This Master?s thesis concerns the information behaviour of pastors in nonconformist churches (especially new evangelical and Baptist church communions) in Sweden in their spiritual service to the local parish. The thesis also looks into how the information flow functions in the pastors? context and why the information need appears as it does. The theory used in this study is contextual analysis based on Buckland?s, Weber?s and Patrick Wilson?s theories on authority and power structures.

The following essay is named The canonization of Joan of Arc, a Church political strategy or the creation of a national symbol? Joan of Arc, the French heroine of the Hundred Years War, was canonized as late as 1920, in a process that began already in 1869. In the following essay I am trying to work out if this canonization is a work of the Vatican in order to gain popularity in France after the breakup with the state in 1905. The Catholic Church had, since the French Revolution, faced difficulties withstanding its position of power in the presence of the upcoming Secularism and Liberalism and their growing public support. The Catholic Church had been fighting for its members and at the same time fighting the new ideas of Socialism, Communism and Liberalism.

In the medieval ruling catholic time the church walls was swarmed with programs of pictures with religious motives there the animal figures rich symbolics was significant first and foremost for the illiterate. Principally the inspiration comes from the antiquitys pagan world of fables and bestiary Christian world of symbols with the bible as the essential source. The essay describes six of the most common animal symbols who occur; dragon, the sneak in the Paradise, mouth of hell, lion, the fox as a preacher and the devil.To attain to a discussion about why just animals are used as symbols for human characteristics in the medieval church art instead for human beings as it's actually be about, I have studied bestiary and other literature about medieval churchpainting to get an understanding about the history of ideas about the thoughts of the time and about symbolics of animals, worth and how the Christianity have had an influence on the pictures.I have used Johannes Rosenrods church pictures from Tensta church in Uppland from 1437 as an exemplification but also mentioned other unknown painters who used similar animal codes and motives.It's plausible that the purpose of the animal figures was both religious and political, which was used by both the spiritual and the worldly authority so they could keep their dominance over the peasant. The figures was simple to read and remember and they made a deep impression on the people together with the sermon. The churchgoer get so to speak a sound- and image experience, a medieval reality who impress their world of ideas.When it's about the artistic formation of religious expression and characteristics it was undoubtedly a great advantage for the artists to use an animal code like a schemata.

This essay is an attempt in analysing the establishment of the first Early Middle Ages castles in Scania. There are two types of castles in Scania during the eleventh century, keeps andringworks. This castle was built by three fixed elements of power: the crown, the church and the aristocracy. The result of the survey shows that A majority of the castles during theeleventh century in Scania where initiated by the church.The results also show two building phases of castles under the period. The first building phase begins in middle of the eleventh century and the second building phase begins in theperiod 1180- 1200.

Churches are seen as one of Sweden's most valuable cultural heritage. They bear witness to a living tradition and gives us knowledge of society at large and therefore people's lives at different times. These buildings possesses a high value, which is shared by the vast majority, and they are protected by law. The concept of modern churches is in this essay the churches built after 1940, which is not covered by law. The older churches has therefore a cultural and historical value which the modern churches lack.About 600 churches are built after the year of 1940 and the total number of churches in the country is 3400.

The purpose with this essay is to study if the exhibition, Maria-Drömmen om kvinnan has a gender perspective and if it contributes to the history of art. The study shows what kind of women the exhibition illustrates and what kind of perspective it has. By telling about the black Madonna I also show that there is another representation of the middle age women in the Roman Catholic Church at this time that the exhibition not have included. The study is also going to illustrate the difference between a genderperspektiv in art and a women?s perspective.

With this study we aim to learn more about the relationship between digitalization and the swedish church. We have interviewed two priests and two other persons ? one who got married about five years ago, and one who, at the time of writing, is getting married in a few weeks. In addition to the interviews we found some earlier research that were relevant to us, which we read and compared to the empirics we got from the interviews. In our study we have taken qualitative research into practice since we want our interviewees to really share their points of view on the organisation?s usage of digital media.

