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The Social Democratic party of Sweden (SAP) was from its starting point in late 19th century oppositional to the Swedish Church and its position in Swedish society. But soon two different views were formed. The first view was to cut all ties between state and church. The second view was to perform a democratic reformation of the Church. The SAP have since long engaged itself in church politics and governing on different levels.

This thesis deals with the ecclesiology of the SAP as presented by the party executive in normative outlines for church-politics. The investigation starts with the first published outlines in 1979 and ends with the outlines published in 1996, the year after the decision of the Swedish parliament to make a juridical separation between state and church by jan 1 2000.

These political outlines form a framework for the party´s local, regional och central political activities in the Swedish Church. The starting point is the introduction of the party program and the democratization of the structure of Society. The structure of the Church should therefore also be democratized. Those emplyed by the Church are also to support this democratized structure. The goal of this process is to make the Church available and reachable for everyone in Sweden, also in a new cultural situation when people and church no longer can be looked upon as one unity. The Swedish Church has, says the SAP, therefore no right to set up rules for who can and who can not become a member of the Church.

Axner, Torbjörn, Ordo Missæ. Missal supplements in Church of Sweden 1942–1967

This work is a study of a certain aspect of the liturgical movement in the Church of Sweden during the years 1942–1967. In 1942 a new Book of Order was published to some extent influenced by the international liturgical movement. However, for some liturgical activists this was not enough. Due to the legal structure of the Church of Sweden they were bound to the Book of Order and could not shape the liturgy according to their liturgical ideas. They chose to work under cover, publishing their own editions of the official Order of Mass supplied with material from the international liturgical movement. In the Swedish Lutheran tradition, missals have very few rubrics and liturgical instructions. These unofficial missals looked like the official and followed the official order of mass, but added complimentary prayers and instructions.  The liturgical activists were accused of introducing traditions, that were alien to the tradition of the Church of Sweden. Nevertheless, some of the material introduced in the unofficial missals in the 1940’s and 1950’s, some decades later became parts of the new official Book of Order of 1986. During the period, 1942–1967, the liturgical movement in Sweden was more or less the same as the association “Church Renewal” (Kyrklig förnyelse), a high-church organisation with international inspiration and connections.

Towards the end of this period of time new ideas were developing in all areas of society, including mainstream churches. In 1968 an official committee was appointed to conduct a revision of the Book of Order for the Church of Sweden. The committee introduced a period of official liturgical experiments within Church of Sweden. Some of the formerly rejected liturgical ideas were now tried out in the liturgical experiments and became part of the new Book of Order.

This study focuses on liturgical elements inspired by the international liturgical movement and how they influenced the liturgical development in the Church of Sweden. The author combines traditional text sources with studies of artwork in the missals and a liturgical database, based on a survey done on liturgical behaviour in 1965.

In Chinese legislation on the Church as well as in the theological debate in China and, the concepts of religion and Christianity predominate, depending, from a historical perspective, on the influence of nineteenth-century philosophical and theological ideas from the West, conveyed by socialist political theory, by the weak ecclesiology in missionary societies operatingin China before 1949, and influential theologians setting the scene. The idea of Sinicisation contributed to the perpetuation of the nineteenth-century ideas of religion and Christianity in China. Today, however, there are signs of change. The churches in the accelerating multi-modernity in China wishto clarify what is unique for the Christian Church. Sometimes, however, what is characteristic of the Church in China is also characteristic of the Church in many other places in the world.

The quest for ecclesiology is apparent in Chinese theology and church life, both in China and abroad. It has been responded to with reference to different sorts of deductively elaborated ecclesiologies. This article suggests that analyses of present teaching and practices in Chinese churches should be undertaken in order to understand more precisely what sort of implicit or explicit ecclesiologies are already operative. On the basis of an ecclesiological hermeneutics, it would be possible to achieve an ecclesiological reconstruction in Chinese theology, recognising the given divine revelation.

The Church of Sweden is difficult to describe or to characterise, whether as a Folk Church, a national church, as catholic or liberal, or as, in some sense, Lutheran. This article refers to aspects of its complex relations with the Roman Catholic Church and with Lutheranism at large. The author detects, from ecumenical agreement and practice, an incipient new communion of churches, based on a common claim to be catholic and also to be open to developments in society. This group includes the Church of Sweden, the Church of England, the Episcopal Church in the USA, the Old Catholic Churches of the Union of Utrecht and the Philippine Independent Church, all of which are in communion with each other. The author's presentation is set out in relation to the Church of Sweden's liturgical and sacramental life, its church-state relations, and in an account of the rather asymmetrical shape of ecumenism in Sweden, in all of which the question of gender plays a role.

Rec av Kirke i oppbrudd og forandring. Aktuelle perspektiver på norsk kirkevirklighet utg av Leif Gunnar Engedal och Vidar L Haanes, Tapir Akademisk Forlag, Trondheim 2003, 153 p. (Bind 1 i Ekklesiologiprosjektet ved Det teologiske Menighetsfakultet, 2000-2003; Slik blir kirken til. Kirke i forandring i Det nye testamente utg av Nils Aksel Rosaeg and Hans Kvalbein, Tapir Akademisk Forlag, Trondheim 2003, 194 p. (Bind 2 i Ekklesiologi-prosjektet ved Det teologiske Menighetsfakultet, 2000-2003), Hva vil det si å vaere kirke? Kirkens vesen og oppdrag, utg av Tormod Engelsviken and Kjell Olav Sannes, Tapir Akademisk Forlag, Trondheim 2004, 192 p (Bind 3 i Ekklesiologi-prosjektet ved Det teologiske Menighetsfakultet, 2000-2003)