Finding Belonging, Finding Agency: Unaccompanied Refugee Minors Converting to Christianity in the Church of Sweden

Abstract

The arrival 44,617 unaccompanied refugee minors (URM) to Sweden between 2014 and 2016 was met by a large number of civil society volunteers responding to their needs and assisting them in the early stages of their asylum processes, among them the Church of Sweden (CoS). What was not expected was that thousands of these Muslim-background young people would decide to convert to Christianity. Drawing on data collected during fieldwork at two CoS congregations, this article looks at conversion through the lens of two themes, conversion as belonging and conversion as agency, and discusses whether discourses which couple conversion with narratives about acquiring asylum capital are adequate to the complexity of this phenomenon.

Keywords:

• Unaccompanied refugee minors
• religious conversion
• migration
• secularism
• Sweden
• Islam
• Christianity

Between 2014 and 2016, Sweden received 44,617 unaccompanied refugee minors, under 18-year-olds who entered the country and sought asylum without a parent or guardian present (Definition from Herz and Lalander 2017; Vervliet et al. 2014). Thousands of these Muslim-background young people have converted to Christianity after finding belonging in the Church of Sweden (CoS) and other churches in Sweden.¹ Many of these young people have become active and engaged members of their congregations (Morgan 2018). This phenomenon is notable in the CoS, a church that has, since its disestablishment in 2000, been in decline² and which does not have a reputation for actively recruiting new members. Since disestablishment, the Evangelical Lutheran CoS has sought to emphasize its history as a “folk church,” a church that is open to all regardless of background or religion. This stance makes it unique in the religious landscape of Sweden and has drawn criticism from some quarters for reducing the institution to a space for exploring existential questions, rather than a community of faith (Ekenberg 2016). Indeed, with particular focus on state-church Christianity, sociologist of religion Grace Davie has characterized the Nordic approach to religion as “belonging without believing” (Davie 2007).

While there is no doubt that URM experience precarity, marginalized by legal structures and popular discourses, we cannot begin to understand the phenomenon of conversion without first taking into account the narratives from within this group. This article does not attempt to explain the phenomenon and its implications in a universal sense, but, by paying attention to the narratives of six distinct voices, to reveal some of the day-to-day processes of this group and, hopefully, to advocate for nuance over generality. Although some have argued that conversion among this group is fully explained as an attempt to accrue some form of asylum capital that will mean they can remain in Sweden, it is my hope that this article presents the reality that the conversion processes that URM go through are complex and not easily reduced to a single factor.

Borrowing from those who have reduced the role of conversion among URM to a desperate attempt to accrue asylum capital (Cf. Skodo 2018), in this article I suggest that while Bourdieu’s concept of capital may be useful for understanding the lives of URM in Sweden, there are other forms of capital, besides asylum capital, which also illuminate the process of conversion. I do so by examining two themes which emerged from my fieldwork with two groups of URM in southern Sweden, conversion as belonging and conversion as agency. In the first, noting that the URM I interviewed first belonged to the community of the church before later believing in the doctrine of the church. Then I look at conversion as part of a process of accommodating the secular, as these young people move from a society with a hegemonic religious culture to secular Sweden.

Religion, Belonging, and Conversion in Migration

Those who migrate are known to experience a degree of identity fluidity which can lead to either a redefinition, or an outright rejection of their pre-migration identities (Kraft 2017; Roy 2004; Hage 2000). Numerous authors have discussed the role that religion, and religious conversion, play in migration. These authors generally fall into two groups. On the one hand, there are those who view religion as a means in which migrants maintain continuity with their homelands (Akcapar 2006; Ekström, Bülow, and Wilinska 2019). In this context, the consistency of religious practice softens the experience of leaving behind family, friends, and country, as practices, now coupled with memories, become endowed with new meaning (Ekström, Bülow, and Wilinska 2019). Religion, in this paradigm, becomes an important psychological coping strategy which URM use to bring a sense of balance and continuity to their otherwise traumatic and unstable lives (Raghallaigh 2011; Völkl-Kernstock et al. 2014). On the other hand, religion has been understood to operate as an “engine of adaptation” (Leman 1999) to a new social context. Religion can provide a sense of belonging within a new society, as well as providing “asylum capital” which can increase life opportunities and mobility (Akcapar 2006; Skodo 2018). Religious conversion has often been viewed through this lens, as a means of acquiring “asylum capital,” rather than reflecting a genuine step of faith (Kéri and Sleiman 2017; Skodo 2018). Perhaps it is more appropriate to ask what form of capital is religion related to, since it is clear from the above that there may be psychological and social anchoring that it provides even if it does not offer a clear path to legal status in a host country. For the sake of this article, I am not disputing the idea of religion as a source of capital, but with reflection on first hand narratives of some of those who have converted, to decouple the phenomenon from the assumption that it is solely motivated by the imagined acquisition of asylum capital.

