorities, rather than the opposite.
An overview of legal provisions on religious freedom
Freedom of religion is enshrined in the constitutions of the five Nordic states, but in different ways (see table below). The Nordic countries have a long tradition of freedom of religion, and the constitutions of Norway and Denmark include
wording about religious freedom that dates back to before the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 18 of which pertains to the freedom of religion. Since 2000, new or updated legislation has been introduced providing more comprehensive regulations with respect to the rights of minority religious communities as well as their responsibilities. The Nordic countries have similar legislation in many respects, providing frameworks for religious communities outside the majority Lutheran church, including registration of recognised religious communities. These sorts of legal frameworks are still continuing to develop as the relationship between the Nordic states and religious groups is complex.
Legislation supports freedom of religion by, among other things, granting special privileges to recognized religious communities. However, there are also regulations which limit religious freedom. In this regard, Denmark can be mentioned, with, for example, its legislation restricting ’undemocractic’ preaching and donations (the sanctions list and the prohibition list), and banning face coverings in public (burqa ban), all measures which have come into force since 2017 and target Islam in particular. In 2020, the Pew Research Center actually placed Denmark as the only full democracy in the category of 'countries with heavy government restrictions on religion'; a category otherwise occupied by authoritarian states, hybrid regimes and flawed democracies. Denmark is not the only country that has a 'burqa ban'. Norway has a similar ban on face coverings, although it only applies to educational institutions, but Pew only put Denmark in this category.
Pew's report also concluded that freedom of religion is not sufficiently enshrined in law in three out of the five Nordic states (see below for more on the Pew Research Center studies). Another well-known study on freedom of religion, The Religion and State Project, has indicated that the Nordic region is a place that is surprisingly precarious for religious minorities. This is certainly the picture that is given when reading international reports on freedom of religion within the Nordic countries, and it is not completely wrong - but neither is it completely correct.
Extracts on Freedom of Religion in the Constitutions of the Nordic Countries
| Denmark | “Citizens shall be at liberty to form congregations for the worship of God in a manner according with their convictions, provided that nothing contrary to good morals or public order shall be taught or done.” Paragraph 67. |
| Finland | “Everyone has the freedom of religion and conscience. Freedom of religion and conscience entails the right to profess and practice a religion, the right to express one's convictions and the right to be a member of or decline to be a member of a religious community. No one is under the obligation, against his or her conscience, to participate in the practice of a religion.” Section 11. |
| Iceland | “All persons have the right to form religious associations and to practice their religion in conformity with their individual convictions. Nothing may however be preached or practised which is prejudicial to good morals or public order.” Article 63. |
| Norway | “All inhabitants of the realm shall have the right to free exercise of their religion. The Church of Norway, an Evangelical-Lutheran church, will remain the Established Church of Norway and will as such be supported by the State. Detailed provisions as to its system will be laid down by law. All religious and belief communities should be supported on equal terms.” Article 16. |
| Sweden | "Everyone shall be guaranteed the following rights and freedoms in his or her relations with the public institutions (…) “freedom of worship: that is, the freedom to practise one's religion alone or in the company of others.” Part 1, article 1. |
The Nordic Evangelical Lutheran Churches
The Nordic countries are Lutheran majority societies and the Evangelical Lutheran Churches – historically state churches – maintain a relatively strong population base. These majority churches also maintain a special status due to their role in burials, chaplaincies and Christmas celebrations in primary schools. That said, in all five countries, ties between the majority Lutheran church and the state have loosened in the last few decades. Most radically in Sweden where the church and state were divided in 2020, and there was constitutional reform in Norway in 2012 to the same end.
It is difficult to describe the relationship between state and church concisely, particularly as this differs across the Nordic states. Just because it is a majority church and studies on freedom of religion find that it is favored over minority religions, it does not necessarily mean that the relationship between state and church is completely harmonious. But in some cases, relations between the majority religion and the state are so close that it is sometimes difficult – particularly in Denmark – to tell them apart.
How do you measure freedom of religion in practice?
As there is no agreed definition of what freedom of religion is, it is difficult to actually measure. But it is important, despite this, to attempt to do so as it can disclose hidden – and perhaps not so hidden – unequal treatment and illuminate the link between religious freedom, liberalism and democracy. The various attempts which have been made involve collecting numerous comparable data across countries, including looking at government restrictions placed on religious practices of the institutions of religious minorities which are not also placed on the majority group – something which would point towards religious discrimination. Two well-known organizations which do this are The Pew Research Center and The Religion and State Project. I looked behind the indexes created by these two organizations with a view to seeing whether the Nordic countries really should be placed where they are, or whether there were any reasons in the process of data collection and analysis that led to the Nordic countries’ placement in particular. My results were published in full in the article A ’Nordic Religious Freedom Paradox’? Freedom of Religion and Belief as Contructed by Two Global Datasets, in the Nordic Journal of Comparative Religion.
