Religious ponderings
(This happened almost a month ago and now I've been able to write something about it...)
Couple of weeks back the state media company YLE organized a program called “Homoilta” (roughly translated “Gay Evening”) as an episode of public discussion program A-talk. The subject of the program was the church and it's attitudes towards same-sex marriage and sexual minorities.
I happen to know, primarily through my sister (who is studying theology in Joensuu University) that in general the official Lutheran Church of Finland is rather tolerant of sexual minorities down to official statements even if there have been a long debate about whether the same-sex marriages (officially “registered partnerships”) should be blessed in church. Some priests have made personal decisions to perform an unofficial “wedding” even if they could not officially bless the union. However, as often is the case, the most loud opponents of anything from gay marriage to female priesthood have garnered more media attention than anything.
Attendees in the program included lay members, politicians and, as the representative of the Church, the Bishop of Tampere - who in this case turned out to be particularly bad choice but the studio probably just wanted a local representative. However, the most vocal participant in the program turned out to be Päivi Räsänen, chairwoman of the Finnish Christian Democrat Party (who, unlike many European parties of similar name, is a small conservative religious party with fundamentalist leanings). As for the bishop, he said particularly nothing and gave the impression that the Church would accept her views even if they are very far from the church's official position.
I didn't see the program (I still don't have a TV) but the furor begun almost immediately. Finnish Freethinkers (Atheists) have a web page that's supposed to make leaving the church membership easier (many Finns become members of the church at birth). Immediately after the program the page begun to register hundreds of people who wanted to quit the church; in many comments, Räsänen's behavior was stated as a reason and now the media begun to get interested about her connections to reactionary conservative group that receives funding from its US counterpart. The last time I checked, there were more than 42.000 people who had left the church after the program - and that's just via this particular method.
All this happened just prior to church elections where church members can elect their lay representatives to various church-related councils (my sister used to be a member and now my mother is a candidate). Church used the situation as a chance to state that people could elect the kind of representatives they wanted if they'd vote; this was also the first time when the age of being able to vote in church elections had been lowered to 16. As of this writing, unusually many people have voted in advance.
Afterwards there have been some attempts to belittle the rush to leave; claims that the electronic way of leaving the church could be illegal (well, the page has worked for years now and would it matter anyway), that the resignations would have been hoaxes (no, even thought in that amount of cases there are bound to be many fraudulent ones); that people just wanted to avoid the church tax (well, people have done that before but not in these numbers in such a short time). However, the program was not the only reason; other people have stated that they really don't have faith any more - and some left because the church has become too liberal.
AS of this writing, church has decided that there won't be official church wedding for same-sex couple, just prayer meetings. No wonder certain people claim that the conservatives keep the church as a hostage...
Couple of weeks back the state media company YLE organized a program called “Homoilta” (roughly translated “Gay Evening”) as an episode of public discussion program A-talk. The subject of the program was the church and it's attitudes towards same-sex marriage and sexual minorities.
I happen to know, primarily through my sister (who is studying theology in Joensuu University) that in general the official Lutheran Church of Finland is rather tolerant of sexual minorities down to official statements even if there have been a long debate about whether the same-sex marriages (officially “registered partnerships”) should be blessed in church. Some priests have made personal decisions to perform an unofficial “wedding” even if they could not officially bless the union. However, as often is the case, the most loud opponents of anything from gay marriage to female priesthood have garnered more media attention than anything.
Attendees in the program included lay members, politicians and, as the representative of the Church, the Bishop of Tampere - who in this case turned out to be particularly bad choice but the studio probably just wanted a local representative. However, the most vocal participant in the program turned out to be Päivi Räsänen, chairwoman of the Finnish Christian Democrat Party (who, unlike many European parties of similar name, is a small conservative religious party with fundamentalist leanings). As for the bishop, he said particularly nothing and gave the impression that the Church would accept her views even if they are very far from the church's official position.
I didn't see the program (I still don't have a TV) but the furor begun almost immediately. Finnish Freethinkers (Atheists) have a web page that's supposed to make leaving the church membership easier (many Finns become members of the church at birth). Immediately after the program the page begun to register hundreds of people who wanted to quit the church; in many comments, Räsänen's behavior was stated as a reason and now the media begun to get interested about her connections to reactionary conservative group that receives funding from its US counterpart. The last time I checked, there were more than 42.000 people who had left the church after the program - and that's just via this particular method.
All this happened just prior to church elections where church members can elect their lay representatives to various church-related councils (my sister used to be a member and now my mother is a candidate). Church used the situation as a chance to state that people could elect the kind of representatives they wanted if they'd vote; this was also the first time when the age of being able to vote in church elections had been lowered to 16. As of this writing, unusually many people have voted in advance.
Afterwards there have been some attempts to belittle the rush to leave; claims that the electronic way of leaving the church could be illegal (well, the page has worked for years now and would it matter anyway), that the resignations would have been hoaxes (no, even thought in that amount of cases there are bound to be many fraudulent ones); that people just wanted to avoid the church tax (well, people have done that before but not in these numbers in such a short time). However, the program was not the only reason; other people have stated that they really don't have faith any more - and some left because the church has become too liberal.
AS of this writing, church has decided that there won't be official church wedding for same-sex couple, just prayer meetings. No wonder certain people claim that the conservatives keep the church as a hostage...