A sense of belonging has been found to have a significant impact on the wellbeing of those with PTSD. Although incidence of PTSD or depression are high and long-term among children who have experienced war, those refugee children who have a strong sense of belonging tend to fare better in and out of school and are thought to be somewhat less inclined toward destructive behavior patterns that can distract them from their studies (Reavell and Fazil 2016). Association has been found between identifying as either Muslim or Christian and experiencing “fewer internalizing problems” (Reavell and Fazil 2016) but it is not known if this is directly related to the religious aspect of their experience or simply the result of the sense of belonging which they derive from being part of these religious groups.

URM enter Swedish society unaccompanied by a responsible adult, parent, or otherwise. They are far from their homelands and often seek out supportive adults who can stand in the space previously occupied by parents (Pastoor 2015; Morgan 2018). Since those adults who are appointed to state-mandated care often fail to fulfill this role (Herz and Lalander 2018; Graeve and Bex 2017), teachers, pastors, and other adults are often asked to meet these needs (Morgan 2018; Oppedal, Guribye, and Kroger 2016; Pastoor 2015).

Study Design

The data discussed in this article were collected over six months in late 2017 and early 2018 as part of fieldwork carried out at two CoS congregations in Southern Sweden and consists of field notes and interview transcripts. During these months I conducted participant observation in these churches, attending masses and weekly Bible studies, talking with pastors and the URM-background young men who they work with. This group represented between one third to half of each congregation’s active participants. After several months of participant observation, I recruited 6 URM-background young adults who participate in the work of these churches for semi-structured interviews. Interviews were also carried out with 3 pastors who have worked directly with this group for several years. For the sake of this article, I have utilized the interview transcripts with the 6 participants who came to Sweden as unaccompanied minors. Names of congregations and of interviewees have been changed for the sake of confidentiality.

All interviews were arranged by referral, following a snowball sampling approach (Giddens and Sutton 2009, 132), in cooperation with staff at the churches and participants gave consent to their responses being used in the context of academic research. “Verbal iterative” (Herz and Lalander 2018) consent was utilized to ensure that participants understood that they could walk away from interviews at any time, without consequence. Interviews were in Swedish, English, and Dari (with translation) and took place on church premises or in cafés. At the outset I made it clear that responses were confidential and would have no impact on their asylum processes. With several years of Swedish language training behind them, most of my participants spoke excellent Swedish. However, one asked to be interviewed in Dari, with a close friend translating into English, in order that he could make himself better understood. Another preferred to be interviewed in English, as he felt that this was his stronger second language. As my work progressed, I came to prefer working in Swedish, even though there were times when we were forced to search for words together in a dictionary, since it proved easier to establish rapport than by having another person mediating our contact.

As an educated, white, 35-year-old man from the United Kingdom, I entered the field with numerous layers of distance between myself and my participants. I was also fairly new to the traditions and practices of the Church of Sweden since, while growing up in a Christian family, my church experiences were confined to the low church traditions of Baptist and neo-Pentecostal movements. I was initially introduced to the URM by their priests, which meant that my presence was endowed with a certain “official” status that I tried to mitigate by proximity, rapport-building, and emphasizing that my work was not part of the church activities. It was also important to establish that while my work would be published in an academic context, and may contribute to the debate on conversion among asylum seekers in Sweden, it would have no direct bearing on their asylum applications.

