The university church of Sweden is a religious organization that is active on 30 campuses towards higher education in the nation. The main objective of the or- ganization, which works on an ecumenical level, is to provide support for the staff and students at the universities and by doing so arrange activities and provide a listening ear towards the targeted group. The objective of the study is to provide knowledge about the organization from the perspective of inner secularization from Karin Johannessons point of view through the anthology inomkyrklig seku- larisering (2018) by studying the organizations physical activities. The method is based on a quantitative content analysis that covers approximately 1400 activities in 10 cities provided by the university church from Malmö in the south to Luleå in the north of Sweden. The goal is also to cover a time perspective of over 2.5 years to give the study a broad perspective on the activities. By doing so the study also covers what nature the activities have that is offered and how they differ from each other when it comes to a comparison, campus to campus. The result shows a complex image where approximately 2/3 of the activities provided is secular and the other third Christian in nature according through the lens of the theoretical framework. The organization differs a lot from city to city when it comes to most aspects regarding Christian and secular approaches. It also differs in activity level on Facebook and what kind of priorities the organization tend to have towards the student and staff population on each of the Universities.

The aim of this essay is to study how the University Church is represented in student newspapers. By conducting an inductive thematic analysis on sixteen articles chosen from newspapers distributed by the student union at three Swedish universities, the main purpose of the study is to further understand the role and function of the University Church in a contemporary Swedish context. Three themes emerging from the initial step of the thematic analysis were chosen for further analysis: (1) a secularized church?, (2) provocation and (3) reasons to seek out the University Church. The themes were then highlighted by two theoretical perspectives: Mark Chaves’ theory of internal secularization and a theoretical framework developed by Anders Bäckström with the aim to explain the role of the church as a welfare agent in Sweden. The study shows that the University Church is portrayed as both an ambiguous and complex organization. On one hand, the material shows that the University Church is expected to serve as one student welfare provider among several others on campus. On the other hand, the University Church is blamed for enforcing the dominating Christian hegemony and thus excluding students belonging to other faith traditions. On a macro level, the study shows that the University Church’s intentions do not always correlate with the expected role of the church expressed by critics. Consequently, the University Church seems to struggle with finding its role, much like the Church of Sweden has done since the disestablishment in 2000. On a meso level, secularization of religious authorities was noticeable in the material as university chaplains are depicted spending a majority of their time on providing student welfare. However, no general decrease in the religiosity of the overall church organization could be confirmed in the study. In conclusion, the study shows that the potential secularized nature of the University Church is not necessarily perceived as negative by students. Instead, the University Church has the potential to become a hybrid institution, bridging the gap between the religious and the secular sphere at Swedish universities.