This study is about the principle “Responsibility to Protect” and its implementation in several countries. The purpose of this study is to examine why the implementation of “Responsibility to Protect” has been used differently in similar situations. To limit my study I have chosen to examine two countries that have two different results on similar issues. I have chosen to study the conflict/civil war in Libya and Syria. The reason why I have chosen these countries is because these conflicts have similar causes and similar history, but how the international community responded differently and has argued various. This study will also highlight and observe the difficulties that the principle faces. For example the veto right in the united nation security council, and also the principle of sovereignty. At the end of this study I discuss the principle in general, what I think about it and how the principle “Responsibility to Protect” can be improved itself and develop to be more powerful and fulfill its purpose, to Protect civilians from genocide, crime against humanity and towards war crime.

The aim of this essay is to examine the significance of the concept of sanctification in biblical theological reflection on economics through a comparative textual study. The theologians analyzed are Albino Barrera, Wayne Grudem, and Kathryn Tanner.

In what way are their biblical and systematic theologies of economics related to their understanding of the concept of sanctification? What is the relationship between sanctification and the Bible’s words on economics? In a broader perspective, the essay aims to reflect on how the concept of sanctification can be viewed and enunciated in the light of a capitalist economic system.

The theologians used in the essay all have their origins in disparate theological discourses, Christian communities, and academic disciplines. Barrera is a biblical scholar, economist and a priest in the Catholic Church. In Biblical Economic Ethics, Barrera writes an economic theology with an emphasis on social justice. Grudem is a Calvinist Baptist biblical scholar and systematic theologian, active in conservative evangelical theological discourse. In Politics according to the Bible, Grudem presents his biblical theology on politics and society. Tanner is a systematic theologian in the Episcopal Church, active in the disciplines of feminist and constructive theology. In Christianity and the New Spirit of Capitalism, she critiques the economic paradigm she describes as the new spirit of capitalism.

Barrera, Grudem, and Tanner all make different readings of what the Bible has to say about economic life. Grudem actively endorses the economic system of today, while Barrera and Tanner have a more critical voice. Barrera sees sanctification as a gift of divine friendship from God. Grudem views sanctification as what comes after conversion from sin and the blessings granted by God. Tanner means that sanctification takes place through the work of the Spirit and by Jesus’ gift of a life in holiness.

Through the essay a connection has been established between a person’s view on sanctification and their biblical theology on economics. Barrera’s, Grudem’s, and Tanner’s biblical theology on economics is closely connected to their understanding of the concept of sanctification. There seems to be a connection between the biblical material that is being analyzed, how it is analyzed, and what is being left out. A central finding in the essay is the connection between the understanding of sanctification as either a gift or a reward.

This study is a hermeneutical analysis with the aim to theoretically and theologically understand what is preached about the church to youth today and how youth is motivated to join the church. The study contains three case studies from Hönökonferensen and through Taylor, Camnerin and the Theological Framework of the Uniting Church in Sweden a few understandings of the church emerge: the church is a warm, welcoming and transforming community, it can prevent individualism, heal, and make believers, but it can also be filled with demands. The study discusses authenticity as an important concept along with different understandings about community.

This study is about whether the ban on hijab and niqab in France violates human rights. Also, if there are contradictions between the human rights conventions and the french ban on hijab andniqab. That is the purpose and question of the study. The topic was chosen for an interest on whether the French ban violates human rights, and if so, why is the ban still a law? To fulfill the purpose of the study, the study will be using human right conventions and a case from the European court of human rights. The study will also use a human rights based approach to further analyze whether the french ban violates human rights. The human rights based approach will also focus on the rights themselves and the implementation of the rights. The second theory used in the study is a theory on multiculturalism. The theory will focus on the term “blind fordifference”. In other words, are human rights blind for difference?The method used in this study is a qualitative content analysis. The method was chosen to analyze the content of the french ban of niqab and hijab but also to analyze the content of the human rights conventions. The result showed that there are some contradictions between the french ban and the human rights conventions. The French ban on hijab and niqab showed potential violations towards human rights articles in the human rights conventions.