Methodological Challenges

Conducting such a study in such politically polarized times presents numerous challenges. One of these is the question of what to do with the narratives of those who are critical towards their past experiences when those criticisms could, taken out of context, be used as anti-Islam, or anti-Muslim rhetoric. While some of the material in this study could be seen to reinforce certain stereotypes about Islam in the West, it is important to remember that these accounts reflect the narratives of those looking back at their decision to leave one religion for another. With this in mind, we would expect for individuals to narrate their conversion as a journey towards progress, to view the past in negative terms, and to justify the rationale in their decision making (perhaps overemphasizing the rational aspect of their identity processes) (Snow and Machalek 1984). It is also important to remember that Islam is not monolithic (see Ahmad 2016). The Islam that these young men describe is that of a particular place and time, and is mediated by the positionality of these young people, their place in society, background, and later experiences as converts to Christianity. The context of these narratives are important because we live in a time ripe with generalities and defamations regarding Islam and Muslims, and it is vital that we understand the nature of our source material, and the conclusions that we can (and cannot) draw from it. In spite of these extenuating factors, these narratives still give us insight into the nuances of these conversion processes.

It should be understood that because of the limited number of participants, this study does not represent data from which generalizable conclusions can be drawn, beyond this specific cohort of young converts in the Church of Sweden, in Southern Sweden. That said, it is my hope that it illuminates how multifaceted these processes are when looked at more deeply than the simplistic discourses that are often amplified more loudly than the voices of those they discuss.

Participants

At the time of our interviews, the participants had all been in Sweden for between 1 and 4 years. They were aged between 17 and 22 and arrived as unaccompanied minors, with the exception of Amir, 32, who was included because of his insights as a member of this cohort. All but one (Almas) had lived in Iran prior to migrating to Sweden. The following profiles provide a brief introduction to the participants:

Khaled was born in Afghanistan but moved to Iran when he was four. He left Iran when he was 16 because of “problems” that he did not want to talk about during our interview. He had been in Sweden for two years and two months at the time of our interview and had been part of Saint Mary’s Church for one year and one month. Moving to Sweden was difficult for him; he had lost his family and was also confronted by existential concerns as he wrestled with the nature of truth. Eventually he threw himself into life here and embraced the fact he was allowed to ask the questions about religion that he had always wanted to ask but had been unable to because of his parents’ fears of the Imams in Iran. This started a process of reading about different religions, and eventually to having conversations with a friend who had converted to Christianity. In time he began attending Saint Mary’s Church and was surprised by the loving attitudes of those he spoke to, and the message that “we are all humans” that was taught there. After several months attending the church but with some cynicism, Khaled decided that he wanted to become a Christian.

Amir is the oldest of the participants. He was in his early twenties when he arrived in Sweden for the first time. The migration office placed him in a tiny village in Northern Sweden where “there was nothing to do.” He made contact with the church there and began attending their events, reading the Bible, and asking lots of questions. This went on for a year before he decided to convert. Of his conversion he said, “you are born anew and you feel better. You can forgive people, be nice to other people.” Now 31, this is his second time seeking asylum in Sweden. His first asylum application was denied and he was deported to Afghanistan, a country he left when he was three years old when his family moved to Iran. While there, he hid his conversion from those around him. His housemates eventually found out and he was chased out of town. Amir is a member of Saint Mary’s Church. At the time of our interview, he had been back in Sweden for two years and three months. I chose to include Amir in this study in spite of his age because he is an active member of the URM Bible study group at Saint Mary’s Church and is thus a member of the URM peer group.

Hassan was born in Afghanistan and moved with his family to Iran shortly before he moved to Sweden, aged 15. The family fled Iran because of insecurity in their home village, and assumed that the common language and culture would make the process of relocation smooth. However, they were met with a level of xenophobia they were not expecting and after just six weeks in Iran, Hassan decided to leave his family and travel to Europe. a journey which he found difficult to talk about. His main motivation for leaving Iran was the continued threat of deportation back to Afghanistan and the persecution he and his family experienced there. He first began attending Saint Mary’s Church after being invited by a member of staff at the home where he was living. At the church he was struck by how much they spoke about love and was deeply impacted by the church’s outreach work to homeless people. Hassan described Christianity as “a light in the darkness” which gave him hope at a time when he had given up.

Sohrab is an active member of Saint Christopher’s Church, taking part in their musical and drama activities. He became a Christian in Iran after being invited to an underground church by a neighbor. He was baptized there. He traveled to Sweden because of the dangers associated with converting to Christianity in Iran. Since arriving, he has made it his goal to encourage other URM-background Christians; he wears a cross and has a tattoo on his arm of a fish and a cross intersecting, which he uses as a conversation starter with those who want to talk about Christianity.

