Free Republic

Christianity in Sweden has a long history, but you won't find many Swedes in the pews on a Sunday. But that doesn't mean Swedish religious groups don't have the capacity to cause a stir, as Christine Demsteader reports. It seems the ubiquitous Holy Spirit has met its match in Sweden. God would probably have a pretty hard time getting a personnummer, and it would take a real miracle to prove his credentials to Migrationsverket. Quite simply, the majority of Swedes don’t think the big man exists. That’s according to a European Commission report from 2005 which states just 23 percent...

Åke Green, the Swedish pentecostalist pastor sentenced to one month prison for a sermon in which he condemned homosexuality has been acquitted by the Supreme Court in Stockholm. Green, from Borgholm on the Baltic Sea island of Öland, said he felt “relieved” by the verdict, in which he was cleared of the crime of ‘agitation against minority groups.’ “I was prepared for the fact that I could be acquitted, but also that I could be convicted,” he told news agency TT from his church. Gay right groups have condemned the verdict, saying that it makes a nonsense of the law....

STOCKHOLM, Sweden (AP) -- Sweden's highest court on Tuesday acquitted a Pentecostal pastor accused of hate speech for having denounced homosexuality as a "cancerous tumor" in a sermon. Ake Green's contentious sermon in 2003 was protected by freedom of speech and religion under the European Convention on Human Rights, the Supreme Court said in a 16-page ruling. Green, 64, became the first clergyman convicted under Sweden's hate crimes legislation, when a lower court found him guilty of inciting hatred against homosexuals. An appeals court overturned the ruling earlier this year, but Sweden's chief prosecutor appealed the acquittal to the Supreme...