This is an essay within the subject of practical theology. The main interest is Baptism. The aim of this essay is to describe the Baptism theology of the Church of Sweden (Svenska kyrkan) and the history of the Baptism. The goal is also, with the help of qualitative research, to study the view of the Baptism with the ones who choose to let their children be baptized according to the liturgy of the Swedish Church in the diocese of Härnösand. The attempt is to give the Swedish church a pattern of action and a direction based on the result of my research.

The purpose of this study was to investigate what view of humans that emerges when priests/reverends talk about man in relation to Baptism. The study consists of qualitative interviews with four priests/reverends. There were two representatives from the church of Sweden, and two from the Pentecostal church. The aim and questions in the study focus on what view of humans that emerges. Will there be similarities and differences in the view of humans, and is it possible to refer the result to the respective church.

?Life on a delicate thread?Baptism and godparenting in Bottnaryd and Ulricehamn 1781-1783The aim of this study is to discover if there were differences between the Baptism traditions maintained in a typical rural parish and in an urban town parish in the period 1781-1783 and to suggest possible reasons for any differences found. Baptism records from rural Bottnaryd parish and the town of Ulricehamn were studied and compared. In both communities, parents were anxious to have their child christened on the day of birth or the day after. They did not want to wait until the following Sunday, as church law prescribed. Infant mortality was high and if the child died before it was christened, it would not go to heaven.

From being an exotic small religion that has existed at a fading presence in southern Iraq and Iran mandeism has moved to the West and Sweden. As more and more Mandaeans encounter a new culture and a new society in Sweden it affects not only them as individuals but also their religion mandeism. In this essay, I have begun to examine how Mandaeans think about their identity and religion. I have taken my starting point in a broad theoretical discussion of identity, religion and secularisation. Mandeism is a gnostic religion that probably has its roots in today?s Israel / Palestine and sees John the Baptist as the last prophet.

Christendom has under a long period of time in Swedish history been the central component in legitimating the monarchs' power, a continuous process than can be clearly observed through the customs of royal coronation and Baptism rites. However, during the 20th century those close ties between the state and the church of Sweden have been dissolving at a steady rate, alongside a growing societal democratization and modernization process. Officially the monarch still had a clear constitutional power legitimated through the transcendent, but unofficially his power was in reality heavily reduced. How do the Swedish monarchy relate to a rapidly changing society and secularization process? This pilot study investigates this relation by analyzing the news reports of the royal coronation and Baptism rites between 1858 and 2012 from two leading newspapers, Aftonbladet and Dagens Nyheter.

En undersökning och diskussion av motiv för att döpa barn, med fokus på Svenska kyrkan. Motiven studeras från tre olika aktörers perspektiv: 1) Traditionen, framförallt den lutherska reformatoriska traditionen, 2) Svenska kyrkans nutida lära och reflektion, samt 3) De föräldrar som valt att låta döpa sina barn. En stor spänning blir synlig i skillnaden mellan dopföräldrarnas syn på dopet och de övriga två aktörernas dopsyn. Men även mellan traditionen och Svenska kyrkans nutida lära finns avgörande skillnader, framförallt vad gäller synen på människan och på dopets eventuella nödvändighet. Två möjliga vägar framåt diskuteras; dels vad det skulle innebära att tydligare lyfta fram berättelserna om Jesu dop som modell för det kristna dopet, dels hur liturgin i gudstjänsten kan ses som ett kommunikativt växelspel..

This essay aims to explore continuity in water centric cult within the period of the Christianization of Scandinavia (ca 800-1100 AD) and to understand the changing of symbolism of water in pre-Christian cult and early Christian religion. It has previously been thought that Christian priests took over the old holy wells and renamed them after saint, all to ease the pagan people into a Christian lifestyle. But archaeological evidence shows that the cult at these wells, and other water centric sites, where almost completely abandoned a few hundred years before the Christians came to Scandinavia. The Christians should not have felt the need to transform this tradition since it was only practiced in a very small and supposedly private scale. On the contrary, religious activities at these wells seems to increase with the new religion and perhaps this is explained by Christianity itself.

The purpose of this essay is to shed light upon the ecumenical work that has been done between the Church of Sweden and the Mission Covenant Church of Sweden. The recent years of work have led to a recommendation for a certain degree of fellowship to be established between those churches. This proposal as well as other documents are analysed in the essay from an ecclesio-logical point of view, to find out how the Church of Sweden looks upon itself in meeting another church.To structure the material, the essay has been subdivided into seven parts that is related to ecclesiology. In those seven chapters the positions of the Church of Sweden and the Mission Covenant Church of Sweden are given individually as well as in common. Questions like the im-portance of dioceses, local congregations or parishes and the national level are described.