Rahim was born in Iran to Afghan parents and was 16 when he left Iran for Sweden. His journey took six months, including six weeks he spent in a Turkish prison. He was impressed by Christians he encountered during his journey to Sweden and, when he arrived, decided to investigate Christianity for himself. When he was resettled to the town where this study was carried out, he began attending Saint Christopher’s Church. Rahim began smoking marijuana in Iran and became addicted to other drugs when he arrived in Sweden. During our interview he described how he feels that Jesus has helped him to give up drugs, “I think that Jesus is helping me and he’s like magic in my life […] he saved my life and if he didn’t come into my life I think I would get addicted and continue my life like that.”

Almas grew up in Afghanistan and began his journey to Europe from there. He was 17 years old at the time of our interview, the youngest of my participants, and had been in Sweden for two and a half years. He sought out Saint Christopher’s Church after becoming curious about Christianity and researching about it online. He told me that his decision to convert came about because of the message of love he heard taught in the church.

Of my six respondents, five grew up in Iran, either having been born there, or having moved there at such an early age that, before coming to Sweden, they had no memory of life in Afghanistan. Hassan grew up in Afghanistan and lived briefly in Iran before setting out on his journey to Europe. All participants self-identified as coming from the Hazara tribe, a Shia minority in Sunni majority Afghanistan.

I will now outline the two themes pertinent to this article, conversion as belonging and conversion as agency, and discuss some of the ramifications of these themes in relation to the acquisition of capital.

Conversion as Belonging

All of my participants left behind family members in Iran and traveled alone, with the help of smugglers, to Sweden. Because of their decisions to become Christians, the participants faced an added layer of complexity in their relationships with their transnational kin that other URM do not face: making a decision that many in their homelands view as apostasy. Those I spoke to had mixed experiences of talking about becoming Christians with their families. Amir’s family rejected him and he no longer has any contact with his parents. Khaled’s family responded in much the same way: “when I told them that I became Christian they were so angry with me […] My Dad never speaks to me.” While they had not yet told their parents about their conversions, Almas and Rahim feared a negative reaction to the news. Almas told me, “No, I can't [tell them]. It's hard and will take a long time.” Instead of risking the anger of their families, these two chose to keep this part of their lives secret. However, not all of my participants experienced rejection when they admitted their conversions to their parents. Sohrab’s family were supportive, telling him, “you can decide for yourself.” Similarly, Hassan’s parents told him, “do what you want.” It should be noted that while ambivalence and uncertainty are common in the relationships between these young men and their families, it is by no means the rule that those who convert are rejected from their families. This subverts the trope that all Muslim families are intolerant and willing to break ties (or worse) with their family members if they leave the faith.

In response to the rejection faced by some, and the geographical separation that all experienced from their family members, these young men made local connections which they described as taking the place of family. On this point, Sohrab commented:

They are like my family because they help me in lots of kinds of situations. Like even [though] we are far away from our families […] we have a huge family here in Sweden […] the important thing is that I always give hope to my friends, even [if] I am down with my feelings, I try to give a positive energy to my friends.

He did not cease caring for his family in Iran, but found a new family from whom he could derive practical and emotional support. This support was two-way. He not only received help and encouragement from his network, but he found belonging through giving support to others. He told me:

My friends are shy to say that “I converted to Christianity,” so I have a tattoo on my hands and […] any time that I go and I see different new people, I just put my hands and show the cross and they feel more comfortable that they’re not the only one who converted. And they don’t have to be shy […] when they see my tattoo, they come and they start talking with me and we talk about God’s word and like what we have to do in our life in the future.

He sought out ways to give courage to other URM who had converted but had not “gone public” with their decision. By taking the first step, he hoped to inspire them with confidence and to let them know that they were not alone. Hassan also experienced family-like relationships with his new network in Sweden:

“I’ve left them, all my friends, but I’ve got more now. I’ve got more love. I’ve met many. I’ve got new friends here who are real friends, and they don’t mind if I’m Christian or Muslim, or Jewish. They think, ‘okay, he’s a person, we are the same.’”

