wfn.org | Interview with Bishop Laila Riksaasen Dahl of Norway

["Frank Imhoff" <FRANKI@elca.org>]

Norway: Church Should be "A Place to Come to During Life's
Greatest Events"
Interview with Church of Norway Second Woman Bishop, Laila
Riksaasen Dahl

OSLO, Norway/Geneva 1 November 2002 (LWI) - "I want people to feel
that the church is present in their daily lives and that the local
church is their church," says Laila Riksaasen Dahl, Norway's
second Lutheran woman bishop.

The first female to head Church of Norway's Tunsberg Diocese, Dahl
wants "people to feel that the church is a natural place to come
to during life's greatest events," - those that help people to
interpret their lives, she told Lutheran World Information (LWI)
in an interview.

On 9 February 2003, Dahl, 55, will be consecrated as bishop of
Tunsberg, covering the southeastern counties of Vestfold and
Buskerud. The Church of Norway has eleven dioceses each headed by
a bishop. In 1993 Rosemarie Kohn became the first woman bishop in
the church.

Having two women in the bishops' collegium will represent a
broader scale of viewpoints, according to Dahl. More people will
understand that to be a woman pastor does not necessarily mean
taking a radical theological position. "Many of our pastors
ministers will have a church leader to identify with. In my own
ministry I often have been missing a woman leader who could act as
a model for me," says the bishop-elect, appointed to this position
on September 20.

Today, about 15 percent of Church of Norway's pastors are women,
but more than half of the theological students are female. Women
make up 40 percent of the Church of Norway National Council, the
General Synod's executive body.

Dahl has served as a parish priest since 1995. She has university
degrees in mathematics and chemistry, and taught in upper
secondary school before joining the Norwegian Lutheran School of
Theology as a catechist and lecturer. During the last 15 years she
has served on a number of national church committees and councils.

On the current debate on a possible separation between the church
and state in Norway, Dahl is in favor of separation, but sees no
need to rush. The king is the constitutional head of the church,
exercising this authority through the state council. Legislation
concerning the church goes through the Storting, Norway's
parliament.

"It is for the good of the church if it takes a leading role in
this debate. It is important to keep a broad national church when
the ties to the state are loosened. We have a historical and
cultural situation in Norway that makes it natural to have a close
relation between church and state also in the future. But it will
be seen as more and more unreasonable if one denomination or one
religion should continue to have a privileged position in a multi-
cultural society," she argues.

The newly appointed bishop is concerned about the decreasing
number of church goers. According to Church of Norway statistics,
the average church attendance is about 100 persons per service,
corresponding to three per cent of the population. One of the
church's main concerns is to encourage all believers to regard the
weekly Sunday service as the center of their devotional life. To
this end the church has initiated and supported changes such as
revision and experimentation in the liturgy, the composition of
new church music, new Bible translations and hymnals.

"Every congregation needs to have a core of people," Dahl says.
And she feels that this central part is threatened in many places.
But, she notes, "There is a lot of hidden belief among people that
does not relate to the fellowship in a congregation. I would like
to help people to focus more on this belief, and dare to bring it
out in the open." Around 82 per cent of infants are baptized in
the church and 70 per cent of the young people are confirmed. The
majority of weddings take place in church, and the great majority
of funerals are church funerals

"When I talk to parents before their children's baptism or to
family members before a funeral, I meet a lot of such hidden
faith. I want to facilitate encounters with Christ so that people
may find a living hope in their lives. God sent people who led me
to my Savior. I want to be such a person to others," Dahl
stresses.

Dahl succeeds Bishop Sigurd Osberg, who retires on December 1,
after twelve years as head of Tunsberg.

The Church of Norway has 3.8 million members, representing around
86 percent of the Norwegian population. It has been a member
church of the Lutheran World Federation since 1947.

(Contributed by Church of Norway Information Service)

(The LWF is a global communion of Christian churches in the
Lutheran tradition. Founded in 1947 in Lund (Sweden), the LWF now
has 136 member churches in 76 countries representing over 61.7
million of the 65.4 mllion Lutherans worldwide. The LWF acts on
behalf of its member churches in areas of common interest such as
ecumenical relations, theology, humanitarian assistance, human
rights, communication, and the various aspects of mission and
development work. Its secretariat is located in Geneva,
Switzerland.)

[Lutheran World Information (LWI) is the information service of
the Lutheran World Federation (LWF). Unless specifically noted,
material presented does not represent positions or opinions of the
LWF or of its various units. Where the dateline of an article
contains the notation (LWI), the material may be freely reproduced
with acknowledgment.]

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