Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - First part - III. Constitution and Administration - 4. Church and Religion. By G. Fr. Lundin, Ph. D., Uppsala
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church and religion.
269
The great awakening that the national misfortunes at the commencement of
the 19th century occasioned, was in the main patriotic and literary, but it also
exercised some influence on religious life, as the names of the poets Wallin,
Franzén, and Geijer suffice to show; about the middle of the century,
contemporaneously with the crusade against drunkenness, a national religious movement of great
vigour called the New Evangelism, arose under the leadership of K. O. Rosenius
(1816/68). This movement is of a genuinely popular character and represents
a pietism of fervent, bright, evangelical type, not much concerned with dogmatic
questions or paying much heed to the offices, sacraments, and ordinations of the
body ecclesiastical as such, nor yet to the spread of culture but rather to the
salvation of the individual, to the community of »the believers» standing apart from »the
world», and to the right and duty pertaining to every Christian to spread God’s
kingdom. In all parts of Sweden, from Norrland to Skåne, societies were formed chiefly
among the lowly, for mutual edification and mission work; at great sacrifice
private chapels were erected — at the present time there are upwards of 1,500
such in Sweden, worth several millions of kronor — and Preachers (chiefly laymen)
were supported, who went up and down the country preaching the gospel, or
embarked for foreign parts on the same errand.
To give this great movement cohesiveness, the National Evangelical Society
was formed in 1856. The basis of that association was Lutheran and
ecclesiastical; from it separated »the Free Church Sect», with P. P. Waldenström
(born in 1838) and E. J. Ekman (born in 1842) at its head; this sect
constituted, in 1878, a body called the Swedish Mission Union, with no form of
Confession; thereby occasioning the most serious defection from the ranks of the
national church since the days of King Johan III (close of the 16th century). This
Union now embraces nearly 1,000 religious communities with a membership of
about 80,000 (the National Evangelical Society only embraces from 180 to 190
bodies) — apportioned among 11 districts, each with a President; they have
in many cases preachers of their own, who even administer the Holy
Communion, and occasionally the rite of baptism, without authority from the Church.
Inasmuch as the members of these free-church bodies still nominally belong
to the national church, alleging as a reason for so doing that even if they
left it, they would still be liable to contribute to its support, the curious
phenomenon has arisen of an independently organized free church community
existing within the borders of the national church, without, however, any
existence in the eye of the law. This awkward state of affairs has occasioned the
Church much trouble and anxiety. The question of the legality of baptism as
conducted by laymen has especially given rise to keen dispute. An edict from
the Crown, dated March 18, 1898, has rendered it essential for every child
baptized by any person not in holy orders, save in urgent cases, to be registered
in the church rolls as not baptized within the national church.
New-Evangelism, more especially in its most recent, radical phase, bears traces
of influence from England and America. As direct offshoots of the Reformed
faith may be counted not only some few minor bodies, consisting chiefly of
foreigners (the Anglicans, about 200 in number, and the French Reformed
Church with a membership of about 100), but also the following sects, of which
certain have gained a very considerable hold among different classes of Swedes
during the last 30 years, viz.: Baptists (numbering over 40,000), Methodists
(20,000), the Catholic Apostolic Church or Irvingians (300), Mormons,
Ad-ventists etc. Of these only the Catholic Apostolic Church and the Methodist
Body are recognized by the state as separate communities, their members having
definitely left the National Church. The ultra-Methodist body, the Salvation
Army, can boast of having established 438 corps and outposts and 55 social
institutions of various kinds; the staff of officers numbers 859, while of soldiers
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