The Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies of the University of Iceland A New Social Reality

The Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies at the University of Iceland faces difficult challenges. The faculty’s largest problem is attendance which has steadily decreased in the last two decades. In view of the wide-ranging social shifts taking place in the religious field in Iceland in the las...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Hreinsson, Haraldur
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:Icelandic
Published: Studia Theologia Islandica 2023
Subjects:
Online Access:https://ojs.hi.is/index.php/ritrodgudfraedistofnunar/article/view/3805
Description
Summary:The Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies at the University of Iceland faces difficult challenges. The faculty’s largest problem is attendance which has steadily decreased in the last two decades. In view of the wide-ranging social shifts taking place in the religious field in Iceland in the last two decades, this article seeks to explain the position in which the faculty now finds itself. These shifts entail, most importantly, increased pluralization in the religious field and the completely changed position of the Lutheran majority church, the Icelandic national church, which does not enjoy the same hegemony as before, and therefore and for other reasons mentioned in the article, is dealing with its own crisis. Because of the historical, cultural, and practical connection between The Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies and the national church of Iceland, the article argues that the crises of these two institutions are strongly connected and overlap. In the article’s final section can be found suggestions about how to react to the challenges the faculty is facing. Guðfræði- og trúarbragðafræðideild Háskóla Íslands stendur frammi fyrir vandasömum áskorunum. Stærsta vandamál deildarinnar er aðsókn í hana sem hefur minnkað jafnt og þétt síðustu tvo áratugi. Í þessari grein er leitast við að skýra þessa stöðu deildarinnar út frá umfangsmiklum samfélagslegum breytingum sem átt hafa sér stað á síðustu áratugum á hinu trúarlega sviði á Íslandi. Þessar breytingar felast fyrst og fremst í aukinni fjölbreytni á trúar-lega sviðinu og gjörbreyttri stöðu lúthersku meirihlutakirkjunnar, íslensku þjóðkirkjunnar, sem nýtur ekki lengur sömu yfirburða og hún áður gerði. Þjóðkirkjan á einnig við sína eigin krísu að etja, bæði vegna breyttrar stöðu sinnar en líka af öðrum orsökum sem nefndar eru í greininni. Vegna þeirra sögulegu, menningarlegu og praktísku tengsla sem eru á milli Guð-fræði- og trúarbragðafræðideildar annars vegar og þjóðkirkjunnar hins vegar eru færð að því rök að krísur þessara tveggja stofnana ...