# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Juni 1860_S182
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

182 Something More about the Church of Norway.

It shows itself in this, that in his doctrine of baptism he strays ever further and further, and that his confession concerning the Holy Supper, too, would be quite acceptable even to a Unionist or indeed a Reformed believer. Incidentally, he now gets into great trouble by the fact that several of his people draw the entirely correct consequence: if infant baptism is worth nothing, and we have only been baptized as children, then we must now be baptized again, or rather, only now be truly baptized. This, however, he rejects with the categorical declaration that their opinion "evidently leads to more vexatious and more dangerous errors than infant baptism itself," and that "the demand that rebaptism is necessary for all those who were baptized as children would prove itself an even greater abuse, an even worse formalism, and an even more pernicious presumption in the kingdom of God, than infant baptism itself." For this crass assertion, to be sure, he gives no reasons; but that is not at all his way — it becomes ever "more clear" to him, and that is enough. He has, after all, from the very beginning raised himself up by railing against the many godless people in the state church; he could prove his great holiness only by leaving this godless communion; now some of his followers have already become Quakers, others wish to become Anabaptists — no wonder that he must again turn his censuring sermon in yet another direction. So if anyone hears talk of the "Free Church" in Norway, let him beware of assuming that it is anything like the Scottish one; the "free apostolic-Christian" church has fallen away from the pure Word of God and the pure confession; it is a fanatical rabble, whose striving aims at an outward semblance of Christian life, and whose wavering faith and uncertain confession rest chiefly on the whimsical opinions of a single man.

Of other sects, the Quakers have already been mentioned in that essay in the IVth volume, p. 270; these make no great progress, and mostly only fish up the extremists of the other parties; in Tromsö, rich in every sect, they numbered, according to the latest report, 20 — but even this small number had split into two parties, High Quakers and common Quakers, of whom the former, who are really the genuine ones, deny any mediated communication of the Spirit. — A greater stir has been made by the American Methodists in the southeastern part of the country, who have even built a church in Sarysborg; but of late one does not hear much of these either. — The Mormons, on the other hand, who — despite the theological faculty and the majority of the country's bishops — have been declared a Christian sect by the highest court, have led astray a good many souls, especially among the dregs of the capital and its surrounding area. According to a report by their leader, their number in all Norway on June 30, 1859, amounted to 515, of whom 52 were elders, 27 priests, 32 teachers, and 11 deacons; in Christiania and the adjoining parish there were 187.

II. A more cheerful picture is given us by the latest reports from the Norwegian mission to the heathen. This proceeds from a private society,