CHAPTER I
Lay-Preaching
Since the first missionary work among Norwegian immi-
grants had been done by lay-preachers, notably Elling Eielsen,
it was not strange that this question should be raised when
regularly called and ordained pastors arrived. These did not
deny that there was a place for lay-preaching in tile circum-
stances that prevailed among the early immigrants, but they
deplored the hostility to the "State-Church" ministry. which too
many of the lay-preachers brought with them from Norway and
had to oppose the errors in doctrine and practice of which they
were guilty. Thus Pres. H. A. Preus said in 1867 (Syv
Foredrag [ Seven Lectures]
delivered and published in Norway);
Eielsen's activities in the first period could have been
justified,
if he had taught pure, sound Lutheran doctrine But it
is his
greatest sin that he never has done this but much rather
has
opposed and persecuted orthodox teachers and congregations.
If he had been concerned only about the salvation of
souls,
he would have rejoiced when able and orthodox laborers
came
into the fields where he of necessity had begun the work
Either
he would thou have retired from the responsible work
which he
had undertaken of his own accord, or he would have limited
himself to the places where there was need, or: if he
had been
found capable of continuing in the work of the ministry,
he
would have accepted a call from some individual congregations
and admonished his followers to adhere to the orthodox
pastors
and congregations. But he did none of this. It was his
desire to
form a faction. He tried by errors slanders and palpable
lies to
keep his followers away from our Synod, yes, to make
the gulf
between us greater and greater. He sought continually
to gain
more followers by forcing himself into our congregations
For a
long time he laid claim only to an inner call; but later
on he
found that it might be good for his work to have
somthing more to rely on. So he asserted that he was
ordained.
--We do not attach much importance to whether Elling
was ordained
or not: the principal thing to us is
137
that he is a false teacher and the founder of an erroristic
sect.
Unfortunately the first ordained pastors to work among the
shepherdless Norwegians, W. Dietrichson and C. L. Clausen,
were not the best fitted to expose the errors of Eielsen's faction,
being themselves entangled in "the Grundtvigian error," that
the Apostles' Creed is of divine origin and authority equally
with the Bible. Rev. H. A. Preus says in the same Syv Foredrag:
This circumstance, and especially Rev. Dietrichson's
zeal for intro-
ducing in the congregations his (Grundtvigian) point
of view, and
other errors connected with it, gave Elling Eielsen and
his faction
some nourishment and support and, besides, aroused dissatisfaction
and lack of confidence in the pastors in many places,
the afterpains
of which not only we teachers, but our whole Synod, have
felt up
to recent times and have suffered under in many ways.
The pastors who organized the Norwegian Synod in 1853
took pains to cleanse their organization of all "Grundtvigian
leaven." Thereafter the Eielsen faction had less success, though
it continued its opposition as bitterly as ever to "the State-
Church pastors with their long gowns" and to their congrega-
tions which were dubbed "Babel," "the world's great mass" in
contrast with Eielsen's own "little flock," etc. But the influence
of the "Hauge element" from Norway caused considerable dis-
sension within the congregations of the Norwegian Synod. For
there were those who, without joining Eielsen in his condemna-
tion of everything connected with the State-Church of Norway,
yet thought it in order to permit lay-preaching by such as were
"moved by the Holy Ghost," even though they had not been
called in accordance with the rule laid down in the Augsburg
Confession Art. 14: "No one should publicly teach in the Church
or administer the sacraments, unless he be regularly called."
This question was thoroughly discussed at several confer-
ences ill which also some "Missourians," including Dr. Walther,
took part, and at the Synodical Conventions at Coon Prairie,
Wisconsin, ill October, 1859, and in Holden, Goodhue County,
Minnesota, in 1862. The results of these discussions were sum-
marized in seven theses which were adopted by the Synod in
1862. They read (Festskrift,
p. 235-6):
138
1. God has instituted the public ministerial office 'for
the public
edification of the Christians unto salvation by the Word
of God.
