Religion and education as a question of national unity in the moderate labour movement in 1918–1924

Authors

• Niko Kannisto Tampereen yliopisto

Abstract

Finland regulated the Compulsory Education Law and the Freedom of Religion Law after the Civil War in 1918. The greatest disagreement in that process was on the status of religion in education. The Labour Movement represented the losing side of the Civil War. They wanted to introduce religion as a subjective freedom. In practice they wanted to stop the compulsory teaching of religion. Instead they saw that the basis of moral raising should have been in teaching secular ethics. Reforms of religious and educational laws took four years between 1919–1923. The final laws were full of compromises in order to integrate society after the horrors of the Civil War. Religion became a subjective freedom – at least in theory. In practice even the members of the Labour Movement continued as churchgoers.