Overall, The Religion and State Project has, for example, shown that societal and governmental religious discrimination were present and increased from 1990 to 2014 in 37 Western and European countries – the opposite of progress (as set out in their 2017 report). Their dataset focuses on assessing and providing metrics for government-based religious discrimination. This is made up of three categories, all of which have different variables feeding into the assessment (Discrimination against minority religions with 36 variables e.g. restrictions on wearing religious symbols or having access to appropriate food; Religious restrictions with 29 variables; and, Religious support, with 52 variables).
The Pew Research Center, among other things, uses a scoring system called the Government Restrictions Index. The GRI gives an overview by amalgamating figures based on a number of individual scores given for e.g. favoritism of religious groups, general laws and policies restricting religious freedom, harassment of religious groups, limits on religious activity and so on.
How do the Nordic countries fare?
By using these sorts of datasets, you can get a comparison of countries and see developments over time which can otherwise go overlooked. While the Nordic countries can be examined as a bloc, there are internal variations. However, discrimination appears to have increased rather than decreased over the years overall. Both these data sets see the registration of religious minority groups as potentially discriminatory. This is one of the reasons why the Nordic countries, and Denmark in particular, do not score as well as one might expect – although they have fared fairly well in many areas.
That said, it is difficult to isolate restrictions from discrimination. These two particular studies appear to deem registration as a restriction of some sort, but registration is in fact quite common in many European countries as it is an understandable precursor to claiming state subsidies or similar e.g. tax benefits. Both studies seem sceptical of state engagement with religion. International studies are often modeled on a particular understanding of religious freedom, namely that a total separation of religion and state is the starting point, a 'wall of separation' as it is often referred to in the US. So, if this is the starting point, the Nordic model with its majority churches can easily be seen as problematic.
While there is a need to be critical of the different measures, the fact that the Nordic countries, often considered role models for human rights, have been placed higher than the global median in regard to government restrictions since 2017 is thought-provoking (see table below). Are the Nordic countries, then, not the role models for freedom of religion that one may imagine?
Pew’s overall Government Restrictions Index showing increase over time
| 2007 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | |
| Denmark | 2.5 | 4.1 | 4.7 | 4.1 |
| Finland | 0.6 | 2.6 | 2.6 | 2.5 |
| Iceland | 2.6 | 3.7 | 3.7 | 3.7 |
| Norway | 1.5 | 2.9 | 3.2 | 3.2 |
| Sweden | 1.2 | 2.3 | 2.8 | 2.6 |
| Average | 1.7 | 3.1 | 3.4 | 3.2 |
| Median | 1.5 | 2.9 | 3.2 | 3.2 |
| Global median | 1.8 | 2.8 | 2.9 |
Why less freedom of religion in the Nordics than we thought?
There may be less freedom of religion in the Nordics because of the assumed starting point: One would assume that these countries, with their global reputation for supporting human rights, would not place restrictions on religious minorities, and this phenomenon can be called the ’Nordic freedom of religion paradox’.
Religious freedom is a dynamic area of public policy and the relationship between the Nordic states and minority religions is complex. Variables applied to all countries across the world do not perhaps disclose some of these complexities. For example, registering may be seen as positive (to be able to access state funds) rather than discriminatory. Equally, with tricky medical issues like circumcision, it seems likely that the Nordic states will prioritize the rights of the child over religious rights (See Akturk, 2019, for more on this). The structural reasons for restrictions do not of course excuse the findings of harassment and discrimination.
The Nordic freedom of religion paradox is closely linked to debates on human rights within the Nordic countries, which are for the most part conceived of as rights of the individual and situated within a hierarchy of rights overseen by judicial processes. While the Nordic countries may be loud proponents of such rights globally, it can be more challenging to place them within the context of social justice and societal cohesion of the welfare state, as pointed out by Johan Strang in his paper from 2018. The stamp of an activity being either ’for’ or ’against’ human rights can be rather black or white, and some scholars have suggested a more discursive approach – where a consensus between these two poles can be found. A consensus approach can also be seen as ’Nordic’, of course. Regardless of which approach is taken, it is certain that considering freedom of religion is crucial in modern day Norden, and that, while we should keep an eye on the GRI and similar indicators, it is also worth looking behind the figures as well.
Further reading:
- Sener Akturk, 'Comparative Politics of Circumcision Bans in Western Europe: A Causal Narrative', APSA Preprints, (2019) doi: 10.33774/apsa-2019-d0gw1
- Bryan S. Turner, 'Review essay: The Scandinavian Model of Secularities. The Scandinavian Model of Secularities', European Journal of Social Theory 17, 4 (2014), pp. 534–43. doi:10.1177/1368431014534352
- J. Strang,. 'Scandinavian Legal Realism and Human Rights: Axel Hägerström, Alf Ross and the Persistent Attack on Natural Law.' Nordic Journal of Human Rights (2018) 36,3, pp.202–218.
- Lene Kühle, Ulla Schmidt, Brian Arly Jacobsen, & Per Pettersson, 'Religion and State: Complexity in Change', in Inger Furseth, ed, Religious Complexity in the Public Sphere (Cham: Springer, 2018)