IS THE SWEDISH STATE SECULAR WHEN RELIGIOUS SERVICE FUNCTIONS ARE INTEGRATED IN STATE INSTITUTIONS?

Sweden is regarded as one of the most individualised and secularised countries in the world. After a long process of continuous reforms reducing the power of the state church, Church and state formally separated January 1st 2000. However, their relationships are still complex and ambiguous, illustrated by the presence of the Church of Sweden and its activities within several public institutions. State institutions are


INTRODUCTION
Sweden is regarded as one of the most individualised and secularised countries in the world. After a long process of continuous reforms reducing the power of the state church, Church and state formally separated January 1 st 2000. However, their relationships are still complex and ambiguous, illustrated by the presence of the Church of Sweden and its activities within several public institutions. State institutions are links and organised cooperation with the former state church. There are even signs of increasing demand of the Church's special competence in certain areas. And along with increasing religious diversity the in order to make it possible also for them to be present within certain public institutions.
The aim of this chapter is to highlight the ambiguous relationships between public state institutions and Swedish faith communities. Four cases will be discussed; public hospitals, prisons, the military and public schools. Analyses of these cases show persisting presence of the former state church in these public institutional contexts, sometimes complemented by representation of minority faith communities. The question is raised whether the Church of Sweden is really separated fully from the state. Is it perhaps more relevant to describe the relationship between the state and the Church of Sweden as new forms of cooperation after the year 2000? State institutions and public authorities are supposed to be secular and religiously neutral. But is the Swedish state really as secular and religiously neutral as it is supposed to be? THE SWEDISH RELIGIOUS LANDSCAPE Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland and Iceland have historically formed a Protestant Nordic Region. Since the time of the Reformation, the Lutheran national church has been dominant in Sweden, counting the vast majority of the population as members. Today Sweden has to the former state church, The Church of Sweden. Four per cent are members of different minority Christian protestant denominations, two per cent belong to the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches and two per cent belongs to other religions, primarily Islam. This means that in total 74 per cent of the population belongs to an organised religion 1 .
Alongside other European countries, Sweden has passed through a process of secularisation by which the state as well as the individual has liberated themselves from the former power of the Church. Sweden is often referred to as one of the most secularised countries in the world as regards regular participation in worship and belief in traditional church teaching 2 . However, the Swedish religious situation is complex, most clearly highlighted by the prevailing high level of membership of the Church of Sweden, and the relatively high level of participation in religious life rites in the context of the majority church. Statistics respect to the position of the Church of Sweden as the national church. The reform is usually described as a divorce between Church and state, which is correct in a way since Church and state became separate bodies. But on the other hand the act accords the Church of Sweden a continuing special status which makes it more accurate to speak of the current situation as an agreement between partners in an ongoing marriage regarding their respective roles 8 .
Some elements of the activities of the Church of Sweden are still of Sweden retains primary responsibility for the maintenance of burial grounds. This includes the provision of special burial plots for people of different religious traditions. The state has delegated this public service responsibility to the Church of Sweden through special legislation . Thereby local Church of Sweden congregations have a persisting function as public authorities within this special area. A second example concerns the fact that the Church owns a large part of Sweden's national cultural heritage in the form of medieval churches and other old buildings. The Church has responsibility for their administration and preservation, which is still regulated by a special act 10 . A third example stressing the special status of the Church of Sweden is the requirement by law that the monarch, as head of state, must belong to the Church of Sweden 11 . These remaining legal recognitions of the Church of Sweden are indicators showing that the close connection between state and Church has not disappeared. The state still regards the Church of Sweden as something different from and more important than other faith communities, since there are no comparable state ambitions concerning them.
when it comes to religious presence in state institutions it is taken for granted that they as the entire state administration should be religiously neutral and purely secular. This state secularity is often motivated with 8 Thomas Ekstrand 2002. 10 11 reference to the Swedish constitutional law, "Instrument of Govern-He shall further be protected in his relations with the public instituof opinion or a demonstration or other manifestation of opinion, or tion for the manifestation of opinion referred to in sentence one." In line with the religious neutrality of the state, religion is in the the private sphere. Nevertheless religious service functions remain integrated in a number of public state institutions, dominated by the Church of Sweden as the provider and often in close cooperation with the respective public institution. The dominant role of the Church of Sweden can be explained by its history as being a fully integrated part of the state, and also by the fact that the former state church is still geographically covering the whole of Sweden. It is thereby regarded as more or less a public utility. In practice the Church of Sweden is open to serve all people being in the respective geographical parish, as well as in the respective public institution in which the church is operating.
The following four examples of Swedish public state institutions will be described and analysed; public hospitals, prisons, the military and public schools.

PUBLIC HOSPITALS
Sjukhuskyrkan) and is an integrated part of all Swedish hospitals. Its history goes back to the reformation period in the 16-17 th Century, when pastoral care among deceased became one of the parish priest's duties and hospitals were under the supervision of the county governor and the bishop. In the 1860s the responsibility for medical care was taken over by the county councils, which continued to employ Church of Sweden care among ill was turned back to the Church. Other minority Christian denominations entered the scene when the state introduced subsidies in the medical care system 12 .
in the medical care system apart from general laws against discrimination, demanding equal treatment of all people regardless of ethnic belonging, religion or other beliefs 13 . The role of the state is limited to It is regarded as a natural and taken for granted religious service function in these institutions.

