Transcription
There are few Christians left in Scandinavia today. A mere 2.4% of Danes attend any sort of regular church service. And belief in God continues to decline, making Scandinavia one of the most secular places in our world today.
Yet, there are some who are deciding to take another path. I'm here to meet several young families putting Christianity and intentional bonds of community at the center of their lives, even as the rest of their society continues to move in the other direction. I want to find out what the future holds for this foothold of Christianity here in Northern Europe and how we got to this state to begin with.
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Well, my name is Michael. Um, and we are here on our farm in rural Denmark. Yeah, it is a bit surprising that we ended up here. How it feels to be a Bible believing Christian in in Denmark today. Well, I don't think it it does not feel like we are at the forefront of some breakthrough or we are the like the front line of this new beach head uh as C. Lewis tried to describe Christianity and the kingdom in Mere Christianity. Nowadays, it it more so feels like we are fighting a losing retreat.
I grew up in Copenhagen as a very average millennial swimmer. >> So, I really didn't spend a lot of time outdoors. When I was 17, I fell in love with this beautiful girl and she lived on an apple orchard in rural Denmark. [Music] And I think as much as I fell in love with her, I likewise fell in love with that whole way of living. It really it really kindled something in me. [Music]
4:30 waking up in the morning. I get up feeling cool. Others are morning. Early to rise and always late to sleep. The world keeps on spinning and I run with it deep. It is just another summer's day where everything seems to be going my way. >> Yes. >> I'll I'll start. We moved here to Denmark from Iceland uh three years ago because we wanted to find a nice Christian community >> that we could not find in our home country. My name is Andre Kton Anderson. >> My name is Johan Into >> and I am also half Danish. That's why we have some roots here. That's is why we moved here. >> Well, I am 100% Icelandic >> pure bread. >> I can track my blood all the way to Eric the Red. So >> yes, I can also track my blood all the way to Inukaluk, but okay. Yes, very nice. >> At least we're not inbred then. >> So Iceland is a country that has changed very rapidly in a very short period of time. So in a 10-year span, Iceland completely like took a 180. It used to be a very local comfy place, not many people. But now it's like very crowded. The whole infrastructure is falling down and Iceland is essentially a dead island. There's no future. There is there's no church, no community. The whole fabric of Icelandic society has like been overturned by like leftist politics if you want to go that route. So, a lot of like promotion of homosexuality, a lot of like degeneracy. Uh we celebrate Gay Pride more than we celebrate our own Independence Day. So it's sort of like u there's no hope and future for kids because Iceland is very like it goes to extremes. The government so to speak is very much has its fingers in your like kids and in your own personal opinions in a way that's very drastic and dangerous. You cannot have uh a wrong opinion on things and you get publicly executed and it's just you yeah it's your it's the end of your career can be anything and it's just it so yeah you cannot go against anything and except unless you're able to uh lose everything you have all your >> yeah if you're going to make a stance against the government so to speak or if you want to hold on to Christian values you want to raise your kids like what you deem to be good. >> You have to be ready to lose everything you have. >> Yeah. You have to sort of go against the whole system. Yes. >> And that's the problem with Iceland. We also have like >> to be a total outcast. >> We also have like a huge housing crisis. Very hard to get a house. Very hard to rent. Hard to rent hard to buy.
Early 19th century Copenhagen was a city that believed it had solved the great questions. The fierce mythic world of the Norse had long been baptized, and the old values and instincts of a warrior culture, of knights and raiders, had been gradually domesticated into a polite and bureaucratic system of life. In those years, a keen-eyed young man named Søren Kierkegaard noticed something off about the way people spoke about and lived out the Christian faith. The people around him were celebrating a life of faith that, to his observations, had lost its sincerity and its potency. He noticed that the Danes had come to believe that the heavenly kingdom of God was, in a tame and comfortable way, already sufficiently reflected in their own kingdoms of Denmark, Sweden, and Norway. Kierkegaard believed that the Danish state church had become a bureaucratic institution where everyone was a Christian by virtue of their birth and social standing. This was not the Christianity he read about in the scriptures. It was not the radical and deeply personal faith that demanded personal sacrifice for love of God and fellow man. To save his society from this quiet spiritual death, Kierkegaard launched a public intellectual war on the hypocrisy of Danish comfortable civil society, publishing a series of fiery pamphlets called "The Moment."
