A Nation in the Loom: The Scandinavian Fibre in Our Social Fabric / An Address by Rev. R. A. Jernberg

by R. A. Jernberg

Studying a little closer the influences exerted by the Scandinavian newspapers, we find that they are naturally published in the centers of that population. Twenty-four of them are published in Chicago with a circulation of 307,675, and twenty-six in the twin cities of Minnesota with a circulation of 222,050. About half of the Scandinavian newspapers, therefore, are published in the three cities of St. Paul, Minneapolis and Chicago, and the readers of these papers, certainly not less than 1,000,000 people, must come to feel the throb of life in these great American cities. We have seen that it is possible to find communities in the city as foreign in life and thought as those beyond the sea, and if the influences that are scattered from the centers of our population receive their inspiration from such surroundings, then the newspapers cannot, from an American point of view, be a very helpful factor in our problem; but the inspiration of the newspapers does not come from that source. Their editors, with very rare exceptions, are men in hearty sympathy with American institutions, and in fullest touch with nearly every phase of American life.

The papers among the Scandinavians, to a far greater extent than among the Americans, are the guides and teachers of their constituency in nearly all concerns of life. In matters political, social and financial, they receive their inspiration largely from their better American contemporaries, thus bringing their readers under the best influences of the American press. In religious matters, however, this is not so, for here the spirit of the Church holds sway. This is, of course, to be expected in the religious journals of the Lutheran Church, in which the impression is generally made, that the borders of the Kingdom of God upon the earth do not extend much beyond the lines of Lutheran faith for any man, and certainly not for a Scandinavian. But the secular papers also feel the power of the Church, and are practically controlled by her spirit. Her schools and seminaries find generous space and frequent mention in their columns, while those outside of her domain are quietly ignored. The health and movements of her ministers and laymen are supposed to be items of general interest to their readers, while those who have ventured to formally leave the communion of the Church have thereby sold their birthright and forfeited all further recognition. To their excuse it may be said that in these respects the newspapers only reflect the sentiments of the great majority of their readers, and for doing this newspapers usually have no apologies to make in any tongue.

The situation as here described may serve to show the importance of an independent press, a journalism completely free from the least suspicion of spiritual tyranny. There are such journals among the Scandinavians. One or two of them are towers of strength, but the greater number are feebly supported by a few dissenters sprinkled over this entire land. And yet their influence is not unimportant. In the minds of their readers they open windows that have grown dim by the dust of ages; from the musty chambers they clear the cobwebs that no breath of air has disturbed before. They give new visions of a life much richer than that of the Fathers, and in this work they join from a Christian standpoint the stream of thought and aspiration in Scandinavian literature, which for the last century has broken away from the narrow bounds which hitherto held it; but mostly in channels realistic, un-Christian and often infidel.

The work which these papers are doing should be encouraged more than it is, for it means the emancipation of a race, and a larger life for our republic.

It remains to speak of another factor in the process of weaving the Scandinavian fibre into our social fabric. That is the Church. The only Church which until recently has had the moulding and determining influence on the Scandinavian people is the Lutheran. For three hundred and fifty years or more she has held undisputed sway over their spiritual and intellectual life. The result fills one with sadness. In England and America men have generally come to believe the Church of Christ the most potent power for the help and uplift of every man who comes under its influence. In Scandinavia they have come to think that before a man can be lifted out of his narrow, selfish and often stupid views of life, he must come out from the Church, for it is her influence that is crushing all higher life out of the people. This explains the exodus from the Church, on the one hand, of the men who are the intellectual leaders of the North to-day, the writers of its literature, and who go into infidelity; on the other hand of those who still believe that in Christ alone is life, but failing to find it in the forms and ceremonies of a lifeless church come out from it, and are like sheep having no shepherd, though looking for the true fold of Christ. The first class, the literati, have frankly and almost unanimously bidden Christianity farewell. Thinking the whole of it as hollow and emasculated as the only representative of it familiar to them, they have no use for it themselves, and only warnings against it for others. Apart from this hostility to the Church their endeavors seem to be on the side of good. In books and lectures they labor enthusiastically for the social and intellectual elevation of the people. The second class, those who for conscience sake have separated themselves, the dissenters, have naturally no sympathy with this intellectual movement. They look with distrust upon an education with Christ left out of it. While, therefore, they have broken with the Church because of her lack of life, they are no less suspicious of the schools, for learning to them means only the hindrance and death of spiritual life. They do not want their preachers to be taught by men, but only by the Holy Spirit. All other learning is vain and puffeth up. This prejudice against an educated ministry is greatly hindering the growth of the free church work in Denmark and Norway, and among these nationalities here. In Sweden, however, this feeling is rapidly disappearing before the influence of educated leaders and excellent free church seminaries.

