The Dhimmi Church of Sweden

As reported here last weekend, a controversy has arisen in Sweden over the inability of candidates for the office archbishop in the Swedish Church to affirm that Jesus Christ presented a truer picture of God than Mohammed.

One of the illustrious clerics who seemed all too willing to blur the distinctions between Christianity and Islam was the front-runner Antje Jackelén, who has since been elected to become the new archbishop. Our Swedish correspondent LN has translated several articles about the controversy, beginning with an overview of the theologian Eva Hamberg, who left the church rather than be a party to the encroachment of “Chrislam”.

Unfortunately, like so many other Scandinavian institutions — political parties, media outlets, and most private charitable organizations — the Swedish church is state-funded. This means that most non-state alternatives are competitively hobbled, and remain largely vestigial. Ms. Hamberg may thus find it hard to obtain a new, paying position in any non-PC Christian church in Sweden.

A translation from Fria Tider:

Theologian: “Swedish Church has no future”

As a Christian, it is wise to leave the increasingly secularized Swedish church, says Eva Hamberg, a former priest and well-known theologian.

Last week the priest and professor Eva Hamberg left the Swedish church, which she believes has been secularized and politicized to an extent that she can not endorse.

The Straw that broke the camel’s back for Hamberg was the hearing before the archbishop election, when only one of the candidates clearly answered yes to the question if Jesus gives a truer picture of God than Muhammad.

That the Liberal candidate Antje Jackelén yesterday was appointed to become Archbishop Anders Wejryd’s successor has not got Hamberg to look optimistic on the future of the Swedish Church.

“When believers begin to leave, it becomes difficult for the church to maintain its legitimacy. I do not think it has got a future,” says Hamberg to Sydsvenskan.

She says that she has received numerous emails from both clergy and laity expressing understanding for her decision to leave the church and they says that they are planning to do the same.

When asked if she is still a Christian responds Hamberg “Oh yes, that’s why I’m leaving.”

Until 1996, all Swedes automatically became members of the Swedish church at birth. Members of the Swedish church annual pay church tax on an average of one percent of their income. Anyone who is a member of the Swedish Church on November 1 has to pay church tax for the following year.

To exit the Swedish Church

It’s very easy to quit the church; you report your withdrawal to your local parish. You can visit, call or write to your church and ask for a form of exit. There is no cost for terminating your membership.

If you regret it, you are welcome to become a member again.

A brief excerpt from an interview with the new PC and very Islam-friendly archbishop, from Svenska Dagbladet:

Religious diversity is an asset

Sweden’s new archbishop Antje Jackelén wants to see more cooperation with Muslim, Jewish and other religious organizations. And the Swedish church can expect to continue to lose members, she says in an interview with the Svenska Dagbladet.

“The church continues to lose members. How can it be stopped?”

“Stopped and stopped. It is clear that anyone who leaves the church is a loss to the church community.”

The Islam-critical and anti-PC site Avpixlat presents a different perspective:

New archbishop has “Allahu akhbar” as motto

Islamization of the Church

As feared, the politically correct and religion-relativistic bishop of Lund, Antje Jackelén, was elected new archbishop of the Swedish Church.

In interviews she now says that she in her new ministry will push for more cooperation with Muslim organizations.

This is in line with her personal motto which is a direct translation of the Muslim war cry of “Allahu akhbar”, i.e. “God is greater”, and which is also the title of a book she has published.

It created an uproar when the influential theologian Eva Hamberg announced the other day her renunciation of the priesthood, leaving the Swedish Church after Jackelén and the other candidates for archbishop equated during the hearing that preceded the election the good judgment of the Muslim prophet Muhammad with Jesus.

This does not seem to worry Jackelén, who on Tuesday tossed out PC phrases like “religious diversity is an asset” and “interfaith dialogue”.

Jackelén has also for a long time embraced Multiculturalism in Malmö, where she actively worked to adapt the Christian church so as not to annoy the ever-increasing Muslim population in the region.

