Religion in Norway

Norwegians are registered at baptism as members of the Church of Norway, many remain in the state church to be able to use services such as baptism, confirmation, marriage and burial, rites which have strong cultural standing in Norway.

79.2% of Norwegians were members of the state Church of Norway as of January 1, 2010, a 1% drop compared to the year before and down nearly 3% from two years earlier. However, only 20% of Norwegians say that religion occupies an important place in their life (according to a recent Gallup poll), making Norway one of the most secular countries of the world (only in Estonia, Sweden and Denmark were the percentage of people who considered religion to be important lower). In the early 1990s, it was estimated that between 4.7% – 5.3% of Norwegians attended church on a weekly basis. This low figure dropped to a mere 2% by 2008, putting Norway at the bottom of the church attendance rankings in Europe In 2010, Norway statistics reported still a further drop in church attendance during 2009 According to the Eurobarometer Poll 2005, at that time 32% of Norwegian citizens responded that "they believe there is a god. This aligns with another study by Gustafsson and Pettersson (2002), according to which 72% of Norwegians do not believe in a 'personal God.'

Just above 10% of the population is unaffiliated (per 1 January 2010, 79.2% were members of the Church of Norway. Another 9%, or 431 000, were members of religious and life stance communities outside the Church of Norway as per 1 January 2009). Other Christian denominations total about 4.9% of the population, the largest of which is the Catholic Church, with 57,000 members.Others include Pentecostals (39,600), the Evangelical Lutheran Free Church of Norway (19,300), Methodists (11,000), Baptists (9,400), Orthodox (7,700) Adventists (5,100), Assyrians and Chaldeans, and others. The Swedish, Finnish and Icelandic Lutheran congregations in Norway have about 22,500 members in total. Other religions comprise less than 1% each, including the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and 15,000 Jehovah's Witnesses.

Among non-Christian religions, Islam is the largest, representing about 1.5% of the population. It is practiced mainly by Somali, Arab, Albanian, and Turkish immigrants, as well as Norwegians of Pakistani descent. Other religions comprise less than 1% each, including 803 adherents of Judaism. Indian immigrants introduced Hinduism to Norway, which in 2009 has slightly more than 5,200 adherents, or 1% of non-Lutheran Norwegians. There are eleven Buddhist organizations, grouped under the Buddhistforbundet organization, with slightly over 12,000 members, which make up 0.42% of the population. The Baha'i religion has slightly more than 1,000 adherents. Sikhism has 2,700. Around 1.5% of Norwegians adhere to the secular Norwegian Humanist Association.