The aim of this research paper is to investigate how to do churchlyleadership nowadays? The paper also explores three subordinate questions.What kind of leadership in the Lutheran faith and in the Pentecostal Faiththere has been; How the societal, cultural, political, economic context affectchurch leadership; and Leadership in the church of Sweden and inPentecostal Faith today and tomorrow. To find the results of the researchpaper, I used only qualitative research method through hermeneutics. Theresults of this paper show that church leadership cannot adopt NPMbecause churchly leadership is totally different than production,effectiveness, optimization. Church leadership is a servant leadership wherelove and compassion are the foundation of church leadership. A goodleadership is when there is a good relationship between leader-followersbecause they both are the two sides of the same coin. The research paperanalyzes two church leaders to identify church leadership, Lewi Pethrus andErling Eidem. Church leadership has been discriminated, marginalized bythe societal, cultural, political, economic context where rationalism,individualism, secularism, globalization, technology, and mass consumptionaffected individuals to attend church and have religious experiences.Thepaper recommends that NPM is not a good option to perform spiritualleadership nowadays because these religious organization will be seen likeany other earthly organization. Church leadership in the Swedish Lutheranand Pentecostal church need to change so that these churches can survive aschurchly organizations in the future / nej

This thesis is about the process of reconciliation between the Church of Sweden and Sápmi. By giving a historical retrospective, the process ends up in a context that can show why a reconciliation is desirable.  The reconciliation process began already in the 1990s, but a major change was taken in 2006 when an inquiry on the Sámi issues within the Church of Sweden was made.  This thesis examines the current reconciliation process from three perspectives.  The first perspective is to examine to whom the reconciliation process is directed. The second perspective is about the conflicts in the land and water issue, which the Sámi consider to be an important issue, but the issue is not included in the reconciliation process. The third perspective is to investigate what the Church of Sweden means by an increased Sámi presence in the church life. The historical relationships that stretch back many hundreds of years through research and storytelling. The documentation shows how the Church's approach and actions have negatively affected the Sámi population.  For this, the Church of Sweden has now apologised and is developing a ten-year action plan to strengthen the Sámi presence in the church life.

The purpose of this essay is to analyse how the Church of Sweden's understanding of the diaconal mission, as it emerges from the national level, relates to Lutheran identity, and critically and constructively examine the relationship using queer theological tools. The essay uses a theologically-historically conscious content-oriented ideational analysis to answer the research questions. The theoretical and methodological approach also contains comparative and queer elements.  The Church of Sweden's national documents about diaconia describes the role of the deacon as caritative, with a special focus on marginalized people. They state that all Christians are called to serve one another. Most of the Church of Sweden's understanding of diaconia is compatible with Lutheran identity, but the two contradict each other in some instances. The essay finds a stronger connection between the Church of Sweden's diaconia and the law than the gospel. The doctrine of the two regiments can be interpreted as if the church has a responsibility to protest worldly rulers if needed. The national documents support this stance.  By using queer theological tools, the essay discusses some of the power structures and discourses that become apparent in the study field. The analysis shows that the diaconate can be understood as an expression of a performative femininity. It also points out that the Church of Sweden's documents implicitly contradicts itself when discussing vulnerability. The essay states that the Church of Sweden is lacking in self-reflection about its own and society´s power structures. Because of this, the Church of Sweden overlooks important dimensions of the diaconal mission. Lutheran identity is useful in the examination of hidden power structures and the understanding of the Church of Sweden's role in society, not least because of its reforming character.

Previous research that tends to digress into accusations against or advocacy for the Church of Sweden ultimately misses the mark in assessing the overall culpability of the Church for its historical relationship with nationalism. At the core of this study is the pursuit of an investigation that addresses this concern by asking the following questions: how has the Church of Sweden historically lent itself to nationalism and to what extent is the Church culpable for nationalism in Sweden? What follows is a status quaestionis, which creates a comparative analysis that functions as a means to gauge the Church’s historical and thematic contributions to Swedish nationalism and the formation of Swedish identity. Fundamental to this endeavor is a concept of broad culpability, which is consequently applied to the construction of the Church’s sacred Swedish community. This status quaestionis culminates with a discussion that connects a potential adjudication with four possible outcomes, which are based on Rogers Brubaker’s four approaches for analyzing religion and nationalism. Finally, an outcome is presented, which ultimately concludes that a formal adjudication regarding the Church’s culpability is immature without the completion of further empirical research that delves into the precise nature and spirit of nationalism in the Church as contrasted with other forms and sources of Swedish nationalism.