The fact that the Swedish Church, as a result of this as well as the demographic change with increasing number of Muslim immigrants, is steadily losing members, Jackelén does not find problematic but “something that the Church has to accept”.

Jackelén will willingly sacrifice members of the Swedish Church to continue on the past decade’s chosen path of political correctness, of hiding illegals, employing of imams, etc. — a church for the immediate mourners as she and colleagues Eva Brunne [leftist bishop of Stockholm] and Helle Klein [former editor of the national slush newspaper Aftonbladet], will continue to conduct an inquisition against the Sweden-friendly national movement, the old Church of Sweden.

What Jackelén at all costs wants to stand in the way of is a Swedish national church as guardian of our Christian cultural heritage, being part of the foundation that made the West strong, successful and prosperous, in their role of acting as an antithesis to Islam, which subjected countries and entire continents to conflict, terror, oppression, stagnation, poverty, and wars.

24 thoughts on “The Dhimmi Church of Sweden

  1. In the west and over the last 70 years everything has lost its meaning. Democracy has no meaning other than the process of election where sheeple chose the dumber with nice hair over the dumb. Left and right, conservative and liberal have no meaning though the media use them as if sheeple know what they mean. Democracy to be fully successful sheeple must have no discern of what ‘s wrong and what ‘s right, therefore no position or attitude to defend, so there should be no bigots in a democracy.
    So why the church should be different? If a bishop or priest has definite ideas and dogmas worth defending, has an attitude then, that’s bigotry that ‘s racism to defend one’s own ideology. Democracy in Scandinavia means :
    1. to forget about your history and culture.
    2. Put yourself and culture on the floor and let Muslims tread on them to please them.
    3. Be as an idiot as a zombie. Be worse than those idiots of the Middle ages and blame them so that you appear clever.
    4. Don’t differentiate between Islam and Christianity, as a matter of fact Islam is better because their ideology is clear and civilized sheeple make room for Muslims for they know where they are going. Scandinavians are too nice to resist anything. It is a shame to resist or oppose.
    5. Christianity’s history was all black and bloody. Islam all peaceful and sunny. You see after all Scandinavian are clever to differentiate.
    6. If Scandinavians are raped by Muslims don’t blame the Muslims. Instead listen to the Scandinavians’ analysis as why the Muslims rape. Because they are of different culture. Bravo! you see. How clever Scandinavians are. They know the answer to every mystery. If an analysis comes from Scandinavia it must be correct, even if your eyes and brain and logic tells you otherwise. It is too bad Hitler did not put them first in the pyramid of the most advanced races.

  2. Surely Swedes who are sincere in their Christian beliefs will not stand for this extraordinary nonsense and depart en masse for a non-State subsidised Swedish Church. And it looks like Eva Hamberg is well positioned to lead the new one.

    If there is no mass public revulsion over this travesty Sweden is much further down the path of national self-destruction than I had hitherto believed.

    Imagine the contempt in which Muslim immigrants to Sweden hold the native Swedes for these antics. I’d love to be a fly on the wall in a Malmo coffee shop and listen to what the “New Swedes” say about their hosts.

    • > what the “New Swedes” say about their hosts.

      “They are old and tired and weak and miserable and hate themselves and want to die. Lets help them.”

      What are they supposed to think? The New Swedes are like confident and determined adults with their eyes firmly fixed on a goal. Their hosts, on the other hand, are a bunch of bored, empty, whiny, self-cutting, emo-haired, diary-keeping, fatherless, spoiled upper-class teenagers. What would YOU think?

      The contempt Muslims have for their hosts is completely justified.

      • Well then as the old Turkey wisedumb saying goes something like this “If you find yourself going down the wrong road – turn back.” So I’m sure there will be no misunderstanding if most Swedes at some point revolt and decide the best route forward is to turn back – no matter what? At the moment as elsewhere the legions are distracted by sports.

  3. I won’t like to be any of these fake Swedish Christians on Judgement Day.

    God is not going to as nice to them as they are to their Swedish Muslim comrades.

  4. “Swedish Church has no future”.

