Hi!
Quote:
Originally Posted by fencerbill  This discussion brought to mind Peter and ZZ's past comments in other threads. They are taxed for the state supported church and ministers even though the majority of Swedish residents don't attend the churches. |
Well, I would like to remind you that the Swedish state church was separated from the state a few years ago. I, since my father is christened into the Swedish state church, was automatically "enrolled" into it when I was born, even before I was christened. Therefore, I was paying church taxes, about 1% of my gross income. However, I have never been religious at all, so when is was 20 (or so) I formally renounced my church membership, and now I do not have to pay church taxes. Everyone can renounce Church membership at any time, no questions asked.
Since the Church was separated form the state recently, babies are not automatically enrolled into it, their parents must do so with the christening. Those who were members of the church were grandfathered in, though.
Other major churches, of various religions, can get their share of the church tax if a citizen is entered into them (by their parents, or by themselves) and the citizen has not renounced membership.
Way back in the 1880ies and a few decades after that, most of those Swedes who cared for (and about) religion went to Minnesota or Chicago. Left were a lot who did not care either way about religion, or actively disliked it. Open religiosity by a politician has been electoral suicide in Sweden, at least if he lived in 23 of our 24 regions and did not belong to the conservative party, which has been out of power for the great majority of the 20th century. E few elections ago, the liberal leader announced that he was atheist, and the conservative party leader had to downplay whatever little religion there was in his party to stop the instant bleeding of voters from the conservative to liberal party.
You might ask why, under these circumstances, that the Swedish political system has not done away with the formal link between the old State church and the state, that they inherited from pre-democratic days? Even more so, given that the openly anti-religious labor party has been controlling both the executive and legislative branch (remember, parliamentary system!) for most of that century?
Well, the answer is easier than it might seem from the beginning. The Swedish state church had amassed money since 1523, when it was founded by a King which smashed the catholic system then in place. Those laborites did not want the church to spend money on stuff that it wanted, nor did they want it to spend money on stuff that would it more popular with people. So, when Sweden was democratized (first voting rights in the 18hundreds, female vote in 1921) the political system ensured that all local state churches had their own little local govt, and that all christened citizens could vote. Christened voters, not necessarily religious voters. Since most of the christened voters were not religiously interested or atheists, those voted in to those boards (which controlled that 1% tax) could enforce gridlock.
Moreover, under the old royal system the King appointed bishops, and the labor party, when they got power, did not want any power source to go uncontrolled. They kept that power, only now it was invested with the govt. From the govt position, politicians bent on making Sweden as non-religious as possible, used that power to appoint bishops which were not good as preachers, good with administrative tasks, or tended to rub others the wrong way. Better priests were kept in lower ranks as a unstated policy. The political system also used the appointment power as a way to may people who hated each other to be forced to be in each others presence as much as possible. All of this was done to make the church as dysfunctional as possible, while at the same time the small church tax prevented it from going bankrupt. This has yielded a steady stream of news from the Swedish church which is disheartening to the religious minority and enforces the views of the atheists, which is exactly the purpose.
An American parallel would be if the democrats would have had both houses and the presidency for decades on end. During that time, the dems would appoint someone like Pelosi or Jesse Jackson to micromanage all personnel management within the US. army, and that person would have brought sergeants from all states together, to find out which pairings would give the worst possible professional work relationship. Then, they would have put those bad pairings together to command the same unit, say that they commanded it together, but not provided any rules to sort out differences. Furthermore, all officers showing ability would be kept at lance corporal level.
Have a nice time!
Peter Gustafsson
Linear Mode