Jag har genom denna studie undersökt mentorskapets påverkan för pastorer i Equmeniakyrkan. Frågeställningarna arbetet utgår från handlar om ifall mentorskap kan bidra till en mer hälsosam arbetssituation för pastorer. Som metod har jag utgått från en kortare enkät samt strukturerade intervjuer av fem pastorer och två mentorer. Jag använder mig av två teorier, Töres Theorell och Robert Karaseks krav-, kontroll- och stödmodell samt Kathy E. Krams teori om karriärsrelaterat mentorskap och psykosocialt mentorskap. Uppsatsens slutsats lyder att forskning samt intervjuerna pekar på att mentorskap främjar pastorers hälsa.

The impetus for this study is a quote from Nietzsche and a scene from 1 Samuel. Nietzsche’s claim that “I would only believe in a God that knows how to dance” is juxtaposed to King David “dancing before the Lord with all his might” (1 Sam 6:14). 

This study offers a theological exploration of dance that can be understood as an extended reflection on the space opened up by these two quotes. 

This study consists of two main sections, analysis and discussion. The analysis seeks to develop a theoretical frame that generates a conversation between a dance project by Nadia Vadori Gauthier called Une minute de danse par jour and the materialist process theology of Catherine Keller. The discussion section applies this frame, which consists of three concepts that emerge from Nadia’s project: daily, ordinary, and resistant and Keller’s concepts of entanglement, apophatic matter, and intercarnation. 

The study explores how and in what ways Keller’s dynamic, process materialist theology might reveal the theological implications of Nadia’s daily dance project, implications that literally embody Keller’s theological approach and extend it beyond academic theology, into the very dance of life

In this essay I explore how dance can be interpreted as a theological practice. I stage an encounter between the lived experience of the dancer’s body and word-based tradition of theological discourse. This encounter between the word and the image of dance reveals the limitations of theological discourse to account adequately for the full range of human and creaturely experience that have its sources in colonialism and imperialism. This paper argues that introducing the image of dance and the lived experience of the dancer into theological discourse then will serve to reduce the effects of these dangerous prejudices.

This essay will use two of Simone Weil's most well-known concepts, attention and presence. They will serve as the interpretive bridge for a dialogue between dance and theology. I will focus on the experience of dancing and explain how this subjective, embodied practice of movement can enhance theology.

At a time of great instability and uncertainty globally with ecological crises, racial injustice, and economic disparity on one hand and the rise of anxiety, depression, loneliness, and despair on the other hand, it is important that we find new ways to cultivate inner peace and encourage responsible action. And important way to do this is to welcome the creative opportunities of instability and uncertainty, of the unknown and the unexplored. 

Dance and theology—in collaboration and conversation—can offer useful resources for cultivating these practices that allow us to meet these challenges with faith, hope, and love.

Textbooks on human rights often describe the history of human rights as a linear process, where human rights rest on a rather unified history. In this history, the idea of Enlightenment is a central component, leading to the understanding of human rights, as we know them. This article argues that the common presentation of the history of human rights in some central textbooks is highly problematic, not least on the relation between religion and human rights. Even though a simplified narrative to some extent makes it easier to promote human rights, instead of repeating a simplified history there is need to present the history in its complexity. This article gives examples of how the relation between religion and human rights is more complicated than most often argued. The judicial and educational context of the paper is the situation in Sweden.

This thesis tries to answer the question of how the night office sluthō d-lilyō has developed in the Syrian Orthodox Antiochian tradition as it is expressed in the Syrian Orthodox prayerbook of ܫܚܝܡܐ Šḥimō - which is the prayerbook used on ordinary weekdays and Saturdays throughout the liturgical year except for the great Lent.

