[Grem] Sweden: Who Do Christian Leaders In Sweden Serve?

Emoke Greschik greschem at gmail.com
2016. Sze. 13., K, 20:19:03 CEST 

Sweden: Who Do Christian Leaders Serve?


* by Nima Gholam Ali Pour
<https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/author/Nima+Gholam+Ali+Pour> September
13, 2016 at 5:30 am*

*https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/8920/sweden-church-immigration
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   -

   *In Swedish Christianity,* *Jesus **has been reduced* *from being the
   son of God,* *to an activist fighting for multiculturalism and open
   borders. According to Archbishop Antje Jackelén of the Church of Sweden,
   Jesus has clear political positions on both migration and integration
   policies.*
   -

   *According to a senior official in the Church of Sweden,** the call to
   wear a cross to show solidarity with persecuted Christians **is
   "un-Christian".*
   -

   One might describe *the Swedish Christianity as a new religion that
   worships multiculturalism and leftist values in general.*
   -

   *"The leadership of the Church of Sweden no longer wants to* *lead a
   Christian community*; *they want to lead a general ethical association
   for humanistic values." *— Ann Heberlein, doctor of theology and
   lecturer at Lund University.
   -

   One can have different interpretations of what *Jesus* did or what
   opinions he had, but we can all agree that he *did not serve* *the
   Emperor or other earthly rulers*. *Too many Christian leaders in Sweden
   have become the servants of earthly rulers by conveying the message of the
   political establishment in Sweden.*

Christianity is a universal religion, therefore Christianity in Sweden
should have many similarities with Christianity in other countries.

If Christianity in Sweden begins to embrace a doctrine that has nothing to
do with the universal world religion of Christianity, Sweden has then
invented a new religion.

If you look at how Christianity has developed in Sweden today, it seems
that this is what Sweden is about to get.

Stefan Swärd is an influential Christian pastor in Sweden with a background
in the Evangelical Free Church in Sweden. In an op-ed from September 2014,
Swärd describes
<http://www.dagen.se/debatt/kristna-hor-inte-hemma-i-akessons-hejarklack-1.269905>
Christianity the following way:

"When congregations in Sweden meet in diversity and integration and
integrate Africans, Chinese and Latin Americans, they express the very
essence of the Christian community's being."

He continues,

"As Christians, we should work for a generous refugee policy. We will work
so our churches and congregations become good examples of functioning
integration, where people of different backgrounds can come together in a
common life."

In December 2014, he gathered 380 Swedish ministers from the Pentecostal
movement, the Evangelical Free Church in Sweden, the Uniting Church in
Sweden, the Salvation Army, Word of Faith Movement and the Swedish Alliance
Mission, as well as several other churches, to sign a petition
<http://www.dagen.se/debatt/380-pastorer-flyktingpolitiken-inte-for-generos-1.306400>
*,* which declared, among other things, that these denominations do not
believe that Sweden applies a refugee policy that is too generous. This was
written before the migration crisis in 2015, when Sweden already had the
most liberal immigration policy in Europe and gave all Syrians permanent
residence in Sweden.

To those concerned about the future of Sweden, where many new migrants
might not be able to be assimilated or might not want to be assimilated,
Swärd is regarded as misusing Christianity to argue for a liberal
immigration policy.

In his recent book, *Jesus Was Also a Refugee* (*Jesus var ocksĂĄ flykting*
<http://www.xpmedia.org/bocker/samhallsanalys/jesus-var-ocksa-flykting>),
Swärd and his co-author, Micael Grenholm, try to answer the following
question: "What does God think about the global refugee crisis and Swedish
migration policy?" The answer that the book gives is that there should be
no immigration restrictions at all and that rich countries have to open
their borders simply because they are rich countries.

Swärd and his coalition of ministers are not an anomaly in Swedish
Christianity. They represent the norm for what much of Swedish Christianity
preaches nowadays. Antje Jackelén, the archbishop of Sweden's largest
denomination, the Church of Sweden, said in an interview from January 9,
2016
<http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=83&artikel=6341477>
that Jesus would not approve of the Swedish government's new restrictive
migration policies, which the government was forced to implement because of
the migration crisis. Archbishop Jackelén stated:

"The Bible is full of stories of refugees. Jesus himself was a refugee in
his infancy. To protect the stranger, the one who is not protected, runs
like a thread through the Old and New Testament. There would probably be no
approval from Jesus for the government policy."