It has seemed necessary to point out these two very opposite results of the rule of the Lutheran Church in Scandinavia in order to understand how much she may be relied on as a factor in the development of the Scandinavians in this country, for as she is there so she is here, only modified by the irresistible influence of her environment.

The bane of the spiritual power of the Lutheran Church is this: She exists for herself and not for the people, she is not the means to an end, but is herself the end. She bears testimony to this in her attitude of opposition to every effort made by other Christian Churches to elevate and convert the Scandinavian people. One of her ministers, writing some years ago, and deploring the spiritual condition of his Norwegian countrymen here in Chicago, said, that of the 40,000 of them in the city then, all baptized and by law made members of the Church, not more than 5,000 could be found in her places of worship. Yet he branded every attempt by Christians of other denominations to draw some of the remaining 35,000 away from the saloons, beer gardens and Sunday picnics, where he said large numbers of them were to be found, as base and un-Christian efforts to proselyte, and steal them away from their spiritual mother. This is the spirit of the whole Church. In the first meeting of her united factions in America in 1890, the Norwegian United Church passed some resolutions, especially aimed at our Congregational work, condemning and vigorously protesting against all missionary efforts of other denominations among the Scandinavians.

Lutheran preachers never miss an opportunity to tell us that the education and spiritual training of the foreigners, is their business and not ours. But, in view of the results of that training in their old home, it seems a question quite fair to ask, if we want them to continue that work here. When our lamented brother, Rev. M. W. Montgomery, turned the search-light of his book "A Wind From the Holy Spirit in Sweden and Norway," upon the religious conditions in the Church of those countries, and showed to the world what it really was, it caused a commotion in that Church on both sides of the sea, which he hardly had expected. When the light shines in upon a darkness that has not been broken for three hundred years, it wakes to activity many drowsy creatures who vociferously protest against the intrusion. The development of the Scandinavians in this country towards the ideas of our American life have been in spite of the influence of their mother Church, and not because of its help. Serious as this charge may be, it is amply proven by the words and works of their teachers and preachers.

In view of these facts, what is to be the attitude of American Christians towards these people? Must we ask permission from the Lutheran Church, who claims to own them, before we try to save those who are yet in their sins? Shall they perish because they find not the way to God through the portals of this particular church? Need we fear the charge of proselyting, when we labor simply to win men from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of light? Our Master's command was: "Go teach all nations," and, lest we forget to go, he graciously brings the opportunity right to our doors. Again, it seems as if the great shepherd of the sheep had especially committed to our care that large number of earnest Scandinavian Christians who for conscience sake have separated themselves from the Church of their fathers, and who have no other affiliation. They stand nearest to us in their conceptions of faith and church polity. They themselves have recognized this kinship of spirit by repeated expressions of confidence in us. Our Seminary is the only one in all the world to whom the Danes and Norwegians of these independent churches on both sides of the sea can go for an educated ministry. The influence of our work for them has long been recognized both by friends and foes as making for a Christianity in closest sympathy with Congregational methods, and for a citizenship in touch with American institutions.

We are not deceived by our desires or our hopes; we have no thought that our labors will overturn nations in a day, nor that on us is laid the task of setting all things right. But having come into the fellowship of the great needs of these people, having seen the possibilities for their development along all the lines of a better and higher life, we rejoice that to us it is given into each of these factors of the school, of the press and of the Church of Christ, to throw the influence of an institution like this not only, but the moral force of the churches behind it as well. Perhaps our share in the shaping and moulding of the people for whom we work may not be large, nor greatly esteemed. But we have the satisfaction of giving expression both in word and deed to the conviction of our hearts, that no other power on earth can lift a people into the fullest and richest experiences of life, political, intellectual, social or spiritual, like the Gospel of Jesus Christ; for it is the power of God unto salvation unto everyone that believeth, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. And He when He is lifted up shall draw all men unto Him.