Approaching Religion
Approaching Religion is an academic open access journal published by the Donner Institute for Research in Religious and Cultural History in Åbo, Finland. Its purpose is to publish current research on religion and to offer a platform for scholarly co-operation and debate within the field. The journal appears twice a year and consists of articles, book reviews and discussions. It addresses an international readership and, as the title suggests, approaches the field of religion from a broad perspective, engaging contributors from different theoretical and methodological traditions.
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Wind of change. Exploring the value creation of diaconia
(The Donner Institute, 01.09.2023)The value of diaconia is difficult to measure, its immaterial assets not easily grasped. In this article, I contribute to the area in analysing the perspective of 22 deacons on what is most important in their job and what ... -
From church to museum and back again. The de-sacralization and re-sacralization of Kinnarumma's old wooden church
(The Donner Institute, 01.09.2023)In the small village of Kinnarumma in western Sweden an old wooden church was replaced by a new church buildning in the early twentieth century. The old church was de-sacralized by being moved to an open-air museum in Borås ... -
When Magnus Johanson turned fifty. Materiality, place-making and early-twentieth-century Swedish Baptist birthday parties
(The Donner Institute, 01.09.2023)This article examines birthday party decorations as a way of understanding the materiality and religious place-making of an expanding Baptist congregation in central Sweden in the early twentieth century. The fiftieth ... -
The Reformation and the university church in Leipzig. Uses of the past to support the rebuilding a disputed religious heritage
(The Donner Institute, 01.09.2023)The purpose of this article is to investigate how memory activists from 2008 onwards used the past in their advocacy work for the restoration of the university church in Leipzig. The Paulinerkirche was built as a Dominican ... -
From ignis mundi to the world’s first oil-tanker. The legacy of the Nobels’ oil empire in Baku
(The Donner Institute, 01.09.2023)This article analyses mechanisms of heritagisation that transformed oil from a natural to a cultural resource through the case study of the Branobel corporation, which operated in Azerbaijan from the late nineteenth century, ... -
Heritigization and foreign diplomacy. Claiming a religious building to enhance Swedish-Russian contacts in the aftermath of the Cold War
(The Donner Institute, 01.09.2023)The article investigates the complex negotiation process regarding the renovation of St Catherine’s church in St Petersburg. Additionally, the goal is to gain novel understanding of how former religious spaces can be ... -
The making of religious heritage. Burning churches, fiery emotions, multiple sacralities
(The Donner Institute, 01.09.2023)The proliferation of religious heritage seems to flow self-evidently from the processes of de-churching and secularization taking place in many European societies. Although having become redundant or outdated, certain ... -
Religious heritage in the North. Monocultural or multicultural?
(The Donner Institute, 01.09.2023)The article takes as its point of departure the notion that the Scandinavian countries have been dominated by a monocultural Lutheranism. This notion is nuanced by focusing on everyday life and oppositional voices. In the ... -
Religious heritage and change in the North
(The Donner Institute, 01.09.2023)The current issue of Approaching Religion 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 ... -
Critical-feminist studies of funerals. A way to grasp the rite’s complexity
(The Donner Institute, 08.03.2023)This article aims to show how critical-feminist studies can improve research on funerals by contributing to a more complex understanding of ritualization and how it can be explored. The article discusses central issues ... -
Until death do us part? Swedish cemeteries from and inter-faith and no-faith perspective
(The Donner Institute, 08.03.2023)In life, identity is based on many things. In death, people tend to be identified more on the basis of religion: separate cemeteries for Jews, Buddhists and the Plymouth Brethren, separate quarters for Muslims, Yezidis, ... -
‘It is the greenness, the nature, it looks as if someone has taken care of the place very well’. Experiences from St Eskil cemetery in Sweden
(The Donner Institute, 08.03.2023)This article is about experiences of a cemetery landscape: a physical space that was chosen as a depository for human remains, and where different memorial and disposal practices have developed behavioural patterns that ... -
The role of flowers in the personalization of Christian funerals in Denmark
(The Donner Institute, 08.03.2023)Flowers are a common element in Danish funerals. Drawing on fieldnotes, interviews and survey data on funeral practices in the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Denmark as well as theories of ritualization, meaning-making and ... -
Forest burials in Denmark. Nature, non-religion and spirituality
(The Donner Institute, 08.03.2023)Burial in the forest is a recent, non-confessional alternative to the established cemeteries owned and run by the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Denmark. Danish forest burials fulfil common criteria for non-religion and ... -
Accommodation of ash scattering in contemporary Norwegian governance of death and religion/worldview
(The Donner Institute, 08.03.2023)With the analysis of the scattering ashes in a Norwegian context as its point of departure, the article sets out to explore ash scattering and how it relates to the governance of deathscape and religion/worldview in the ... -
Pandemic funerals in Norway. Hartmut Rosa’s resonance as a sensitizing concept
(The Donner Institute, 08.03.2023)During the Covid-19 pandemic, funerals have been conducted consistently in Norway, but, of course, the ceremonies were subject to rules and regulations, while digitization was on the increase. Against the background of ... -
Deathscapes in Finnish funerals during Covid-19
(The Donner Institute, 08.03.2023)The Covid-19 pandemic has disrupted and reshaped experiences of bodily disposal and memorialization around the world. One key characteristic of almost all religious practices and traditions is the centrality of face-to-face ... -
Death and beyond. Thoughts and preparations for the final journey
(The Donner Institute, 08.03.2023)Based on extensive ethnography, this article investigates how contemporary Finnish hospice patients talk – or remain silent – about their own approaching death, and the imageries relating to death and the possible afterlife. ... -
Editorial. Funerals in the north of Europe Similarities and differences
(The Donner Institute, 08.03.2023)Editorial of Approaching Religion, Vol. 13 Issue 1 -
Independence Day in a would-be Christian nation
(The Donner Institute, 07.11.2022)When the West African nation of Ghana attained its independence from colonial rule in 1957, its traditional culture was to be promoted in all sectors of public life. Similarly, what was construed as Ghanaian traditional ...
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