Political Correctness Winning the War on Christianity in Sweden

Swedish PM tells priests to carry out same-sex marriages

‘or do something else’ 

© Enrique Castro-Mendivil / Reuters

Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Lofven has suggested that all Church of Sweden priests be compelled to perform gay marriages, despite the Lutheran church’s position that clergy members should have the right to refuse.

Same-sex weddings have been legal in Sweden since 2009, although priests can decline to carry out these ceremonies under the country’s marriage code. 

This could now change, however, given Lofven’s recent comments about the role of priests in Swedish society.

The prime minister indicated in an interview with a church magazine that if a priest cannot bless a gay marriage, they should consider another vocation.

“We Social Democrats are working to ensure all priests will consecrate everyone, including same-sex couples,” Lofven told Kyrkans Tidning magazine.

“I see parallels to the midwife who refuses to perform abortions. If you work as a midwife you must be able to perform abortions, otherwise you have to do something else… It is the same for priests,” he said.

Official documents from the church say it “offers” both heterosexual and homosexual marriage ceremonies. Although it is not against gay marriage, the Church of Sweden’s official stance is that “no priest should be obliged to officiate at the wedding of a same-sex couple.”

In the interview, Lofven, who is not religious, (no kidding) defended the perceived political incursion into the practice of religion, saying “the church must stand up for human equality.”

"The church will continue to play a major role, especially in times like these with terror and refugee crisis,” he added.

“The church binds society together and provides security,” he added.

His view of the church is that it is a social instrument not a spiritual one. This is what many people who don't believe in God think. It matters not to them what God says, because God doesn't exist in their minds. 

That the Lutheran Church is not against gay marriage must have the great reformer for whom it is named rolling over in his grave. It seems obvious that many a Lutheran minister in Sweden has no relationship with Jesus Christ or there would be no same-sex marriages in the Church of Sweden. 

How long before it will be illegal to refuse to marry a same-sex couple? How long before Sweden's blasphemy spreads to the rest of the western world? Probably not long!

Sweden - Going to Hell in a Hand-basket

This might explain why Sweden is in so much trouble with its government making hair-brained decisions that the public mostly supports

Why Swedes are leaving the Swedish Church in record numbers

File photo of a Swedish priest. Photo: Christine Olsson/TT

The Local

More than 90,000 people chose to quit the Swedish Church last year – almost twice as many as the year before.

The Swedish Church saw a significant drop in its membership numbers last year, with a total of 1.5 percent of its members choosing to leave the Evangelic-Lutheran organization.

The main reason why people decide leave is because they do not believe in God, according to a survey carried out by pollsters Norstat on behalf of the Swedish Church.

Forty percent said they had left for that reason. Other reasons included that being a member "did not feel meaningful" (18 percent) or that it was "too expensive" (17 percent).

As The Local reported in August, last year's mass exodus followed a series of high-profile revelations claiming officials made expensive trips abroad funded by church coffers. A spokesperson said increased media coverage of the Swedish Church as a result may have contributed to the drop in members.

"The survey confirms what we previously thought which is that the decision to withdraw is for most people a long process. They have a weak relationship (with the church), or have not reflected on their membership, and when the church is then in the public spotlight you are reminded of your membership and review it," said Pernilla Jonsson, head of analysis at the Swedish Church's department for research.

That people can go to church and not believe in God is a condemnation of the leadership of the church. In a church where God truly exists, it is difficult to attend church and not encounter Him at some level. Such a serious failure to encounter him causes one to suspect that the church is dead; that God is not there; that He has removed His candlestick (See Revelation 2:1-5).

One possible issue here might be that many Swedish churches have abandoned preaching Jesus Christ. Christianity without Jesus Christ is not Christianity! I once took a neighbour, who was raised in the Lutheran Church, to a Christmas concert. She was horrified at the frequent mention of Jesus - at a Christmas concert!!! She had been raised to believe in God - but "Who is this Jesus?"

Jesus has to be preached from the pulpit and a vital and obvious relationship with Him has to be modeled by church leadership. His character has to be revealed in those who walk with Him. Taking expensive trips on church coffers is not how you do that. 

No wonder people found the experience to be meaningless. They weren't being taught the Gospel, which is the purpose of the church to begin with. Also, tithing is voluntary and a privilege, not a requirement in any real church. 

Sweden is the least religious country in the western world, trailing only China, Hong Kong and Japan in percentage of irreligious people. While Christianity is dying in Sweden, Islam is blossoming with the great number of Muslim immigrants and their considerably higher birth-rate than native Swedes. That's all part of the Islamization of Sweden which too many Swedes see as a good thing. It isn't! It's insane!

I pray Sweden will turn to Jesus Christ, realize what He did on the Cross nearly 2000 years ago, and find that they can have a very real and active relationship with Him. Without Him, Sweden has no hope and will continue to slide down the slippery slope they have been on for some years now. May God have mercy.

Around 8,000 people chose to join the Swedish Church in 2016.

The survey, which did not ask people when they left, was carried out between November 24th and December 9th. It asked 5,384 Swedes if they were members of the Swedish Church, and the 40 percent who said they were not were then asked to state the reason why they had left.

