Combining Secular Public Space and Growing Diversity? Interactions between Religious Organisations as Welfare Providers and the Public in Norway and Sweden

The Nordic countries have been characterised by a strong state that was the key actor in a comprehensive welfare system while religious organisations as welfare providers played only a minor role. Nordic welfare policies saw the task of religious welfare actors mainly in finding and filling gaps in the welfare system and in taking care of the existential (individual) needs of their members. This division of labour has mirrored and consolidated a notion of the public as secular while religion was placed into the private sphere. The model is in change, not at least since the Nordic countries have become less homogeneous and more diverse both regarding ethnicity, religion and welfare. This challenges the role of religious organisations in the welfare system. Has a new model of welfare interaction developed between religious organisations and the public? The paper discusses this questions with the help of results from Nordic case studies in two research projects about the role of religious organisations in welfare: “Youth at the Margins: A Comparative Study of the Contribution of Faith-based Organisations to Social Cohesion in South Africa and Nordic Europe (Yoma)” and “Welfare and Values in Europe. Transitions related to Religion, Minorities and Gender (WaVE)”.