According to Hassan, these new connections did not exist simply on the basis of him belonging to a particular religious group, or being family members, but are more open. In my time spent at both churches, I observed many interactions between pastors and URM. It was clear that there was a great deal of mutual trust. For example, at the beginning and end of Bible studies, the young men could be seen talking one-on-one with the priests, asking them for advice or guidance on a variety of matters.

The participants in this study exhibited kinship ties that were based on friendship, shared experiences, and religious performativity. They met with regularity, sometimes daily, to discuss matters of religion and the Christian life, to pray, and to socialize. They helped each other in the same way that family members might be expected to in Iran or Afghanistan. Their kinship was built on both helping each other and the common purpose of constructing identities as URM-background Christians, as “children of God.” Their kinship within the church was rooted in activity. They did not simply call each other friends, they did friendship through acts of help and common activity.

Such belonging is significant among a group who have left behind everything, and it is remarkable considering the way this group have reported experiencing state-mandated care in other studies. For example, Herz and Lalander (2018) found that the relationships between URM and their social workers were experienced as distant and impersonal, while Graeve and Bex (2017) found their URM participants to be disappointed that legal guardians and other caregivers did not care more for their holistic wellbeing. The participants in this study found supportive relationships with adults through contact with the church community. The priests in this study exercized a great degree of freedom in caring for the holistic wellbeing of those in their congregation. This included their spiritual wellbeing but also other aspects such as their asylum applications or listening to their concerns about family members. In this way, my participants became integrated into the life of the church not merely as attendees, but as kin.

While the open attitude of the church certainly contributed to the process, it was remarkable how the URM themselves were shaping the religious practices of their group and the wider church. In seeking out the support of pastors in the church, URM were accessing a service which is available to everyone in Sweden, but endowing it with meaning which others might not. While, for others, the advice of a pastor may be something sought under very particular circumstances, such as when a family member dies, or when they wish to get married, the URM I spoke to sought the ongoing advice of priests on a range of subjects in their lives. In doing this they made them fictive kin, even surrogate parents, who were part of their locally improvised family.

The participants performed their religion through participation in events and activities hosted by the wider church community, through times spent with other URM-background converts, and through personal acts of devotion. As a group, they met weekly to read scripture, discuss their circumstances, and to learn from the pastors about practicing the Christian life.

A difficult aspect of belonging within the Church of Sweden, for those who live precariously, is that such belonging will not be able to continue if they are deported. One may adapt to life in Sweden, build strong ties within the church, only to be torn from this support network. Belonging in the Church of Sweden does little to impact the legal status of the URM members, but it does provide them with social capital, in the form of a “sense of belonging,” which has been shown to contribute to the psychological wellbeing of refugee children (Reavell and Fazil 2016). The small sample and exploratory nature of this study means that it is beyond the scope of this article to comment on the impact of the sense of belonging experienced by these URM and their overall psychological wellbeing.

Conversion as Agency

One of the interesting themes that emerged in interviews with my participants is what I will call journeying towards agency. They were born into a society in which belief in God was taken for granted and behavior was regulated by a particular creed. They belonged by birth, and while some of them desired greater opportunity to probe questions of belief (or unbelief), they reported that this was not permitted. They arrived in Sweden as Muslims but, away from the gaze of their families, and exposed to new ideas about life and religion, they were free to acquire information and experience that they would not have access to in their homelands. Prior to becoming Christians, my participants experienced another kind of “conversion,” a recognition of their beliefs sitting alongside others in a context where all have equal rights. It seems that this embrace of pluralism paved the way for embracing beliefs and values which were not part of their prior experiences in their homeland, and ultimately made it possible for them to embrace Christianity.

My participants spoke at length about their lives in Iran and Afghanistan, contrasting life there with life in Sweden. One of the threads common to each account was that in Iran and Afghanistan they felt powerless because, as minors from a minority group, there was a strong social pressure to perform religion regardless of whether they believed in it or not. Khaled spoke of his family: “They were born in a country where the government and others who have power force them into following their ways.” Being Muslim was not a matter of choice, but rather something they were born into. With this identity came a set of duties that were closely monitored by the wider community.

