This master’s thesis is a comparative propaganda analysis that studies the use of history with a religion dimension, similarities and framing of propaganda messages in the Islamic States propaganda magazine Dabiq and Brenton Tarrant’s manifesto The Great Replacement. The propaganda has been analysed with Jowett and O’Donnell’s propaganda model, combined with Jan Assmann’s theories about cultural memory, historia sacra and cultural semantics. The results show that both actors use history with a religious dimension to frame their messages, but that Tarrant uses more cultural aspects than religious. Both actors also project similar messages such as referring to supranational communities, the sacred history of ancestors, ancient enemies, new foundational history and a call for organisation by their target audience.

This thesis explores a Qing dynasty collection of stories about ghosts and other strange events written by Yuan Mei (1716–1798). The thesis focuses on a number of stories about possession of living persons by spirits, which are studied with the help of Sara Ahmed’s queer phenomenology. By studying stories in which the living and the dead and men and women’s identities overlap while they are possessed, we gain greater understanding about hierarchical relations during Qing dynasty, and how these stories both support and question these. / Uppsatsen studerar en samling av berättelser om spöken och andra ovanliga händelser skriven av Yuan Mei (1716–1798) under Qingdynastin i Kina. Uppsatsen fokuserar på ett antal berättelser där andar tagit en människa i besittning, som studeras med hjälp av Sara Ahmeds queer fenomenologi. Genom att studera berättelser om de levande och döda samt män och kvinnor vars identiteter överlappar vid besittningar, får vi bättre förståelse över hierarkiska relationer under Qingdynastin och hur berättelserna både stödjer och ifrågasätter dessa.

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This essay reviews the Swedish newspapers Dagens Nyheter portrayal of the two Swedish preachers David Petander and Erik Andersson who preached during the early 20th century in Sweden. To contextualize, the preachers’ influences, Tolstoy and liberal theology, were described and compared with contemporary belief systems, mainly the Swedish church. Content analasys is used to clarify how the newspaper represent and frame the preachers. The descriptions have been divided into five categories; appearance, personality, life style, belief and names used to describe them. The results show that Dagens Nyheter used specific words and narrative to frame Petander as a good-hearted, saintlike figure, a modern day Fransiscus and Andersson as a manipulative, cruel, religious madman with a power over women compared to that of Rasputin. These narratives were used even though Petander and Andersson were alike in a lot of aspects, and that Andersson were a follower of Petander’s.

By examining the annual records produced for, and published in, Svenska Missionsförbundet’s annual meeting protocol, this essay aims to analyze how Swedish missionaries located in the Congo Free State created the image of themselves and various people around them from missionary stations in the area surrounding the Congo river.  In its essence, the results of the study show that the missionaries use the missionary stations as fostering institutions, where Congolese boys and young men are taught civilized manners. No matter their effort and achievement though, the notion of racial differences embedded in the missionaries, locks the Congolese men in a subordinate state from which they may not leave.

Carl Lindhagen (1860-1946) is one Sweden’s most productive members of Parliament in history. Under his time in the second- and first chamber he wrote a total number of 1011 bills. He was in his time known as a freethinker and utopist, and furthermore as a driving force behind several issues for example Norrlandsfrågan (against the purchase of homesteads by the forest industry in northern Sweden), women’s suffrage and for peace and disarmament. In 1922, Carl Lindhagen put forth a proposal to the First Chamber in which he pleaded for the Lutheran doctrine in Sweden's state church, to be replaced by Christianity. What the proposal meant and how it would be implemented has not, what I have been able to find, been investigated before. Based on Lindhagens bill, the thesis aims to examine Carl Lindhagen's views on spirituality, Christianity, and ethics and to incorporate them into his view of society. A special focus is placed on the school's role in Lindhagen's future vision. The overall question for the study is whether Carl Lindhagen's ideas have been implemented today, already passed or even utopian demands which are still waiting to be articulated and applied? The method for the survey is taken from Mats Alvesson's and Kaj Sköldberg's aletic hermeneutic approach, where the hermeneutic circle oscillates between pre-understanding and understanding. The theoretical edifice for the thesis is that empiricism, facts, can never be distinguished from the interpretation, the understanding, but instead is the result of it.The result of the survey is that Lindhagen's view of Christianity was inspired by Viktor Rydberg and Tolstoyanism. For Lindhagen, Christianity meant the truth about a social ethic, which Jesus, but also previous philosophers and founders of religion, had taught. Man carried the truth within himself, but he risked being lost if he only pursued power and material possessions. Instead, spirituality, the virtues, needed to be cultivated. Truth and spirituality would direct man toward the "good will," the will to do good, which I associate with Jennifer A. Herdt's concept of excellence-prior eudaimonism. Through the moral development of individuals, society also became moral. To get there, the school needed to be transformed from a study- to an education school in the Bildung tradition. Which in turn would create a classless society where individuals could, through dialogue, organize society to the best of their ability. My understanding is that Lindhagen's view of society can be described as deliberative democracy. It also touches on Jennifer A. Herdt's dialogical humanism.In conclusion, Lindhagen's view that an equal and democratic society can not only be created through material prosperity but must also be based on the moral aspirations of individuals is still relevant and has its advocates in the contemporary ethical debate.