This study “Ma Oftedal, New Age practices and religious legitimacy: The feminization ofChristian ethics and theology” has a stated purpose in researching how New Age practices arelegitimized in a Christian context. This is done through looking at the writings of the Swedishclerical minister Ma Oftedal, in her autobiographical book “Doxa: Till hela härligheten” andexcerpts from the interorganizational supervisory body for the Church of Sweden known asDomkapitlet. This study is conducted from a qualitative inductive content analysis basis, witha theoretical framework of feminization. This method is used to look for how Ma Oftedallegitimized her New Age practices with her Christian background, and how her experiencesas a woman has affected her relationship with New Age. The result of this study shows thatMa Oftedal has an idiosyncratic relationship with Christianity that puts emphasis on theindividual choice, and less so on any adherence to norms within a particular group, and whereher female identity plays a substantial role in how she interacts with New Age. / Folkkyrkans nya ansikten – levd religion, nyandliga praktiker och teologisk legitimitet.

This study analyses the debate that took place after a letter about the eucharist, Fira Nattvard: brev från biskoparna till Svenska kyrkans präster och församlingar, was published by the bishops of the Church of Sweden, 2020. The aim is to map the discussion with a focus on two main themes while examining a number of articles published in Swedish magazines. The themes are 1. the understanding of the extent of the real presence and how to handle the bread and wine after the service has ended, and 2. the view on concelebration.    The results show that there are two main views on the extent of real presence in the debate. The first is a durationistic view where the real presence is still present after the service has ended, and the second is a cessationistic view where the real presence ends by the end of the service. In the question about concelebration the results show that there are arguments both for and against it. The arguments for concelebration are foremost about the ecumenical perspective of being able to celebrate together, the historical perspective and also the church handbook’s possibility in this matter. Concelebration is also seen as a sign of community where the whole congregation is taking part. The arguments against concelebration are that of institution narrative, that the mass should be celebrated as close to the first eucharist as possible and that concelebration should not be a method to go around the different view of gender of the minister celebrating the mass.

In February 2022, a Church of Sweden bishop was removed from office for the first time in almost seventy years following several reports by priest in the diocese detailing the bishop’s misconduct to Svenska kyrkans ansvarsnämnd för biskopar, the disciplinary board for bishops in the Church of Sweden. The present study is not interested in the question of guilt,but aims instead to analyse the decision’s theology with the tools of theological ethics and the perspectives of responsibility, debt and forgiveness. The primary sources for this study are the record of decision from Ansvarsnämnden för biskopar, a statement from Biskopsmötet (the conference of bishops) and an interview with the then-archbishop Antje Jackelen. With the hermeneutic method, this study reconstruct the theology underlying the primary sources and reveals one of the Church of Sweden’s theologies concerning responsibility, debt and forgiveness. Thereafter, the identified theology is placed in a wider Lutheran context with the help of three Swedish theological scholars’ work; Skuld och förlåtelse, by Ann Heberlein, Utanför paradiset by Eva-Lotta Grantén and Försoningens mellanrum by Sofia Camnerin. This essay shows that there is little theology present in the primary sources and therefore in the decision to remove the bishop from office. What theology is present regarding responsibility and debt is firmly drawn from Lutheran tradition, while the perspective of forgiveness is more complex. Forgiveness can be given interpersonally and by God; while God’s forgiveness is given by grace, interpersonal forgiveness can be seen as a process wherein an offender is called to take responsibility for their actions. This study is foremost concerned with the latter, as the primary material also purport to be. When the language of forgiveness is scrutinised, however, the primary sources seems less concerned with forgiveness and more concerned with trust. In addition, the materials are fundamentally interested in the question of whether the bishop’s behaviour has injured the trust in the episcopate and the church as a whole. Ultimately, this is not primarily a theological question but one of trust, an area where Church of Sweden has less experience. My essay suggests that Church of Sweden needs to reflect upon the implications of trust in relationship to ordination.