One of the main liturgical scholars of the 20th century, Robert F. Taft S.J. (+ 2018), refined the methods of Anton Baumstark (+ 1948) and Juan Mateos S.J. (+ 2003), and studied how the Liturgy and Liturgy of the Hours have grown during the centuries. This thesis uses the method(s) of Taft and studies how the night office has grown by comparing the structure of this office in six manuscripts from the Monastery of Mor Gabriel in Tur-’Abdin – one of the major monasteries in the Syrian Orthodox world. The oldest manuscript in our study is dated to 1474 C.E. (perhaps the oldest dated MS of the Šḥimō in the entire world). Few studies have looked into how the Šḥimō tradition has changed during the centuries and in this thesis we will take the night office as an example of liturgical growth and development. 

The ܫܚܝܡܐ Shhimo is the prayer book for normal weekdays of the Syrian Orthodox Church and it was officially printed for the first time in Dayro d-Kurkmo (Dayr Al-Zafaran) in 1890 with a printing press that Patriarch Ignatius Peter IV (+ 1894) had received in 1874 thanks to his visit to London and the Anglican Church. Prior to 1890 Shhimo was a diverse tradition expressed with different manuscripts in different monasteries showing a diverse use of different prayers and costumes. The second printing of Shhimo in 1913 and re-printing 1934, by the late Syrian Orthodox Patriarch Ephrem I Barsoum (+ 1957), was a reworked version of 1890 that included several important changes. This thesis will investigate what these changes were and what implications they carry for the understanding of Shhimo and for the Syrian Orthodox Church.

In this paper we will also start to investigate the transmission process of the Shhimo and study some of the manuscripts prior to 1890.

The purpose of this Master’s thesis is to understand how theories of organizational culture canenrich our understanding of Matthew’s group, his parable speech and the parables of thekingdom of heaven. I argue that Matthew edited and constructed the parable speech to fit hisintentions so that he could call for righteous behavior from the members of his group. I thenargue that the parable speech can be viewed as a regulatory document that addresses externalproblems of adaption and internal problems of integration that Matthew’s group had to face.I also argue that the parables of the kingdom of heaven are related to externaland internal problems and that the parables can be understood as artifacts that express thepreferred behavior applied by the leaders of Matthew’s group.My conclusion is that the theories of organizational culture give us a betterunderstanding of the complex situation of Matthew’s group and that the parable speech isrelated to these issues and addresses the group. It can therefore be considered a regulatorydocument. The parables of the kingdom of heaven can be understood as stories that call forrighteous behavior and persuade the Jewish people to join Matthew’s group through followingthe law according to view held by Matthew’s group.

For a long time, the field of Practical Theology has seen an increasing interest in practices and the use of qualitative methods to study concrete practices in church and society. Earlier, the studies of liturgy often focused on liturgical texts. However, although an increasing num- ber of studies have explored concrete liturgical situations, relatively few have investigated pastors or priests as liturgical actors. Additionally, there is a clear deficit of theoretical tools for analysis in practice-oriented studies within Practical Theology

The purpose of this study is to deepen the understanding of pastors and priests as liturgical actors. The study also develops theoretical perspectives in dialogue with Michel de Certeau, Jonna Bornemark and Bruno Latour, and uses them for analysis of contemporary baptismal practices in the Uniting Church in Sweden and the Church of Sweden. Through the concepts strategy and tactic (de Certeau), discernment (Bornemark), and actor-network theory (Latour) the craftmanship of the liturgical actor is brought to the fore, thereby contribu- ting to a deepened and richer picture of the liturgical baptismal situation. The study shows how liturgists, through their use of liturgical books and church buildings, exercise a creative liturgical craftmanship in cooperation with other liturgical actors and through liturgical discernment. By an abductive method this study also contributes with the development of four theoretical perspectives that can be used to study other liturgical situations.

In order to access the concrete liturgical baptismal situation this study is based on a num- ber of participatory observations of baptisms as well as interviews with priest and pastors that have carried out these baptisms. The analysis shows at an in-depth level how these litur- gical craftsmen adapt, adjust, expand, restructure and widen the (strategically) given in the baptismal situation. Furthermore, different motives are investigated for this liturgical craft, as well as resources that contribute to the liturgist’s ability. Not the least, the result shows that pastors and priests in their everyday liturgical work carry out a theologically creative work with implications for several aspects of liturgical theology.