One of the practices they were expected to perform was ritualized prayer, three to five times each day. Family members would wake them up in the early hours of the morning so that they would do so, and in other settings there was also pressure to conform. Amir, who grew up in Iran but was deported to Afghanistan after a failed asylum process in Sweden, was a Christian at the time he was deported. He described how, when traveling from one city to another, busses would pull over to the side of the road at prayer times in order that all the passengers could disembark and pray. For him this was problematic because he was conflicted over the fact that by outwardly portraying himself as Muslim, he was hiding his true religious beliefs. He told me, “I felt scared all the time wondering when they would understand that I didn’t do their prayers.” Eventually they did find out and he was forced to flee.

Khaled described the fear his parents had of the local imams in Iran; his mother and father actively dissuaded him from seeking out answers to the many questions he had because they were afraid of the social consequences:

They have all the power in Iran […] we couldn't speak openly because we were afraid. I had many questions that I wanted to ask, but my Dad said “no! you can't do that. It's against their beliefs. You can't do that or something bad will happen.”

When Khaled arrived in Sweden, he decided to learn more about Shia Islam and was surprised by what he discovered:

I googled Shia Muslim on the internet, and it was so horrible. I knew about Imam Hussein and what they do at Ashura. But when I was in Iran, I was just a little boy. So, when I read about Shia Muslims, about how they cut themselves with knives … it's totally wrong. That day that I started looking, I said “no,” I felt uncertain about whether I had things right or wrong. So, I started reading again.

When, for the first time, he began exploring the religion of his birth with a critical eye, he learned things that he had not previously been aware of, things which he found distressing. Similarly, Hassan was not satisfied with the legalism that he encountered in Iran:

I've met many Imams from Islam and they only speak about religion and they say, ‘if you don't do this, if you don't fast, you're going to hell. God will punish you.’ And I received a picture of God, a God who waits with a rod and will punish people.

Of all the participants, Almas was the most involved in the activities of the local mosque in his homeland. He described his previous relationship with religion as born of obligation rather than desire: “I was forced to choose it. It wasn't something I chose. I thought there was just one religion, Islam.” He participated in recital classes at his local mosque, which he described as follows: “I went to the mosque and I learned the Quran. It was three years […] I can read, but I can't understand, because I didn't speak it. I just read the text.” In spite of devoting a great deal of time to memorizing the Quran, he was never taught or encouraged to understand it for himself. Most of my interviewees reported experiencing a disconnect between outward performance and inner belief, which Sohrab summarized: “sometimes when I read the Quran, or I was in [the mosque] praying, I didn’t understand and I didn’t have connection with God—the feeling I mean—and I feel like I’m just acting.” He went through the socially ascribed patterns of behavior of a Muslim in his context but felt like he was just going along with the expectations of others.

In stark contrast to the pressure they reported experiencing in their homelands, when talking about becoming Christians, my informants described a process over which they had a great deal of agency. They sought out contact with the church by their own initiative and, once there, stressed the “hands off” approach that the church and other Christians took with them. For example, Hassan commented, “Nobody pressured me to go to church, it was a free decision, if you want to come, come, if you don't want to, no problem. I really liked that.” According to Hassan, he was welcome to opt in or out of church activities as he desired. This emergence of agency after migration is not unique to converts to Christianity in Sweden, but has also been observed among female Muslim refugees to Sweden who, in this new context, take greater personal responsibility over how the religion of their birth is integrated into their lives than they did before migration (Ekström, Bülow, and Wilinska 2019).

First exposure to the CoS was described by my participants as something filled with great excitement. This was primarily because they were free to discuss anything; no question was taboo. This environment of open-mindedness and acceptance, even being encouraged to ask questions, was unlike anything they had encountered before. Almas commented about his first contact with Saint Mary’s Church:

It was a year ago. I was curious about it and started looking on the internet and spoke with people, and then I found Saint Mary’s. I went there and met people who go there. It was very exciting to talk about religion […] After that, I thought that I would like to choose that and learn much more about it.

Stepping into an environment where there is freedom to negotiate one’s own spiritual journey was a prospect that he found compelling. Reflecting the CoS’ “folk church” value of openness, priests I spoke to were adamant that their parishioners should pursue their own interpretations of truth and this was confirmed by the participants. For example, Hassan contrasted imams he had met with the priests at Saint Mary’s. Whereas the imams painted a picture of a god of punishment, “the priests never spoke about punishment.” Creating space like this, for exploration without pressure, meant that some of the participants who had once been against Christianity gave it a second chance. Khaled was one of these:

I had read about Christianity previously […] I learned that they have three different gods, and I thought “that's totally wrong! I can't be Christian if they have three gods.” I read about Christianity again what is the trinity, what is the cross, how do they think? I had a friend who became a Christian […] I asked him, “what is this trinity, with the Father, Son, Holy Spirit?” And he said, “there's only one God but he shows himself to us in three different ways.” Before that, my belief was that if someone hit me then I should hit him back. But in Christianity, if someone hits me, I should say “you're welcome to hit me again.” […] I began to think about what life would be like if everyone did this.

