In Nature’s Cathedral: Caminoization and Cultural Critique in Swedish Pilgrim Spirituality

Abstract

Abstract Two parallel, interrelated waves of interest in pilgrimage on foot has surged in Sweden since the 1990s: participation in the international Camino pilgrimage and a vernacular pilgrimage movement in the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Sweden. In this article, the interconnections between the two strands are explored. In both settings, attention is paid primarily to walking itself, illustrating a key facet of Caminoization: the stress on the journey rather than the destination. It is argued here that the pilgrimage walks in the Church of Sweden are modeled on a Caminoized notion of pilgrimage, built into the Swedish word pilgrimsvandring. This notion of pilgrimage functions as an open category that can connect to both religious heritages and social and cultural trends in new ways. A key outcome of the spread of Caminoized pilgrimage is the rise of a pilgrim spirituality that celebrates simplicity and communing with nature, and carries with it a cultural critique of postindustrial society, further accentuated in the pilgrimage movement’s recent turn to ecology and climate action.