The study deals with themes such as (1) the relationship between subject and structure in liturgical situations, (2) practical knowledge as an important aspect of liturgical action, (3)a deepened understanding of liturgical change, (4) the liturgist’s significance for liturgy and liturgical theology (5), sociomaterial aspects of liturgy and (6) the development of theory in the field of practical theology.

As the father of Lutheran hymns in the Norwegian Nynorsk language, Elias Blix (1836-1902) looms in the Scandinavian country’s song culture, and his compositions remain popular, both inside and outside the church. Blix lent significant space to the more-than-human in his poetry, expressing the Christian gospel in the changing of seasons or the budding of plants. This article explores a baptismal hymn from a new-materialist perspective. It demonstrates how the poet cast the initiation rite as a dynamic, erotic dance between the two elements of water and spirit/breath/air. With what one might call an ecocentric sensibility, Blix adumbrated a Christian understanding that decenters the human, as baptismal transformation unfolds with the agency of the elements.

In the wake of the current environmental crisis, scholars of late antique Christianity are beginning to study Christian attitudes towards the natural world. How did the early Christians relate to their environment? This article explores perceptions of trees, surveying the writings of Tertullian, Basil of Caesarea, and Sozomen the historian. What did an arboreal plant do, according to patristic authors? What kind of agency did they imagine trees to have? The investigation shows that members of the educated elite might think of trees as bodies with living, intelligent souls; they saw complex variety and gendered creatures with personal characteristics when they gazed at beings in bark. Certain arboreal species engaged in and were communicating through a sexual-life; many individuals made rational choices. Although trees are not free to move around, Christians assumed that boughs and branches could bend in devotion as trees expressed attention to divine presence.

This article explores the more-than-human characterization of the Theotokos in the famous Akathistos Hymn. The Mother of God emerged as an intercessional figure in the Christian imagination during late antiquity, but the formative period of mariology is still partly uncharted territory to modern scholarship. Reflecting on its rich landscape imagery and chora language, the article argues that the Akathistos minimizes the human traits of the Theotokos, rendering her more as a spatial phenomenon. In the hymn, we may glimpse traces of Marian ideas less developed during subsequent periods, ideas which gesture toward what we may call a "dark mariology." The Logos incarnates into more than human flesh, and the womb has a close affinity with the landscape. The Akathistos evokes the vision of a wider nonhuman participation in the incarnation rooted in the natural landscape of the Theotokos.

This book examines the many ways Byzantines lived with their trees. It takes seriously theological and hagiographic tree engagement as expressions of that culture’s deep involvement—and even fascination—with the arboreal. These pages tap into the current attention paid to plants in a wide range of scholarship, an attention that involves the philosophy of plant life as well as scientific discoveries of how communicative trees may be, and how they defend themselves. Considering writings on and images of trees from Late Antiquity and medieval Byzantium sympathetically, the book argues for an arboreal imagination at the root of human aspirations to know and draw close to the divine. 

Many Christians believe in a future with eternal life, some say it will be “in heaven”. What kind of existence do they imagine? Do they think that the risen Christian congregation will have physical bodies like we have here in our lives on Earth today? Or will it be a spiritualexistence?

Bible scholar and former Anglican bishop NT Wright asserts that Christianity’s most distinctive idea is bodily resurrection and he also defense a literal resurrection of Jesus.1 He claims that most Christians don’t understand the meaning of the “Christian hope” – that of a bodily resurrection and a new creation.

What is the theological statement on resurrection from bishops in the Swedish Lutheran Church? Which message about the Christian hope do they advise, especially when it comes to funerals? What kind of eschatological tracks are to be found in the main manual Kyrkohandbok för Svenska kyrkan? Is the afterlife to be seen as a spiritual existence or one with physical bodies? And does it really matter?