At the same time, 300 miles to the south in the city of Dresden, the composer Richard Wagner was profoundly dissatisfied with the direction of culture and life.
Somewhere. >> We both turned 30 this this year. So, uh we're having a big party where we want to celebrate and invite our friends and family. And it's also 10 years since we uh since we moved here. So, >> we have fun and games and so on, >> a lot of play and children and so on. But to have such a communal feast really also requires and presupposes a community because I wouldn't be able to do it without having a lot of friends help me out and help to put it up. So so just the the setup for the party itself um leans into the purpose of it. to create community, to create comradeship and the hard work, putting it all up really help to bring people together for this moment of celebration and to celebrate life and all the riches of it. To have we will be around 30 adults and 20 children will run around play together to celebrate life in such idyllic settings really is really is what builds community. Yeah, there's a lot of obstacles for raising raising the kids as a Christian in Denmark. I think I mean we have a lot of um cultural um emphasis on many things that are not very Christian. So I I think the parents kind of have to uh to fight a tough battle if they want to keep their children's lives intentionally Christian. I I reckon that most most Christian parents don't do that and and and because they believe that, you know, they have to figure these things out for themselves living in the society that they live in. Personally, I believe that this uh that is dangerous gambling with with your children.
I'm Michael. I'm 26 years old. I'm married and we just my wife and I just celebrated our fifth years as a married couple. Uh we have two children uh as as for now, who knows. I am I'm a mathematician by education. I I work in um in uh in cancer research as kind of a biostatician and I and I do that uh that from home. So, so I I recently moved I relocated my family to uh to Lolland to get closer to more like-minded uh families. So, this is uh kind of where the magic happens. I I work from home with my statistics and stuff here. I also have, as you can see, my my library and my books. Uh I have here a nice six-volume complete edition of The Great War. It's a little new film that I'm diving into the uh to to the Warhammer books. I'm currently reading one that's downstairs about the the Space Wolves. So, they are kind of the the Germanic Viking space marines. So, that's obvious that I have to uh to start with that one, I suppose.
The same age as Søren Kierkegaard, both born in 1813, Richard Wagner sought to rediscover the old Germanic gods and heroes in his operas, to restore awe and mythic grandeur to a world that had become petty and stagnant. He sought to give life force back to the Germanic spirit by reconnecting it to its foundational stories. Around this time, a whole generation of writers arose out of a response to a world growing increasingly mechanistic, bureaucratic, and soulless. as diverse in stance as Richard Wagner, Friedrich Nietzsche, William Morris, and Alfred Lord Tennyson, who each believed that only by re-engaging with the religious and mythic foundations of their cultures and by rejecting the domesticated 19th-century form of Christian life could Europe ultimately be saved from its quiet spiritual death. All of this too was a search for authenticity, for human passion and instinct, for a distinct ethos and spirit and mythology against the dehumanizing force of a world grown mechanistic and lifeless. More than merely a return to some rosy idealized past, Wagner reimagined the old stories as a new communal art experience, a new total art form, a Gesamtkunstwerk, transforming the opera house into a communal space where the everyday German people, both rich and poor, could partake in these sacred stories and sagas together.
