consensus and variation in the interpretation of religious symbolism: A Swedish example

In this study of religious symbolism among a group of Swedish Protestants, three church members are shown to attribute different meanings to certain of the group's key symbols. This raises the twofold problem of the nature of the consensus constituting the group and whether key symbols can have any uniform influence on group members' behavior when the latter hold different views about the meaning of the symbols. This analysis proposes a solution to both of these problems based on the discovery of a formal structural similarity among belief systems that are substantively different. Informants agree on the meaningfulness, if not the meaning, of key symbols. Although they see that meaningfulness as being constituted in different ways, they trace the consequences of the symbols to a similar end, that of “inner‐worldly” activism [symbolic anthropology, anthropology of religion, Christian symbolism, Protestant religious groups]