STATE PRISONS
Also in prisons there is a persisting tradition of religious presence dominated by the Church of Sweden clergy. According to the Swedish entitled to pursue their faith or religion and to follow the order of their faith while they are in prison 18 . Most prison institutions have a priest from the Church of Sweden serving, and in many prisons there is also a pastor from one of the traditional Swedish Christian minority churches. At the larger institutions there may be additional priests from the Catholic Church, an Orthodox Church or a Muslim imam. Larger prisons have special chapels for worship or religious meetings. There are around 170 priests, pastors and deacons etc. serving the needs of private conversation, counselling, guidance in ethical and existential issues, and to provide religious services and other activities in a similar way as the "Hospital Church" do in hospitals. Part of the prison chaplain's work is to help those in prison or remand to get in contact with a representative of their faith or religion. This means that the Church of Sweden clergy for example help them to contact an Imam or a Catholic priest. Each institution has a local council for by the prison authority and responsible for the spiritual welfare of the inmates. At national level the spiritual care at prisons is coordinated by the Christian Council of Sweden (SKR), which also provides advisors to support the prison and the faith communities. SKR also organise a national committee for criminal welfare policy, development of the spiritual care and further education of prison chaplains.
A very special Swedish activity within the prison system related to religion is the special division that opened in 2003 at the Kumla prison is the largest Swedish prison and one of the most secure and highly unit, which takes around ten prisoners at the time. It has the aim to a deeper understanding of oneself during a month long silent retreat.
. In order to be eligible to attend the Monastery you must be sentenced to a long prison term. Inmates from any prison in Sweden, who have been convicted to two years or more in prison, can apply to participate in a retreat at the Monastery. The retreat participants spend a month in total silence, apart from a daily individual counselling time with the retreat chaplain. Even if it is not a course in Christianity, the Monastery and the month long retreat is led by a Church of Sweden priest, and the retreat follows the tradition of Ignatius of Loyola from the 16 th Century. A daily Christian holy communion is offered, but each inmate is free to practice any religion of his/her own within this common framing. Only a few of the pastors linked to the home defence system are 25 . As described, the third examined state institution with long tradition, the Armed Forces, show the same pattern as hospitals and prisons. Religious service functions provided mainly by the Church of Sweden are integrated parts of the Swedish Armed Forces organisation and its activities. The religious presence and dominance of the Church of Sweden in these three institutions is totally unquestioned. This is however not the case when it comes to the public school. institutions should be religiously neutral, and on the other hand practices at the local reality level where religious presence is taken for natural. of school from age 7-15, but most young people continue additionof public schools must by law be totally secular and non-confessional. Even education about religion in the Swedish public school system is a compulsory secular part of the curriculum consisting of objective education about different religions and life-views. However, during the last twenty years a number of public schools have been outsourced to exemptions since they are free to complement the general curriculum are presently very few. neutral in all kind of activities according to national policy, this is in practice often not true. At local level reality the Christian traditions are often present and there are often close links to the local Church of Sweden parish. There is in most localities some kind of organised cooperation with the Church of Sweden in the context of Christmas, and it is very common to highlight the 1 st Sunday of Advent and St Lucia's day on December 13 th . Many schools end the autumn semester just before Christmas with a gathering in the local church building which includes the singing of Christmas hymns and varying minor elements of worship liturgy. Similarly the celebration of end of school year in early June is often performed in a church building with the singing of hymns, a speech by the headmaster and often also by a Church of Sweden clergy. It is even quite common that a prayer or a blessing by the clergy is included. Occasionally church buildings of other Christian denominations are used and their pastors contribute.
During the last ten years the use of Church buildings and the religious character of the celebrations at the end of the autumn term and the end of the school year have repeatedly been questioned in the public debate. The Swedish National Agency for Education has been very critical to the end of school year celebrations in church buildings, and made repeated clear public statements stressing that these celebrations should follow the same principles of neutrality as any other activity in school. particular religious view within the school context 26 , referring to the Swedish constitutional law which states that no one should be discriminated with respect to religious belonging, or be forced to take part in a gathering for opinion building or other kind of ideological character 27 .
The tradition of celebrating the end of school year in the local church is however very strong, which was showed by a survey among the Church of Sweden 1467 parishes covering the whole geographical area of Sweden 28 . Results show that the use of churches for end of school year celebrations in June before the summer holiday is practised the church buildings for Christmas celebration in December before the Christmas holiday. Even if the National Agency for Education has declared that no prayer or blessing should be included, the survey shows that in 40% of the localities prayer or blessing is included in the order of the event .
The critical voices on the school celebrations in church buildings have primarily referred to the separation between state and church in year 2000 and also referred to respect for the increasing religious diversity, especially the increased presence of Muslims. It has however not been any active voices from the Muslim communities or any other religious community publicly arguing against using the church buildings for school celebrations. Rather it is people with secularist views that use the increasing rate of immigrants with a religious background other than a Christian, as an argument for keeping these public arenas secular and religiously neutral. The critique of using Church buildings for school celebrations has mainly been driven by a minor group of very active representatives for people that are atheist, most of them 26 Skolverket 2012. buildings?" The result showed that 51% are either very positive or quite positive. Only 15% are very negative or quite negative, and 34% are neither positive nor negative 30 . Several politicians have involved in the debate as a reaction to the interpretation of the law by the National Agency for Education. They have told that they will work for a change of the School law to open up also for confessional elements as part of the order of school celebrations in church buildings. So the debate on this issue will certainly continue. Among the four public institutions analysed the public school is the only institution in which cooperation with the Church of Sweden has been questioned and is presently a topic in the public debate.

