Evangelical Supremacy: Political Thought in a Swedish Revivalist Newspaper

Evangelicalism's role in shaping democracy and the modern welfare state of Sweden has been emphasized in scholarly literature, but few studies have analyzed ongoing developments within this movement. This article explores intersections of political thought and Evangelical Christianity in Sweden, focusing on the revivalist newspaper Varlden idag. Through a thematic analysis of 379 editorials from 2022, the study introduces the concept of Evangelical Supremacy, a political-ideological development of Evangelicalism that emphasizes a) Christian unity in political outlook, b) a revivalism that extends from the individual to the nation, and c) an alternative elitism that calls for the replacement of the elites of society with persons of Christian values. By combining qualitative thematic analysis with corpus linguistic techniques, this research discloses how a prominent Swedish Christian revivalist actor frequently employs concepts associated with the political ideology of radical nationalism.