On the basis of what many Christian leaders in Sweden say, Jesus seems to
have been interested in migration policies, and he seems to have thought
that they should be liberal.

According to the Church of Sweden, there are even clear political positions
that God has on how immigrants should integrate into a new country.
Archbishop Antje Jackelén, for instance, said in an interview
<http://www.expressen.se/nyheter/val2014/jackelen-strider-mot-kristen-manniskosyn/>
from September 2014 that if one requires that immigrants assimilate into
the country after their arrival, it is contrary to a Christian view of
humanity. Is that statement based on the Bible, or is it based on the
political agenda of the Swedish liberal establishment? Antje Jackelén leads
the church in which 63% of Sweden's population are members. Her message is
that Jesus has clear political positions on both migration and integration
policies.

Christian leaders in Sweden have re-made Christianity into a religion that
serves the political agenda of an establishment whose extreme liberal
ideology lacks popular support. Left: Sweden's Crown Princess, King,
Archbishop Antje Jackelén, and the Queen pose after the archiepiscopal
ordination of Jackelén on June 15, 2014 (Image source: Church of Sweden).
Right: Influential Swedish Christian pastor Stefan Swärd co-wrote the
book *Jesus
Was Also a Refugee*, which advocates for a policy of no immigration
restrictions; rich countries have to open their borders simply because they
are rich countries.

After the June 2016 terrorist attack in Orlando, Florida, in which ISIS
sympathizer Omar Mateen murdered 49 people at a gay nightclub, another
influential Christian pastor in Sweden, Stanley Sjöberg, wrote
<http://www.expressen.se/nyheter/hbtq-personer-borde-vara-mer-lagmalda/> on
his Facebook page that homosexuals should be more low-key, not to provoke
Muslims. After his statement about the Orlando massacre, Sjöberg told
<http://www.dagen.se/stanley-sjobergs-facebooksida-stangd-efter-orlandoinlagg-1.739304>
a Christian magazine:

"But I believe that we must adapt to the multicultural way when we've
brought several hundred thousand Muslims here. I believe that politicians
and serious thinkers agree with me that we cannot just continue with our
culture, with Pride festivals, or to drink in public. We in Europe are
forced to step back to show a little more considerate attitude to the
environment."

The Church of Sweden has actively tried to influence Swedish politicians to
support a liberal immigration policy. When the Swedish parliament was going
to vote on restrictive migration policies in June 2016, a bishop of the
Church of Sweden in the Diocese of Västerås pleaded with MPs to vote
against the proposal. When the media asked him why he should interfere in
political matters he responded
<http://www.svt.se/nyheter/lokalt/vastmanland/biskopens-tarar-for-barnen>:

"It is obvious to me. Otherwise I would not carry out my duties as bishop
unless I committed myself to the vulnerable."

There are lot of vulnerable people in Sweden. 225,000 retirees in Sweden
lived in poverty
<http://www.svt.se/nyheter/inrikes/fattigpensionarer-en-vaxande-grupp> in
2014, and all estimates shows that this number is going to grow rapidly. So
why is the Church of Sweden obsessed with vulnerable people who come from
other countries?

It seems to have become part of Church of Sweden's mission -- and
Christianity in Sweden generally -- to make the country implement a liberal
immigration policy.

But is this really the mission of the Church and Christianity? What
happened with spreading the Word and letting people know that Jesus is the
truth, the way and the life?

It is not even certain that Christian leaders in Sweden care so much about
Jesus and his opinions. After a French priest, Jacques Hamel, was murdered
by ISIS sympathizers
<https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/8561/france-chuch-martyrdom-pope> in
Rouen, France, on July 26, 2016, an initiative started in Sweden where
Swedish Christians took "selfies" with a cross to show solidarity with
persecuted Christians. The initiative, called "Mitt kors"("My cross"), was
started <https://www.facebook.com/groups/1746487298941396/> by three
priests from the Church of Sweden. The Church of Sweden, however,
criticized it. Gunnar Sjöberg, Head of Communications for the Church of
Sweden, wrote
<https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10154614119237638&set=a.458494267637.243328.695717637&type=3&theater>
on his Facebook page:

"I really do not know about that. This thing about Christians suddenly
wearing a cross as a sign for or against something. It is actually nothing
new, but the call seems seditious and un-Christian in the conflicts that
already exist."

So now, according to a senior official in the Church of Sweden, the call to
wear a cross to show solidarity with persecuted Christians is
"un-Christian".

