National piety: Religious equality,freedom of religion and national identity in Finnish political discourse

This paper analyses the legislative discourse regarding a Members' Initiative to enact a law which was discussed in the Finnish parliament in 2006 and which proposed changes to the constitution and several laws, the purpose of which was to balance the privileged position that the Lutheran Church of Finland enjoys. The author uses critical discourse analysis to examine four different discourses emerging from the debate: inequality of religions in the eyes of the law; the ‘completeness’ of the freedom of religion in Finland; the justified hegemony of the ‘folk church’; and the church as a value base in a pluralising world. He argues that the discursive struggle between the different positions is a struggle between ‘minimalist’ and ‘maximalist’ definitions of freedom of religion and that the discussion represents a case of ‘national piety’, a conflation of discourses of religious equality, freedom of religion and national identity that reproduces the status quo.