The Finnish state church is dying..

[Kayenneh]

.. but there are even worse dangers lurking in the shadows.

What I'm about to write is a synopsis of an episode of the TV program MOT, which discusses current affairs. This particular episode aired yesterday, and though it can be viewed abroad, I doubt anyone of you will, since it's in Finnish with Finnish subtitles. That aside, if you're interested, the episode can be found here. For more information on the church of Finland, go here

With the slow death of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, a large number of revival movements have popped up all over the country. The members of these are usually the bulk of the meager 7% who attend service more than once a month. Even members of the clergy* are avid members of the movements. Everyone who belong to the church pay church tax, but the 76.4% of the Finns who belong to the church practically pay for the revival movements' activities.

What's even worse, the church seems to invite anyone who can bring back the church goers. This includes faith healers, one of the most prominent and worst, Pirkko Jalovaara. It's a lucrative business to be a faith healer, 2007-2009 she raised 465,000€ and 2009-2011 572,000€, and that's not including offertory during her sessions.

Tuomo Tikkanen, chairperson of the Psychological Association is not pleased: "A person like this is dangerous, potentially to vulnerable people." He continues to describe faith healing to be: "...extremely reactionary and hazardous." And it's not only Tikkanen who sees the dangers. One of Jalovaara's poster boys, a man with prostate cancer, who eventually died of said illness though he was convinced to be cured, left a infuriated widow behind. The widow says: "Remove such a person from the church! Sick people lean on [faith healing] in vain and the money they spend on it, they could use for real medical treatments."

Jalovaara herself is not too pleased about being investigated. During a session in Kallio, Helsinki, the team films the unfolding events, though they were not permitted to.
"The drugs have clouded your mind to the fact that Satan has penetrated you. Drugs are a way for him to get to the innermost you, spirit, soul and body", preaches Jalovaara.
In later sessions she preaches that the MOT-team is sent by the Devil himself.
When interviewed and given the opportunity to give her side of the story, Jalovaara states that medical or psychological attention is not enough for some, but they are opposed by demons and can only be healed through prayer. She feels that she's not in discord with the church, after all, she bases her work on the Bible, just as the church does.

At the Bishop's Office in Helsinki, Dean Reijo Liimatainen disagrees.
"This doesn't sit well with the church's principles of spiritual guidance. Illness does not stem from demons --- this probably causes more mental health issues than what it solves", says Liimatainen. Though when asked what the church intend to do about this, Liimatainen is vague. Congregation Supervisor Johanna Korhonen has an inkling why this is. According to her the bishops are unwilling to take a stance on the matter, since this could case a lot of friction and with this even less church goers.

(*All members of the clergy are official, public servants in Finland.)

[Drich]

God is not a respecter of religion for the sake of religion nor tradition for the sake of tradition. Churches tend to die when God stops going to them.

[Kayenneh]

Good. The less of that meddlesome, psychotic wanker, the better.

[Minimalist]

(*All members of the clergy are official, public servants in Finland.)

Bad idea.

[Kayenneh]

Bad idea.

Actually not. Here at least, being a public servant means basically that you aren't allowed to fuck up. The legal reprimands are just too immense if one does. It's the self-'taught' nutcase preachers like Jalovaara, who concern me. If people like her; greedy, uneducated and insane, can use the churches' facilities and money for their absurd thoughts and preach to the ignorant and desperate masses, then we are in real trouble. I do not mond priests being monitored and kept on a short leash due to law and bureaucracy, it's the lose cannons that are truly dangerous. Especially because they hide between the church walls and no one regulates them and they answer to no one.

[Minimalist]

If history has taught us anything it is that religion and the state should be kept apart.

In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection to his own.

--Thomas Jefferson

[Kayenneh]

Oh, absolutely! But if we're to have a church at all, I want it to be uniform and regulated, with consequences when the clergy fucks up.

[Faith No More]

People that prey on the sick and vulnerable are reprehensible. Can't the authorities treat this person like any other that peddles false cures? I can't imagine she would have been allowed to amass such wealth if she had been selling watermelon seeds as a cure for cancer.

[Kayenneh]

Yeah. It's the fucking taboo of not touching religions and faith, since it just might be offensive. I say nothing is more offensive than quacks and the proper authorities should be responsible and stop this woman (and others like her). It's an outrage and I'm disgusted.

[Justtristo]

Australia or the colonies which preceded it did not manage to make the Church of England into a state church. However our founding fathers when they drew up our constitution in 1901 decided to insert a clause forbidding the establishment of a state church, along with religious tests for public office.