Swedish Christian Schools as a Case Study of How New Practices Relate to Theological Issues

Swedish Pentecostal and neo-Pentecostal churches have, since the 1990s, started elementary schools. In this study, we examine theological issues that this new ‘practice’ brings about or makes visible. We have performed semi-structured interviews with church and school leaders, as well as focus group interviews with staff at three schools. In our analysis, we note that the aim of the schools is not to convert pupils but to create a certain culture and thereby to develop good people. These schools do not have other core values or different aims than public schools but describe these values and aims as Christian. However, the informants believe that they have better tools with which to accomplish these values and aims. We suggest that the informants assume an ethics that focus on values such as individual freedom, tolerance, and love, that conversion is not regarded as a requisite to a good life, and that explicit religious activities are placed in the private sector. These assumptions are not, we argue, seen as new, or caused by the engagement in elementary schools; rather they are regarded as ongoing ‘changes’ in the churches under consideration here that become visible in this praxis.