Parishes and internal secularization. : A content analysis of parish instructions from congregations in the Church of Sweden

The purpose of this study is to shed light on how the internal secularization of the Church ofSweden affects the congregations' work when it comes to fulfilling its mission. Where thecongregations may provide answers to the questions in their written planning of their tasks andfocus areas. Three internal secularization theories have been used in the analysis of the sourcematerial, which are ”classical secularization theory”, ”supply-side-theory” and a third theory whichcan be called the critical secularization theory.The first question in this study examines whether or not it is possible to see any regional differencesand similarities between the parishes The second question intend to investigate if there any topic orproblem that the congregations particularly highlights.. Based on the study of the source material,the third question aim to see if one theory of secularisation is more correct than the others when itcomes to describingthe development of the Church of Sweden today. The last question in this studywill try to place the parishes in one of Anneli Öljarstrand's two categories, these are the reluctantcongregation and the conformist one. These questions will be answered by using the contentanalysis method, where the analysis will be based on a coding scheme. The coding scheme containsfive categories that are based on the empirical material, the theory and the previous research.The answer to the questions has been that the congregations emphasize the importance of beinginclusive and open. And that there is a differnece between the parishest as well as similarities. Thestudy shows that the classical secularization theory are the theory that best fits the assembledcongregations. The answer to the last question is that there are congregations that fit in as bothconformist and reluctant