2. God has not instituted any other office for the public
edification
of the Christians to be used along-side of the public
ministerial office.
3. When a man assumes the direction of the public edification
of
the Christians by the Word, he thereby assumes and exercises
the
public ministerial office.
4. It is a sin when a person assumes this (office) without
a call or
without need.
5. It is both a right and a duty in case of actual need
for anyone
who is capable of doing so to exercise the public ministerial
office
in a Christian and orderly manner.
6. The only correct definition of "need" is that there
exists a need
when a pastor is not at hand and cannot be secured; or
when, if there
is a pastor, he either does not serve the people properly
but teaches
false doctrine, or cannot serve them adequately but only
so rarely
that the people cannot thereby be brought to faith or
be kept in it
and be defended against errors, so that the Christian
must faint
for lack of care.
7. When such need exists, efforts should be made to relieve
it by
definite and proper arrangements according as circumstances
will
permit.
This marked the end of the controversy on lay-preaching
within the Norwegian Synod. But the controversy continued
with other church groups such as the Augustaria Synod, later on
with the Hauge Synod and the Conference, as well as the Eielsen
Synod. A final settlement so far as the great majority of Nor-
wegian Lutherans was concerned was reached in 1912, when
the three synods which eventually formed the Norwegian Merger
of 1917 adopted a set of theses, prepared in 1906 by the Union
Committees of these synods. These are in the main a correct
statement of the principles at issue and read (Faellesrapport
i For-
eningssagen 1906, translated from the Norwegian):
1. God has given the congregation, also the individual
local
congregation, the means of grace, the power of the keys,
the office
(ministerial) and its exercise, the gifts of grace. The
congregation
and the individual Christian in it thus own all things.
I. Cor. 3, 21-23.
2. To dispense the means of grace in the congregation,
the Lord
has instituted the public ministerial office which is
assigned by the
congregation through its call to one or more who are
fitted for it in
accordance with the Word of God. Eph. 4, 11; Tit. 1,
5; Acts 14, 23;
I. Cor. 4, 1; I. Thess. 5, 12.
139
3. When the congregation has assigned the exercise of
the office
(of the ministry) to one or more, then no one should,
except in case
of necessity, publicly teach or administer the sacraments
without a call
from the congregation. Rom. 10, 15; Heb. 5, 4; Augsburg
Confession,
Art. 14.
4. This ministerial office does not annul the general
priesthood (of
all believers); lint it is each Christian's privilege
and duty as a
spiritual priest to lie active for mutual edification,
each in his calling
and in accordance with the opportunities and gifts God
has given
him therefor, whether privately or in meetings in the
congregation.
I Pet. 2, 5, 9; I Thess. 5, 11; The Smalcald Articles,
III, 4.
5. God wants also to have the special gifts of grace which
He
may have given certain persons in the congregation, and
which there-
fore are the property of the congregation, to be used
by the congre-
gation, thus also especially the gift of being able to
preach the Word
of God to an assembly. Rom. 12, 6-8; I Cor. 12. According
to the Word
of God, the one who has received this gift of grace shall
be called
to this service in the congregation by its request or
consent and use
the gift under the supervision of the congregation or
those whom
the congregation has called to superintend the work of
the congre-
gation, as the Word of God and the Confession of our
church state:
I Pet. 5, 1-2; Acts 20, 28; Heb. 13, 17; Augsburg
Confession, Art. 14.
6. The congregation suffers injury if it does not itself
want to
make use of the gifts of grace or if those who have received
the gifts
of grace do not want to serve the congregation with them.
I Cor.
12, 7, 17, 20, 21.
7. The congregation may also make use of pastors or laymen
who
are well rccommended for doctrine and life, from other
congregations,
to help in its work. Also this work comes under the rule
expressed in
par. 5, Phil. 2,
29.
