The Church of Sweden has in recent years offered activities such as Christian deep medita-tion, mindfulness and health days. This may be a way for the Church of Sweden to reach the modern man who would not otherwise have come to the church, but there are critics who argue that new spirituality has made its entry in the Church of Sweden. The phenomenon of Christian deep meditation has become increasingly common in the Church of Sweden. In order to satisfy my curiosity about what a Christian deep meditation is, I decided to write an essay about this. My question is as follows: How important is Christian deep meditation as a religious practice in the Church of Sweden? This essay is a qualitative study and I have cho-sen to perform eight pieces of interviews, two of them are recorded.

The purpose of this study was to try to develop a better understanding of the process that being a member in a new religious movement might imply, and to find out how the identity of a defector changes from the time upon entering the movement, while they are within the movement and after leaving the movement. We also wanted to examine what kind of help and support would be needed around a defection. The study focuses on identity and our questions were: How does the defector describe him/herself and his/her identity before joining the new religious movement until the period after defecting? What demand for support and help may there be when defecting from new religious movement? The theoretical starting point was The Identity Theory, Structural Role Theory and KASAM. A qualitative method was used and four defectors from new religious movements were interviewed.

The study explores collective action in Sweden between 1980 to 1995 using time-series data from the European Protest and Coercion Database. In spite of severe hardship during the crisis of the early 1990s, Swedish strike-rates declined. However, contention merely shifted from workplaces into the streets; there was indeed a protest movement against austerity, as shown by a series of large demonstrations, and some riots, between 1989 and 1993. Further analysis indicates this movement faded as it was increasingly chanelled into the electoral campaign of the labor pary; having won the 1994 election, the organised labor movement no longer had an interest in sustaining the protest movement against austerity..

The aim of this essay is to investigate the murals in the church of Arbrå, what they portrait and how they can be linked to medieval typology as described in Biblia Pauperum (BP), the Poor Man?s Bible. The aim is also to find out what the purpose was to paint medieval churches and what the function of the paintings was. Arbrå Church was painted around 1520-1530, and almost all of the motifs from the Old Testament can be directly traced back to BP as can one motif from the New Testament. Together these paintings represent most of the important events which make out the foundation of the Christian Cult.

The period of church awakening in Sweden during the first half of the nineteenth century, has had a great influence on the Swedish society. During that time certain persons are to be noticed. Peter Fjellstedt and Peter Wieselgren, priests in the Swedish Church, are among those who were of special importance. But even the British preacher George Scott and later the Swedish layman Carl-Olof Rosenius became aware of the importance of networking. They all felt a call from God to preach a message of redemption and restoration.

This study deals with questions about male and female, power and church, related to the Mariologies of three prominent leaders in the Church of Sweden in the last century: Erling Eidem, Paulina Mariadotter and Cristina Grenholm. The mentioned topics are important for conservative High Church people as well as for radical feminists, and they are therefore necessary to address in the context of discussions about the church´s identity and the search of greater unity.Each Mariology is related to contemporary ideas about the relations between male and female, and to the tradition of the church as the leaders themselves see it. During the years 1920-2010 the relations between the sexes changed a lot as a result of the impact of modernity, which also affected how people perceived the relationship between the individual and the tradition/authorities. The present study concludes that there is a connection between Mariology and contemporary ideas about male and female. However, the Mariologist´s attitude to the tradition of the church seems to decide which perspective is allowed to dominate.

The economic growth we have experienced the last century is based on limited natural resources. Whether these resources will last for a further economic growth is widely debated. Pessimism and optimism have each been influential philosophies in debate whose opinions can be conceded as two opposing opinions. In this paper we have analyze these opinions from an economics perspective. To study this further, the construction and meaning of the pessimistic and optimistic arguments have been applied implicitly on the Leontief production function and the Solow growth model.

This study discloses the responsibility of social work for the Swedish welfare state respective deacons in the Swedish protestant church, which roll the Swedish protestant church have in the existent welfare and also if deacons experience any expectations and how these expectations in that case are expressed.The aim of this study was to investigate the relationbetween deacons working within the Swedish protestant church and social work, as it appears for professional deacons. The method of investigating the questions raised by the aim of this study has been qualitative analysis of answers derived from six deacons working in different workplaces. The data derived from these interviews was then analysed through the theory of Gösta Esping-Andersen about welfare states and also through background research and earlier science research about the social work within the Swedish protestant church and other social work. The result of the study show that the welfare state in Sweden has the comprehensive responsibility for the citizens. Deacons working within the Swedish protestant church does not have the same responsibility.

