Religion
Most Bernese are Protestant (as of 2000, 67%), and most Protestants belong to the Swiss Reformed Church, which is officially recognised as a state church (German: Landeskirche), although it is autonomous in its governance and is organised along democratic principles. The canton is also home to a great number of small Evangelical Christian denominations unaffiliated with the state church. Bernese evangelical groups are mostly found in the Emmental and Berner Oberland, where they have a long tradition; several contemporary American religious groups, such as the Amish and Mennonites, were founded or co-founded by Bernese emigrants to the United States. Two small Evangelical political parties are represented in the Bernese cantonal parliament.
Bern features substantial Roman Catholic (16%) and Christian Catholic minorities. These churches also have state church status, and the small Jewish community is similarly recognised by law. As everywhere in Switzerland, there are also significant religious communities of immigrants, including Sikhs (who have a prominent Gurdwara, or temple, in Langenthal), The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (who have built the Bern Switzerland Temple) and Muslims. As of 2006, the plans to expand a backyard mosque in Langenthal with a symbolic minaret have, as elsewhere in Switzerland, caused a public stir due to vocal opposition from local conservative and evangelical leaders.
From the 2000 census, 607,358 or 63.5% belonged to the Swiss Reformed Church, while 153,357 or 16.0% were Roman Catholic. Of the rest of the population, there were 9,153 members of an Orthodox church (or about 0.96% of the population), there were 1,064 individuals (or about 0.11% of the population) who belonged to the Christian Catholic Church, and there were 71,233 individuals (or about 7.44% of the population) who belonged to another Christian church. There were 807 individuals (or about 0.08% of the population) who were Jewish, and 28,377 (or about 2.96% of the population) who were Islamic. There were 2,662 individuals who were Buddhist, 5,991 individuals who were Hindu and 913 individuals who belonged to another church. 74,162 (or about 7.75% of the population) belonged to no church, are agnostic or atheist, and 37,059 individuals (or about 3.87% of the population) did not answer the question.
Read more about this topic: Canton Of Bern
Famous quotes containing the word religion:
“Is there any religion but this, to know, that, wherever in the wide desert of being, the holy sentiment we cherish has opened into a flower, it blooms for me? If none sees it, I see it; I am aware, if I alone, of the greatness of the fact. Whilst it blooms, I will keep sabbath or holy time, and suspend my gloom, and my folly and jokes.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The great word Evolution had not yet, in 1860, made a new religion of history, but the old religion had preached the same doctrine for a thousand years without finding in the entire history of Rome anything but flat contradiction.”
—Henry Brooks Adams (1838–1918)
“The great end of all religion ... is to purify our hearts—and conquer our passions—and in a word, to make us wiser and better men—better neighbours—better citizens—and better servants of GOD.”
—Laurence Sterne (1713–1768)