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 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.

The purpose of this essay is to examine how Irish people on a rural location practice their faith in everyday life. The intention is also to find out what strategies my interviewees use to negotiate the abuse scandal and what their thoughts on the Catholic Church are. The material mainly consists of interviews with seven people part of a rural parish in Ireland. My research also entails smaller observations and conversations in the homes of the participants.The results indicate that they all consider themselves religious, however not all Catholic. All of the participants integrate their religion in everyday life.

AbstractThe purpose with this essay is to present a picture of the changes in religious education in Sweden, and to make comparisons between Denmark?s and the USA?s model about teaching in religion. I have consequently described the historical development, with the beginning of the establishement of the public school, inte the year of 1842. 1919, a new document about the religious education was released, wich result in some major changes. This was in a time were the debate about religion and the Lutheran State Church of Sweden authority was an issue.

EKHO - The Ecumenical Association for Christian LGBTQ people has existed in Swedensince the 1970's second half. The movement had its ups and downs throughout the years. Inthis essay, I will examine what happened when the movement was formed and how thefirst period developed. By examining EKHO Stockholm´s magazine EKHO-bladet my task isto describe the story from when the first EKHO association was formed until the EKHO organizations of Sweden joined together and formed the National Association, Riks EKHO. My second issue is to look into which role EKHO has played for the development in LGBTQ-issues for the Church of Sweden by analyzing documents from within the church concerning these matters.

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.

In this essay, I research and discuss new spirituality (or what is commonly known as New Age) within some congregations in the Church of Sweden, Gothenburg. I question how and why this new spirituality has come to be accepted in parts of the Church. My hypothesis is that the church is a part, and a reflection, of a larger change throughout society, and I claim that this change depends much on the individualization and globalization during the last decades.The research is conducted through interviews with representatives from the Church ofSweden who are in charge of new religious activities. During these interviews we discuss their views on the change that has already taken place and is going on today.The interviews are then analyzed by applying rational choice theory on them. I discusswhether the Church can be seen as a producer of goods and services and if the churchgoers canbe seen as consumers of these goods and services.

The aim of this thesis was to study financial support within the Church of Sweden and the view of the church?s diaconal work. This was done with a quantitative method where a survey sent to a number of churches containing questions about financial support within the church and how they, the respondents, looked at the church?s role as a welfare agent. Of the almost 200 congregations only 23 congregations responded.

Music and religion are concepts, which have been continually associated with spirituality throughout the history of Western religion. Since the dawn of mankind, it has been considered that music has had a clear function about how individuals grasp their inner emotions to reach the transcendent and comprehend "Self". The aim of this thesis is to gain greater understanding as to how a group of young catechists in the Swedish Lutheran Church feel, interpret and construct their identities through popular music. An exploration as to how this specific group perceives concepts such as the Bible, church, spirituality, and religion was undertaken. The theory forming the basis of this essay is derived from a sociological perspective of postmodernism.

This essay describes Marcion, his life, religion and achievements. He was active 120 ? 160and was a leading christian gnostics or a christian extreme paulinist.Marcion regarded himself as the only true interpreter of christianity. He meant that theCreator God was the jews God, while the Superior God of Love and Grace, was the Father ofJesus and God for all people and Gods.Marcions church grew very fast. It was united, widespread with canon and liturgy around 150AD.

The Church of Sweden had barely 6.5 million members in 2012. Just over 1% of the members visit a church service regularly every Sunday. The number of visitors in worship services has diminished continuously for a very long time. From 1990 to 2010, the annual number of visitors at the main worship services has decreased by 50% from 9 million to about 4.5 million. The service activities can still be maintained at the current level because the many passive members still pays their membership fee.

The intension with the thesis is to investigate how mass communication is adopted as a strategy to increase the membership activity within religious communions in Sweden. In the years past it has shown a decreased activity within religious communion, deliberate strategies have been missing and efforts on resources for less effective strategies have been made. The study has been carried out through a review of existing theory within the field of subject, communication within religious communion and the use of mass communication within religious communion. The Swedish church was chosen as a case, where three persons were interviewed. The result from this study shows that the Swedish church communication operates on several different levels: these are detached and self-determinate.

This is a study of American Methodist Mission in Sweden and how this mission eventually formed the Methodist Church in Sweden 1876. The mission began as a consequence of returning Swedish emigrants and sailors who had encountered Methodism in America, mainly through the works of Swedish-American missionary Olof Gustaf Hedström on the Bethel ship in New York. During the 1850?s Methodist missionaries were sent to Scandinavia by the American Missions Society. The first to come to Sweden was Johan Peter Larsson, who spent two years in Sweden in 1854 before he was transferred to Norway.

AbstractThe purpose for writing this essay is to study the culture of kindness in the Church of Sweden, as the church constitutes as an idealistic organization (non-profit or voluntary organization).The focal point is on how such a culture affects the employees, and if any new componentsthat can amplify the concept can be distinguished.To do this a case study-design has been employed. The primary sources are qualitativeinterviews with six employees in a congregation in the Church of Sweden, and participantobservations on two different occasions at the same congregation.Theories of organizational sociology has been applied to the material, more specific Edgar HSchein?s definition of organizational culture and the concept of a culture of kindness (derivingfrom a report by the Swedish Work Environment Authority) as a specific part of the church?sorganizational culture.The conclusions we can make from our study is that a culture of kindness affect employees inboth a positive and a negative way. There are many expectations that come with working inthe Church of Sweden, and these do have an effect on the work performed. There is alsoevidence pointing to the fact that leadership can counteract the fear of conflicts that otherwiseis associated with the culture of kindness.

This study is a reception analysis regarding the theology of Martin Luther, specifically in the areas of eschatology and anthropology, in to the funeral practices of the Church of Sweden (Svenska kyrkan).The main theme in the anthropology of Martin Luther is that of the freedom of all men and women. The price that we have to ?pay? for this freedom is that we need to act as humble servants to all other persons.The eschatological view of Martin Luther tells us that the only condition we need to fulfill in order to be admitted into God?s kingdom is faith alone.The Church of Sweden and their views on anthropology and eschatology are inspired by the writings of Martin Luther as it proclaims itself to be of evangelical Lutheran denomination, but it has incorporated other views as well over time.The conclusions of the study is that the principals guiding funeral practices, including eulogies held by priests during the funeral services, are in fact influenced by the anthropological and eschatological views of Martin Luther, and the study concludes that the theology of Martin Luther is a very good stand point for the Church of Sweden to stay relevant in today?s society..