Abstract
The topic of this article is religious materiality in a Finnish, Lutheran setting. Reflecting on the altar cross of the Luther Church Helsinki – and more specifically the elevated role the cross played in the re-opening of the church in 2016 – the article supports the argument of recent scholars that Protestant engagement with materiality is not unambiguously negative but rather ambivalent. Using James Bielo’s concept of “legitimizing frames” – i.e. boundaries or landmarks within which Protestants feel safe enough to deal with things and objects – the article suggests a so-called heritagization frame. Objects or things used within such a frame induce in people a sense of past events and experiences – preferably events in which God has made himself known in this world. This, in turn, enables people’s engagement with the objects.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 71-85 |
| Number of pages | 15 |
| Journal | Approaching Religion |
| Volume | 14 |
| Issue number | 1 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 28 Feb 2024 |
| MoE publication type | A1 Journal article-refereed |
Funding
Dr. and docent in Church history) serves as uni- versity lecturer in prac- tical theology at Åbo Akademi University, Finland. In his research, Dahlbacka has com- bined his interest in Nordic church history – especially revival history – with theories on uses of history, cultural memory and spatial meaning-making. His most recent monograph Platsens sakralisering. Annekterande, meningsskapande och rituella sakraliseringspraktiker vid återibruk-tagandet av Lutherkyrkan i Helsingfors (Lund University, 2021) analyses the re-sacralization of the Luther Church Helsinki, and deals with the topics of sacrality, space and narration in a Nordic Lutheran context. Dahlbacka is part of the project “Changing Spaces: Ritual Buildings, Sacred Objects and Human Sensemak-ing”, which is funded by the Polin institute at Åbo Akademi University. The current article is written within this project.