This essay is about human beings. These human beings in particular are priests and LGBTQ-persons who work in the Swedish Church in Växjö diocese. During research I have conducted qualitative interviews with people who are LGBTQ-persons and work as priests in Växjö diocese. These interviews have been analyzed through queer theory and Mary Douglas theory about anomalia.My aim with this essay is to find out what it means to be a LGBTQ- person and work as a priest in this diocese.I wanted to learn more about where the difficulties lie. How the priests are treated by others and how they see themselves.

Faith is a phenomenon that engages the individual into emotional, social and daily manners.Religion tends to engage the individual in different levels in the daily life. In the church communion, there is a belief to the traditional and the repeteated behaviour. This shared group is strength by ceremonies and rituals and people in this collective somehow experience another type of reality. This study has a social - psychological perspective and the purpose is to study people?s know-how of faith and why they seek religion in today´s secularized society.

Within this essay a study is made of an LGBTQ-orientated Christian service in Stockholm called Queer Service. The following questions seek to be answered: What reasons does an individual set for his/hers participation in Queer Service? Which aspects of a queer service highlight the participants as important to them?As a method to answer these questions, the author has observed a number of queer church services in autumn of 2012. Moreover communication within the group of the assembly on the social media page Facebook has been followed and five individuals from the Queer Service congregation have been interviewed. As a background to the study, the European religious climate seen from Grace Davies eyes is depicted.  The reader also learns of how the Swedish church has handled questions about homosexuality and bisexuality and what liberation theology is.

This essay examines the using of consensus method for decision making within the World Council of Churches (WCC) and the process that led to the decision to adopt its usage. The main question of my essay is why the method was introduced to the WCC and what motives lay behind its introduction. Other questions are how the consensus method works; both in theory and in practice, and what the predecessors and prototypes for the method are.The consensus method belongs to a broad Christian tradition of spiritual discernment and spiritual decision making. The New Testament, in particular Acts, gives examples of decision making in the early church which show that discerning God's will was considered essential. However the most influential model for the consensus method have been the decision making process of the Religious Society of Friends or Quakers, and also the consensus model of the Uniting Church in Australia.

Denna uppsats består av en jämförande studie av två ärkebiskopar ? KG Hammar (Svenska kyrkan) och Rowan Williams (Church of England) - ur ett postmodernt teologiskt perspektiv. Syftet var att söka finna postmoderna influenser hos de båda ärkebiskoparna i såväl teori som praktik och undersöka konsekvenserna av ett postmodernt teologiskt agerande.  Undersökningen visade att båda ärkebiskoparna influerades av postmodern teologi i teorin. Hammar förde också som ärkebiskop fram sina personliga postmoderna insikter, medan Williams av olika anledningar generellt valde att endast föra fram kyrkans åsikt. Båda handlingsalternativen medförde såväl kritik som uppskattning.

Our purpose was to investigate if Swedish University educated social workers, living as active Christians, in any way might be influenced by Christian values. The main questions; Can Christian values be a factor in the choice of career to become a social worker? How does a personal belief in Christ impact the relationship towards the clients? Is Christian belief a support in the work? In this paper we used a qualitative method and interviewed eight persons, with a background as above, four of them employed by a church organisation and the other four working in the social sector. The result we present is that the eight Christian social workers Christian belief influenced their work very individually. How much this supported them was a choice about how official and open they wanted Christian values to be.

Uppsats för avläggande av filosofie kandidatexamen iKulturvård, Konservatorprogrammet15 hpInstitutionen för kulturvårdGöteborgs universitet2014:43.

Unlike previous research, this thesis considers the possibility of regarding the morning prayers in Swedish schools as preaching, rather than teaching. 28 morning prayers, delivered in the church of S:t Johannes in the city of Malmö during 1939-1954 by the religious teacher Astri Heimer (1889-1986), constitutes the material for analysis. The purpose of this thesis is to examine if Heimer's morning prayers may be regarded as preaching, and to discuss the significance of this, in particular considering her role as leader of morning prayers.The examination is conducted in three steps. The first step investigates how morning prayers in general ought to be understood - as teaching or preaching? This is done by describing and comparing the literary genres of religious teaching and preaching, looking into the rules and principles which define the field of application.