More Finns leave Lutheran Church in 2005 than ever before

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More people resigned their membership in Finland's Evangelical-Lutheran Church last year than ever before. A total of 33,043 church members left the church in 2005, up from the previous record set in 1992, when there were 30,710 apostates.
      The increase in leaving the church was 20 percent over the previous year, when 27,009 Finnish Lutherans renounced their religious affiliation. A sharp rise in people leaving the church began in August 2003 when a new law on religious freedom made the process easier than before. A previous one-month waiting period was lifted, and resigning church membership no longer required a personal appearance at an office.
      Of Finland's largest cities, the rate of increase in resignations was greatest in Kuopio (61 percent), Oulu (59 percent), and Vaasa (52 percent). All three cities are in dioceses considered traditional strongholds of the church.
      Proportionally, the greatest number of resignations were in the diocese of Helsinki, Espoo, and Tampere. The lowest resignation rate was in the Lapua Diocese and the Swedish-language Porvoo Diocese.
     
There was also an increase of about two percent in the number of people joining the church: Finnish Lutheran congregations took in 9,559 new members last year. The figure does not include the nearly 50,000 who became members through child baptism.
      The vast majority - about 70 percent - of those leaving the church were young adults aged 20 to 39. About ten percent were children under the age of 18, and the rest were older.
     
The Church Research Centre asked those who had decided to give up their membership in the Lutheran Church to write why they were leaving. About 600 answers came, and the most frequent response was that membership in the church was seen not to have meaning.
      Young people generally did not have negative feelings, nor did they feel disappointed in the church. However, they did find it difficult to commit themselves to the church's message.
      In addition to non-believers, some of those who left the church said that they have very deep religious beliefs, and felt that the church's message had been diluted, and that it did not respond to their needs.
      Still others felt that religion was such a personal matter, that they do not need the church to deal with their relationship with God.
     
Views expressed by the Lutheran Church also drove people away. For some, the church is too liberal, reformist, and spineless. Others are put off by what they see as excessive conservatism and intolerance in matters such as women's issues and attitudes toward sexual minorities.
      Some were turned off by specific incidents, such as a poor performance of a minister officiating at a funeral.
      One in ten wanted to get out of paying the church tax, and about as many were had an overall negative attitude toward the Lutheran Church itself, or its relation with the state.
     
The Evangelical-Lutheran Church of Finland still counts among its members 83.1 percent of the Finnish population.


Links:
  The Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland

Helsingin Sanomat