Psychological perspective on meaning of multiculturalism in the free-church: a phenomenological study with free-churches in Sweden

Abstract: I was searching for the meaning connected to cultural issues and perspectives in a multicultural church, so I questioned 8 church-leaders coming from two churches in Malmö and one in Stockholm. They wrote an answer to an open tailed question. I summarized the text they gave me and let the same leaders and totally fourteen members from the two churches in Malmö react on two of the texts. Finally the leaders could react on my phenomenological meaning-constitution-analysis of their own text. I found that in one of the churches, where culture was a less important matter, a threat was associated to differences in culture, even if there also where high ideals about cultural diversity. In the other two churches identification with people from different cultures was a key to build a fellowship, which could welcome them and meet them with respect.