The discussion concerning what role the church and theology should have in a modern, western society is a question that is ongoing in Sweden as well as in other countries. The present; American theologians Stanley Hauerwas and Max L. Stackhouse have different ideas concerning the identity of the church and theology as well as their relation to the society they are in. This essay surveys their views on the church and the theology and how they should relate to the society. Hauerwas focuses his theology on the church, and the first part of the essay deals with his view on what makes a church, how it differs from the rest of the world and what the church?s calling is.

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.

For almost a century the debate about women as ordained servants in the Church of Sweden has raged on and on. The decision to open up the priesthood for both genders in 1958 was a milestone in the women?s liberation movement as well as it marks an important time in the church history. The debate has mainly been about how to interpret scripture, who has the right to do so, and so on. Feminist theology has become one way in recent decades to paint a wider and more nuanced picture of history and how to interpret the texts often used to repress women.This essay surveys some of the steps towards that decision, as well as it paints a rough picture of what leadership among women in the church could involve before ordination became an option.

In this study, we looked at how balanced the various christian denominations in Sweden were raised in the news, on the basis of the requirement for balanced reporting. To measure the balance, we utilized Harcup and O'Neill?s news values and studied to what degree these values occurs in association with news articles that address the various denominations. The following denominations were selected for this study; Word of Life, the Pentecostal Church, Jehovah's witnesses, the Catholic Church, the Salvation Army and the Swedish Church. These denominations were then studied on the basis of news values in four of Sweden?s largest news organisations, in terms of audience numbers.

For almost a century the debate about women as ordained servants in the Church of Sweden has raged on and on. The decision to open up the priesthood for both genders in 1958 was a milestone in the women?s liberation movement as well as it marks an important time in the church history. The debate has mainly been about how to interpret scripture, who has the right to do so, and so on. Feminist theology has become one way in recent decades to paint a wider and more nuanced picture of history and how to interpret the texts often used to repress women.This essay surveys some of the steps towards that decision, as well as it paints a rough picture of what leadership among women in the church could involve before ordination became an option.

For almost a century the debate about women as ordained servants in the Church of Sweden has raged on and on. The decision to open up the priesthood for both genders in 1958 was a milestone in the women?s liberation movement as well as it marks an important time in the church history. The debate has mainly been about how to interpret scripture, who has the right to do so, and so on. Feminist theology has become one way in recent decades to paint a wider and more nuanced picture of history and how to interpret the texts often used to repress women.This essay surveys some of the steps towards that decision, as well as it paints a rough picture of what leadership among women in the church could involve before ordination became an option.

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.

This essay studies the christening rites in Church of Sweden and what theological motives that are present herein, and how the current revision of the rites have brought in new theological motives with the basis in the contemporary theological debate about the liturgy and theology surrounding the christening rites.The conclusion of the essay is that the revised christening rites have not included any new motives, but has rather restructured and re-emphasized the motives to adopt the christening rites to the findings of contemporary research regarding the christening..

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.

AbstractAim: The aim of this essay has been to study how the Swedish church has created the image of their religious activity through media. This has been by studying the three commercial campaigns launched by the Swedish church during the years 2000, 2001 and 2003. Questions asked are: How has the Swedish church chosen to profile it self? Which discourses can be recognized in the campaigns? Which messages has been communicated through the campaigns? How has these discourses created the image of the Swedish church?Method: The methodological framework is critical discourse analysis inspired by Norman Faircloughs? three-dimensional model. Thirteen images all part of the campaigns are analysed using a semiotic method.

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 main discussion in this essay concern what the Emerging Church is, its sociological and theological context, their main critique of modernism and the consequences in theology and praxis. EC is not a new church but wants to be a new way of being church. In England much of the discussion concerning EC has found a context within the report Mission-Shaped Church (MSC). EC differs from Emergent Village which is a continuing discussion from a postmodern philosophical view.EC is born in an evangelical context with the tensions in the postmodern context, the liminal situation with among other items the disussion about a liquid culture and liquid church. Other backgroundfactors are the ChurchGrowth-movement, Willow Creek and the Gospel and Our Culture.EC critisizes its evangelical background and moves the center from justification to incarnation, from propostionalism, individualism, mission and activism to a theology of incarnational community life.Four different proponents are considered; Brian Mclaren, Dan Kimball, Karen Ward and Ben Edson.

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 study is based on the notion of "the postsecular society". I have identified both similar and dissimilar values within current and official publications regarding human rights and gender equality authored by the Swedish Feminist Party and the Church of Sweden. The aim of this study is to identify and review similarities and differences in values, as expressed in definitions and standpoints, and also to try to explain how it is that the actors have similar and dissimilar values. In this context I have chosen the sociologist Jürgen Habermas's theory about "the postsecular society" to increase the understanding how and why similar values within religious and secular actors are presented in, what Habermas calls, "the postsecular society". I have used a qualitative and comparative content analysis for this study. The result shows that the Swedish Feminist Party has a more humanistic view.

The aim of this paper is to describe and explain how the separation between state and church effects the power relations between state and religious groups and organizations. Former state church, The Swedish church, is in this paper, not included in the definition of religious groups. The reform (?stat-kyrka reformen?) took place between 1995 and year 2000.I?m examining if religious groups had any influence on the reform. My expectation is to give a clearer picture of religious groups and its power position in Swedish politics and society.