That the Church of Sweden distances itself from people who carry the cross
caused Ann Heberlein, a doctor of theology and lecturer at Lund University,
to write
<http://www.expressen.se/debatt/kyrkan-vill-inte-leda-ett-kristet-samfund/>,

"The leadership of the Church of Sweden no longer wants to lead a Christian
community; they want to lead a general ethical association for humanistic
values of the most vulgar kind."

The Church of Sweden's attacks on the "My cross" initiative continued until
one of the priests who had started it publicly left the Church of Sweden.
In an article, Johanna Andersson, the priest who is resigning, writes
<http://www.expressen.se/debatt/prasten-darfor-lamnar-jag-svenska-kyrkan/>:

"Church leadership has for several weeks been running a campaign against us
who started the group 'My cross.' In this campaign, I have been
discredited, called 'questionable', 'unclean', 'agitator', 'un-Christian'
and attributed xenophobic hidden agendas."

The question, therefore, is whether some Christian leaders in Sweden really
care about Jesus and Christianity or whether they are using Jesus to convey
a political agenda which includes a liberal immigration policy and
multiculturalism.

While the Church of Sweden opposed a campaign that tried to use the cross
to show solidarity with the persecuted Christians, Archbishop Antje
Jackelén co-authored an op-ed
<http://www.dn.se/debatt/odesdigert-mota-terrorhot-med-upprop-till-kulturkamp/>
in one of Sweden's largest newspapers with four other Swedish religious
leaders, including Mahmoud Khalfi, chairman of the Swedish Imam Council,
who has connections
<http://www.svd.se/muslimska-brodraskapet-ett-udda-val-av-kyrkan> to the
Muslim Brotherhood.

There are many examples of how Christianity in Sweden has gone astray and
become something else. One might describe Swedish Christianity as a new
religion that worships multiculturalism and leftist values in general. In
Swedish Christianity, Jesus has been reduced from being the son of God, to
an activist fighting for multiculturalism and open borders.

In 2013, the Swedish Social Democratic Youth League had an advertisement
<https://youtu.be/FvY17KEOAvg> for elections in the Church of Sweden, in
which they declared that "Jesus was a Social Democrat." Meanwhile, there
are Christian leaders who claim to know exactly what Jesus thought about
the current government's immigration policy.

This is the state of Swedish Christianity today, and it is not certain that
Christians around the world would recognize the religion in Sweden called
Christianity. Christian leaders in Sweden have taken Christianity and made
it into a religion that serves the political agenda of an establishment
whose extreme liberal ideology lacks popular support among the Swedish
people.

If the Swedish establishment wants multiculturalism, then Christian leaders
will declare that God says multiculturalism is good. If the Swedish
establishment wants a liberal immigration policy, Jesus says that he has
always been for a liberal immigration policy, despite the fact that he was
born more than 2000 years ago. Swedish Christianity has become a mixture of
madness and deception.

In Malmö the Church of Sweden publishes a local magazine called *Trovärdigt*.
In the latest issue <http://issuu.com/trovardigt/docs/trovardigt_2_2016>,
you can read that a priest, who serves at St. Peters church in Malmö, said,

"The rainbow in the Pride Flag is also a sign of the promise between God
and man".

Really? Not even the most radical gay activists believe that the rainbow in
the gay pride flag is a sign of the promise between God and man. For many
influential Christian leaders in Sweden, it does not matter what it says in
the Bible anymore. In fact, if you take a step back and look at the overall
picture, it is clear that many Christian leaders in Sweden do not worship
God; they worship the romanticized, multicultural utopia they want Sweden
to become. These Christian leaders betray not only the Swedish people, but
they also betray the God that they promised to serve, by making
Christianity into a bullhorn for the liberal elite who hold political power
in Sweden.

One can have different interpretations of what Jesus did or what opinions
he had, but we can all agree that he did not serve the Emperor or other
earthly rulers. Too many Christian leaders in Sweden have become the
servants of earthly rulers by conveying the message of the political
establishment in Sweden.

*Nima Gholam Ali Pour is a member of the board of education in the Swedish
city of Malmö and is engaged in several Swedish think tanks concerned with
the Middle East. He is also editor for the social conservative website
Situation Malmö. Gholam Ali Pour is the author of the Swedish book "**Därför
är mångkultur förtryck* <http://www.amazon.com/dp/9163794454>*"("Why
multiculturalism is oppression").*


   - Follow Nima Gholam Ali Pour on Twitter <https://twitter.com/nimagap>
   and Facebook <https://www.facebook.com/nimagap>

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