Religion in Denmark 2009 is the first e-book in a series from the Centre for Contemporary Religion (CCR) at Aarhus University’s Faculty of Theology. It is updated annually to highlight the religious situation in Denmark just now, and the first edition was published on 17 March 2009.
Background
Contemporary religion being the main concern of the Centre, it is naturally for CCR to collect, perspectivise and disseminate factual information about the religious situation in Denmark just now. Featuring the city of Aarhus as a pilot project, the Danish Pluralism Project laid the foundation through a mapping survey of religious and spiritual groups, covering Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, New Religious and Spiritual Groups, Alternative therapists, and Spirituality.

Aim

Apart from updating this mapping, a central site with factual information about the religious and spiritual groups, their geographical distribution, organisation, activities and actors is needed. The e-Yearbook therefore presents a number of tables providing statistical data, and a series of articles providing analysis and interpretation of these data. A presentation in the form of an e-Yearbook preserves topicality and continuity, which ensures the best possible overview of the field of religion and spirituality in Denmark.

Yearbook Download

The complete e-Yearbook can be downloaded as a pdf-file (only available in Danish)

• Religion in Denmark 2009 (pdf, approx. 2 MB)

Yearbook Sections

The Yearbook is divided into the following subsections:

VISIBLE RELIGION: Religion in Denmark 2009. An introduction (by Marie Vejrup Nielsen, Jørn Borup and Lene Kühle)

GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION : For a map of the location of religious and spiritual groups in Denmark, click here.

STATISTICS (Moderated English version under preparation)

• The Evangelical Lutheran Church in Denmark (see Peter Lodberg’s article below)
• Approved religious communities – complete table

STATISTICS GROUPED ACCORDING TO RELIGIOUS COMMUNITY (only available in Danish):

• Christians and Christianity-inspired communities and congregations
• Islamic and Islam-inspired communities
• Jewish communities and congregations
• Buddhist communities
• Hindu and Hindu-inspired communities
• Other religious communities

INTERDISCIPLINARY THEMES (only available in Danish)

• Folkekirken i tal (the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Denmark in figures) by Peter Lodberg
• Migrantmenigheder (Migrant communities) by Jørgen Skov Sørensen
• De godkendte muslimske trossamfund – og de andre (The approved Muslim communities – and the others) by Lene Kühle
• Anerkendte og godkendte trossamfund i Danmark (Recognised and approved religious communities in Denmark) by René Dybdal Pedersen
• Når medierne ændrer religionen – kirkekritik og spiritualisme (When the media changes religion – church criticism and spiritualism) by Stig Hjarvard
• Du er hvad du søger: En ny tilgang til viden om danskernes religion? (What you seek is what you are: A new approach to learning about the religion of the Danes?) by Marie Vejrup Nielsen & Henrik Reintoft Christensen
• Danske trossamfund på internettet (Danish religious communities on the Internet) by Peter Fischer-Nielsen

Centre for Contemporary Religion

This e-Yearbook was presented at a reception held on 17 March 2009 in celebration of the old Centre for Multireligious Studies changing its name to Centre for Contemporary Religion (CCR). Compared to the old centre, CCR will focus more specificly on the relations and the mutual influence between the different religious and spiritual communities and the surrounding society and study how this is reflected in the individual groups’ dissemination, organisation and activities – how people actually participate in the religious and spiritual life in Denmark. The Centre will initiate a co-operation with the Danish newspaper Kristeligt Dagblad/Religion.dk (Christian Daily) about the dissemination of our project.

Centre for Contemporary Religion website