Today I attended a workshop at our university:
Borders and Religions crossing borders
Perspectives on Space, Formation and Citizenship
The workshop was organized by the Research project 'Good
Protestant, Bad Religion? Formatting Religion in Modern Society'. It is based at
Oslo University and is financed by the Norwegian research Council (NFR)
We have listened to presentations around a concept called ‘protestantization’.
I am not sure I understood everything. In one of the papers the main organiser,
Prof Trygve Wyller from Oslo, explains:
Protestant is evidently part of the modernity, democracy and citizenship, it might also be part of trajectories of exclusion and repression, both in the past and today.
So, it is a lot about how religion plays a part in the whole
process of creating different spaces. Spaces that sometimes are separated by
borders.
While I listened to the presentations I thought about the TV
show, that I knew was going to start tonight:
Tro, hopp och kärlek. (Faith, hope, and love).
 |
| 'Mark will help three priest and a pastor find love.' |
The program idea is that a few clergy who are single, will
present themselves to the TV-audience. Other single persons, who are interested
in dating them, will then have a chance to write to the TV channel in order to date
the particular priest/pastor they are interested in. The ultimate objective is
that the priest and the other person will find love through the program.
I must confess that I was a bit dubious. But the first
colleague in the show was a person that I know. Kristin. She made a very good
impression. Relaxed! In a sense I felt proud.
Religions crossing borders? Definitely. Formatting religion
in modern society? Yes. Good protestant, bad religion? That’s up to the viewers
to decide. I am sure that there will be a whole lot of comments in social
media. It will be interesting to follow this from a distance.
By way of anecdote, the program leader is a famous Roman
Catholic. And he is proudly gay.
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