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Bible Ban Sparks Swedish Debate
Tyler Too
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More in Forward ForumSweden has long had the reputation of being a super-secular nation. Less than 3% of the population attends church. But, within the last few days, it seems that God has made His presence known in Sweden.
It all began when a Swedish hotel guest checked into his room and found that the room was outfitted with a copy of the New Testament. He protested to the hotel chain. The chain ordered all Bibles removed from their hotels. A conservative bishop called for a boycott of the hotel chain. A former young radical who is now a devout Christian and host of a popular talk show denounced the hotel’s action in newspaper columns and on television. A young Evangelical Christian organized an electronic letter-writing campaign, asking the hotel chain to justify its action in banning the Bible while running ads for pay porn.
The Scandic hotel chain bowed to the pressure. It put the Bible back into guest rooms.
All this has been going on in a nation that made history when it announced that it had “a third way” to go in the battle between socialism and capitalism. In essence, it proposed to accept the capitalist concepts of production and exchange while pressing for the socialist concept of national income distribution.
Sweden was doing very nicely until in the post-World War II era world manufacture went global. Products once “made in Sweden” were now being made in China and India for Swedish companies.
Sweden found itself in a hole. And, as the old saying goes, there are no atheists in a foxhole. When nothing seems to work, people turn to prayer.
Comments
It's nice to see Sweden taking a turn toward religion. What would be nicer would be for Sweden to repeal its anti-circumcision and ant-shechita laws, making it a hospitable place for religious Jews.
Preserving status quo is seen as "a turn toward religion"? As a Swede by choice (I became a citizen in 2000), I'm always curious about the often quite puzzling image of my homeland in foreign media. Another puzzler: the 3% church attendance. Is that a measure of a nation's secularism? More than 70% of the population belong to the Church of Sweden (state church until 2000). What do they have to do to count as Christians? (Perhaps they prefer to study the Scripture at Scandic Hotel.)
I was neither born nor raised a Christian; my ancestry includes Atheists, Christians and Muslims who are all quite happy to live peacefully together in Scandinavia, where faith is considered a private matter, and loudly proselytizing missionaries are viewed with caution. Perhaps my family is exceptional, and maybe I'm a naive idealist. A Bible in a hotel room does not offend me. Nevertheless, I (and many other Swedes, I guess) would rather pick up the hotel room's phone book if I felt stuck in a "foxhole".
Tell the atheist Pat Tillman there are no atheists in foxholes. No you can't tell him, he died in our nation's service.
Well, prayer doen't work at all, so....
Ah, the old lie "no atheists in foxholes." Check out www.maaf.info And this wasn't the case of a god doing anything; as usual, it's just his fanatical followers. Gods never show up, because they're imaginary.