Finnish Women Making Religion

Finnish Women Making Religion: Between Ancestors and Angels displays a wide range of Finnish women's historical and present-day ways of making religion, within religious institutions, on their margins, and outside. The twelve chapters of the book put forth the complex intersections that Lutheranism, the most important religious tradition in Finland, has had with other religions as well as with the larger society and politics also internationally.

Women variously either keep up religious traditions or pursue changes and transformations. For some women, religion is a key instrument in their striving for autonomy, equality, authority, or identity; for others it is used in maintaining or construing ties and relations or creative visions of life.

Review: This volume is a wonderful introduction to the multifaceted ways that Finnish women make religion. Expertly edited by Terhi Utriainen and Paivi Salmesvuori, the book ranges from studies of nineteenth century folk religion, by way of dissident voices criticizing mainstream Lutheran faith, to contemporary studies of Neopaganism, ecofeminism, and angels - all with their local variations.

This is no dry theoretical survey, but vitally engages with diverse issues of embodiment, social relationships, and the material aspects of lived religious or spiritual experiences. I enthusiastically recommend this volume to all scholars of religion as a dynamic addition to contemporary literature on women and religion. - Morny Joy, Professor of Religious Studies, University of Calgary, Canada.

This anthology illuminates the diversity of religious practice at an intersection of Eastern and Western Christianity. It brings the experiences of Finland's women into international scholarly discourses. Scholars from a variety of disciplines will benefit from Finnish Women making Religion in teaching and research. - Jason Lavery, Professor of History, Oklahoma State University, USA.