Whatever happened to Sweden?

When the electorate of Brandenburg was torn apart by a quarrel between the Lutherans and Roman Catholics, King of Sweden Gustavus Adolphus came to their aid.  He launched an invasion of northern Germany and Pomerania in June 1630, marking the Swedish intervention in the Thirty Years' War. He  consolidated the Lutheran position in the north and turned the tide when the Lutherans were losing to the Holy Roman Empire and its Roman Catholic allies.  His army marched to victory singing the great Lutheran chorales.  What happened to that Swedish Lutheran Church?

Today, the Church of Sweden is a Lutheran joke.  It was perhaps the first to ordain women and its clergy are now between 50-60% female.  It was a largely secular agency of the government for too long and while the buildings were preserved, the faith decayed.  It was overcome with political ideology.  An example of this was revealed when Sweden’s biggest morning paper, DN, in May 2025, published an interview with one female priest who admitted that she wasn’t really that interested in Jesus but originally went to church and communion to meet other lesbian girls. In 2013, a female archbishop was elected primarily on the basis that she was a woman, would be the first female archbishop, and this was a witness against a patriarchal and misogynistic history and culture that preceded her. 

The buildings have been preserved but at the cost of the faith.  Such was the cost of the deal between church and state in which the state had power over what was believed and how it was practiced.  I am half Swedish and it is with great sadness that I acknowledge the loss of this history and identity for what was once a vibrant Christian stronghold.  Lord knows that the population of the Mid-West states of the US was filled with Swedes who brought their faith with them to America.  Apparently, they did not leave much of it back for those who stayed at home.  Now Sweden is a rapidly aging country with an ever increasing Muslim immigrant population that is radically changing the shape of the nation and its culture.  In fact, it is hard to call the Sweden of today Lutheran in any real sense of the word. 

A number of years ago my home town celebrated an anniversary which focused on their Swedish past.  When a number of Swedish dancers were brought in as part of that celebration, my mother invited them to her home to feast upon the treasured foods of their Swedish past.  From pickled herring to lutefisk to Lingonberries, and so much more, she cooked and served them what she grew up eating.  They were not impressed and called the meal "museum food," part of their past but not what they wanted now.  Perhaps that is also the state of affairs in the Lutheran Church of Sweden today.  It is a museum church, preserving a semblance of their history and past but without the faith and confidence in Scripture or the Augsburg Confession today.  It is sad to me and perhaps a poignant reminder of where everyone of us will end up unless we resist the temptation to surrender doctrine to political ideology.  Gustavus Adolphus must be turning over in his grave.