Region and Religion

A Regionalization Based upon the Strenght of the Church Custom in Sweden in the 1970's

Doctoral Dissertation

LUND UNIVERSITY, Department of Theology

Title and subtitle:

REGION OCH RELIGION. En regionindelning utifrån den kyrkliga sedens styrka på 1970-talet. (REGION AND RELIGION. A Regionalization Based upon the Stenght of the Church Custom in the 1970's)

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Codex: LUREDN/(RERS-1003)/1-184/(1990)

Number of pages: 184

Language: Swedish with short summary in English

April 1990

ISBN:91-7966-119-X

Author: Jan Carlsson

 

Keywords: Church Attendance, Church Commitment, Church Custom, Church Geography, Church Region, Church of Sweden, Geography of Religion, Regionalization.

 

Abstract:

The aim of this study is to define the term ”church region” in the Swedish context and to divide Sweden into church regions based upon the strength of the church custom, defined as participation in worship, frequency of Communion observance and participation in other church rites, as baptism, confirmation and church weddings, in the church of Sweden. The research material has been compiled from a computer file based on the activity in the 2500 Swedish parishes during 1970, 1975 and 1980 and data about demographic and industrial structure from the population and housing census of 1970. The method used for defining regions has earlier been applied in Sweden in comparative political sociology and is linked to Kevin Cox’ discussions regarding the term ”region”. In this study the structural variables have been controlled for by multiple regression analysis and the regions have been defined from the residuals from the regression analysis in which the structural variables have been independent variables and the variables used to measure the strength of the church custom have been dependent variables. As dependent variables, six different scales for the strength of the church custom have been calculated from the church statistics of 1970, 1975 and 1980 Regionalization, based on residual scales, is accomplished on the basis of means on the municipality level. The final division have been based on two entirety scales measuring church commitment and participation in church rites.. The regionalization have been accomplished by considering both of the dimensions of church custom measured by the entirety scales; the church commitment dimension and the church rites dimension. The main result of the investigation is 12 different church custom regions. These 12 regions describe the differences between areas regarding one or both of the scales for the strength of the church custom, after controlling for the structural factors.