The aim of this paper is to investigate the Indian Hindu nationalist concept of “love jihad”, an idea based upon the alleged fact that Muslim men actively seeks out non-Muslim women for conversion to Islam by various methods including, false promises of love and abductions. While the accusation that Muslims are conducting love jihad currently is being propagated by several active Hindu nationalist groups, the focus of this paper lies on the Viśva Hindū Pariṣad (VHP) and the Rāṣṭrīya Svayaṃsevak Saṃgh (RSS), two major branches within the so-called family of Hindu nationalist organisations, or the Saṃgh Parivār. The material primarily con-sists of articles pertaining to love jihad, published in each organisation’s mouthpiece magazines. Utilising theories on Indian nationalism placed within a structure of analysing propaganda, based on the propaganda model of Garth S. Jowett and Victoria O'Donnell, this paper investigates the idea of love jihad in relation to the VHP and RSS constructs of Indian identities.

For several decades much research has shown that people who often attend religious services estimate their life quality and health higher than people who never attend church. (e g Koenig, McCullough & Larson, 2001, 2012). Much of this research has been done in USA. What about Sweden - one of the most secularized countries in the world? The theories of existential epidemiology and of the importance of existential health to other aspects of health from prof. Valerie DeMarinis were used as a theoretical base in this study.  The purpose of this mixed method sequential study was to compare 247 elderly (medium age 75) according to their frequencies of church attendance: Were there any significant correlations between frequency of church attendance and existential health according to WHOQOL-SRPB? Where there any significant correlations between existential health and the other aspects of health assessed in WHOQOL?  What factors were mentioned as explanations to existential health among elderly in this secular country? This question was investigated in the second qualitative part of the study where eight interviews were done, four with persons who never attend church and four who often did. The interview persons were matced to demografic variables and to general health according to WHOQOL. Statistical calculations were made with Spearmans rank order correlation and Mann-Withneys U-test for nonparametri variables. The interviews were analyzed both inductively and deductively.  The results showed significant correlations on 0,01 level between church attendance and all aspects of existential health in SRPB. The result also showed significant correlations between every aspect of existential health to other aspects of health, most clearly to social and psychological health. The correations were stronger to some of the aspects of existential health. It was also  a clear difference in existential health accordning to assessment on SRPB between the two groups.  For intrview persons who never attend church the ways to get existential health was for three of them to engage in different activities as physical exercise, music, spending time with relatives and friends. The fourth person, who estimated higher on SRPB, described a number of aspects of existential health. Among those who often attend Sunday service this was not per se a a factor mentioned as an explanation to their high existential health. Instead it was their Christian faith as a whole that made their existential health.  Researchers in Psychology of religion in Sweden claim an existential epidemiology spread, especially in groups of young people and immigrants. This study shows rather low existential health also in a group of elderly . A collaboration between health care centers and local priests, deacons, pastors and imams are suggested to prevent and treat low existential health.

The so called Bhakti movement spread, during the Late Medieval period, like wildfire across the South Asian subcontinent and acted like a catalyst for the development of nirguṇī-traditions. These newly emerging nirguṇī-traditions rallyd men and women alike, preaching for the abolation of the varṇa-system, for Muslim-Hindu unity, devotion to the one omipresent godhead, nirguṇa. Among these traditions, a man named Kabīr came and claimed the leading position, a position that history still, to this day, gives credit as being one of the most, if not the most, important figure amongst the of the North Indian bhakti preachers. Kabīr’s teachings came to be, after his passing, the foundation for the establishmentof the Kabīr Panth (Path of Kabīr) a by now well known tradition. However, at an early stage of formation, the Kabīr Panth began to separate into many branches, which all started to produce their own literature regarding several contrasting retellings of Kabīr’s life, his poems, and the installation of rituals and praxis. As a consequence of the various legends along with myths created, following the schism between the main branches, Kabīr’s life and legacy came to be displayed and understood rather differently. This study does not only demonstrate how Kabīr is perceived within the various branches, most prominent that of the Kabīr Chaurā and Dharmadasī branch, and what attributes, human and divine, are given him. Throughout the study it is also shown how these perceptions of Kabīr, may be understood as forms of, to various degrees, fostering of Sanskritization in order to gain upward momentum within the Indian socio-religious ladder of hierarchy, more commonly known as the varṇa-system.

This text examines the sovereignty concept in Sayyid Qutb´s final book Milelstones, with a focus on the political and non-political aspects of the concept. The analysis also examines potentially radical and extreme aspects in the concept. The findings show that Qutb´s sovereignty concept is a practical theology focused on what God´s sovereignty means for Muslims in belief and practice. God´s sovereignty is an encompassing concept to Qutb, which means that His exclusive right to sovereignty should permeate through the souls of Muslims and guide their actions in all spheres of life, including in politics. In a concrete form, this means that God´s law and principles should be implemented. Qutb´s sovereignty concept is not extreme, but radical because it challenges established secular orders and the hegemonic assumption in modern discourses that human beings have a right to sovereignty.