This study aims to contribute to the understanding of how different Christian traditions are described in Sweden during the second half of the 18th century. This thesis presents examples of how Swedes could look at different Christian traditions. The object of study has been Jacob Wallenberg's famous travel writing Min son på galejan and Wallenberg’s view on various Christian traditions. Wallenberg travels as a chaplain aboard the ship Finland which travels for the Swedish East India Company to China. Wallenberg meets several different people, cultures and sees different types of practices on his journey to China, and therefore Min son på galejan can be seen as a book worth analyzing, it is also relevant because it is relatively well known. The theoretical framework in this study is mainly based on Stuart Hall's theory of representation and therefore the focus is largely on trying to understand how different Christian traditions are represented based on the content of Min son på galejan. The method used to answer the research questions is a content analysis, the focus has mainly been on illustrate what the contexts looked like and how different Christian traditions were portrayed, thus shedding light on how these traditions were valued. In summary Wallenberg valued different traditions differently, the Lutheran tradition Wallenberg mainly portrayed as something desirable but there existed examples where Wallenberg criticized persons with Lutheran belief. Non-Lutheran Christian traditions were mostly portrayed by Wallenberg in a critical and satirical manner and were therefore seen as something less desirable compared to Lutheranism.

The aim of this essay is first and foremost to clarify which kind of different answers there are to identify within an evangelical-lutheran tradition considering what a person should confess and take responsibility for as their sin and guilt. Secondly this essay aims to suggest the most plausible one. This essay thematically present four different figures of ideas that answers to the question of what a person should confess as their sin and guilt. These figures are: 1) To confess the ontological state of guilt 2) To confess the subjective sin and guilt 3) To confess the objective sin and guilt 4) To confess participation in the structural sin and guilt. These four different views of what to confess have been tested through three different criterias: a criteria of theology - by testing the coherence with an evangelical-lutheran tradition, a criteria of pastoral psychology - by testing the correspondence with theories in pastoral psychology and a criteria of good consequences - to see if the views of what to confess have a liberating effect on an individual and collective level. After testing these different views of what to confess my conclusion is that the most valid one is “ to confess our objective sin and guilt” because it expresses the violation of the “relation”. Some of the other views may serve as a good explanation for the human “situation”, but are not appropriate to confess as guilt.