The aim of this study was to create a greater understanding of apostates, by analyzing narratives of five ex-members regarding their exit from Jehovah?s Witnesses. I conducted interviews to gather descriptions from specific individuals in relation to their experiences, mainly focusing on the role of an ex-member of a specific group. The informants in the study were 38-73 years old, three women and two men. The empirical data I collected was later coded through qualitative content analysis, where central topics and themes formed the basis for the analysis of the results.

In 1809 the citizens of Sweden where given the freedom to practice their Christian faith through the Swedish constitution of 1809, 16 §. This proclaimed that there should be religious freedom in Sweden, albeit restricted to Evangelical-Lutheran faith. Although after the law regarding dissenters was passed in 1860 by choosing another church than the Evangelical-Lutheran church you lost some civic rights, for example you could not become a public official. The freedom to choose religious affiliation was given through the Law of Religious Freedom in 1951. The purpose of this study is to evaluate in what way the concept of religious freedom has developed in Swedish law between 1809 and 1951.In the background I treat two historical events and one era, with focus upon religious freedom, which have in my opinion influenced the view of religious freedom in Sweden during the chosen period of 1809?1951.

This paper aims to analyze how preservation of and access to old and rare book collections are organized in public libraries in Serbia. The paper is based on an analysis of documents, a survey and qualitative interviews with librarians in Belgrade and Novi Sad. Serbia is a country that has experienced violent historical periods with far-reaching consequences for its old and rare book collections. The interpretative background refers to documents about cultural policy in Europe and in Serbia. Serbia is a country in transition which aims to join the European Union.

Purpose/Aim: The aim of this essay is to study the expectations towards the launch of an intranet in a large organisation.Material/Method: A qualitative method has been used to fulfil the purpose of this essay. Indepth interviews have been made with eight informants of dioceses.Main Results: The study shows that the eight informants of dioceses all are positive towards the launch of an intranet in the organisation. They believe that it in time will lead to a more effective intern communication with less channels and more efficient messages..

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.

This thesis has the purpose that through a text analysis examine how four schoolbooks for high school treats the religions Judaism and Hinduism. The schoolbooks are from the years 2000, 2001, 2003 and 2009. The perspectives are from a religious viewing point, that means that the women are religious, Jewish feminists and Hindu feminists. The theories used are written by these women and are academic litterature.  The questions are how are women represented in the schoolbooks, is the feminist critique present or are the two religions represented and described in an invariable way, and is the description of Judaism and Hinduism consistent with the curriculum?The text analysis used in this examination means that reality is organized through and by the language used by the actors in that reality.

This study deals with the compulsory reading of the public announcements in churches during the eighteens century. The focus is on the diocese of Skara. The ambition to make a comparison between the parish of Skara and the parish of Gårdstånga, earlier investigated by Elisabeth Reuterswärd, failed due to few archives from the parish of Skara. My study takes a broader perspective of the signification of the announcements to the reverends and to the churchgoers. It was an obligation to the reverend to read, collect and save the announcements and the churchgoers were by law obligated to go to church every Sunday.

Previous research regarding the European debt crisis has mostly focused on the purely economic aspects of the crisis. However, there is a strong ?Protestant-Catholic? dimension in Europe, where historically Protestant countries are more prosperous than their Catholic and Orthodox counterparts. This has especially been a fact since early 2010, when several countries within the European Union had their credit ratings downgraded. Is this phenomenon merely a coincidence? Or could the roots of the recent troubles in Europe have a basis in historic religions? To tackle this question, Max Webers ?s 110 year old study The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism is brought back into light and used as a tool for analysis of the crisis.The results show that not only are Protestant countries in general more prosperous, but they also have lower corruption and their citizens have a higher level of trust towards the government.

The purpose of this essay was to find out if it is possible to:? Detect different groups of gender among children in grave materiel and church art and if that was the case, in what way?? What different groups of children can be seen in these two categories?? What does the material say about children's position in society? The time span is from early Christian time to 17-th century and the geographical region is Sweden and Denmark. I got my information from published literature and different pages on the Internet. The conclusions were that gender among children can be detected in both types of material but different groups were not ?visible? to the same degree.

This paper studies the fragmentation and reuse of early christian monuments ("eskilstunakistor") in churches in Östergötland during the medieval period. This is found to have been done in two stages. The first stage shows a collectivization of society. Within religion the change from ancestoral cult towards the saints' cult is important as the fragments are reused like relics. During the second stage the collectivization has been fulfilled, and the reuse is instead part of the christian churches' strategy for incorporating old powerful symbols from the landscape into their own church building..

This thesis has the purpose that through a text analysis examine how four schoolbooks for high school treats the religions Judaism and Hinduism. The schoolbooks are from the years 2000, 2001, 2003 and 2009. The perspectives are from a religious viewing point, that means that the women are religious, Jewish feminists and Hindu feminists. The theories used are written by these women and are academic litterature.  The questions are how are women represented in the schoolbooks, is the feminist critique present or are the two religions represented and described in an invariable way, and is the description of Judaism and Hinduism consistent with the curriculum?The text analysis used in this examination means that reality is organized through and by the language used by the actors in that reality.

In 1809 the citizens of Sweden where given the freedom to practice their Christian faith through the Swedish constitution of 1809, 16 §. This proclaimed that there should be religious freedom in Sweden, albeit restricted to Evangelical-Lutheran faith. Although after the law regarding dissenters was passed in 1860 by choosing another church than the Evangelical-Lutheran church you lost some civic rights, for example you could not become a public official. The freedom to choose religious affiliation was given through the Law of Religious Freedom in 1951. The purpose of this study is to evaluate in what way the concept of religious freedom has developed in Swedish law between 1809 and 1951.In the background I treat two historical events and one era, with focus upon religious freedom, which have in my opinion influenced the view of religious freedom in Sweden during the chosen period of 1809?1951.

This paper constitutes graduate work at the landscape architecture program at the Department of Urban and Rural Development at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Uppsala. The main purpose of this paper is to create a project from an idea to reality. The place for the project is the environment of Icehotel in Jukkasjärvi in the north of Sweden. Icehotel is a unique hotel concept and each winter a hotel, a church and a bar is built at the area of only ice and snow, and each spring it all melts down and returns to the Torne river. During the project a plan for the environment, in ice and snow, will be made and then a part of it will be built in January 2010. The purpose is to improve the outdoor environment with landscape architecture to enhance the experience of Icehotel and create an exciting entrance to the area.

The purpose with this thesis is to analyse the image of the Chinese that was constructed and maintained in the materials published in association to the Swedish Mission Covenant Church (SMF) missionary work in China between the years of 1890 to 1914.The analysed material is mainly from the periodical Missionsförbundet, the analyse also include various books, biographies and anthologies. Inspired by Michel Foucault I found my methodological starting point in his discourse term. Frome there, by the help of the texts of Torjer A. Olsen, I constructed a discourse analyses, by which I analysed my materials.The survey showed that the material associated to SMF foremost constructed a negative pictureof the Chinese as unclean, conservative, arrogant, liars, greedy, loud, bad singers and that the woman situation was seen as untenable. A more appreciative picture also emerged and the Chinese was described as polite and strong.

Over the past 20 years, retailers have embraced new international trends, which created a strong economic growth. Experiences are one of the trends that will be a significant part of future retail. The purpose of this thesis is to find components that can provide a positive experience in a clothing store to the customer. We have used a qualitative method with an inductive approach and the empirical data is collected through interviews. Literature we have chosen focus on how an experience is created in clothing stores.