Svenska kyrkan och dess prästers tro

Abstract

What the priests in the Church of Sweden believe has often been a topic of public discussion but seldom a matter of empirical investigation. In this article, results from a representative survey show that the priests’ be-liefs can be divided into three main directions of interpretation called “free”, “functional” and “formal”. The survey shows that the priests tend to accept the “formal” direction of interpretation and render it close to the Church of Sweden’s beliefs, whereas the “free” direction of interpretation tend not to be accepted nor under-stood as this church’s official beliefs. Because the results presented in the article are novel in kind, it is argued that they may deepen several ongoing discussions in and about the Church of Sweden.