In 2021 a TV-series called Knutby was released that shows the murder of Alexandra Fossmo and attempted murder of Daniel Linde, that took place in the congregation in Knutby Filadelfia 2004. The then pastor Helge Fossmo was charged with the instigation of the murder of his wife Alexandra and the attemped murder on Daniel. Sara Svensson was charged with committing both crimes, to which she pleaded guilty. Helge Fossmo had been texting Sara Svensson, pretending to be God, and manipulated her to carry out the crimes. The congregation in Knutby Filadelfia has thereafter been discussed in the matter of whether to define it as a church or a sect. This debate is based on the characteristics that surfaced after the crimes were committed and the media started to publish stories about the congregation. The purpose of this study is to see what the production of the TV-series Knutby chose to paint the congregation as, a church or a sect. A research question was made to specify what issue this study would tackle: What kind of congregation is the congregation in Knutby Filadelfia painted as, in the TV-series Knutby (2021)? The theory of this study is based on the definitions of church and sect that Inger Furseth & Pål Repstad (2005) discuss and the list of criteria for sects that Roy Wallis (1973) writes about. These definitions and criteria include how the relationship between the group and the society looks, if the membership is exclusive, if the group sees themself as an elite or if the group is totalitarian. The research method chosen for this study is a content analysis. This method focuses on the concrete in the material, exactly what is it that is being told? To do this a series of themes had to be identified in the material. These themes were identified as “punishment/shame”, “power”, “chosen”, “impact”, “doctrine of faith” and “admiration”. These themes were analyzed to see if there were any signs of either church or sect, or both, with the foundation in the theory of the study. The conclusion of the study is that there are signs of both church and sect in the material, and you can’t say that the congregation is painted as solely a church or solely a sect. Even though most of the signs point to a definition of a sect, it is important to acknowledge the other signs as well.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:uu-488605 |
| Date | January 2022 |
| Creators | Svärd, Ida |
| Publisher | Uppsala universitet, Teologiska institutionen |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | Swedish |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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