Faith of My Fathers

This summer, my husband and I took a cruise through the breathtakingly magnificent fjords of Norway and Denmark, making stops at towns and villages along the way. At the heart of every little hamlet stands a lovely wooden (or stone, if the wooden original had burned down) church. And, invariably, our guides would tell us, with differing degrees of satisfaction, that “no one in Norway or Denmark goes to church anymore.” The devout Lutheranism of my ancestors, which so shaped and defined my grandparents and parents, is dead and buried. 

According to the guides, the question now is what to do with all of the church buildings. Parishes are no longer capable of taking care of them, so the upkeep must be paid for by the city and state. In most cases, the churches, if open at all, have become “cultural centers” for concerts and plays, and are well maintained. 

But in the heart of downtown Bergen, Norway, at the end of a wide-open plaza, stands St. John’s Church, currently covered in unsightly white fabric, its steeple peaking awkwardly out the top. Our guide told us that it had been this way for a while because of disagreement over what to do with the building. It was unclear whether the church was actually being renovated or was merely covered to protect passersby from falling stones. 

This June, a massive Palestinian flag was painted on the fabric. The flag has since been removed, but the incident highlights an unfortunate truth: Islam is the only growing faith in Bergen. 

Christianity may be dead in Scandinavia, but religious zeal is most definitely not. Everywhere, we were treated to impassioned lectures about climate change and sustainability. Electric cars are de rigueur, and the processing of garbage is nothing short of miraculous. Bergen boasts an expensive, elaborate pipe system that, according to our guide, immediately transports and transmogrifies waste. Dispose of it here—it is promptly redeemed, sanctified, and newly created there. The Norwegian people may no longer bother much about redemption for themselves, but they are deeply pious about the redemption of their garbage. 

On the last stop in Norway, early on a Sunday morning, our ship docked in Kristiansand, and we headed into the heart of the lovely port town where Kristiansand Cathedral, one of the largest churches in Norway, dominates the plaza. Although its website announces services at 11:00 a.m., we could find no exterior signs, the doors were locked, and no people were milling about. Later, we returned with a guide, who knew nothing about the services, but told us about the daily organ concerts for tourists. 

Although the exterior is neo-Gothic stone (three previous churches on the site burned down), the interior is a mixture of painted and unpainted wood, distinctly Norwegian and utterly beautiful. I imagined my ancestors gathering to sing here, and mourned to see how empty it was that Sunday. 

As we sailed on to Denmark, I thought about Seaside Hotel, a popular and charming Danish television series I had been watching in preparation for our trip. Set in Denmark between the world wars, it follows the ups and downs of the hotel’s servants and wealthy summer guests. A visual feast, it’s worth watching, if only for the food scenes in the kitchen—the dill mounded on herring, or the whipped cream piped on each Royal Copenhagen dessert plate. The seaside light, as it plays off the whitewashed floors and William Morris wallpaper, bathes the cast in a seductive glow. 

I am reminded both of Babette’s Feast, the exquisite 1987 Danish film based on Isak Dinesen’s story, and Ingmar Bergman’s 1955 masterpiece Smiles of a Summer Night. Moreover, Ibsen is invoked frequently. Two of the show’s characters are actors, and their “real life” stories often intertwine with the plays they’re in; the actress starring as Nora in A Doll’s House ultimately leaves her “real life” domineering husband. 

Ibsen, Dinesen, Bergman. But there is one crucial difference between these writers’ works and Seaside Hotel, one character who is omnipresent in the former, but notably absent here: God. There is no prayer, no church attendance. Adultery and extra-marital sex are minor matters. The torments and guilt of their God-haunted, theatrical predecessors are nowhere in evidence. This would be unsurprising in a contemporary show, but for a series set between 1922 and 1945, in what was once a deeply religious country, it’s almost shocking. The show’s creators have clearly calculated that no one will miss him, so God lies on the cutting room floor. 

Set on the northern tip of Denmark, some of the show’s scenes take place in the nearby harbor town of Aalborg, our cruise’s penultimate stop. As we explored the medieval center of town, we heard again the by now familiar refrain, “no one attends church,” but our guide excitedly took us to the Aalborg Monastery, where she proudly related the story of the Churchill Club, Denmark’s first organized resistance during the German occupation. 

A group of fourteen- to seventeen-year-old boys from the Aalborg Cathedral School had been appalled by the general capitulation to the Germans, so, in the spring of 1942, they carried out various instances of arson, vandalism, and theft before being arrested. The two boys who founded the group were sons of the monastery priest and lived in the vicarage. Was it pure coincidence that the courage to resist came from two young men who were steeped in the daily life of the church? Could it be that there was, in fact, a connection between “going to church” and the willingness to fight evil? I refrained from asking our guide. 

On the last day, as our boat docked in Copenhagen, church steeples and golden domes glistened in the sunlight, and The Little Mermaid, Edvard Eriksen’s iconic bronze statue, gazed out to sea. 

There is no Danish writer more recognized than Hans Christian Andersen, and “The Little Mermaid” is surely his most well-known tale. As I wrote in these pages many years ago, it is a profoundly Christian story, full of redemption, sorrow, and joy. It bears very little resemblance to the silly, superficial Disney re-telling. Here is how the two versions begin. There will be no need to tell you which is which. 

Far out to sea the water is as blue as the petals of the loveliest cornflower and as clear as the purest glass; but it is deep, deeper than any anchor can reach. Countless church steeples would have to be piled one on top of the other to stretch from the sea bed to the surface. That’s where the sea folk live. 

Ariel was sixteen, the age when a mermaid was supposed to be thinking about marrying a merboy and settling down. But Ariel had other things on her mind.

How does Andersen measure depth? With church steeples, piling one on top of the other. “The Little Mermaid” may be a story about sea folk, but it inhabits a God-soaked world, and that world no longer exists. Disney has won. 

There is no room for God in Denmark, no need for him in Norway. The faith of my fathers is dead. Only the steeples remain—directing our eyes heavenward and reminding us of what we have lost. 

Kari Jenson Gold’s most recent piece for First Things was “More than a Journal.”

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Image by Avda Berlin, provided by Wikipedia, via the public domain. Image cropped.