Livets Ord

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This article is about Livets Ord, a Swedish church. For the Word of Life youth ministry, see Word Of Life.

Livets Ord, literally The Word of Life, is a Swedish church, founded in Uppsala by Ulf Ekman on May 24, 1983, who also served as its leader until 2000. Ekman passed on the local pastorship in Uppsala to Robert Ekh that year and instead works on expanding the church's international work. The church is the foremost example of the Charismatic movement in Sweden, closely related to Word of Faith and it may be viewed as a Swedish expression similar to the Christian right.

According to its supporters, Livets Ord's primary goal is to help believers to put into practice what the Bible says. Faith, healing, prayer and answers to prayer together with a conviction that God is good are central themes in the preaching at Livets Ord. The power of attraction of the messages is that what is preached is appropriate to everyday life. From the beginning, the distinctive features of the church's worship services have been: its freer format, strong adherence to what the Bible says, much praise and worship, and plenty of space for preaching.

When it was founded the movement met with a lot of criticism from mass media and other churches, due to its claimed inhuman perspective against people suffering from physical disabilities and financial poverty, coupled with an authoritarian leadership. Since then the movement has consolidated and its views have emerged as somewhat more acceptable to mainstream society in general and among the Swedish free churches in particular.

Aside from church, the movement also runs schools from kindergarten and up. It also runs a Bible School and sends missionaries to Russia, Ukraine, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Israel and India.

Popular Swedish singer Carola Häggkvist became a member of the church in 1988.

1 Operation Jabotinsky
2 Livets Ord University
3 Criticism
4 See also
5 External links
- 5.1 Official sites
- 5.2 Other sites

[edit] Operation Jabotinsky

Under the name "Operation Jabotinsky", named after the Russian Vladimir Jabotinsky, the Livets Ord together with Christian Zionists in the United States runs a fund that gives money to Russian Jews who want to move to Israel.

[edit] Livets Ord University

The congregation has started its own institution of tertiary education, Livets Ord University. It is affiliated with an American institution, Oral Roberts University in Tulsa, Oklahoma, the largest charismatic Christian university in the world, accredited by The Higher Learning Commission of the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools.[1] Livets Ord University offers American Bachelor's and Master's degrees in New Testament Studies, History, Education, and other fields under the auspices of Oral Roberts University, but lacks accreditation from the Swedish Government to award Swedish academic degrees.

[edit] Criticism

According to some of its critics it is considered a cult, because of its connection with the Word of faith movement, though much of its teachings now is broadened with other more classical theology. (Se the article about Ulf Ekman).

An article, published in the Cultic Studies Journal, in 1992, forty-three former students of Livets Ord Bible School were interviewed. Nearly 50 percent of the forty-three students had experienced psychosis-like symptoms, and 25 percent had attempted suicide. Also common was anxiety, feelings of guilt, and emotional disorders.[2]

There has also been criticism, published in the Swedish paper Dagens Nyheter against donations given to Israelis which have promoted settlements in the Israeli-occupied territories. Ulf Ekman, the leader of World of Life, has answered this criticism by saying that the donations never has been to occupied territories, but to settlements on Israeli ground, for example in the Negev desert. The movement advocates Christian Zionism.

The teaching methods and parts of the curriculum of schools run by Livets Ord has been under review by the Swedish National Agency for Education on several occasions, but the schools have only been criticized on minor details.