The Swedish Church says it has 6.1 million members in a country just above 10 million people. 

Before 1996, children whose parents were members were automatically enrolled at birth. But according to Statistics Sweden, just five percent of Swedes are regular church goers. One in three couples that get married in Sweden choose a civil ceremony. 

German Pastor Declares Himself an Anti-Semite

RA By BENJAMIN WEINTHAL 

The Wiesenthal Center called for the pastor to be sacked after learning about the comments.

NEW YORK CITY— A pastor for the Lutheran Church in Bremen, Germany who boasted that he is an anti-Semite has prompted the Simon Wiesenthal Center to call for his dismissal.

The pastor, Volker Keller, who is a member of the Bremen city government council responsible for the integration of Muslims for the northern German city, sent an email to this Jerusalem Post correspondent, announcing his embrace of anti-Semitism.

He wrote: “Yesterday evening the anti-Semite Arn Strohmeyer delivered a lecture to me…Best wishes to Israel, Yours truly, Volker Keller, Antisemite.”

The trigger for Keller’s email appears to be a series of Jerusalem Post exposes on Strohmeyer’s alleged modern anti-Semitic views and the city of Bremen’s public funding for, according to critics, hate-mongering events in the Citizens’ House Weserterrassen targeting the Jewish state.

Volker Keller refused to answer multiple Post queries. Renke Brahms, the executive cleric for the Bremen Protestant Church, wrote to the Post by email that the church ”distances itself from every form of anti-Semitism and clearly supports the existence of Israel…

Pastor Keller sent a ‘sarcastic email’ and wanted to express that he is not an anti-Semite and feels wrongly defamed. The choice of this form was an extraordinary misunderstanding and is from our perspective, as well as Mr. Keller’s, a completely inappropriate reaction. We have made this clear to Mr. Keller that in his function he is not allowed to write such emails.”

Forgive me for being skeptical but why can't we see Pr. Keller say that?

Not 100% sure, but I think this is Pastor Keller's church

It is unclear why Keller feels defamed. Keller, who used his business church email to send his embrace of Jew-hatred note, co-founded an NGO called “Nord-Bremer Citizens against War.”

According to a Friday article in Die Taz daily in Bremen, the activists from Keller’s group participated in demonstrations in front of supermarkets in 2011 calling for the boycott of Israeli products. Strohmeyer, the obscure anti-Israel writer, can be seen in a photograph at the gathering near protesters showing orange slices dripping with blood under the slogan "Boycott Israel’s fruit." Keller declined to say if he supports a boycott of Israeli products. 

Abraham Cooper, the associate dean of the human rights NGO the Simon Wiesenthal Center, told the Post by telephone: "This man [Mr. Keller] had no problem in communicating in an anti-Semitic way and should apologize personally for his quote. And short of hearing directly from him, we have no reason to believe that he doesn’t hold the views... he should be fired. This person with his state of mind should not have anything to do with integrating people in Germany’s democratic culture."

However, Cooper added that if Keller issues an apology to the parishioners of the church and the Jewish community for “expressing this non-Christian sentiment,” he should be allowed to retain his job.

Keller has refused to issue a public apology to the Jewish and Christian communities in Bremen. Brahms declined to respond to Cooper’s criticism.

Carsten Splitt, a spokesman for the EKD, an umbrella body for German Lutheran, Reformed and United churches, said he forwarded the Post queries to the former head of the EKD, Nikolaus Schneider, but Schneider said he did not wish to comment. Splitt added that Schneider “does not know Mr. Keller and it is a matter for the Bremen Church.”

Because of Keller’s role in the city administration, the anti-Semitism row has also raised eyebrows. Bremen is a main hub for anti-Israel hatred in Germany and a leader in boycott actions against Jewish products. Andre Städler, a spokesman for Bremen’s Mayor Carsten Sieling, did not immediately respond to a Post query.

Last year, Schneider and the German Protestant establishment grappled with the classic religious  "anti-Semitism of the church’ founder Martin Luther."

The 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation will take place in 2017.

“Luther’s view of Judaism and his invective against Jews contradict our understanding today of what it means to believe in one God who has revealed himself in Jesus, the Jew,” wrote the Church in a statement.

Brahms declined to answer Post queries about the continuity of religious anti-Semitism with the alleged contemporary anti-Semitism of Keller.

With the rhetoric that existed in the 15th and 16th centuries about Jews, it should not be too surprising that Luther was an anti-Semite. Not surprising, but disappointing and disquieting. I have come to believe that a true believer in Jesus Christ cannot be antisemitic but non-believers are often predisposed to it. Nevertheless, we all have blind-spots and I suspect this was one for Luther. I can only hope that he recanted that attitude late in life.

We can also hope that this is the case for Pastor Keller. It doesn't have to be, given the sorry state of the Christian Church in Germany, I suspect there are many Christian Churches in Germany with pastors who have no relationship with Jesus Christ whatsoever.

I once took a Lutheran woman, a German immigrant to Canada, to a Christmas play at my church. She was completely mystified by all the references to Jesus. She knew there was God, but, "who is this Jesus?", was exactly what she asked.