    If somebody had said that 40 years ago, it would have been just as true (Probably somebody did without being listened to.).

    Sweden is a huge country in relation to the number of inhabitants. The conditions living in the north or in south are like day and night – literally!

    My main concern is the large number of church buildings around the country – sometimes in the most implausible and beautyful environments. There are churches from the 11th century, and the variety in architecture is exceptional. Regardless peoples religious believes in Sweden – except from Islam – I hope they mean that these church buildings are a cultural inheritage that must be preserved to the future generations.

    As a M.Sc. in Building Technology, I have a long experience in the results of cutting the money for building maintenance and how it has been used politically (“Now it is too late and too expensive to restore the building, so we’ll better tear it down.”).

    A final retorical question: “In a few years, when the Swedish economy has been weekend due to the muslim immigration and infiltration – will there be money and political will to preserve the Church Buildings of the country?”

  5. I freely admit that I am an American Christian fundamentalist. Let people say bad things about me or even falsely accuse me of “hate speech” when I merely believe that some behavior is sinful.

    My hat is off to Eva Hamberg for her renunciation of priesthood and leaving the state church of Sweden. Female clergy have generally been a disaster for all Christian churches that have ever tried them; and if you want to date the decline of a Protestant denomination, look to the time it first ordained a woman. I am not ashamed to say that Paul got it right back in the first century when he denied the teaching office to women (I Tim 2:12ff.). I don’t see it as misogynistic in the least, for the Apostle spoke of “neither male nor female” in Christ, while his colleague Peter tells us men to see our wives as joint heirs of the grace of life (rather than as chattel, as Muhammad would have it). Go check the New Testament for yourselves.

    While my own religious predilections tend to the Swiss-Rhenish-Puritan Reformed tradition rather than the Saxon, I am grateful for the Lutheran heritage bequeathed by my mother’s Norwegian immigrant family. Hence, I weep when I see the churches of Scandinavia and the Landeskirchen of Germany sinking into the follies described in this post. My own guess is that Jackelen is a symptom of the Church of Sweden being unable to stand as a bulwark of Christianity and Christian culture rather than an obstacle to its fulfilling this role. Liberal theology is a cancer, and most of the established churches of Europe seem to have moved beyond Stage IV into the truly terminal stage. Call them Ichabod, for the glory has departed. Read over them Ezekiel 10:18,19, which describes the Glory of the LORD leaving for the east.

  6. Why not stay and fight to take back these churches and parties? Separation worked in other times but in this era isn’t it better to stay, impact, pray and fight to win; thats what the leftists and Islamists are doing.

  7. The new Swedish arch-bishop’s MOTTO

    Her own explaination,
    translated by Da Capo.

    God is greater

    The words are taken from I John 3:18-20 which says, “Let us not love with empty words but with actions and in truth”. When we understand that we are children of truth, and if our heart condemn us, facing God can convince it [our heart] that God is greater than our heart and understands everything”.

    Many times our heart condemns us for what we have thought, said and done, or for what we have not thought, said or done. Sometimes rightly, sometimes wrongly, but always with the risk that we will remain trapped or bent into ourselves, as Martin Luther expressed it. The assurance that God is greater than our hearts brings comfort, hope and courage. Forgiveness, justice, and courage are conditions necessary to be able to live with openness and love. To rest in the conviction that “God is greater” means peace in the middle of all worries the world and our own heart can place us in.

    But “God is greater” also causes worries in the middle of peace. God is greater than our images of God. However much we know and however strongly we may believe, we will never finalize and we will never own everything. God is greater than all the riches of wisdom and knowledge that mankind has accumulated by exploring both the material and the spiritual world.

    “God is greater” disturbs all totalitarian claims, whether they are religious, political, cultural or scientific. Therein lies an unprecedented encouragement to tolerance, respect and prayer for the Spirit of truth. The realization that God is greater is an incentive for cooperation and bold truth seeking.

    My motto is at the same time comforting and challenging. It invites to questions and conversations even as it refers to God’s grace that we encounter in Jesus Christ.

