European churches and the European parliament elections. The case of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland

Abstract

The article examines the advocacy of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland (ELCF), how it positioned itself in relation to the 2014 EU Parliament elections, the aims for which it strove and the strategies it employed to achieve these aims. The article's theoretical framework relies on exchange and resource dependency theories. The empirical approach is qualitative analysis of written documents, observations and interviews. The results reveal that the EU signifies a new dimension for religion in the public domain at both the EU and national levels. A change towards a more proactive public role for the national church in Finland can be detected. In this process transnational ecumenical contacts play an important role. Beneficial exchanges for both the church and politicians are behind the resurgence of religion in the public domain. The results indicate that the public role of religion depends on the balance of power, real or imagined, between political and religious agents.

The social dynamics of religion in the public domain

“…This also holds true for the following contribution. Eila Helander (2017) shows that the EU allows for an active public role for religion. She demonstrates how national churches have gradually become politically involved in the European public sphere since the early 2000s, taking the national church in Finland as empirical example.…”