Logo: to the web site of Uppsala University

This study aims to give an in-depth insight into how Church leaders in a rural context reflect upon encountering people of other faiths, interreligious dialogue and evangelism, and their relationship. Methodologically, the study relies on qualitative interviews with ten church leaders from the Luleå Diocese, situated in Norrbotten and Västerbotten, Northern Sweden. The interviews are analyzed through hermeneutic thematic analysis.

The missional theoretical framework of prophetic dialogue of Stephan Bevans and Roger Schroeder was implemented. This study finds that the theory challenges the congregations in the Luleå diocese to work with inculturation at every step, from presenting the gospel to becoming a Christian and a part of the church’s community. The participants in the study stressed that the motivation for interreligious dialogue is to reach social cohesion in society. This study shows that the lack of counterparts to have e dialogue with hinders the church from contributing to social cohesion. Prophetic dialogue urges the Church to go beyond the narrative thinking of who can be a counterpart and consider interreligious dilemmas like “Can we sell desacralized churches to other religious faith communities?”. Secondly, Prophetic dialogue motivates interreligious dialogue with the theological framework of seeing the Spirit of God in other religions is rejected by the evangelical movements in the Luleå diocese; therefore, another theological framework is preferable. Based on the participants' motives in this study for why the church should engage in interreligious dialogue, the theological framework could be that God creates all people and therefore have inherent human dignity, that Jesus calls Christians to love their neighbor as themselves and to establish God's kingdom where peace and justice reign.