This essay is about Skelleftea church town which is named Bonnstan and refers to the city for farmers. Originally, its mission was to function as temporary residence for long distance travelers of the villages, during weekends intended for religious gatherings. Bonnstan have furthermore periodically and in lesser extent been used as permanently abode for domestic workers. Nowadays the area consists of 114 cottages with nearly 400 chambers.The earliest known documentation of Skelleftea church town's existence is from the 17th century even though it may have its origin from the Middle Ages. These early church cottages burnt down in 1835 and were restored two years after the accident.

The purpose of this thesis is to investigate the relationship between urban transformation and the occupation movement in Sweden, aiming to identify the movement's characteristics and comprehend its changes over time. By analyzing qualitative material collected from occupants active within a span from the 1980 to the present, we examine how the occupation movement has evolved. We investigate the motivations behind the movement, the lifestyle of occupants, and their potential gains to get a better understanding of the culture. We explore the prefigurative politics of the resistance where occupant activists create alternative lifestyles aligned with their desired future, bypassing the wait for broader societal changes. Finally we inquire the current possibilities of creating and defending meaningful urban spaces and social scenes..

The aim of this paper is to take a critical look at retouching of medieval mural paintings inSweden. This is done by firstly examining the different methods of retouching, including thematerials used. Secondary it tries to answer the question of which intentions have guided theconservator?s decisions dealing with the retouching. The medieval mural paintings in Swedishchurches have three major functions today.

The study explores collective action in Sweden between 1980 to 1995 using time-series data from the European Protest and Coercion Database. In spite of severe hardship during the crisis of the early 1990s, Swedish strike-rates declined. However, contention merely shifted from workplaces into the streets; there was indeed a protest movement against austerity, as shown by a series of large demonstrations, and some riots, between 1989 and 1993. Further analysis indicates this movement faded as it was increasingly chanelled into the electoral campaign of the labor pary; having won the 1994 election, the organised labor movement no longer had an interest in sustaining the protest movement against austerity..

Through the lenses of religion?s role in society, the purpose of this thesis is to examine, the role of the Church of Sweden in providing support to people at the end of life. Questions asked are:  "What types of spiritual support is offered by the Church of Sweden during terminal care provided in patients' homes and how is this support expressed in church orders, assembly instructions, plans of operations and congregation letters?" and " How can the work of the Church of Sweden be understood, based on theories of religion's role in society? The method used is a content analysis of the Church Order, assembly instructions, plans of operations and congregation letters in 17 different congregations within the diocese of Lund. I then engage in a discussion with theories on differentiation and the privatization of religion as a means to interpret my results.

Archbishop KG Hammar has attracted attention for his liberal position in theology. His view on the role of language and communication is central in several books and articles he has published as leader of the Church of Sweden. One of his main theses is the fact that meaning is created in the encounter between text and reader. He often reiterates: God is relation. This non-traditional dynamic stance has a broad impact not only on theology.

The Purpose of this essay is to seek an answer to whether or not a conflict exists between priests of the Assyrian Church, the Syrian Orthodox Church and the Coptic Church in contemporary Swedish society, as well as to examine the environment between the three. The theological dissimilarities will be studied (from a historical standpoint), along with the interviewed participants views on the division in Christianity which will be presented also. I choose to interview six priests/chorbishops who live and work in Sweden, and the result was analyzed according to the senior professor of peace- and conflict, Peter Wallensteen?s theories on conflict and conflict resolution, where important issues are laid out to identify the core problem, and theological differences are discussed and compared from a union perspective.The result of the interviews illustrate a clear response that the participants experience a lack of functioning collaborations (from the Assyrians Church view, a collaboration is absent from the Syrian Orthodox Church and the Coptic Church, and vice versa) and most of the participants experience negative consequences from the divide in churches, as they strive for unity in Christianity as a whole. The theological differences between the churches proves not to be as significant as expected, the actual predicament lies partly in language-and phrase division along with a general rejection of each other?s interpretations.