New issue of Approaching Religion: Religious Heritage and Change in the North

The current issue of Approaching Religion (Vol. 13/2) is based on a conference arranged in Åbo/Turku, Finland, in November 2022, with the theme “Religious Heritage and Change in the North.” The conference was organized jointly by the research network Religious History of the North (REHN, Umeå University), and the research project Changing Spaces: Ritual Buildings, Sacred Objects, and Human Sensemaking (Inez and Julius Polin Institute for Theological Research/Åbo Akademi University).

The conference sought to provide a platform for scholarly reflection on religious heritage in times of change. In focus was thus a concept at the intersection of practiced religion and cultural heritage, or understood differently, a heritage specifically related to religion. The conference explored themes and cases where religious heritage has been challenged, reinterpreted, or even reinforced due to changing realities of, for instance, social, economic, technical, and environmental character. Change – both sudden and slow – is therefore a common thread across all articles in this publication.

As the articles show, the concept of religious heritage includes both tangible and material heritage such as buildings and objects, but also immaterial or intangible heritage, such as traditions or customs being practiced by religious communities. The issue makes a relevant contribution to this research field, with a particular focus on religious heritage and change in the predominantly (post) Protestant Christian Northern Europe and the Nordic countries.

The issue includes articles by Arne Bugge Amundsen (University of Oslo), Irene Stengs (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam), Carola Nordbäck (Mid Sweden University) and Gunilla Gunner (Södertörn University), Irina Seits (Södertörn University), Kim Groop (Åbo Akademi University), Janice Holmes (Högskolan Dalarna), Erik J. Andersson (Åbo Akademi University) and Lise-Lotte Hellöre (Åbo Akademi University). Guest editors are Kim Groop and Jakob Dahlbacka, both of Åbo Akademi University.  

Image: Inauguration of the new university church in Leipzig 3 December 2017. Photo: Kim Groop