The main purpose in this essay is to find out what kind of eschatological guidance there is for priests officiating funerals. With starting point in the theology of NT Wright, in comparison with the advice from Swedish bishops, the essay is studying which words and formulation could be used to talk truthfully about the Christian hope.

Gardens in the Wasteland is an ethnographic study of Christian formation within three Swedish church plants working against a backdrop of advanced secularisation. The thesis analyses the formative practices employed by these church plants with the intention of forming persons towards a lived Christian identity. Employing a situated learning theory framework, it traces the formative trajectories and negotiations that emerge from these shared practices, and also examines the articulations of callings and intentions within these church plants.

The findings reveal that the establishment of a church plant often stems from a sense of place-oriented calling that encompasses a vision of vibrant Christian life and community. These church plants cultivate formative practices – aimed at certain teloi – that guide individuals on their journeys towards a lived Christian identity. Through participation in these practices, individuals align themselves with the church plant’s vision of Christian life. This identity formation process is not static but rather involves ongoing negotiations, both on a personal and community level, as individuals grapple with the meaning of Christian identity and faith amidst an increasingly secularised society.

The Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles are often viewed as Christian counterparts to the ancient novels – a genre that certainly reflects their fictional character, but neither their fascination with the foreign, strange, and miraculous, nor their focus on named historical figures such as the apostles. These interests are rather the defining features of the ancient genres of paradoxography and biography, where the latter includes mostly fictional works on historical or even mythological figures such as Heracles. This paper uses cognitive genre theory to analyze how the Apocryphal Acts participate in both of these two ancient genres.

Motsättningar inom ett samhälle blir sällan skarpare än när människor avrättas för att ha brutit mot samhällsgemenskapens grundläggande normer. En ideologisk text som tillkommit i en sådan situation kan därför förväntas skildra kontrasten mellan samhället och den egna gruppen i tydligast möjliga ordalag, även om skillnaderna i faktiska värderingar inte alltid är så stora. Ett gott exempel på detta är Perpetuas och Felicitas martyrium, där vi har goda skäl att tro oss möta en ung kvinnas egen berättelse om sina upplevelser, känslor och visioner inför mötet med vilddjuren på den romerska arenan i Karthago. Med hjälp av Kathryn Tanners kulturteori kan vi urskilja de beteendemönster som framstår som normer och ideal i martyriet, och inse att de visioner och den oberördhet inför döden som etablerar Perpetuas auktoritet är väletablerade ideal även inom den grekisk-romerska kulturen. De värderingar som skiljer martyriets ideologi från det omgivande samhället är två: normen att vägra offra till de grekisk-romerska gudarna och föreställningen att alla människor, oavsett samhällelig status, äger en inneboende värdighet.

The Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles are often viewed as Christian counterparts to the ancient novels – a genre that certainly reflects their fictional character, but neither their fascination with the foreign, strange, and miraculous, nor their focus on named historical figures such as the apostles. These interests are rather the defining features of the ancient genres of paradoxography and biography, where the latter includes mostly fictional works on historical or even mythological figures such as Heracles. This paper uses cognitive genre theory to analyze how the Apocryphal Acts participate in both of these two ancient genres.

The extra-canonical Acts of the apostles John, Paul, Peter, Andrew, and Thomas have traditionally been understood as heretical offshoots from the canonical Acts of the Apostles, complementing the canonical material in order to promulgate an alternative version of early Christianity. This view not only overemphasizes the dogmatic difference between their authors and other early Christians, but also obstructs the crucial discussion about their genre.

This paper argues that in the context of Greco-Roman literature, the apocryphal acts exhibit considerable resemblances to two established ancient genres: biography and paradoxography. Greco-Roman biography included not only the historiographically oriented bioi of well-known rulers and politicians, but also – at least at an earlier stage of its development – fictional narratives about historical figures, such as Xenophon’s Anabasis and Cyropaedia. Ancient paradoxography is a surprisingly little known genre that flourished from early Hellenistic times well into the Byzantine era. It was aimed at collecting descriptions of wonders (θαῦματα), strange things (ἴδια), and phenomena that goes against our expectations (παράδοξα) – not from observations of nature but from previous literary works. With their claims to chronicle the famous apostles’ wondrous deeds throughout the known world, the apocryphal acts can be said to participate in both of these genres.

