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Liv, tro och tolkning. En festskrift till Cristina Grenholm är en hyllning till Cristina Grenholm på hennes 65-årsdag 2024. Bokens artiklar är skrivna av vänner, tidigare doktorander och kolleger i akademi och kyrka, i Sverige och Norden.

Ett genomgående tema i Cristina Grenholms forskning, författarskap och kyrkogärning är tolkning. Tolkning är också den röda tråden genom bokens tre delar: ”Tolkning av människors liv”, ”Text, tradition och tolkning” och ”Kyrkan som tolkande gemenskap”.  

En ansvarsfull teologi behöver tolka och bearbeta både traditionen och samtiden, kritiskt och konstruktivt. I en värld som är mer komplicerad och dessutom farligare än någonsin är Cristina Grenholms arbete viktigare än någonsin. I krigens och de globala spänningarnas tid behöver vi bearbeta de eviga frågorna om gott och ont, mening, ansvar och framtid. Vi behöver resonera om religion, traditionsbruk och tolkning. Här bidrar Cristinas Grenholms författarskap och gärning med väsentliga – ja, oumbärliga – perspektiv.

The innovative contributions of third sector organizations (TSOs) to tackle work-related societal challenges are increasingly acknowledged in policy and research, but rarely in Nordic working life studies. The article helps fill this knowledge gap by an empirical mapping of efforts by Swedish TSOs to promote work inclusion among people considered disadvantaged in the regular labor market, due to age, disabilities, origin, etc. Previous studies of social innovation help distinguish their innovativeness in terms of alternative or complementary ways to perceive and promote work inclusion in regard to Swedish labor market policies. By combining various measures for providing and preparing work opportunities, addressing their participants through individualistic and holistic approaches, and managing work inclusion by varying organization, funding, and alliances, the mapped cases seem to innovatively compensate for government and market failures in the work inclusion domain to some extent, while also being limited by their own voluntary failures.

This book reconstructs the connection between religion and migration, drawing on post-colonial perspectives to shed light on what religion can contribute to migrant encounters. Examining the resources and motives for hospitality as lived in Christian contexts in the Nordic region, it addresses the content of talk about "religion" in public discourse, the concept having become something of an empty signifier in debates surrounding migration. Multidisciplinary in approach, this volume demonstrates that "religion" is not, in fact, an empty signifier, but gains substance through practice and interpretation. Considering the undeveloped potentiality of religion and the manner in which the unseen religious perspective in secularity becomes manifest in practice, this volume will appeal to social scientists and scholars of religion with interests in migration, refugee studies, theology, and Christian practice.

This is an analysis of practical theology in a parish, responding to organized racism in the local area. The involvement in civil action, as well as the theological aspects of such work are considered and discussed in relation to Scandinavian creation theology. The need for radical practice is discussed in relation to vocation and the love of the neighbor, even when such practice becomes uncomfortable and even threatening.

This chapter aims at identifying existential and theological learning from hospitality practices, based on fieldwork and autoethnographic studies. Willfulness and attention to the body (Ahmed) is central, as well as a focus on the trouble (Haraway). The author explores the limit between openness and determination, and a perspective of “this is as far as we have come” vs. “this is how far we can go” (Bornemark) in migration issues. The chapter focuses on self-experience as a resource for critical analysis in existential and theological theory and a method for working with aspects of diversity and identity. The material brings together the perspectives of the guests at the hospitality practice as well as the author's own gaze, critically discussing this gaze and her reaction in the interaction with the guests. The chapter shows how there is a continuum of exchange in a relationship, and that there is a need for a broader and more troubling way of negotiating reality, politics, and conceptual models, involving the other as neighbor. The chapter does not attempt to solve disharmonies; rather, it affirms that it is necessary to open the field and enter into it without knowing who the actors are or may become in the relationship.

This article is based on reflections on field notes from a participantobservation in a socially vulnerable environment, an environmentwhere a Swedish church carries out its daily work. The articlepresents and reflects the initial steps of an action research project,and (en)tangles issues of privilege, hierarchy, power and languagethat researchers are forced to face and relate to. The focus of thearticle is on the question of how to move from a researcher’soutside perspective, to a ground/place where it is possible to,firstly, give room to the study’s participants as subjects, andsecondly to create conditions for mutual, if not equal, dialogue.This process, covering the researcher’s observations and the initialformulation of questions for further work, is explored and concep­tualised. In particular, the article reflects on the bridging fromobservation to text.The results show how the researchers’ own boundaries becomeclear; the necessity to problematise these boundaries are under­lined. It also becomes clear how the academic language falls short.Instead poetic pieces showed great potential to grasp and expresswhat the researcher experienced during the observations. Thisopened for a suggested method for interactive conversations aboutworking in an environment where unexpected challenges andpeoples’ vulnerability often constitute the normal starting point foruntraditional daily actions in a church.