From Lutheran Catechism to World Religions and Humanism: Dilemmas and Middle Ways through the Story of Norwegian Religious Education

Abstract

This article traces the socio‐cultural development of Norwegian religious education in order to discuss the present syllabus of the subject, introduced through the 1997 National Curriculum. The syllabus is controversial, and an interpretation of it becomes paramount. With ‘the making of the modern Norwegian nation‐state’ as historical context, a story may be told of democratic liberation, emphasising the gaining of equal rights and social justice through one common educational institution. In the story, the 1997 religious education syllabus is interpreted as a middle way between the bureaucratic function‐alism of the nation‐state and the ‘free choice’ ideology of modern individualism.