The harvest is really good this year. Oh, this is a good one. Boom. We have a lot of people who say um wow, we wish we could do the same but >> just it we can't do that because we need two incomes. There's also some people who >> when we tell them that we're homeschooling then they'll just be very concerned on the behalf of the children because it's very uncommon in Denmark to homeschool. Um, but the rest of it pretty much I think people are very um positive about it like living in the countryside and so on saying ah, that's just the perfect childhood >> which we can't agree more. I think it's it's kind of mixed. You kind of you get a knee-jerk reaction from quite a large uh group of people who will just parrot, you know, the sentiment of the culture. Oh, it's it's old-fashioned. Isn't it bad for the children to just be alone and not go to school? And it's unhealthy. It's an unhealthy environment. And it's bad for the mother. She needs to go out and work and have a career and have money and freedom and it's um it's kind of suppressing her, you know, availability to express herself and define herself. But then as soon as she just offers some like positive, mild and polite pushback, then a lot of the people, even if they don't end up agreeing agreeing with us, still think it's okay. It's probably not that bad because because for all those who actually meet our kids, they all like very surprised at how well-behaved they are, how intelligent they are, how much they know and have learned just from being at home. And also how good their social skills are surprisingly because of course the kids don't just stay on the farm the whole day. They go out, they have friends, they go to boy scouts and girl scouts like they do a lot of things. And then for another very large, maybe not the majority, but close to half of people, they really think it's just a dream like in Danish we have this like expression called "bonderøv" which kind of encapsulates a bit akin to how British people might talk about "Merrie England" like this idyllic past where, you know, people are just at home living in the beautiful countryside, not so busy and so on. And we kind of do that. I mean, this is that's pretty much here. And and a lot of people can see that and and it's but it's a trade-off. We don't have a lot of money, for example, but we have a lot of freedom. We have a lot of independence and we are able to control our days and habits to a degree that is impossible for for most people. So, >> that is really true riches. >> Yeah.
So, it's a combine harvester. It's a very old model made in Denmark in the '50s. You need to like grease all the joints. I I my field is so small, so I only do it once a year pretty much. Um, brings it all up well and good. So, it's uh safe for winter storage. This might be something like people aren't aware you have to do things like this normally like this. Yeah. A typical day. Typical day is just to wake up and greet the deer, sing with the birds, and make passionate love with your wife who gives birth to a 16th child in a summer dress. >> And how did you learn all this? >> Oh, uh, yeah, I can show you. I actually have a a uh like farming manual from back in the day. And in my office, I have a lot of uh like really old books about farming and so on. >> Did you grow up doing this? >> No, actually. So this is all relearned. >> Yes. >> So you just go on uh what's the website where you buy tractors and >> In Denmark we have different ones. Some like one of the big ones is called the blue a like the blue paper. Facebook Marketplace is also good. >> Rephrase the question. Can you repeat? Andre never talks to pagan people so he hasn't interrupt. [Music] [Laughter] A lot of people are are like searching for higher meaning. Can we get a footage of me killing him? >> Can I say one thing? Uh because our oldest son uh when he was in kindergarten in Iceland, >> um there was a book in his uh consumer Hul, >> he had to take a book with him home. >> Okay. Yeah. There was a book in his shelf uh when I picked him up and it was uh uh like uh there was a picture of uh like penises and uh >> homosexual homosexuals like >> Yeah. and telling and that text saying, you know, it's okay to have a mom and mom and it's totally normal to have a dad and dad and some people love to fart and some people like to, you know, it was just like I'm very like childish, but as a grown-up, you know, it's thirsty. It's it's it's thirsty and it's it's Yeah, it's kinky and it was >> You're teaching kids about sexuality, which you shouldn't be doing and it shouldn't be the >> Yeah, that's obvious. But I talked to the principal of the kindergarten cuz I was very angry. I was very angry. And I said, "L why didn't you ask us for permission to teach this cuz I never approved to this." And she was like, "Oh yeah, I I totally agree with you, but maybe I'm just being old school and maybe we are just being too old school. H but I do agree with you." It's like, so yeah, it is like some people do agree that it's it's disgusting and it's sodomy. It's it's just it's so degenerated that it's absurd. But uh you kind of convince yourself that it's, you know, maybe I don't get it because I'm this old, you know, maybe it's just what the young people like to do. So yeah, it's just kind of a I don't see it. I don't hear it. Nobody does anything and it's yeah, it's it really really makes me so angry. Yeah. That's why I really accepted of accepted the fact to move here else I would never leave Iceland. It's my my country. Yeah. >> For the future of my son. What's this? No bueno. >> No bueno.