Unfortunately for sound Lutheran practice, these theses, like
so many other doctrinal "agreements" between opposing church
bodies in recent years, combine truth with a little error. And
in all such cases it is the error which vitiates the truth, not
the truth which neutralizes the error. For par. 5 opens the
door for the use of un-ordained "evangelists" or traveling "lay-
preachers" who have no other "call" than an invitation from a
congregation or pastor to preach at special services (cf.
Lutheran
Herald, Apr. 21, 1942, p. 430). But it is only juggling
with
words to equate such invitations with the divine call into the
holy ministry which a congregation extends to its pastor. In
1862 the Norwegian Synod would sanction lay-preaching only in
140
case of real need and even then required that the congregation
should extend a definite call to its "lay-preacher." But in 1912,
although the Synod reaffirmed this principle in paragraph 3, in
paragraph 5 it sanctioned the theory that some Christians may
have "special gifts of grace" which entitle them to "preach the
Word of God to an assembly," regardless of whether there is
any real need of their services or not. Certain safeguards and
restrictions have been placed upon the activities of these lay-
preachers but this only obscures the fact that a false un-Biblical
principle has been adopted without correcting the real errors
involved.
This is an example of how little the controversies of the
Norwegian Synod with other synods were settled by the adop-
tion of the doctrinal "agreements" which formed the basis for
the Union of 1917. They can only be said to have been buried
under the sod of doctrinal indifference and indefiniteness, the
contending parties agreeing to differ and adopting doctrinal
statements which made room for the views of both. This willing-
ness to compromise to make peace
with error, is widely hailed
as a virtue today. Thus the editor of Lutheran Herald,
Febru-
ary 11, 1941, reviewing Dr. Theo. C. Blegen's book, The Nor-
wegian Migration to America: The American Transition,
says:
We find ourselves especially interested in Dr. Blegen's
comment
on the two points of view in religious matters which
early made them-
selves evident: the high church orthodoxy, represented
at first by
Clausen and then more definitely by J. W. C. Dietrichson;
and the
low church pietistic emphasis, for which Eielsen was
the early
spokesman .... As
we know, church life among us has been more
or less characterized by these two tendencies within
Lutheranism. It is
of more than passing interest to note that two of the
smallest and
least influential
American Lutheran bodies of today are the direct
descendants of the groups which appeared so early. These
two minute
synods represent those emphases cast each into its unbreakable
mold.
Our own synod, we hope and pray, will prove that the
differences
between these two points of view are not so "basic" as
to make it
impossible for their proponents to travel together as
brethren.
But there is no virtue in building an external organization
which, like the Roman Catholic Church, or like the State Churches
in Norway and other countries, is able to keep the most diverse
141
and mutually conflicting elements under the same roof. Pres.
H. A. Preus expressed the true Lutheran principles in this regard
when he said (Syv Foredrag, p. 57-8):
A matter which has always been a cause of worry and pain
for
our synod is the factionalism among our countrymen. Our
efforts
have always been directed toward uniting the faction,
--But we do
not want to promote a union without unity in the faith,
a union after
the Prussian model, where truth and error, the Word of
God and
human theses are tolerated side by side and are to have
equal rights;
for that is an abomination to God and more dangerous
to souls than
open disunity and diversion. ... If we have noticed errors
in (the
teachings of) or opponents, we have not tried to cover
over the
evil with the mantle of a false charity, but have called
their atten-
tion to them openly and honestly even at the risk of
appearing
uncharitable; and if the opponents can show that there
are errors
and mistakes in our doctrine and practice, we will thank
them for
it and see in that proof of Christian love, not of uncharitableness
and hatred, on their part.
It is in this spirit that our Norwegian Synod today seeks
to carry on the work that H. A. Preus and his spritual brethren
began so auspiciously ninety years ago. Let others call it "high-
churchly orthodoxism" which can exert no influence inthe modern
world; we know that the trugh in Christ Jesus is the only real
power for good in the world, even when it is most despised and
persecuted by the haughty spirits who walk by sight rather than by
faith.
142 [end of chapter]