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Background: As of 2015, 66% of the Swedish population were members of the Church of Sweden. It has been argued that this indicates that Christianity is still an integrated part of Swedish society and challenges the image of Sweden as a secularised country. Swedish citizens have been allowed to freely renounce their membership from the Church of Sweden since 1951, however it was not until 1996 that individuals were no longer considered members by default given their parents membership status. Although the grounds for membership may largely be attributed to previous legal frameworks, little is known about the motives behind continued membership in the Church of Sweden.

Aim: The aim of this study was to investigate the reasoning behind Swedish individuals' membership in the Church of Sweden, to shed light on whether the expressed reasons are religious convictions or non-religious reasons.

Method: In this study members of the Church of Sweden were invited to participate in individual semi-structured interviews pertaining to the reasoning behind their membership in the church. The interviews were transcribed and subsequently analysed and sorted according to the principle of sentence concentration. Ultimately, the findings were divided into separate categories based on expressed themes.

Results: A total of 19 members of the Church of Sweden were interviewed in this study. The findings of these interviews were divided into seven different categories - religious life stance, indifference, practical reasons, tradition, charitable reasons, complicated withdrawal process and cultural value. Out of the 19 study participants, only 1 expressed religious life stance as a reason for their membership in the church. The most frequently expressed motive however was indifference, with 16 out of 19 participants.

Conclusion: The findings in this study suggest members of the Church of Sweden by large do not maintain their membership due to religious conviction. It is however questionable that the findings of this study are representative for members on a larger scale, one reason being the lack of diversity among the study participants.