Editorial: the church alone can determine its relevance

Photo: Margus Ansu

The Lutheran church, most numerous in Estonia by membership, is undergoing substantial change. According to last census, its supporters have noticeably diminished, raising the question of the Lutheran church’s future.

The numbers speak for themselves: if, at the 2000 census, Estonia still had 152,237 Lutherans, then by now the numbers are down by 43,724. In addition to that, the average age of Lutherans is on a rapid rise, threatening the vitality of the church. The tendency cannot be ascribed to the overall secularisation of people: at the same time, the ranks of Russian Orthodox, for instance, are on a healthy rise.

The tendency is a long-term one: before World War II, Lutherans amounted to a whopping 89 per cent of the entire Estonian population. And the war and the anti-religious regime that followed cannot be counted the only – or sole – reason. As, after regained independence, there arose a living interest towards church and the membership decline, after that, may be explained by disappointment in its institution. It seems that the Lutheran church is losing its function in society – the background to that being formed by the changed needs of the society and a lack of readiness, by the church, to keep in step with the changing needs.

Indeed, society cannot be viewed as an aggregate of separate institutions, but rather an integrated organism, revaluing its needs in a process of natural development. Institutions are vital only to the degree that they find their place as ones meeting the changed needs. The question of how much does a person – or society as such – need a religious institution anyway, or whether or not the Lutheran church has a future in Estonia, may be stated otherwise: can the church maintain the role that it has carried before, or find a new role to carry?

The traditional functions of explaining the world, and issues of morals and the soul, have moved over to other areas of life: the first being dealt with by science, the second by legislation and the third by psychiatrists.

The church’s social role of keeping communities together have been taken over by community centres – schools, culture houses, local societies. When it comes to wider integration of society, overcoming differences by wider values, the Lutheran church has rather taken the path of confrontation than unity.

Maybe there’s a point to the Lutherans who, a year and a half ago, raised a manifesto against the church’s overall view on things and desired to make it more open and tolerant. If the church leans towards authoritarianism and the past, setting itself against the wider stream of democracy, openness and tolerance, a widening gap is inevitable.

A change in the church is in the church’s own best interests: the greater the part of society that links itself to one or another church, the better that church’s position in society. For the Lutheran church, rediscovering its place in meeting society’s needs is an existential question.