Centre director Mette Birkedal Bruun in the podcast ‘Verden forsøgt forklaret’
Centre director Mette Birkedal Bruun was recently a guest on the University of Copenhagen podcast series Verden forsøgt forklaret (Attempts to explain the world) hosted by prorector and professor of law at the University of Copenhagen, Kristian Cedervall Lauta. The episode is titled Det disciplinerede liv: Frelse, helse og den gode død (The regulated life: salvation, health, and the good death). You can listen to the podcast here (in Danish), watch the live recording with subtitles below (in Danish), or read a translated transcript of the podcast here (in English).
In the interview, Mette presents her research on religious withdrawal from the world among monks in 17th-century France, highlighting certain tensions and paradoxes within the historical context that often capture her attention. For instance, religious trends of the time tended towards asceticism and withdrawal which led to a wealth of strict rules and manuals on how to live piously. However, seventeenth-century France also celebrated pomp and splendour, and it was a world characterized by a strong orientation towards rank and hierarchies, Mette explains.
When asked what we can learn from church history today, Mette replies that history can hold up a mirror before us, provoking us to think differently about our own lives and our own time. She explains in the interview:
“One of the things I like about history is that it sometimes raises some perhaps slightly provocative questions for us. Because when we look at things historically, it's very easy to frown upon how much they believed in God in the old days or something like that. But it sets up a mirror and throws a question back at us, which is, what do we believe in today, and how do we manifest this conviction in our lives?”
Following this line of thought, the striving for salvation among the 17th-century monks and their contemporaries can bring attention to dimensions of the striving for health in our society today, Mette suggests. Although she emphasizes that there is no direct correlation between the reality of the past and of the present, a historical insight into the religious life of the 17th century enables us to think about what we value as a good life in our society today. Although our relationship with death has changed immensely, we might suggest that the vision of an eternal – or at least a very long and healthy – life is still in vogue today:
“If we want to push it a bit, we could say that today the idea of eternal life has moved into earthly life whereas, back then, it was considered something outside of earthly existence. People knew life had an end. It’s almost as if perhaps we’ve lost that thought a little bit?”
Credits
Program director: Mette Holbæk
Program manager: Elisabeth Nøjgaard
Video production: Good Wind Studio
Sound production: Marco Diallo
Podcast editing: Jacob Staehelin