As a kid growing up, I I clearly recall that that Christianity meant something different to me than it did compared to the other kids around, even the other ones who were also raised as as Christians. I I simply don't believe that that that it is the Christian faith that is the foundation of the the the Danish uh state church. I think it's much more of a political organ. For starters, just look at the priesthood. It it is very common for priests to publicly announce that they don't believe they um cultural heritage and nothing more. That it's good stories, good for morale. They don't believe the story. They don't believe in in Christ. They don't believe in Christianity. They just believe that there are some good rules that are fine to follow. I mean, I mean, that that's the kind of statements that you could get from, not all, of course, but a lot of of Danish priests. There has come a lot of changes, anything from like female pastors to the wedding of homosexuals, which have been introduced to the church, not based on on theological arguments, not based on the Bible, not based on Christianity, but based of arguments tending to the um to the spirit of the age for um for inclusivity, for for tolerance, for um for for for good values in general, is something that that kind of um demonstrates that that their highest ideal is not the faith, it's not the Bible, it's not the the Christianity that, but but rather they're choosing to form Christianity to to fit with the the the world of their own of of the time, so to say.
How the ordinary Dane conceives of Christianity. I I think that the the main point that that I would emphasize here is is simply a lack of knowledge. Most people know absolutely nothing about theological aspects of Christianity. They actually know no content of the faith. They they have this very very very oh God is great. God is love and and and something about Jesus dying for our sins. Most Christians couldn't even explain the the like the fact that we have a triune God. They wouldn't be able to explain that in in any meaningful way at least. They they they would have no knowledge of the fact that that Jesus is in fact God and has always existed even before incarnation. Right?
So I lived in Denmark 2001 and I can say honestly that Denmark hasn't altered much as in the fabric of the society is the same, even though it has escalated. So more like Muslims, more immigrants, but it's still sort of like the same flare, so to speak, or the same taste as it was 2001. But Iceland flipped. So I remember when I was young in Iceland, you could go outside in nature and there was no one. Now it's like filled with tourists. So a lot of spots that were sort of like isolated, beautiful, >> uncontaminated. >> Uncontaminated. Yes. have been contaminated sadly by like a lot of tourists and a lot of traffic. And this has also gone like you like when I was a kid I knew like maybe one immigrant in my school, maybe one that was like half Filipino or like half Vietnamese, but >> go to the next question. >> No. So like so like half Vietnamese or something. But now uh if you go to the same school, you would probably find like 50% >> immigrants. And that happened in the span of like maybe 15 years. So it's sort of extreme change and extreme hostile environment to us because all the churches in Iceland are just like preaching homosexuality and go against the Bible. And our bishop doesn't believe that the devil is real. She doesn't believe it's a woman. By the way, she doesn't believe in hell. She doesn't believe in God really. >> He's like she's like the typical millennial how she looks. >> Yeah. So it's sort of like you got this woman that's like divorced or something. I'm guessing a bishop uh doesn't believe in anything. So like what what's left in Iceland so to speak and there's like maybe one good church. What's the name? Yelk, right? >> Sakarasakaras. >> Yeah. >> That's maybe the only good church. >> And he is not even Icelandic. He is from Norway. >> And how many members >> how many how many members do you have? >> 30. >> 30. So the best church in Iceland has like 30 members. >> And how many children? >> Zero. >> Four children. Okay, >> that's good. >> That's good. But like you can see the situation is dire when you have like four kids. >> Yeah. >> The only good church I would maybe argue >> it has to be children in church. >> Yeah. >> I I really hope that we can build some some community here and that's why I also moved to Lolland. I I believe we can build some community here. If not in an official way, then at least, you know, we have a bunch of families nearby that we can rely on and who are of a similar mind and where the the wives can get together and the children can get together. I I feel we have a very good opportunity for that and I I really hope um I really hope for that for the future.
I went to the US as a synod. And when I was over there, I uh I started having this weird um drawing towards the the Sunday school where the the children I worked with were going every Sunday. And when I went past the church, I felt this red weird drawing uh towards the church. And this sensation just like kept growing in me. And one night, I tried praying for the first time in my life. And I had this weird born-again um experience where from one moment to the other, I believed that there was a God. When I became a Christian um a lot of things changed. It was like the world looked different suddenly. Um, but it was all the same, but but somehow totally different anyway. And so I came home from the US shortly after and we just were so happy that we could live together as Christians and uh we just already there we were talking about our future and what should our children be named and so on. But the way Katrina came to faith, especially because I I knew her so well from her time before, it was an an incredible witness and strengthening of my faith as well to to get to experience such a a profound change from one day to the next in a person's life. And that has really also uh been a major major help in my faith uh to to to get to experience that up close because I I truly believe that's a miracle.
