# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_September 1858_S269
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

The Church of Norway. 269

than on the objective promise of grace and communication of grace in Word
and Sacrament. One often hears, in devotional addresses, a distrust
expressed of all who wish to make the way of salvation easy (which, to be
sure, can happen in an evil sense, but also in an evangelically correct one).
I did hear it said that such preaching could not count on acceptance among
the Norwegian people, and indeed the reproach of Antinomianism is raised
against a freer evangelical mind which does not reject repentance, prayer,
etc., but only will not build its justification upon them, building instead
upon God's act in Christ. Hence stricter books find more acceptance, and
Luther in particular, in his vigorous evangelical manner, is here and there
regarded with suspicion. People are afraid of "making the way broad." The
same standard is now applied also in judging preachers. —

Naturally the dispute "concerning things indifferent" plays a great role in
this connection, and the stricter "pietistic" tendency has, especially among
the common people, its numerous representatives. It cannot fail that this
delicate question causes the clergy in particular manifold difficulties.

That shadow-sides and defects are to be found among the awakened is not
denied even by their friends. These admit that an excessive distrust, an
inclination to judge too quickly, an excessive weight laid on trifles (with
respect to adiaphora), occurs here and there, and that a more all-round
enlightenment, both civil and religious, is to be desired, etc. But one would
do wrong to reject the cause on account of these defects, or to wish to lay
these defects upon all the awakened. I myself have met many in whom I have
not perceived anything unhealthy of this kind. Least of all should one, taking
offense (or rather pretext) at such weaknesses, go into opposition against
the religious movement and against living Christianity in general. Among the
clergy a false rigorism in regard to adiaphora is probably very rare.

It is impossible to trace all the individual shadings of Christian tendency.
Only one party may still be mentioned, which is known under the name of
the "Strong Believers," and with which I became acquainted in Stavanger.
Among them a now deceased layman, Spödervoldt, distinguished himself; he
is said to have even learned Hebrew, and published a book on God's economy
of grace with man (a kind of history of the Kingdom of God), in which he
displays, to be sure, a great knowledge of the Bible and other extensive
reading besides. His character is a strictly orthodox Lutheranism maintained
in harsh polemic (the Haugians and the Herrnhuters are treated with vigorous
terms of reproach), and alongside this a full strictness with regard to
adiaphora. At the same time Sp. sets up, besides many other peculiar
assertions, also a distinctive view of baptism. He holds, namely, that the
child is regenerated in baptism, obtains forgiveness of sins and
righteousness, but that its powers of soul still remain under a certain power
of Satan, and only