We love Stockholm!

A flag flying high

I’ve never particularly thought much about flags, and that’s mostly because in the UK where I’ve lived most of my life, you hardly ever see them. Not so in Sweden. Here they love them. In the small village in which I currently live there are more flagpoles and national flags than in a city fifty times its size in England.

The presence of the flag says something, it communicates a pride and a belonging to a people and a nation. Perhaps in the UK that’s not important enough, perhaps in other countries it’s too important. Whatever we think about national or civic pride, as Christians a different banner has been raised and on it is a dead animal. A lamb. Slain. That says something too.

Being bilingual

I’ve always wanted to be fluent in another language (a fact hidden from those who’ve heard me speak French) and so the opportunity to learn Swedish fulfils a life ambition and goal. However there’s a big difference between fluency and being bilingual. I may, in time, become fluent. My children, and especially our youngest, will be bilingual. They will, in time, be as natural and at ease in either Swedish or English and will be able to swap between the two without much effort.

Often as Christians we are mono-lingual. Able to converse in the language of the church but not of the culture, able to speak to and communicate with believers, often powerfully, but can’t say two clear words to someone who doesn’t believe. At other times we lose the language of the church but as we do so we can become disconnected from that which makes us who we are, our connection to Christ. What is needed are bilingual believers.

Sharing the faith

Scandinavia isn’t known for being especially religious or spiritual yet in recent weeks it’s made the news for good and, frankly, strange reasons.

“Sweden is not a religious country. At all. In fact, it is often described as one of the most secular countries in the world.”

Yet in Sweden, the government (who in any country are never really experts on the subject) recognised a new religion. Kopimism is all about file sharing and they have clothed it in the language of a church and gained official recognition. Thankfully as Marcus Cederstrom says,

“The acknowledgement as an official religion in Sweden is similar to incorporating a business. It’s an important step, yes, but it has a way to go to supplant the already established religions in Sweden.”

For those interested in learning some Swedish his post has some Swedish religious vocabulary.

Yet over in Norway, a different story has surprised secular observers; the Bible it seems is still a really popular book. For whatever reason, faith still has the ability to surprise. Perhaps in Scandinavia there will be some more faith stories that surprise in the future.

2011 in review

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

A San Francisco cable car holds 60 people. This blog was viewed about 3,500 times in 2011. If it were a cable car, it would take about 58 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.