    – – – – – – – – – – – –
    Now let us hear in what way Muslimists justify the claim that their Allah is greater!

  8. It seems that Ms Jackelen has taken the leadership of the Swedish Church with a view to destroying what’s left of it. That is why she does not regrets over people leaving it. Sadly, the only option for anyone who subscribes to basic Christian beliefs is to leave this caricature of a church. The most reasonable course of them is consider convesrsion to the Roman Catholic or Orthodox Church that, at least for the time being, do not put into doubt the divine nature of Our Lord Jesus Christ or the exceptional character of the Christian Scripture. I am not sure about Catholics, but Orthodox Christians also venerate a great number of martyrs and confessors killed or tortured by Muslim fanatics. Protestant confessions in Europe are progressively becoming more and more indifferent to the faith of their founders sacrificing it to the fashionable idol of political correctness and pursuit of worldly pleasures.

    I think that it is better – more honest – to belong to no church than to what is misleadingly referred to as ‘the Swedish Church’.

  9. Pingback: The Black Flag of Jihad Flies Over Gothenburg | Gates of Vienna

  10. ““God is greater” disturbs all totalitarian claims,…”
    Worked for the totalitarian ambitions of Moses, Constantine, Mohammad, the Ottomans and Hitler. I suppose being “children of truth” means if you feel it’s true, it must be true.

    I wonder what the’ children of love’ and the ‘children of peace’ are doing.

  11. The State Church of Sweden (Lutheran) is done, completely compromised, and no longer even faintly Christian. There are, however, some people of faith still left in Sweden, and they are actively working underground. They are being actively assisted by the LCMS and some Continuing Anglicans from the USA.

    The State Church is just one more Swedish institution that has bought into multi-cultralism, in the form of complete and unconditional capitulation. The Swedes have given up every aspect of their own culture in favor of the barbaric, alien, heathen culture of izlam. Insanity is clearly rampant in Sweden, the end result of many generations of socialism and muddy thinking.

    Bp. Gertz wrote about the long, progressive decline of the State Church of Sweden in his great book, The Hammer of God. He shows that the collapse has been 150 years in the making.

  12. Thirty years ago the observation of a woman priest would have them as much derided as any female soccer referee or commentator. Once she took the podium, the sport was ruined. Men wouldn’t watch her. The fantasy of belonging to a football side, gone. And in the churches, the fantasy of belonging to God’s People, gone. She put reality back squarely in its place. The spectator no longer believing they had a connection to what was going on the pitch, ever. The truth set them free. And the Christian realized he could never preempt or second-guess God’s Plan. It rains on the wicked and the just.

    Good. Thank goodness for the equality of women, (if they are allowed out of their hijabs).

    But then, she does something no normal woman would ever do… she claims to be God’s Anointed after getting her degree in theology. Now she can talk about God.

    Didn’t Socrates put paid to this nonsense over 2.5 thousand years ago?

    Did no one explain to her that ‘God’ was just a metaphor? No one knows God The Person anymore than knowing any human being. That Jesus set people free from religion and not back into religion. The House of Israel he had made his mission to visit, were those caught up in their TV screens.

    He said, “soccer is a Beautiful Game. You learn from the rules and hear stories of the greatest Players from rags to riches, and of all the science and wisdom behind it. I would remove not dot from an i or a cross of a t from any football match. As for the Owners, do as they say, but not as they do.” Jesus made them whole and separated them from their partisanship to embrace the world with the values of teamwork.

    Yet here she is, cooking them a new pie of Jesus-The-God of Socialism.

    How many people have female priests or the authorities hunted down and force to attend correction classes for non-Politically Correct thought crimes?

    Sociopath does not begin to define it.

  13. This Sunday morning 10/20 around 8 o’clock the newly appointed archbishop Antje Jackelén was allowed to waffle on a few minutes in the Swedish PC state radio P1.
    Inter alia she could inform the populace that …her faith is bigger than her intelligence but, that she does not turn off her intelligence when she believes.
    The latter indeed sounds reassuring.

