Decades of humanistic political indoctrination have taught Swedes to either be suspicious or afraid of anything smacking of experiential religion or spirituality. They are officially taught in State Schools (which since the new 2010 Education Act is now all schools) that (as Education Minister Jan Björklund said in a press interview) unless religion can be demonstrated with scientific 'facts' that it has no basis in reality. And as in the former Soviet Union, religion - if the truth be known - is viewed by most of officialdom as a kind of psychiatric disease.
Whilst individuals may, of course, hold to that view if they so wish, you cannot make that a state doctrine in a free, pluralistic society. The fact that the Swedish government precisely does do this proves that Sweden is neither free nor pluralistic, democratic country. The contemporary Swedish socio-political system is a grey, uniformist monolithic behomoth like its inspiration, International and National Socialism. It's a dictatorship with a thick layer of democracic institutions over it to hide its central core.
Those of us who live in Sweden, and know it well, are not, of course, surprised, though to be truthful I was blissfully ignorant of it for years, just as most Swedes are who don't come into confrontation with the system. It's the outside world that is largely in ignorance of these things and needs to be told the truth so as not to be fooled by the Swedish Government's slick propaganda machine. Sweden is NOT a Western democracy! It's something else.
Given the abysmal ignorance of, and prejudice against homeschooling that exists in Sweden, and given (as I hope the Politics page shows) the gradual slide of the Swedish state into totalitarianism over the past 90 or so years, it should come as no surprise to also discover that to be religious these days - and especially to be Christian - is tantamount to being politically incorrect. Religious people have become victims of the Swedish totalitatian state just as homeschoolers and families in general have. Religion, in Sweden, is acceptable only as a cultural artefact, much as it was in Communist East Europe before its transfer from Moscow to Brussels.
Is that a ridiculous assertion? The propaganda machine will tell you it is for sure. But the truth is people who convert to Christianity are sometimes institutionalised in Sweden and certified mentally ill by humanist psychiatrists, just as they were in the Soviet Union. And I suspect that one of the reasons Domenic Johansson was kidnapped by the Social Services was not just because he was being (legally) homeschooled, and not because of the later-added vaccination and dental issues, but because his parents were Christians.
One particular case of an 18 year-old, who became a Pentecostal and was institutionalised hit, one newspaper headlines, to be ignored by all the other newspapers, only to be forgotten afterwards while the Swedish political establishment quietly continued in its old ways as it always has done. The totalitarian system's response to this young man's conversion is not unlike its hostile knee-jerk response to homeschooling and to anything that might be pro-family: ignore it until it irritates you enough to crush it mercilessly. You can read the whole story here: 18 Year-Old Locked Up in Mental Hospital for His Christian Faith.
Sweden made the 'official' break with Lutheran Christianity in 2000 which had been the state religion for centuries. This was, in reality, just a formality as the cultural and spiritual break had been made decades before, arguably in 1975 when the state's humanistic, neo-communist anti-religion and anti-family policies got seriously underway (see Deliberate Witchhunt Against Christianity in Schools). The Lutheran (former) State Church preaches, in any case, a highly politicised 'social(ist) gospel' today and mostly parrots the official state line as it did in Communist East Germany. And were Martin Luther to see its condition today I am sure he would turn in his grave. However, that's none of my affair - Swedish Lutherans must believe and practice whatever it is they want.
Let me now share with you my own religious agenda...
