Hey Gang! I am currently in Chicago for a week-long course on the History of the Evangelical Covenant Church. Of course I procrastinated the readings for this course (about 1000 pages...really, perhaps more) until last weekend, but have managed to get it down to about 200 remaining. Now, what I hate about that is that for the last 4 or 5 days I have had relatively little I could do besides read....what I love is that now that I'm here, I am literally staring at and interacting with the buildings and streets that I've just been reading about.
The short version is this: ok, so we've all heard of Martin Luther (famous catholic Monk and academian who posted his 95 thesis (suggestions for reform in the Catholic church) on a cathedral door on the campus he was working on in 1517 in Germany), well LONG story short -Luther's ideas change the world and every European country over the course of the next several centuries. Sweden (birth place of the ECC) is no different and by the early 1800s the Lutheran State Church is the officially sanctioned church of the people. The thing is, after several hundred years, even a good idea gets stale and people began to look again for a fresh movement of God in their lives. Pietism started in Sweden c.1800 as a movement of individuals and small groups of Christians started to gather together to read the Word and discuss how they can more deeply and fully live out the Scriptures. This is so common for us now that we instantly think - 'yeah, and?' - BUT this was revolutionary stuff 'back in the day' - at that time you were considered 'saved' if you went to church; birth an baptism into the Lutheran church = salvation, NOT personal relationship with Christ. So folks were not generally encouraged to read scripture for themselves; it was frowned on...after all how could the laity properly interpret scripture... I guess they put a little more faith in education (a good and useful thing) and not as much is the Holy Spirit (when He’s not being abused!)…So we think of someone as being 'Pious' as a really negative thing, but when it started out these cats were basically the original Charismatics -very lively and fully engaged in each other and the work of God in their lives and work...VERY COOL.
Well, even longer story shortened, there was more and more tension between the State church and these new pious movements (these people were called lasare (readers) and later banded together in groups called Mission Friends – NOT intent on separating from the Church at all, but again seeking a more vibrant spiritual life) until eventually the Church gave them less and less recourse to splitting off and forming new groups. Out of these groups the Swedish Covenant was eventually formed. Now (we’re up to about 1880 now), there was a really grievous famine happening in Sweden, causing about 1 million Swedes to immigrate to America. There had been a fair amount of immigration happening for various reasons before this, but the famine put it over the top. Many of the immigrants settled in the mid-western states and just did what they did in Sweden – set up Mission Friend societies and made contact with their local Lutheran church (I won’t go into the whole Synod’s thing here…). Well, this was ok for a bit, but eventually what the Mission Friends wanted out of life and fellowship could not be found in the Lutheran ranks and so they split (or were booted out, as the case may be) and formally founded the (now) ECC in 1885 in Chicago.
So it’s this interesting movement that started out with deep concern for the will of God, God moved some of them from Sweden to America where they experienced freedom to grow and become more of who God has for them to be. They’ve established a hospital, a seminary and undergrad school and a whole bunch of outreached and missions to the poor, disenfranchised and lost across the world…that’s how far I’ve gotten so far.
NOW, here I am, little English-Hungarian girl, in the middle of what used to be a predominantly Swedish and Jewish immigrant neighborhood. I’ve spent about a solid week reading all about Swedish history and immigration history and I’m wondering…Did I sign up to become Swedish when I joined this group? Lol! I don’t know yet – I’ll keep you posted on that – but even if I did, I’m thinking that might not be a bad thing!
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4 comments:
Very interesting stuff. Amazing to think the difference between now, when most churches are doing anything they can think of to get people to read their Bibles, and then, when they were kicking them out for reading their Bibles. If you decide you want some lighter reading and personal experience on the whole Christian Swedish immigration thing, there's a very good book called "First We Have Coffee" by Margaret Jensen. I notice it's selling for 99 cents on amazon. Also exceptional is that all 11 reviewers give it 5 stars. Now, how can you pass that up?
How funny! Thanks Kirstie - are you Swedish?
sorry the above was from me, Terri - not Brian...
Hey Ter, being Swedish is a good thing -- my dear mother was 100%, and my Swedish grandmother was a real pietist in this country, outspoken in prayer, devotional diaries, and in admonishing the parishoners in her Lutheran Church. Indeed, the first time I came to ECC, Riverside, I heard the beautiful Swedish accent of Marta Helgerson, and I knew I would be at home in this church. The denom. has morphed into a very culturally mixed group, which is great, but I also think it is important to revisit our "roots" for wisdom and affirmation and guidance. Love you lots!!!
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