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Ordet beredskap har, sedan några år tillbaka, fått ökad uppmärksamhet, och även de religiösa samfunden förväntas vidta beredskapsåtgärder. den norske kirke har tydliggjort sina riktlinjer i skriften Kirkens beredskapssystem (2025). Samtidigt väcks den principiella frågan om vilken roll kristna samfund för spela i en nation som befinner sig i kris eller krig. Samma fråga diskuterades under andra världskriget, då "andlig beredskap" presenterades som ett samlande slagord.

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. 

This article introduces “national Christianities” as an approach to explore the persistent, yet changeable, historical and contemporary intersections of nationalism and Christianity by focusing on the Nordic region.The article challenges tendencies in nationalism studies to view the nation as a phenomenon replacing religion during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It also problematizes the idea of secularization and the diminished influence of Christianity across the Nordic countries. By doing so, the article highlights that Christianity has played a significant role in constructing ideas and ideals of the Nordic region as well as mobilizing national identities since the emergence of romantic nationalism in the nineteenth century. It demonstrates that the intersections of Christianity and nationalism offer an imperative lens for understanding Nordic nations and societies, both in their historical trajectories and contemporary developments.

This article discusses the role of Christianity in Nordic nation-building and the development of the democratic welfare state in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The theoretical concept of circulation of knowledge is used to analyze how ideas of Christianity and morality circulated within and between two Nordic countries, Finland and Sweden, in periods of perceived crisis and how they were incorporated into national narratives and images of ideal citizens. Three historical examples are examined: the Finnish author Zacharias Topelius’s public literary nation-building, the promulgation of a new curriculum for Swedish primary schools during the interwar period, and the efforts to safeguard Swedish political independence, culture, and national identity during the Second World War.

What should characterize the people of a nation? The answer to that question has varied in different historical contexts, but in the Nordic countries, the answer has often been sought within a Christian frame of reference, since Christianity has long been a part of nation-building and societal change in the Nordic countries. This is especially evident in times of crisis when the characteristics of the nation and its people have been negotiated and renegotiated. We argue that the study of the societal circulation of knowledge, especially religious knowledge, within the nation and between nations in times of crisis is crucial to the understanding of how religious ideals were implemented into grand national narratives and also images of ideal citizens. In this paper we want to acknowledge the role of Christianity in Nordic nation-building and the later development of the democratic welfare state by taking a closer look at three examples that highlight religion as a relevant factor in the formation of Finland and Sweden in the 19th and the 20th centuries: the Finnish author Zacharias Topelius and his nation-building, the promulgation of a new curriculum for Swedish primary schools during the interwar period and the second World War crisis for the Swedish nation in terms of threatened political independence, national identity and culture. We will examine how concepts of Christianity and morality circulated within and between Finland and Sweden during these different historical contexts that could be described as times of crisis. 

To strengthen Swedish patriotism during World War II, representatives of the Swedish Parliament and the Church of Sweden gathered at Stockholm’s City Hall and issued the motto “The Swedish principle is the Christian principle.” This study analyzes the role of Christianity in Swedish patriotism as expressed at that meeting. Using Viroli’s theories of nationalism and patriotism, this unifying message is found to contain a variety of understandings regarding the relationships between the Swedish people, Christianity, and the Church of Sweden. Christian faith was presented as part of both nationalism and patriotism and as both an instrument for increasing national loyalty and an objective in itself.

Det finländska vinterkriget 1939–1940 väckte ett starkt gensvar i Sverige. Hos den rikssvenska befolkningen växte en omfattande Finlandsrörelse fram som ville bistå den finländska krigsinsatsen med såväl materiellt och ekonomiskt stöd som med frivilliga. Beskrivningarna av den finländska arméns bedrifter, förmedlade genom pressen, väckte stor beundran och det gjorde även civilbefolkningens insatser och uthållighet. När det i Sverige våren 1940 bildades tre separata organisationer i syfte att stärka den egna civilbefolkningens inre styrka och ”andliga beredskap” var det så kallade Andliga Befolkningsskyddet i Finland en viktig inspirationskälla.I detta föredrag avser jag presentera hur tre rikssvenska organisationer (Folkberedskapen, Kommittén för Kristen Beredskap och Diakonistyrelsens utskott för den andliga beredskapen) fick information om hur Andliga Befolkningsskyddet i Finland organiserat sig och vilka åtgärder de vidtagit, vilken bild av den finländska verksamheten bland civilbefolkningen som förmedlades till dessa organisationer och vilka element de verksamma aktörerna särskilt tog fasta på i de inledande faserna av att organisera ett liknande arbete i Sverige.Föredraget bygger främst på arkivmaterial hämtat ur Diakonistyrelsens arkiv, Folkberedskapens arkiv inom Statens Informationsstyrelse (båda vid Riksarkivet i Sverige), samt korrespondens och handlingar ur ärkebiskop Erling Eidems arkiv (Uppsala Landsarkiv) och Biskopsmötets arkiv (Svenska kyrkans arkiv i Uppsala). Föredragets innehåll anknyter till mitt avhandlingsprojekt om Svenska kyrkans arbete för andlig beredskap 1939-1945.

Den 19 oktober 1922 bildades Svenska Olaus Petri-församlingen i Helsingfors. Efter tre års intensiva strävanden hade såväl Kungl. Maj:t i Sverige som Finlands Stadsråd godkänt församlingsbildningen, ett besked som firades med stor glädje bland rikssvenskarna i Helsingfors. Denna bok försöker besvara frågan Varför? Kyrkligt sett hade ju svensktalande i Helsingfors goda möjligheter att höra Guds ord på sitt eget modersmål också i de finlandssvenska församlingarna. Varför var det så viktigt få en rikssvensk präst och Kungl. Maj:ts gillande? Vilka var det som ivrade för församlingen? Och vad hade en rikssvensk församling att erbjuda, som inte fanns i de finlandssvenska?

”På svensk botten om också på främmande mark” belyser en del av Svenska kyrkans utlandsverksamhet vid 1900-talets början och berör därmed relationerna mellan Sverige och Finland och deras båda evangelisk-lutherska kyrkor. Framför allt ger boken dock en inblick i den rikssvenska befolkningens i Helsingfors syn på sin egen nationella och kyrkliga tillhörighet i ett land som bara ett drygt sekel tidigare var förenat med deras eget.