DISCUSSION
The relationships between state and religion in Sweden have changed slowly, continuously, and in a long term perspective dramatically over the last 150 years. The development has been from a situation of almost complete unity between a monopoly Lutheran church and the Swedish state in 1862 to a religiously neutral state with a pluralistic religious landscape today.
The separation process between the Swedish state and the Church of Sweden has taken place as part of the process of societal differentiastate and religion. It is clear that religion in the form of church institutions is increasingly losing the traditional central position in society; general authority, formal power, high participation in activities, totally dominating membership etc. However, this change goes in parallel with continuous presence of religion in certain, more specialised 30 as informal links and collaboration between the state and the former state church, as well as collaboration with, and state support to, other faith communities. Thus, even if the state is principally secular, religion is in many ways integrated in the social practice of the state, as showed by the examples presented of religious activities in hospitals, prisons, the military and public schools.
These persisting forms of religious presence in certain contexts in Swedish late modern society can be analysed and understood as a consequence of society's general process of functional differentiation. This process of specialisation is an integrated part of the transition from an agricultural unitary society, via a relatively homogeneous industrial society, to a pluralistic society dominated by service production. According to the general sociological theories of Marx, Weber and Durkheim the process of differentiation is driven by a principle of rationalisation, meaning that by division of labour people can produce more cal development drives an ever increasing degree of rationalisation, specialisation and differentiation in all societal functions 31 . The result of this process is the major change of society's structure from being 32 . The differentiation process has implied major changes in social relationships which have had large impact on the role of religious institutions as social agents at societal, organisational and individual levels. Firstly social relationships have been changed between religious institutions and society at large by the loss of religions overarching canopy position. Secondly, this in turn means that relationships have been changed between religious institutions and other social functions when the latter are developed as separate, religiously independent, parallel organisations. Thirdly relationships are changed between religious institutions and individuals/groups as a consequence of the changes in relationships at the two other levels. As part of this general change religion as phenomena as well as religious organisations are 31 32 moved from their overarching position in society's centre to positions as specialised functions in parallel with other societal functions 33 .
Present debate in sociology of religion concerns to a large extent the question whether these changes in relationships means a reduced es and appears in a different way in modern society as compared with the past 34 . Several scholars have argued that religion must be analysed in new ways different from the previous, as a consequence of society's paradigmatic shift from industrial to service society 35 . Theoretically the increasing presence of religion in the public sphere in certain occasions, and the persisting role in certain individual contexts, can be viewed as 36 . Thereby secularisation in this respect does not mean disappearance of religion, but a more specialised function.
In parallel with society's functional differentiation of most of its organisational components and activities, religion has developed as a continuously more specialised social function. Religious institutions are specialising in topics and areas in which they have special competence. This functional secularisation has reduced the impact of religion in relation to society's hierarchical power structure, but increased the Our examination of the four state institutions demonstrates the specialised presence of religious agents as well as the ongoing negotiations on The rhetoric defending this presence is today motivated by arguing that the presence of religious agents in hospitals, prisons and the military is example from the public school, the Church building and its context is When interpreting the state policy expressed in the acts on relationships between the state and faith communities, it is obvious that religious agents are regarded as important resources and contributors to the Swedish welfare system. The Church of Sweden is regarded as having a special function for a majority of Swedish citizens and society at large, and other faith communities are seen as having a similar contributing function. The difference between the actions of the state in relation to the former state church on the one hand, and the minority faith communities on the other hand, remains for historical reasons and of Sweden still has a function very similar to that of a public service organisation even after deregulation in the year 2000, while the other churches and faith communities mainly serve their own members in a similar way as other membership associations do. CONCLUSION The continuous reforms of Church-state relationships have been driven by a principle of the division of roles between the state and religious agents in which religious agents have been given a specialised persisting role as service providers, even in state institutions. It is clear that the Swedish state is not strictly neutral in relation to religion, but has an implicit religious agenda, even if it does not carry that label. However, the state can still be regarded as principally secular. In line with secularisation theory stressing the functional differentiation of society, the state is taking advantage of the specialisation of the religious agents. Future development of state-religion relationships in Sweden is -Church of Sweden. The state will presumably keep on collaborating with the Church of Sweden and supporting other faith communities, both as a matter of general control and a matter of using subsidies to direct the resources of religious agents into the needs prioritised by the state. Streszczenie -philosophies of life, secularism, secularization, public space, religious pluralism, freedom of conscience and religion