Here he is comparing a particular form of lived Islam with the Christian ideal. This is not a particularly fair example (when do lived realities ever measure up to their ideal form?) but does indicate the manner in which he has reconciled his past and present worldviews. His conversion to Christianity was a slow process that developed over time through reading, meeting Christians, and asking lots of questions. It was a careful negotiation between belonging and discussion of belief, a belief rooted in community rather than mere ideology. In contrast to this, others arrived in Sweden already interested in Christianity and with a desire to learn more. The church provided these participants with a space to pursue their curiosity. The first Christian Amir met was his boss in Iran:

I had a good picture of Christianity from Iran. My boss who I used to work for was a Christian, he was Armenian, but had an Iranian passport […] He was really nice with us, not like the other Iranians. I thought that maybe this has to do with his religion. It was a good picture of Christianity.

While his boss never spoke to him about his faith, his actions and attitude towards his Afghan workers made an impression on Amir. Knowing little else about Christianity, Amir attributed this man’s behavior to his religion. Another participant who encountered Christians before coming to Sweden was Rahim. During his journey from Iran he met Christians who spoke openly about their faith and who offered him help. The first of these was on the boat from Turkey to Greece, where he met a man who was fleeing for his life after converting:

when I was in Greece and we were passing from Turkey to Greece in the sea, there was one person with us in the boat who was from Iran and who had converted to Christianity. And a lot of people in the boat didn't like him because he was a Christian. But I found myself so close to him and he told me a lot of stories and I listened to him and his stories.

While in Greece, he also met a priest who took him in:

One night we were so tired and when we were headed to the camp I was so tired that I fell asleep and suddenly a priest came and brought us to his house. Then I moved to his house and he talked with us and I had some rest there.

These encounters made such a strong impression on Rahim that he decided to explore Christianity once he arrived in Sweden. Despite an attempt by his guardian to subvert him, telling him “because you are underage you cannot convert to Christianity,” he found a Bible and began to read it, and then a friend who had converted took him to church.

In each of the cases above, conversions do not happen in isolation but as part of a community-embedded process. It is, in many ways, the product of networks of relationships rather than of an individual process, of belonging before believing.

For the URM-background young men I interviewed, arriving in Sweden did not only mark the end of their journey from state oppression, but the beginning of life in a context where religious identity is no longer presupposed, and in which state approval of the norms they have grown up with does not exist in the same way. There is less social pressure to conform to religious norms. This is illustrated by Khaled, who told me, “I read many stories on the internet, different books, like Charles Darwin who said that people were first apes. I read so much about that, atheism, Buddhism, different religions.” While these URM start out thinking of themselves as Muslim, we find them adapting to this pluralistic environment by exploring the possibilities that are open to them. While they eventually became Christian, this process of exploration is itself significant and offers us more insight into the individual posture toward a secular, pluralistic society, than which religion they ultimately converted to. These young men have left an environment where there is one dominant religion, a religion tightly coupled with the dominant social order. They arrive in Sweden as Muslims but, at some point, develop the view that their religion can, and should, be compared with others. Roy argues that, in Europe, Islam experiences a “crisis of the social authority of religion, the delinking of religious and cultural patterns” (Roy 2004, 27). This delinking is closely related to becoming embedded in a secular society and the pluralism of these societies, where Islam is but one worldview among many. Charles Taylor describes secularity as “a move from a society where belief in God is unchallenged and indeed, unproblematic, to one in which it is understood to be one option among others, and frequently not the easiest to embrace” (Smith 2014, 22). The young men in this study have quite literally moved from an environment where “belief in God is unchallenged,” to one where “it is one option among others,” and early on in their time here they must negotiate this move as they construct identity. They began by exploring an array of options, with some even dabbling in atheism, but eventually came back to a religion which offered them community as well as a degree of continuity with their religious backgrounds. For example, Sohrab explained:

The relationship that I had with God when I was Muslim was like the king and the thief, like if you’re not following the rules, you get punished by the king. But right now, the relationship that I have with Jesus is like a father and son. If I do any kind of mistake he say, “don’t worry, my son, I’m here with you.”

