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.

The Middle Ages in contemporary time ? Salve City; a reconstruction in the Between Land is an essay dealing with the reconstruction of medieval Kalmar. The Salve City is a melting pot of such diverse fields as archaeology, pedagogies, reconstruction, historical tourism, regional development policy et cetera. Together, these parts form a space for research and mediation, business and pleasure, a place where commercialism and historical tourism can function alongside with history enthusiasts and entrepreneurs. Both pros and cons of the use of a reconstructed part of medieval Kalmar are debated..

In February 2005, a collection predominantly containing medieval ballads was found in the library of Växjö. The collectors were mainly George Stephens, originally from Scotland, and Gunnar Olof Hyltén-Cavallius, both active in Småland in the nineteenth century. In connection with an intital inventory of the material, Magnus Gustafsson, ethnomusicologist at Smålands Musikarkiv, marked ballads of uncertain origin with a question mark.The purpose of this essay is to investigate 22 of these marked ballads. To be able to compare them with other material we have developed a method to identify differences. By means of the method both the text and the melody are compared and in addition the differences in terms of quality and quantity are assessed.

The aim of this study is to examine the Christian community called Plymouth Brethren and how they interpret religion in relation to their entrepreneurship and business practices. The community has a strong faith in God, uses the Bible as the guiding principle in everyday life, and also has the ambition to live together within the group in seclusion from the rest of society.Based on interviews with Plymouth Brethren in the county of Småland, the study describes how they perceive the relationship between the Christian faith and entrepreneurship and practice religion in the context of their family business. As the study illustrates the Christian faith is significantly motivating their enterprises of business and the Bible is their guiding principle even when it comes to how they should run their businesses..

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.

Opera house, Stockholm, Galärvarvet, KTH, School project, Christian J.EKandidat projek: operaprogram med två operasalonger och en blackbox. .

The main purpose of this study is to explore and develop how the Christian conception of love as agape can be understood in light of feminist concerns, and how it can be cultivated in light of psychological research. Traditionally, agape has been defined as unconditional self-sacrifice for the sake of the other. Feminist theologians have highlighted repeatedly that an ethical principle of self-sacrifice might not be liberating for groups who have already internalized pressure to sacrifice their own needs for others. The main research questions are: 1) How may agape be understood in light of feminist concerns about its traditional interpretations? 2) How could a Christian community cultivate a form of agape that is responsive to feminist concerns? In order to answer these questions, the first part of the dissertation examines feminist concerns regarding discussion of agape, and then uses these concerns as a lens for analysing four themes in contemporary accounts of agape: community, care, humility, and mentalization.

The following study pertains to investigate the Christian belief in the resurrection of Jesus as it is portrayal in text books aimed at the course Religion 1 for Swedish upper secondary school. The study was carried out by looking at 12 selected books meant to function as teaching aids suitable for the course. The methodology covers both qualitative and quantitative aspects. The study shows that the topic of the resurrection is dealt with in a ratherneutral fashion. A survey of the evidence does not give credence to the notion that the textlength assigned to the resurrection, in any way gives greater importance to the resurrectionbeing of superior value as an Christian article of faith.The results are further discussed, and suggestions are given for how theresurrection of Jesus can function as a didactic tool for the purpose of teaching Christianityfor Swedish speaking upper secondary school pupils, in agreement and harmony with theSwedish syllabus.

Religion is not only manifested in the more traditional forms such as church attendance, but also in various expressions on social media. Facebook is seen by many as creating a social platform where different opinions and more unconventional discussions may flourish unlike how the traditional media convey information. Internet is therefore an interesting platform for investigating how information about religion is spread by researching religious behavior and expression. The focus of this essay is to examine visible, which includes text as a social practice, forms of religious expression shown by the discursive struggle between the Facebook-group Christian Women Against Femen and its counterpart feminist movement Femen. The essay seeks to answer how notions of femininity on the Internet are formulated and reproduced based on the discourse between these two women's movements.The essay highlights how the women?s movements, with their bodily manifestation and by their usage of words, construct and reproduce different images of gender and womanhood.