Denna uppsats syftar till att undersöka hur nyblivna föräldrar i Sverigeargumenterar för att antingen döpa eller inte döpa sitt eller sina barn. Studienbaseras på semistrukturerade intervjuer. Dessa intervjuer fokuserar påföräldrarnas huvudargument. Intervjuerna har sedan kodats och kategoriseratsför att finna likheter och mönster. Föräldrarna som valde att döpa sina barnvar mer flexibla i sin syn på dopet som religiös handling och fokuserar iställetpå religion.

In this essay the renewal of the modern sacred art has been examined through the creation of three works of art from the art project ?Kyrkorummet?. The aim has been to show that renewal of the modern sacred art is best accomplished by the combination of the artist history and Bible knowledge and the open mindness of the beholder towards the new and creative, in order to communicate the gospel in modern time.The large extend of the art project demanded a selection of the art works. Therefore, three were chosen and they show the last supper and the Baptism in a renewal way including both symbolism and creativity. To complete and facilitate the analyses, a theme, light and water, have been used as well as relevant theories in art history with Kandinsky as main art critic.Through the art project and it?s teaching, history in combination with present time through visits in different and modern churches, thoughts have been stimulated and the result has been new works of art that speaks of our time.

Uppsatsens frågeställning: Jag vill ta reda på hur initiationen in i den kristna tron sker och hur människan tar emot den helige Ande. Bakgrunden till detta är den pingstteologisk inställningen, att man först blir kristen och sedan döpt i helig Ande. Beskriver Bibeln, och framför allt Apostlagärningarna den kristna initiationen på detta sätt? Vad innebär det för dem som lever i det nya förbundet att ha den helige Ande och vara döpt i helig Ande?Slutsats: Läran om dop i helig Ande som en tvåstegsinitiation måste avfärdas. Dopet i helig Ande går hand i hand med syndernas förlåtelse som svar på omvändelse och dop.

In this paper I aimed to explore the bodily experiences and expressions that Christian charismatics interpret as religious.  The so-called presence of God and the so-called gifts of the spirit were in focus in the gathering of information. My purpose was to find out how the social community of the Christian charismatics affects the subjective bodily experiences that are interpreted as religious by the individual. The main questions were:1: How do Christian charismatics describe religious experiences and their effect on the body?2: What bodily expressions of religious experience can be observed in Christian charismatic contexts?3: Is there a common way of expressing the experience of God's presence (individually or in a group) and how, in this case, can any resemblance be explained?The methods used to answer these questions were qualitative interviews and participant observations, which then were analyzed by the anthropologist Thomas J. Csordas theory of embodiment.

Det övergripande syftet med denna uppsats har varit att undersöka Baptismens framväxt, genombrott och utveckling under perioden 1850-1910. I anslutning till detta har jag även studerat Baptismens etablering på nationell nivå. De frågeställningar som har utformats i anknytning till syftet har varit; När, varför och genom vilka uppkom Baptismen i Piteå? Vilka människor kom att ansluta sig till Baptismen i Piteå? Vilka orsaker fanns till Baptismens förändring och utveckling på lokal nivå? Den metod som använts för att undersöka dessa aspekter har varit i huvudsak kvalitativ, där studiet av material i form av medlemsmatriklar, församlingsprotokoll, minnes- och årsskrifter samt relevant litteratur och avhandlingar använts. Resultatet av studien visar att den svenska baptiströrelsen har sin bakgrund i Amerika, England och Tyskland, och att den spreds till vårt land därifrån.

The main aim of my research essay is to examine two congregations, one in Sweden and one in Democratic Republic of Congo, how theology and the life in the church shape the cultural context. The analysis uses semi-structured interviews of two pastors responsible for organizing the Easter celebration in their churches. The interviews serve the purpose to reveal how they apply theology in their context, how they interpret the Easter celebration liturgically in relation to the early church and how they perceive the cultural development in the congregations Easter celebration 2010-11. To give complementary insights to the interviews I use computer-aided interviews with members of the congregations. The methodological approach is based on a study of contextual theological theories, Easter traditions in the early church, Easter theologies and then applying these theories in the interviews.

Från att ha varit en exotisk liten religion som har fört en tynande närvaro i södra Irak och Iran har mandeismen flyttat till västvärlden och däribland Sverige. När allt fler mandéer möter en ny kultur och ett nytt samhälle i Sverige påverkar det inte bara dem som individer utan även religionen mandeism. I denna uppsats har jag påbörjat att undersöka hur mandéer ser på sin identitet och religion. Jag har tagit min utgångspunkt i en bred teoretisk diskussion om identitet, religion och sekualisering. Mandeismen är en gnostisk religion som troligtvis har sina rötter i dagens Israel/Palestina och ser Johannes döparen som den sista profeten.