The other day I was discussing with a friend whether Finland is more religious than Spain. The conversation came up because her son’s rippikoulu — the Lutheran confirmation rite — was approaching. She disagreed with me: ‘Finland isn’t religious,’ she said. ‘It’s just something people do.’
And she’s not wrong. On the surface, Finland appears far less religious than Spain. There are no saints in the streets, no processions, no religious names on people or places. Even the churches themselves are quiet and understated. Religion here seems to be something private — or possibly irrelevant.
But the numbers tell a different story. A high proportion of Finns — over sixty percent — are still formal members of the Lutheran Church, even if most do not actively believe or practise. In Spain, that figure is lower. The number of practising Catholics is smaller still, and most weddings today are civil. In that sense, Spain has become a country where religious participation is a matter of conscious choice. In Finland, it seems more like something still imposed — quietly, automatically.
My story
I grew up in Spain during the 1980s and ’90s. My parents came from a small village where the Church still held a strong presence, and like many people of their generation, they married in church and had their children baptised. But when they moved to the city and began working in government jobs, something shifted. I remember going to Mass with my mother as a child. And then, one day, we simply stopped going. Nothing was said. It just faded out of our lives.
When I was around eight or nine, my mother asked me if I wanted to do my first communion. Some of my friends were doing it, but I refused, and that decision was respected. Looking back, I think that was a meaningful moment, a step towards freedom. I didn’t realise it at the time, but my parents’ willingness to ask, rather than impose, must have shaped me. I associate that moment with a basic empathy for children that I continue to value today.
In Finland, things have been different, unfortunately. After more than fifteen years living here, I still find myself surprised by how homogeneous the country is — culturally, socially, even emotionally. And how children go through rippikoulu makes that particularly clear.
Nearly every teenager attends. They spend a week at confirmation camp, then stand at the altar in white robes, receive a Bible verse, and are confirmed — regardless of whether they or their parents believe in God. Many parents who are not religious at all still enrol their children, because ‘that’s what everyone does.’ That unspoken command seems to guide much of children’s lives in this supposedly Western, liberal society. Nothing like this happened to me thirty years ago. We were mostly left alone by our parents to pursue our life projects.
It’s not that people are forced here. On the contrary, Finland often shows more respect for personal integrity and individuality than Spain — I noticed that clearly during the pandemic. But the pressure operates at a subtler level. If everyone else is doing something, and no one is visibly doing otherwise, then opting out begins to feel like a risk. You don’t want your child to be the only one left out. You don’t want to make things harder for them later — socially, relationally — even if nothing visibly goes wrong. And whether anyone says it aloud or not, rippikoulu still functions as a kind of symbolic certification. It marks you as someone who belongs.
But belonging in what?
At the confirmation celebration, my friend’s son had his first sip of alcohol — at least officially. That might seem innocent — even quaint — until you consider the cultural context. Finland is a country where alcohol is tightly regulated, morally fraught, and publicly discouraged. And yet, there it was: his first drink, sanctioned by family, offered in a Church-framed ritual. The blood of Christ, you might say. That’s when I realised: it’s not so much religion being passed on — it’s access to the forbidden.
Indeed, underneath those white robes, the girls were dressed in a sexually suggestive way. These were the eligible ones, on display, initiating one another into adult roles. The boys, now ‘confirmed’, were being marked not just as moral agents, but as future sex partners — future husbands, fathers, inheritors of the line, everso cherished by their grandmothers.
And suddenly it was all clear to me: people in Finland no longer need religious faith, but they still need to get laid and not feel guilty about it. The ritual prepares children for in-group mating, quietly linking belonging to desire, and desire to conformity. The real fear is not of hell or sin. It’s of not being ‘loved’. Not getting married. Not being chosen as someone worthy of sex and reproduction — particularly by those who raised you.
So, rippikoulu is part of a classic domestication scheme that refuses to die in the wake of liberalism, individual freedom, and the increasing respect for children. It is a way of channelling desire back to ‘God’ — the familiar, the acceptable, the parentally endorsed. The result is a system that looks peaceful and free on the outside, but may be profoundly limiting inside. A recipe, if I may say, for personal crises, especially for those who realise — often too late — that they never really had a choice.
This is why I told my friend — who is officially my wife — that we should really avoid sending our children there or yielding to similar pressures. She disagreed.