Från ord till handling. Reflektioner kring kyrkans samhällsengagemang utifrån kontextuell teologi.

Sammanfattning: The main question for this thesis is to discuss how come there are so many different theological motivations for the social actions of the church. The purpose of this thesis is to examine how this can be. The main study is in the context of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Sweden. The organisation of the church does not give central regulations to the local congregations which means that they are independent and given the freedom to act in the way that is best according to the local context. From the Kairos document, written in South Africa in 1985, it is clear that different theological conclusions can be made from the same local situation – in this case the apartheid regime ́s violence against the population. The document is focused on a contextual theology and points out that the most important for the church is to be a voice for the people that cannot speak for themselves. The three most important concepts from the document are social analysis, action and goal. The thesis puts these concepts in the current Swedish context. It shows that the theologies from South Africa can be found also in Sweden. The most important thing for the church is to revalidate and never stop discussing theological issues. It makes the church grow and build relations over borders.