# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_October 1860_S314
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

314 The Present State of the Lutheran Church in Norway.

as having binding force, it is nevertheless a thoroughly Lutheran church.
It is, however, threatened not a little from various and opposing sides,
so that it needs the diligent intercession of all faithful Lutherans. In
the Reformation era the gospel was forced by the Danish kings upon a
people still clinging to Papism, and it therefore took a very long time
before it could penetrate the hearts of the people to any degree. The
whole sixteenth and seventeenth centuries therefore give the impression
of a wasteland in the Norwegian church — but from the first half of the
past century on, some life did stir among people and clergy, of which
Egede and Thomas von Westen give testimony. At this time there
worked in Norway the Bishop of Bergen, Erich Pontoppidan, who may
be regarded as the father of the Norwegian church. His explanations
of the Lutheran catechism have made the deepest impression on the
people and may be called their symbolical book. But since Pontoppidan
was, though a very moderate one, still a Pietist, a pietistic element
thereby entered the people, an element considerably strengthened
through the work of the well-known lay preacher Hauge. Hauge was,
at the beginning of this century, in the time of rationalistic unbelief
that had not spared the Norwegian church either, a mighty voice of
awakening. Even now the pietistic tendency asserts itself strongly; the
Norwegian national character has a certain predilection for it, and local
circumstances favor this direction. The congregations are often very
large and, given the sparse population, scattered over a wide area. In
this land of mountains and coasts a pastor can sometimes reach
individual parts of his congregation only with great difficulty. Hence
both the preaching and, even more, the pastoral care of the pastors are
often quite inadequate, especially when the latter are themselves more
or less lukewarm. Actual rationalists no longer exist here (would to God
this could also be said of Baden, Bavaria, Saxony, and so forth). The
law places nothing in the way of lay preaching; the life of the people
carries a more or less pietistic cast, from which it follows that Lutheran
life and doctrine are not a little endangered from this side. Obscuring
of the doctrine of justification, weakening of the sacraments, especially
of baptism, and disparagement of the preaching office are faults of
Pietism. The danger — and with some, alas, one can no longer speak
merely of danger — and the ruin is all the greater since, from without
as well, the seduction of Reformed sects, such as the Methodists, is
added. This seduction is so very dangerous because, given the wide
extent of religious freedom in Norway, every sect except the Mormons,
as well as the Roman church, is permitted to intrigue at will within the
Lutheran congregations. Zealotry and repulsion accomplish nothing
here. What is needed is to instruct, to guide, to bear with, to confess
freely and steadfastly, and to suffer for the truth. Several more zealous,
more vigorous pastors, the spread of sound Lutheran writings, above
all the writings of Luther himself, the crowding out of unhealthy fare,
the bringing into use —