Viewed as part of the reception history of the New Testament, the Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles document a fascinating history of the development of the portrayal of the apostles, promoting various versions and accentuations of early Christian theology. This paper studies one aspect of this development, namely how the portrayal of an ideal Christian disciple is transformed from the Gospel of Mark to the Acts of Thomas and his Wonderworking Skin – a fourth- or fifth-century narrative in which Jesus sells Thomas as a slave in India. After displeasing his new master, Thomas is tortured and skinned alive, but manages to use his peeled-off skin to work miracles, and leads a large number of people to accept Christ. The discipleship ideals discernible from this story will be compared to similar ideals expressed in the Gospel of Mark, and the development between the two discussed.

How we categorize early Christian literature has an immense impact on what we expect to find in these ancient writings, and how we are prepared to interpret them. Grouped with apocryphal gospels and apocalypses, the Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles have been viewed primarily as heretical writings, representing alternative Christianities that were effectually silenced by the processes of canonization. While they certainly contain evidence of such silenced theologies, the Acts themselves are more likely to be complementary writings, aiming to edify, educate and entertain early Christian readers without intention to replace or correct any canonical material. This chapter offers another angle on two early Christian stories, Acts of Philip 1 and Acts of Philip 8–Martyrdom of Philip. Regarded as parts of the reception history of the Synoptic Gospels, these stories will be found to interact with theological ideas expressed in the Gospels without necessarily setting out to either defend or correct them. More specifically, I study how ideals for early Christian discipleship – traits expected from an ideal Christian disciple – are transformed from the earlier Gospels to the later narratives about the apostle Philip. 

In Christian fiction from late antiquity, Christ’s apostles are given bread by angels, provide an inexhaustible food source, part the waters, and raise a widow’s son from the dead right before challenging their opponent to a duel of miracles. Even though Elijah’s name is never mentioned, the insightful reader may recognize the allusions to 1–2 Kings, and the miracles performed by the old Tishbite. Elijah was a well-known figure in early Christian literature – enough so that the authors of the Gospel of Mark, the Epistle of James, and the Life of Antony could trust their readers to recognize veiled allusions to the prophet even without the aid of his name. This paper argues that the Elijah cycle also functions as a subtext in the early Christian stories of Andrew and the cannibals (Acts Andr. Mth.) and Peter’s confrontation with the magician Simon (Acts Pet.), suggesting to the insightful reader that these two apostles are as powerful wonderworkers as the prophet Elijah.

Scholarship on ancient works of literature that survive only in quotations, such as Heracleon’s hypomnēmata (“commentary” or “notes”), often presuppose that the quotations dependably transmit the actual words of the quoted author, thereby ignoring the mediation and the agenda of the quoting author. This article demonstrates that ancient authors frequently adapted quotations to their new contexts, and develops a methodology for evaluating the extent of adaptations made in Origen’s quotations from Heracleon’s hypomnēmata. 

While it is well known that the Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles have similarities to ancient novels, it is less well understood how these imaginative stories make use of strange and unusual phenomena from around the world to characterize their heroes, provide intriguing predicaments, and add flair to their narratives. This paper analyzes the use of such paradoxographical material in the third Act of Philip (in the manuscript Codex Xenophōntos 32) where the apostle Thomas is said to have faced the violent flesh-eaters (τοὺς παλαμναίους τοὺς σαρκοφάγους), Matthew is said to have confronted the unmerciful cave-dwellers (τοὺς τρωγ­λο­δύτας καὶ ἀνηλεεῖς), and Philip experiences a powerful theophany in the form of  a talking eagle. The origins of such materials in ancient natural history and paradoxography is discussed, and the effects to which they are used in this particular story analyzed