Building Bridges.....

Christian persecution has been going on for centuries. In the Roman empire, christians were slaughtered. Jesus said that: You will be hated for my name sake. I will send you out as lambs to the wolves. In many parts of the world today, Christians are still killed for their faith. Open Doors has a list with the most dangerous places on earth for Christians, such as Afghanistan, Iran, North Korea, Nigeria, Pakistan, India, China etc. In the western world, it is relatively safe to be a Christian, but in Europe anti christian attacks rose during 2019-2020 with 70%. In France some Christian priests and clergy have been killed and the most horrific crime was against Jacques Hamel   in 2016 when during communion, attackers, ISIS run in a church and while filming slit the throat of the old priest. Churches all over Europe have been vandalised or even burned down. In Sweden sad to say that is the case as well. Swedish TV deletes connections to God and Jesus in hymns that are sung before Christm

  Election time to the Swedish church. I wrote about this in 2013 and in 2017. Nothing really has changed. The  Church of Sweden   is a Lutheran national church . A former state church , that was separated from the state in the year 2000.  The church has  just under 5.8 million members by the end of 2020, it is the largest Christian denomination  in Sweden, the largest Lutheran denomination  in Europe. The church of Sweden is a democratic church and each member has the right to vote in elections for the framework of the church. As a member you have the possibility to influence the church.  If you want to stand as a candidate in the church election, you must: be a member of the Church of Sweden. have been baptised in the Church of Sweden or another Christian faith community, or have previously been an elected representative in the Church of Sweden. You have to be at least 18 years old on polling day, be registered in the church register in the area for which the election is being held.

Rather often do I hear that "I do belive in God, but not the angry and punishing God as we see in the old testament, I ratherbelive in the loving and caring God in the new testament" I read exactly this kind of thinking in the newspaper today and I just wanted to say that it is not true that God in the old testament is angry and harsh. We see stories in the old testament   like the flood, Sodom and Gomorrah etc, but there is no mention of God being angry! When it comes to the flood, we’re told that in fact God was sorrowful, grieved at how wicked humanity had become, and that he acted out of moral necessity rather than anger. With Sodom and Gomorrah, the Bible tells that God judged the cities  because of the massive injustice and perversion taking place there, only after  careful evaluation to determine if judgment was truly necessary, and only on the condition that the overwhelming majority of the population truly deserved it. The Old Testament is  a love story of a Father a

For some weeks now we have seen the horrible scenes from Afghanistan. The Talibans took over the whole country in a very short time. The other day the islamic State conducted an unbelievable horrible attack on innocent people, killing so many and wounding even more. Should the American forces leave Afghanistan? Should they leave right now?Should they have been there in the first place? I'm glad that on these occasions I'm not the president. Yes or no on the questions, I'm not judging nor pushing on either side. The evacuation is not the smoothest. Lots of people could be stranded and now people are dying in their attempt to board an aircraft to freedom. Everytime USA is attacked they want to fight back. That's the human instinct. Perhaps the best thing to do, or perhaps not. When president Biden spoke the other day he said that " we will never forget, we will never forgive, we will let you pay". Forgetting and forgiving is not the same thing. Forgiving is an a

As I recently said in my blog, Sweden has the most shootings in all of Europe. This increase in shootings has been on since 2013, and escalated in 2016. Almost  all shootings are in the criminal world, between different gangs, but recently innocent people have become victims. Even though the police capture many of these gang members the violence continues. Politicians seem to be paralysed and not knowing what to do, but they all are terrified and angry about what's going on.  Much harder penalties and more police they say, and yes that's of course necessary. They are also talking about the need to stop young boys entering these gangs, and yes that's also very important. But how? Education, better schools, easier to get a job. Yes that's important but is that enough? At home we always talk about the situation and what to do and ethics and morals are always something that comes up.  Faith, especially Christianity, Ethics and morals, is something that our society for a lon

Did you know that trees can grow and become very tall? Well in California, USA there are trees that are so big that instead of cutting them down, they made a road through some of them. Did you know that trees can become very old? Well in my county of Skane ,Sweden there is an oak tree that is 1000 years old. It was a young tree when the battle of Hastings took place in 1066. Just imagine that,  and the tree is still producing fruits! There are Olive trees in Israel that are more than 2000 years old and would have been there when Jesus was walking around. The oldest tree in the world is a pine in California which is around 5000 years old. Amazing, and the oldest tree system, or should I say root system in the world is in Sweden. This root system is still producing new spruces and the system is 9500 years old. Hard to imagine. Older than this is not possible in the northern parts of the world because of the land ice that was covering big parts of the world 10.000 years ago. There are man

Sweden has the most shootings in all of Europe. in 2020 we had 366 shootings, 47 dead and 117 wounded At the same time we had 107 detonations and numerous of robbery and rape. Scare numbers and highest in Europe.  Almost everyday there is a shooting and almost every time someone gets shot, killed or wounded. Recently the shootings have taken place at midday and close to people not involved. Some weeks ago a police officer was shot dead, a man was shot dead very close to a football field where people were playing, having fun. And then some days ago two small children were shot in the leg from a bullet not aimed at them. It is terrible and it seems like our politicians do not know how to handle the situation. The police are surprised that even if they get many of these individuals, the violence continues and even gets more violent. I red an article the other day and the writer said  "When churches for more than half a century ago warned of the dangers in societal development -that p

  Covid 19 came and changed the way we do church in a way. For over one year now we have not been able to meet and do church. We have not been able to see eachother face to face, to hug eachother, to lay hands, to pray.  Glad to say is that we anyway have been able to come to our congregation with a sermon every Sunday via the platform zoom, and I do hope that prayer has been and still is the no 1 priority in our life's.   I do hope that even if we have not been able to have physical services we have been able to see Christians find new and more intense relationship with Jesus, that we even if we have not been able to meet friends and people around us that they anyway have had the opportunity to see something of Jesus, and that we all, the church are overflowing with the reality and presence   of Jesus Christ.  

As I wrote in my latest blog post the European cup is over. I don't know if you watches or if so, who you were cheering for. As a Swedish guy I of cause was cheering for Sweden. I also loved the Italian team, for the way they played football and for the team spirit they had. Very seldom do I cheer for England, but this time, with this team I could not help myself for doing so. I have never seen such an English team playing and working with so much team spirit.  There seems to be so much love and joy together ,and all players seem to be so humble. I think especially about players like Sterling, Saka, Rashford and Philips, but they are all great. I used Sterling, Saka and Rashford as examples of young men with a great faith in my sermon one Sunday and I do hope that every player will look back on this tournament with joy after some time, but I have to agree ,all this violence, hate and racism is darkening my memories ...   Go lads..... Have faith..... Finish the race....

European cup in football is over. Italy won the final over England, the two best teams in the cup if you ask me. It went to penalty shoot out and England lost ( as always) Sad to say the hours and days after was full of hate and racism against some of the English players.   But we can look back on great and exiting matches.    Often in football you see players who makes the cross signs and other signs to God before, under and after the games.   In this European cup  we have seen players like Romelo Lukako from Belgium who openly talks about his faith and are praying before every game.   Olivier Giroud , France har who often on social media talks about his faith in Jesus and is promoting Alfa courses.   Marcus Rashford , Raheem Sterling, Kalvin Philips, Bukayo Saka in England who very openly are expressing their faith. Here are some quotes that I found from some of the players.   My Christian faith is massive to me. I always give thanks for my life, always give thanks for my family'