  14. Perhaps one should not forget that Christianity has been under so called ”attack” during several hundreds of years, starting around 1500- and 1600. There was wars and fights between different interpretations and leaders which broke “free” from the Roman Catholic Church and its dominion, eventually resulting in civil war. Then leading to so called revolutions, beginning in France, and America and forwarded in Russia…
    In Russia during the civil war several hundreds of thousands priests and Christians were murdered, and an attack on all religion was formulated through the words, – Religion is opium for the people – …

    To deny these influences which started round about when islam and Judaism was forbidden I Spain and was driven out of Spain, (1492) and since when there arouse a more efficient tactic to try to combat Christianity?…

    The period is called – The Enlightenment period – , and round about that time, one started the path away from religious believes for nations? And also replaced the churches dominion with the kings and queens overruling powers and their aristocracy and followers as the ultimate authority in the nations, even over the churches….

    The psychology of man is very interesting and the religions have answers concerning mans psychology…

    One should perhaps not forget what really happened in Judea, during the occupation of the Roman Empire, and the longing of the jewish people for freedom from this worldly power that put pressure on jews, or on the israelic, community in Judéa…

    One should perhaps not either forget that Judaism had several conflicts within itself and was divided into different groups that had various influence and authority over the community. There were also the traditions of sacrificing animals, (and perhaps also people), for redemption of sins, and also offerings of thanks to God, et cetera, which were very bloody events….

    When Pauls describes Jesus as an – bloodoffer – , that will take down the – wall – , between the jew and the greek – , and that this Jesus – offer – , is the foundation of a new testament, the first corner stone of a new building, a new culture, that would set aside all need for any more bloodofferings, and that the life of Jesus overstands all other offerings and puts an end to the need for any more such bloodofferings, because he, Jesus, was the supreme Lamm that had no fault in Him and therefore is the complete offering which could satisfy God as a payment for sin and incompletion for ever, and that Christ through his Fullness overlaps anyones incompleteness IF they adopt Christ in their hearts and minds, (which is the only – cut -, which is needed through this – new covenant – )…. That is the – New Testament – , which was forwards by St Paul, to the peoples – of the nations – so that they could also could come under – the same God – , and family, as Abraham, Isak and Jacob, and through that belong to – the Same House – as that of the Israelites, (and thereby also be part of the blessings that – God – promised to the obedient ones….)…

    This – new Religion – , that became – Christianity – , where there were needed no more bloodofferings any more, but that only THE WORD, manifested in Jesus, the Christ, should be that which could and should transform the hearts and the minds of people, was what St Paul brought forward to the peoples of the nations, as a gift, so as to teach them how to live, and how to separate right from wrong, and thus be able to have prosperous lives both for themselves and also for their children and grandchildren et cetera…

    Communism, and the abandonment of religion, or of – God – , would and could not acknowledge mans – need – for a personal relationship to – God -, through The Word.
    This has brought a loss of identity to man, since man, as – an I that lives – , is, creates, breaths and exists, has a need to cultivate a relationship to a Non Materialistic living entity, – God -, who also Is and Lives, Creates and Breaths in a non meassuarable and eternal Existence, and thus becomes the Ground Source and the – Creator – and the – Identifier – of man, which is to say becomes The Father – of man, when there is a relationship of confirming – God – ……

  15. “since man, as – an I that lives – , is, creates, breaths and exists, has a need to cultivate a relationship to a Non Materialistic living entity, – God -, who also Is and Lives, Creates and Breaths in a non meassuarable and eternal Existence, and thus becomes the Ground Source and the – Creator – and the – Identifier – of man, which is to say becomes The Father – of man, when there is a relationship of confirming – God – ……”

    No person needs to confirm anything to anyone. Period.

    • All Children of man grow and develop through confirmation, and through language…..

      Children who are neglected and not confirmed, abbandoned and left on their own, will not be able to grow as a socialiced human being. Human beings live through confirming one another. Preferably they are all confirming that language and those people that is familiar and recognicable.

