"Vem har sagt att man ska tro?" : En kvalitativ studie av religiositet på svenska landsbygden

AbstractThe aim of this study is to examine how individuals, part of a rural Christian parish,express their religiosity and beliefs in a Swedish context. Furthermore this study seeksto understand these religious expressions through different views on social construction,secularization and the privatization perspective, such as lived religion, in particular. Byusing qualitative interviews with 8 individuals analyzed with the theories mentionedabove my results show that secularization has provided many individuals with aChristian identity, however, not necessarily a Christian faith. Instead several of theparticipants show a self-developed religious expression not automatically connectedwith Christian religious practices. One of the participants has, despite a Christiansocialization, developed a non-religious identity. Furthermore my results show that theparticipants do not feel obliged to take part in the parish, its activities nor entertain theidea of becoming active within the Church of Sweden. These results indicate thatsecularization has provided the participants’ reality with either a self-adapted privatizedform of religious expression or a lack of religiosity due to an interrupted Christiansocialization. The results also show a lack of interest in Christian discourse. Thisindicates that the Church of Sweden is not able to retain its relevance in the participants’lives due to its passiveness