GOD AND MAMMON IN ÄLMHULT

God and Mammon in Älmhult

Älmhult is a town in southern Småland and Sweden of about 10 000 inhabitants (the wider municipality has 15 000), quite well-known for its entrepreneurship but also for being the birthplace of IKEA, i.e. the place where its founder Ingvar Kamprad comes from.

On the 22^nd of September I went to church in this town. I had never been to there before. A church built in 1929 at the town centre in traditional style; built with two aisles, one on the northern and the other on the southern side and with the nave in the middle making up the actual worship space; people in church, of all kinds, elderly of course but also quite a number of children and their parents.

The priest (Karl-Henrik Wallerstein) impressed me. Low profile but intense, allowed the liturgy to talk, held a sermon only dwelling on the texts and the gospel of the Sunday (Luke 12.13-21). In a quiet way he proclaimed that the rich man was indeed foolish who thought that he would make a new storage place for his marvellous harvest even though he was quite old and then still have a (long,) good life with lots of drinks and delicious food. The mantra of this Sunday would be: “Take heed and beware of all covetousness; for a man’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions” (verse 15).

The preacher said at least twice, almost talking to himself: I want to emphasize that life is given to us by God; we do not own it, but it is a gift, and I wish that I will be content if I have enough to eat and a place to stay. As a consequence of this life style he also said that it is on us to share our abundance with those who do not have (like the children of Syria).

It was a good message; it was contained; it was understandable, yet not trivial; it concerned those who were there and there was a sense of holiness in the liturgical assembly.

He did not say anything about IKEA, and one can understand it. No-one would be able to criticize this phenomenon unpunished. The whole region is dependent on this company for its livelihood and even the Linnaeus University of Växjö has received a grant from Mr Kamprad to the tune of some SEK 1 000 million.

 As a newcomer I was very well received and had afterwards a chat with several of the regulars at the church coffee at the porch.

But my mission was not ended there. I had thought in my mind that I could as well pop in at the huge IKEA superstore to buy the cupboard that I had planned to get hold of. But before that I wanted to find a coffee or tea shop or what you in traditional Sweden call a konditori where I could have another nice cup of tea. But there was no such place in the centre of this town and there was no one about to ask. The place was empty, the town was dead.

So I ventured out towards east about 2 kilometres from the town centre to the IKEA superstore. It was a change of scene: people coming in their cars, families, couples, individuals. They were already there in their thousands traveling in from the whole region of southern Småland to do their Sunday outing. I walked into the shopping mall, the atmosphere was subdued, yet slightly infatuating, and came soon enough past a lunch restaurant and I think there were already about 200 people having early Sunday lunch there.

I passed the place quickly to look for my cupboard; in doing so I had to follow a prescribed route, a kind of marked out path (snitslad stig) that would take me through the store; altogether I think I walked about one kilometre.

After I while I was choked by the very immensity of the place, the thousands of goods on offer and the endless path going around the place. It was about 12h30 on Sunday and I was facing what is absolutely commonplace in many parts of the world today: a place of consumerism, material goods written in the face of people. I walked out of there without having bought anything.

The problem is that IKEA does a few good things; they are very good at design; they have made furniture accessible and affordable; they also do research into inexpensive housing that could be used in refugee camps instead of all these infamous tents (for example in the neighbouring countries of Syria).

And yet there are two reasons why IKEA is a big problem. First, it has grown too big and is now one of the very large multinational companies (like Walmart etc) making enormous profits that old Kamprad’s children now are fighting about (it is all in the gospel of the Sunday, see above); it is sheer capitalism that is staring at you; but also today this company contributes to a damaging and lamentable levelling and standardization of goods and tastes. Secondly, the very presence of IKEA means the death of many smaller enterprises, and these we need more than ever. What we need are small to middle size companies all categories and we need small towns with ordinary people walking the streets, buying what they need for their sustenance and then the possibility of having a chat and a cup of tea at the konditori. Old fashioned? So be it, but I prefer talking to someone on a street corner than doing it inside a store that has brought me in there in order to make me buy at all costs.

 
There is no doubt who has won the present round between God and Mammon in Älmhult, but a secret of this town is the wonderful church with its congregation of perhaps about a hundred regular worshippers who are ready for you and would welcome you whoever you are and from where ever you come.