      That is how cultures develop, live, breath and exist, and that is how people feel at home…

      Without confirming the little child, the child is lost…

  16. “Without confirming the little child, the child is lost…”

    Mikael, you twisted my words to mean the opposite of their intent and then slipped in a new meaning. I meant you cannot confirm Allah, Jehovah, Shiva, Ra to anyone. If I imposed my superstitions of ignorance upon a child, to live by ritual, I would create a zombie for God and a good citizen for the State.

    Whereas you meant ‘confirming’ to validate a child – and that is even more dangerous – for that will change their identity and self-worth to depend upon your ‘confirming’ them.

    Of course, listening, talking and engaging with children builds their self esteem and confidence, that they are valuable enough to receive your undivided attention – and this is what any pagan parents would do for their children – but you moved this on to declare: “Human beings live through confirming one another.”

    You have,by sleight of hand moved suddenly from child-nurturing to adult-nurturing, a Marxist cultural relativism of infantalizing adults, which creates co-dependency and destructive lifestyles of getting in and out of each other. A child must be weaned from all this, while the emotionally-disabled adults will protest for more preferential rights of recognition.

    A child is born perfect. What they lack is knowledge and experience. That is the role of the parents, to make a good soil in which the child will grow.

    If I praise a child for having a gift, that child will hide it. If I criticize a child for inquiring, they will hide it. For they should not be made to feel special or unspecial, princesses or demons. I can’t confirm them nor unconfirm them, I only need confirm myself so that they may confirm themselves. I have no will over them, for if they do my will they will conform or rebel. That I demonstrate love and truth together, will they recognize the value of trusting their inner conscience too. If I take their mobile phone away because they keep awake all night, I won’t find they have hung themselves in the morning. I have not confirmed them. For if I had, I could take it away again.

    I bought a new car, and my young son criticized it for being the wrong color. He took a photo to show his friends. I said I would tell his friends he liked manga comics. He shrugged and said “go on then, ” we laughed quoting what Jesus had said “if a man take your jacket give him your coat also”. I couldn’t manipulate him with giving embarrassment or taking away his pride. We knew the game being played. We have ears to hear. I never presume to confirm him. He is his own man.

    However, the Church presumes to confirm children and give them a new identity, a new Christian Name their parents didn’t give, as though Christ has called them to be another St Paul.

    “That is how cultures develop, live, breath and exist, and that is how people feel at home…” Exactly, Foxes have holes but the Son of Man has no belonging. My culture broadens everytime I experience new things. I do not derive comfort from ethnicity, race, gender, sexuality, or island. Those who do, are confirmed. Their spirit to function, depends upon the world. The self-appointed Religious Leaders just have to press buttons.

    • Perfectchild said:…”Whereas you meant “confirming” to validate a child”…

      What I meant when I said …confirming the child… was not really …to validate a child.
      But to …communicate with the child. That is to listen to, talking with and to be observant of the needs of the child.

      That is also what Perfectchild is expressing as something valuable and important.

      Perhaps I only used the wrong word…

      Communion …(communication), is also what is taking place in religious situations….

      • Then we agree Mikael, on communication with a child.

        Like a Dog Whisper emotionally stabilizes an animal, not with words or deeds, but by the same presence that dolphins and donkeys provide to psychologically damaged children.

        A religious person is out of their gourd. They should be nowhere near children. No Muslim came out from a Hindu household, no Catholic from a Taoist home. Therefore it is obvious they are not true mind conditions of nature but mind controlling forces of nurture.

        Can a child exist without subjugation to a priest or a politician? Of course they can, for the greatest among the Priests is the servant of these, and a politician a public servant. The fact the world is inverted, to serve inverts, makes the clarification of ‘confirmation’ even more important. For if a child is confirmed by these, to receive their approval, that child is dammed to seek out and convert other children, as the only sense of life they have left. To only know hallal and haram; without a soul but a body that lusts for young Muslims boys and girls in the thereafter.

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