The purpose with my essay is to investigate Church of Sweden’s prayer web page during September 2011 and September 2014. The purpose is to find out if there are any differences or similarities during the year 2011 and the year 2014, in the month of September, by examining literature and prayer that people have sent to prayer site. The Church of Sweden belongs to Lutheran belief.2 On the church of Sweden prayer site there is a digital web page where visitors can send a prayer or light a candle. It is possible to do it individually or in a group. At the prayer site you can read people`s prayers. The Essay investigates what people pray for and what types of prayers that are published on the digital prayer site. My hypothesis is that there should be small differences between year 2011 and year 2014 since there are only three years between 2011 and 2014. My questions are: When comparing September 2011 and September 2014, are there any differences concerning the way the web page visitors choose to address God? Are there any changes concerning the content of the prayers when comparing September 2011 and September 2014? The conclusion is that the difference between year 2011 and year 2014 is that year 2014 was more politically oriented than the year 2011 because in the year 2014 there was a general election. Some prayers wished for a good government. Year 2011 there were more prayers submitted than the year 2014. In the church of Sweden digital prayer site you can find the differences which occur and also which the similarities are. The method which is used is quantitative method since the essay method contains statistics. I also apply comparative method because I am going to compare the year 2011 with the year 2014. When I was preparing for the essay I used qualitative method as preparation. No other person has specifically written an essay about the prayers on the Church of Sweden’s prayer site in September year 2011 and 2014.

Between February 1st and March 16th 2023 sixteen qualitative research interviews wereconducted with deans, vicars and priests of both the Catholic Church in Sweden and theEvangelical-Lutheran Church of Sweden with the aim to compare how they look at their religiousleadership, and what their answers might say about their respective theological traditions using asuggested theory called Comparative Lived Theology. The main research findings rendered fromthese interviews may be divided into the following three sections: firstly, top-down and bottom-upleadership approaches in a religious setting is descriptive of the structure of the religiousorganisations. Secondly, the fact that Evangelical-Lutheranism is a majority religious tradition inSweden sets it apart from minority traditions such as Catholicism, and this affects the religiousleadership. Thirdly, the interviews generated a notion that party politics plays a different role in thestructure of the Evangelical-Lutheran Church of Sweden than it does in the Catholic Church in Sweden.

Denna uppsats, ”Vilket utrymme för nyandlighet finns inom Svenska kyrkan – En kvalitativ diskursiv läsning av debatten rörande nyandlighet i Kyrkans tidning”, har som syfte att synliggöra den eller de diskurser som är framträdande rörande nyandlighet inom Svenska kyrkan samt hur bilden av nyandlighet konstrueras av Svenska kyrkan. Detta görs genom en närläsning av artiklar vilka berör ämnet nyandlighet i Kyrkans tidning under åren 2014–2015. Materialet analyseras med en diskursteoretisk ansats utifrån ett socialkonstruktivistiskt perspektiv. Resultatet påvisar tre stycken framträdande diskurser rörande nyandlighet inom Svenska kyrkan. Analysen av materialet belyser även hur den antagonism, som uppsatsen hävdar råder inom den svensk-kyrkliga diskursen, påverkar Svenska kyrkans framtid som samfund. Detta genom jämförelse med annan forskning inom fältet. / This essay, “What space is there for alternative spirituality in the Church of Sweden?” has as its purpose to discover the discourse or discourses that is to be found regarding spirituality within the Church of Sweden. Also to analyse how the picture of spirituality is created within the Church of Sweden. This will be done through a qualitative reading of articles published during the years 2014–2015 with connection to the topic spirituality in the magazine Kyrkans tidning (The church’s newspaper). The material will be analysed using discourse theory with a social constructivism perspective. The result of the analysis points out three main discourses regarding spirituality within the Church of Sweden. The analysis also puts light on how the apparent antagonism affects the future of the congregation. This through comparing the essays result with other studies in the field.