Graveyards and Secularism in Norway: in search of a fitting category

As part of a general investigation into Nordic secularity, I analyze in this article the Norwegian state’s attitude towards religion and religious diversity in the graveyard. I explore the viability of categories like ‘establishment secularism’ and ‘Judeo-Christian/accommodative secularism’ fitting this reality. My conclusion is that both these categories capture an important dynamic in the Norwegian mode of religious governance, but they risk reifying what is a much more complex and ambiguous situation. Departing from a view of modes of religious governance as ‘internally heterogeneous’ (Bowen: 2007) and taking a historical and contextual approach to the 1996 legal amendment, which made the Church of Norway responsible for Norwegian graveyards, I show that the Norwegian mode of religious governance consists of several strands. It entails not only a tradition of remaining establishment and increasing religious accommodation, but also that of disestablishment and increasing independence of church bodies within the state and municipal framework. I thus propose a more refined and dynamic characterization of the Norwegian model and reveal the existence of a multiplicity of Norwegian secularities.