Denmark is a Christian country in a way, but I don't think that um I don't think that they all, how should I put it, not everyone has the same um focus on God as they do on like behavior and so on. Um, so we want our children to know God when they grow up and it can be very difficult to meet other children who also know God because it's just not common in Denmark. It really isn't. So what we have focused on is to find other people who are uh Christian and who has Christian children. Um, and they will be friends with ours, although they may not be uh Lutheran, some of them, or maybe uh like Catholics or Baptists and so on, but that's fine with us as long as they can have the Christian worldview. We have tried to see as attain the possibility of making a positive alternative. Uh, we don't have any priests. Um, we are here in rural Denmark. I'm of course a member of the Confessional Lutheran Church of Denmark. But here in our place, it's there are no good offers and that means we we are in a process of trying to see whether it's possible to to grow what will in the future, God willing. um become a Confessional Lutheran congregation.
>> We we are living in a very sanitized world so to speak. So what that means is that you're very safe. Uh, you're very sort of like confined in the space that you live in and uh people are seeking something that's more ancient and more historical. >> Where do we come from? Uh, I think it's this I think it's very deep where this inherited blood like we want to relive what our forefathers did and I think it's I think it's that uh or what >> Yeah, I agree because like, okay, when we were Viking so to speak, the Nordic countries, we were mighty, right? We were like we conquered nations and we had this primal instinct that and crave of like conquest and like conflict and battle that we're missing today because in society today, we're sort of like it's not it's deeper than just like the battle and conflict and that kind of stuff. I think it's like about community actually because when you were a Viking, you belonged to a group so to speak. >> Can I say one thing? I think it's um um people do get the image of Vikings as being pagans and it's not entirely true. Um, the Vikings were also they became Christians and that's the part that I think people just like to ignore. Uh, but the the Vikings did become Christians and that's uh uh yeah, I was at the Tøborg uh in Denmark where the where Harald Bluetooth uh was Christian, his Christian uh army was fighting against against his son, the pagan Vikings and so they uh reenact this uh battle and it was oh, it was this I I can't I can't describe it. It's just it's so deep. It's just uh and I almost feel as a as a spectator of myself like I don't exist. I only exist like because of the forefathers before me. So I am 100% them. That's why I feel this way. And it's just that's why uh that's why we do what we do. Now we know the way. You know, before we didn't know Christ, but we knew Christ. We know the ultimate truth. >> Do you see the culture becoming in some ways more Americanized with time? What does that what does that mean? >> Um, yes. The the the the Danish culture has become very much more Americanized. The I in all my lifetime, but I imagine since the since the Second World War, maybe even before that, right? America is projecting a lot of cultural power out outwards towards the world and and that can be felt with the with the Hollywood and the movies and the music and uh I mean, I I think that most um like national-minded Danes um see this as um as problematic because it, you know, you can you only have room for so much culture in your life. You only have room for so many perspectives on life and and and and self-identity and you if you're filled up with with with Hollywood and Taylor Swift, well, are there really room for for everything that the Danish heritage has to offer? And I would argue, just as I mentioned, that Danish people don't really have any clear grasp of of like Christian tradition or or like the the actual in-depth content of the Christian faith. I would say it's similar that that most Danish people don't have the same kind of um understanding of their own heritage as um as maybe they should have. And part of that I definitely believe is because of this cultural impact there from um well, especially America.
