ABSTRACT
Sweden has been characterized as one of the most secular countries and cultural contexts in the world, as interpreted primarily through secularization theory (Heelas, Scott and Morris 1996; Heelas and Woodhead 2005). With the change in 2000, when the Church of Sweden ceased to be the state church and the weakening hold in other contexts, as well as the move to an ever-more individualized way of approaching existential meaning and worldview questions as noted both in Sweden and other secularized cultures, the meaning of secularization has needed to be more carefully examined (Pettersson 2002; Heelas, Scott and Morris 1996; Heelas and Woodhead 2005). Those working with more psychological and psychosocial perspectives – such as Bauman (2000) and DeMarinis (2003, 2008), in the Swedish context – have focused on the challenges of understanding secularization in the lived experiences of individuals, as well as the need for so-called ‘secular’ societies, not least those hosting large numbers of refugees with traditional religious backgrounds, to develop more sophisticated understandings of their contexts, where a variety of religious and secular worldviews coexist.
