“Anyone who ever watched “The Immigrants” with Liv Ullman would quickly realize that friction existed between the state church in Sweden and individuals who had interests in something a bit more freeform (unspoken was the probable use of traditional household gods such as Thor, Odin, Little Red Man, and Herb Woman).”
“The Emigrants” is the 1st of a four book series written by well known Swedish Author Vilhelm Moberg.
The period covered in that volume is the early to mid 1850s, in both Sweden and in Chisago County Minnesota.
The author, Moberg, lived in Minnesota for a time, researching the people. He also lived in Carmel and in Laguna Beach, California before returning to Sweden where he eventually commited suicide.
I read all his English language works; but don’t recall mention of Mormonism, Odin, Thor, Little Red Man, or Herb Woman.
I do recall very powerful writing about the ocean crossing in a wooden vessel, the river and overland trek from New York to Minnesota, and life in Minnesota alongside wild animals, natives and other people, and a harsh environment.
Although small in number, the people of Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Iceland and Finland have made a big impact on history—far far from their homelands.
It does not surprize me they did chafe under the bit of a strict state religion.
Doing genealogy is relatiely easy for Sweden due to official records which were kept by the church, for births, baptisms, deaths and Bible proficiency.
Back to the movie, the social points made in that movie are relevant to the whole period from American Independence to probably 1900 (from the Scandinavian point of view).
Now, about residual traditional paganism ~ I'm sure it'd scandalize even modern Swedes to know that NOT EVERYBODY was a Lutheran in the late 1700s and early 1800s, nor did they even share in that particular tradition ~ plus, with the destruction of the Swedish Empire at the end of the Napoleonic Wars (1812), all sorts of Swedish subjects were SENT BACK HOME from all sorts of places where they'd picked up all sorts of unusual beliefs. Lord only knows what the Carpathian Mountain miners picked up (for example).
Then there were the non-Swedish Swedish citizens who'd never really given up the "old ways" ~ emigration was quite high in that group!
Now, to bring this back into line with Rick Warren's sudden gravitation to Swedenborgian vegetablarianism ~ I think that's something new that's been grafted onto the basic structure since the 1850s or so ~ something similar happened with Jehovah's Witness and Seventh Day Adventist in more recent times.
Rick could stand to lose some weight.