The problem is that men today are very unassertive so to speak. So they they let the wife lead the pack and that leads to disaster. But like we discussed before, you chime in, the problem is that women today are very like especially Nordic women are very assertive by their nature and I think it's just how they are. If you read the >> maybe the warrior the warrior >> if you read if you read the old sagas >> yes >> that women were usually very assertive >> difficult. Yes. >> Yeah. Very yeah, historically always been very difficult >> scripture >> even in scripture. Yes, that's true. So what I need to do as a man so to speak is I need to allow her some leverage obviously because she's a high testosterone woman that needs to fight and lift weights and Oh yeah. Well, okay. That's what it is here in the north. Like our women are kind of brutal. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The the Scandinavian women are very strong on average. >> Yeah. And I as a man need to let her have her periods of strength. But I also need to be the leader because I know if I fail as a leader, I'm failing my kids and I'm failing my wife. So I need to even though it's hard because I was raised by sort of a feminine dominant pack, so to speak, I need to overcome that and become the alpha, so to speak, if that makes sense. >> Andre always has to always Andre has to and he reads the Bible every day. So he's like, "Oh yeah, Hannah, I have to like read this verse for you." And it's always about how women >> like how we are supposed to have behave and how the man is supposed to behave. So it's something that I think a man should also read the Bible every day just to get a reminder of how abnormal. >> I'll give I'll give one tip to you. Yeah, I'm talking to you, not you. I'm talking to you. I'll give one tip to you. Matt, I'm going to point to the camera. I'm going to talk to the viewers. One tip. Um, I forgot the tip. Wait.
And I think it also goes hand in glove with what we're trying to do and what we want to do with with this whole way of life because moving uh to the countryside, getting uh land under your feet and and soil in your nails and and growing and living off the land also means that we want to cultivate something, grow something. And one way to grow community and grow this sense of belonging is to invite people into your home and at parties by sharing a a well-brewed home beer, by sharing a a nice rich meal. Because this kind of fellowship that we have is also a fellowship where we want to invite people in and and share with them our sense of purpose, our sense of belonging, our uh both spiritual but also cultural values and to help rekindle that in them. So the the great bonfire might also lit a little spark in them and they can carry that home because we want to build something and really grow something because that is I think something that is really needed in our society today to have these close-knit communities to have this sense of purpose. [Applause] [Music]
Both the visions of Kierkegaard and Wagner would in time send waves through a continent that had grown complacent in its slumber. But instead of finding fulfillment, another force was growing. One far stranger, a new ruling class who said they could manage the world into harmony. Without myth, without faith, without ethnic and familial bonds, and without God. For all the passion and conviction of the romantics, the religious and the philosophers, a new age would arise in Europe and her former colonies. Not one of personal or collective spiritual fire, but of management and control. A world led by industry men like Frederick Winslow Taylor and mass propagandists like Edward Bernays. This was the dawn of the managerial age. While Europe's artists and philosophical prophets wrestled with the soul of Europe, engineers of society were building a new kind of world. In Scandinavia, this found its political expression in the promise of the folk or people's home. A society so perfectly planned it would render the bold spiritual struggles of Kierkegaard and the heroic imagination of Wagner obsolete. The old gods, both pagan and Christian, were simply made redundant, filed away by bureaucrats.
>> It is kind of like um telling someone you have a cure or that you know a cure, but they don't even acknowledge that there's a sickness. >> The greatest issue facing uh the Christian mission in Denmark today is is not hostility to Christianity. It's not atheism. It's not superstition. New Age. It's not heretical religions, but it's just this supremely dangerous and unbelievably thick amount of apathy towards Christianity. It's not that people are hostile to the gospel. >> They just don't care. >> They just don't care. They simply don't care. And you can share the good news with them. It doesn't move them. They are >> so busy or distracted >> that they simply don't care or want to take the time to to engage with us. And I think that is that is quite a difficult situation to be in because you can you can talk with somebody who has an opinion about anything. But if if people simply couldn't care less, then it's it's very difficult. And I think that is the major crisis facing Danish Christianity.
Do you know Michel that you are married to the most traditional wife ever? >> Yeah, he's the best wife. >> Yeah. No, she is literally the every man's dream. >> Yes. She's my dream. >> Rich man. >> Yes. I have no money, but I am very wealthy. >> The money doesn't matter. It has no value except >> that's what I tell the the Danish tax department, but they don't they don't. [Music] >> I'm still confused why there are so many Icelanders here. >> Is this some kind of >> We're in France. >> They're taking over, taking over. >> It's an invasion. >> So there you also >> I literally live in the the Garden of Eden. You said something like that. >> Yes. But now I'm in the garden. [Music] Wonder [Music] who fil. [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] [Music] [Applause] May not hell.