Meaningful Margins

Meaningful Margins: Christianity and Alternative Spiritual Meditation and Healing Practices at the Interface between Margins and Mainstreams research project explores how Christianity is being reimagined in Finland today through alternative spiritual meditation and healing practices such as reiki, yoga, mindfulness, and natural cures.

As traditional forms of institutional Christianity lose influence, many people are turning to new ways of caring for their bodies, minds, and spirits. Some keep Christian symbols and language close while experimenting with tools that come from global spiritual traditions. Others find Christianity entering spaces once seen as separate from the church, such as meditation groups and spiritual healing centers.

This project studies these encounters. Through media research and ethnography, we ask for e.g.:

• How do people combine Christian elements with practices like yoga, reiki, or mindfulness?
• What new meanings of “being Christian” emerge in these spaces?
• How do these innovations challenge or transform what counts as “mainstream” Christianity in Finland?

By mapping what happens at the borders between the “mainstream” and the “margins,” Meaningful Margins shows how religious life continues to shift, experiment, and reinvent itself in contemporary society.