Rather than replacing one god with another, Sohrab’s experience of Christianity is of reframing the way he looks at his relationship to the same deity.

For these young men, traveling to Sweden was not simply a geographical journey to a new destination, but a journey into greater agency. They were, to a greater degree, free to follow their curiosity. In their reconstruction of their identities, they were free to subvert the norms of their home country. Just because they were born Muslim, and most of the URM around them were Muslim, did not mean that they reconstructed their identities as Muslims. However, it is interesting that rather than becoming atheists, perhaps a more culturally appropriate identity in secular-normative Sweden, in the end they chose a religion that is monotheistic and Abrahamic, one which, it could be argued, sits at an intermediate point between home and host societies.

As you would expect for those who converted, they portray their past beliefs in a negative light. These are recollections of those who are new Christians and it is important to remember that, while it may be their particular experiences, this in no way represents a universal Islam. Rather, such experiences are emblematic of the particular milieu that a localized tribal or family group embodied. It does, however, suggest two things. Firstly, it suggests that these young men have developed a discursive competence. They have learned, or are learning, to justify their decision to convert within a pluralist context where their worldviews sit alongside others. Secondly, that their decisions are reflexive and that they are not merely grabbing at “useful” identity markers. They are aware of the implications and risks, real or imagined, of their decisions. Whether their motives are “true” is something that none of us are fit to judge.

The form of capital which emerges out of this process is an embodied cultural capital (Bourdieu 2018) that enables the URM to adapt to a democratic mindset which embodies values such as tolerance, equality, and respect. Such values are not exclusively “Western,” but with the thin framework which Western liberal democracies use to build cohesion, they represent the “bare minimum” that it is needed for mutual cooperation. It is a tacit agreement towards this “bare minimum” that allows Salafists to live alongside atheists, or Christians to live alongside Hindus, without the friction exhibited in some societies. Although the processes of conversion represent very specific, individual formation, the adaption to secularism which takes place within them better equips these young men for operating in the new social field of their host country. Such cultural capital does not improve their legal status or chance of remaining in Sweden, but it could be predictive of better long-term success if they are granted residence.

Conclusion

The phenomenon of URM converting to Christianity in Sweden’s former state church illustrates the complex, multi-layered processes which take place in the formation of identity after migration. The young men in this study found the open nature of Sweden’s folk church to be a space in which they could come to terms with their transition from a society in which religion is tightly coupled to politics and into one which attempts to create distance between the two. The church did not merely provide them with a social event to attend once per week, but seemed to represent a safe space, a home of sorts, in which a new expression of kinship could emerge. Although the priests did not emphasize behavior or doctrine, these followed behind belonging.

These processes of finding belonging, and accommodating secularity, did not increase the likelihood that these young men would be offered legal residence in Sweden, however they did create the conditions for them to acquire other forms of capital, which could prove worthwhile in adapting for long-term success in Swedish society.

This study has merely scratched the surface in exploring some of the complexities of life as a URM convert in Sweden. More work is needed to understand the impact that belonging to the church has on the wellbeing of these young men and also how belonging to the church impacts integration trajectories. Further research is also needed on the impact that a church culture with more emphasis on doctrine (such as Sweden’s Pentecostal church) has on an individual’s sense of belonging and conversion processes.

Additional information

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Jonathan Morgan

Jonathan J. Morgan is a Doctoral Candidate in Ethics at Lund University. His research focuses on migration, identity formation, and pluralism.

Notes

1 There are currently no precise figures available, but estimates of the number of conversions that have taken place among people from this region in both free churches and the CoS are of several thousand, a large proportion of whom came to Sweden as URM. One recent report looked at the Swedish Migration Board’s ruling in the cases of 619 Afghan converts to Christianity in 76 free churches in Sweden (Bergström et al. 2019).

2 According to the Swedish Church’s statistics, in 2017 just over 93,000 of its 6 million members left the CoS, up from 85,848 the previous year (Svenska Kyrkan 2018).