Ida Olenius: Spiritual Preparedness: The Church of Sweden’s Work for Strengthening Swedish People’s Fortitude During the Second World War, 1939-1945

Abstract

The study investigates how and why representatives of the Church of Sweden attempted to contribute to Sweden’s defence during World War II by raising people’s fortitude and will for defence, thus highlighting the role of the Church in modern Swedish society and nation-building. 

The wartime period is divided into five parts based on historical events that influenced the Swedish perception of threat from foreign powers. For each subperiod, the initiatives taken by Church actors are investigated and the forms of work, actors, formal structures, and networks are mapped out. Particular interest is paid to Church representatives’ use and interpretation of slogans such as “spiritual preparedness” and “the Christian principle”. 

The source material consists of minutes, correspondence, memoranda, reports, petitions, manifestos, public speeches and statements, newspaper and magazine articles, books, pamphlets, and films. Several theoretical perspectives are combined, with Pierre Bourdieu’s field theory as the basis. The Church of Sweden is viewed as a social field competing against other fields, most noticeably those of the state and the dissenter movements, for certain capitals in an “arena of spiritual preparedness”. This struggle involves the use and exchange of resources that are either particular to the Church or available through interactions with the other fields. 

Among the actors within the Church of Sweden who took up the call to strengthen the people’s fortitude were bishops, clergymen, and laypeople, who worked individually, in groups, through a temporary formal organisation, or the Oxford group movement. They used a combination of traditional and innovative work forms that changed over time and highlighted the Church’s practical as well as motivational resources. They wished to demonstrate that the Church of Sweden was an integral part of Swedish national history, culture, and identity. This understanding was contested by outsiders as well as by actors within the Church, who either opposed the conservative, church-oriented vision of the nation that was often expressed or warned against the risk of instrumentalising the Church for the purposes of the state.