The current paper is a study of the character Christian Grey in the EL James trilogy Fifty Shades of Grey. The main aim is to find out how masculinity, sexuality and gender are constructed in this erotic fantasy. More over terms as femininity, unmanliness and gender have relevance to the study. Several studies have been done on romance novels and Harlequin in particular from a gender perspective, but few of them from a masculine point of view. Hence, no earlier study has been done on Fifty Shades of Grey with masculinity studies as the main tool of masculinity, or with theories of romance.

Christianity has for a long time played a significant role in the Swedish school system, which can be seen in the syllabus of the course religion in 2011 where Christianity got a special status and the Christian alignments were explicit named. The aim of this essay was to see whether, and if so how, Christianity and its three alignments ? Catholicism, Orthodoxy and Protestantism ? had developed a greater impact in religion textbooks for grades 7?9 adapted to Lgr 11 compared to Lpo 94 and partly to see if there had been any changes and to what extent. The main question concerned whether Christianity had a greater impact in religion textbooks adapted to Lgr 11 than Lpo 94 and how Christianity could be seen as culture-religion. The sub-questions concerned whether there was any differences in what Christianity is and to what extent Christianity were represented in religion textbooks, but also if any difference to what range the three alignments where represented. The study consisted of six religion textbooks for grades 7?9, where three were adapted to Lpo 94 and three to Lgr 11.

The purpose of this article is partly to find out how the burial grounds are used today and the needs of its visitors, but also to develop the character and expression of future burial grounds. My suggestions focus on burial grounds without religious attributes; something that, according to the burial law (Begravningslagen, 1990:1144), the manager of the burial ground is ordered to obey. In my design I aim to fulfill any requests regarding the place of burial that have been raised during my study. I have chosen the history of burial grounds as my starting point and will subsequently discuss their significance in today's society. I describe what distinguishes the burial ground throughout history from medieval times and onwards. Tradition and religion are closely linked regarding burial rituals.

This thesis explores how participants and leaders in ?Alpha?, an introductory course to the Christian faith, relate to and practice faith in Sweden. Sweden has often been viewed as a secular country where religion has been seen as irrational, outdated, and as something that belongs to the other but not to the self. Through the eyes of Swedish Christian practitioners, this study explores what kind of relationship my informants have to Christian faith and God while also exploring how living in a secular or post-secular context affects their way of believing and interpreting God and the stories written in the Bible. Furthermore, understanding of the Bible is viewed in the light of the concepts ?mythos? and ?logos? which highlights where Western explanatory models fail to explain and understand mythological stories.

The aim of this study is to analyze the construction of "Christian masculinity" during the modern era. This is made in opposition to earlier research that has claimed that masculinity could not be constructed religiously, that is, without at the same time being constructed as effeminate or anti-masculine.Using a wide variety of theoretical concepts - such as discourse analysis, class, secularisation, masculinity as constructed from countertypes, and finally masculinity as a homosocial construction - I analyze a free church in Sweden, the Scanian Missionary Society (Skånes Missionssällskap), during the period of ca 1939-1945 (the society was a district of the Swedish Covenant Church, or Svenska Missionsförbundet), in order to argue for the standpoint that masculinity, in fact, could be constructed religiously. The primary source is the society's weekly journal Sydposten.The main results in this study can be summarized as follows: 1) The leading men in the Scanian Missionary Society did, in fact, construct a Christian masculinity, i. e. a masculinity whose core values and ideals were Christian, e.g.

This essay examines possible maternal deaths in paleodemographic analyses and grave material by comparing three cemeteries: Nya L?d?se, Helgeandsholmen and V?sterhus. By comparing mortality patterns and burial practices, the aim is to investigate possible signs of obstetric care during medieval and early modern Sweden. The results show a higher death rate for adult women in all three burial places, indicating possible maternal deaths. Fetuses and small children were found in all cemeteries and potential evidence of medical knowledge were found in Nya L?d?se.