One thing I genuinely wonder about re: current and future birthrates is if the selection pressures stay relatively consistent. People always talk about the current bottleneck selecting for people who still choose to reproduce under modernity but do those selection pressures change too quickly to effectively select for anything? Things have changed so radically culturally and technologically just in my short lifetime. Are current births selecting for the same type of personalities as in the 2000s? What about now vs the 2030s and 40s? Maybe the type of personality that become DINKs in the 2020s would’ve had four kids in 1990 or will in 2040. For example right now (in the US at least) actually practicing a religion makes one much more likely to reproduce but could that reverse?
I genuinely don’t know. It makes it even harder to make any serious predictions
IIRC laestadians and Dutch Calvinists have had consistently high enough to grow despite apostasy rates TFR since those countries went through the fertility transition.
It's a bit difficult to get a "true" rate of Laestadian "membership" since they're not formally a separate church but a movement inside the Finnish Evangelical-Lutheran Church (and presumably other Lutheran churches in at least other Nordic countries).
Is there no separation at all? I’d have thought conventional Finnish Lutheran parishes with a Sunday attendance of 3 octagenarian widows and the pastor and laestadian parishes were pretty well separated.
Geographically, sure. However - and since I'm not a Lutheran and not from the Laestadian areas, my knowledge is pretty limited - my understanding is that most actual "Laestadian" activity does not happen in the formal church structures but in their own conventicles (I hadn't heard of this English term before, or perhaps I had but hadn't looked it up), which they have in common with the other Evangelical movements inside the Finnish Evangelical Lutheran Church.
Also, there are surprising cases on "cultural" Laestadianism that sometimes turn up. For instance, there's an older female reporter whose name has become byword for almost ridiculous levels of liberal pro-European cosmopolitanism and particularly Francophilia (rare in Finland, Finns tend to be Anglophiles and/or Germanophiles). However, recently, the same reporter wrote an article recommending voting for the presidential candidate of the Centre Party, a centrist pro-rural party. This befuddled me a bit until it was pointed out to me that the said reporter comes from a Laestadian background, and Laestadians have always been Centre supporters - apparently something might remain even after you leave the conventicle life.
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Notes -
One thing I genuinely wonder about re: current and future birthrates is if the selection pressures stay relatively consistent. People always talk about the current bottleneck selecting for people who still choose to reproduce under modernity but do those selection pressures change too quickly to effectively select for anything? Things have changed so radically culturally and technologically just in my short lifetime. Are current births selecting for the same type of personalities as in the 2000s? What about now vs the 2030s and 40s? Maybe the type of personality that become DINKs in the 2020s would’ve had four kids in 1990 or will in 2040. For example right now (in the US at least) actually practicing a religion makes one much more likely to reproduce but could that reverse?
I genuinely don’t know. It makes it even harder to make any serious predictions
IIRC laestadians and Dutch Calvinists have had consistently high enough to grow despite apostasy rates TFR since those countries went through the fertility transition.
It's a bit difficult to get a "true" rate of Laestadian "membership" since they're not formally a separate church but a movement inside the Finnish Evangelical-Lutheran Church (and presumably other Lutheran churches in at least other Nordic countries).
Is there no separation at all? I’d have thought conventional Finnish Lutheran parishes with a Sunday attendance of 3 octagenarian widows and the pastor and laestadian parishes were pretty well separated.
Geographically, sure. However - and since I'm not a Lutheran and not from the Laestadian areas, my knowledge is pretty limited - my understanding is that most actual "Laestadian" activity does not happen in the formal church structures but in their own conventicles (I hadn't heard of this English term before, or perhaps I had but hadn't looked it up), which they have in common with the other Evangelical movements inside the Finnish Evangelical Lutheran Church.
Also, there are surprising cases on "cultural" Laestadianism that sometimes turn up. For instance, there's an older female reporter whose name has become byword for almost ridiculous levels of liberal pro-European cosmopolitanism and particularly Francophilia (rare in Finland, Finns tend to be Anglophiles and/or Germanophiles). However, recently, the same reporter wrote an article recommending voting for the presidential candidate of the Centre Party, a centrist pro-rural party. This befuddled me a bit until it was pointed out to me that the said reporter comes from a Laestadian background, and Laestadians have always been Centre supporters - apparently something might remain even after you leave the conventicle life.
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