Tuesday, January 10, 2023

It is the 10th of January 2023. Welcome to the Christian History Almanac brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org. I’m Dan van Voorhis.

It was on this, the 10th of January in 1883, that the Norwegian-born Lutheran itinerant preacher Elling Eielsen died in Chicago at the age of 78.

If you don’t know the name Elling Eielsen that’s fair, you probably are neither Norwegian nor Lutheran. There are two things you should know- first, how he looked. Just google his name Elling Eielsen (or Bing it, maybe you’re a Bing person). He looks as if Will Ferrell was cast as an Amish stereotype.

Also- you should know that the Wisconsin Historical Society writes of Eielsen “No more controversial figure existed in early Norwegian-American church history. None was more influential among those pioneers.” So, seems like we might want to flesh this guy out. 

Elling was born in Voss, Norway (also home to Knute Rockne). His family were followers of Hans Nielsen Hauge- Hauge was a Lutheran pietist and revival leader who spent time in prison for preaching illegally and other, likely trumped-up charges.

Elling wanted to wake up the common people to an emotionally resonant Lutheran theology. He accused the establishment preachers of “dead orthodoxy”- this is a common dichotomy in a practical theological debate- it earned him a good hassle from Norwegian clergy and being arrested in Denmark.

He emigrated to the Fox River, Illinois settlement in 1839. He built a church there and stressed education for the young amidst his concern for a church run not by clergy but by the laity. In 1941 he went to New York City to have the first book published in Norwegian in America- it was Martin Luther’s Small Catechism- he later had an exposition of the Catechism also published.

He was a Johnny Appleseed character who was known to walk through Illinois and Wisconsin- seen with a walking stick, coffee kettle, and raincoat. He was influential amongst the pioneers, as the above-mentioned quote proposes for his popular and lay-level teaching that stressed the priesthood of all believers. Eielsen was ordained in 1843 by Francis Hoffman of the Michigan Synod- he was the first Norwegian ordained in America but did not have a call to any particular congregation.

In 1843 he was also married to Sigrid Nelson Tufte- they made their home base in North Cape- the Norwegian settlement in Wisconsin, to be near her family.

In 1844 J.W.C. Dietrichson came to America as the first Church of Norway pastor in America (the “Church of Norway” is the Lutheran church). Dietrichson wanted to consolidate the Norwegian churches in America and make ecclesiastical rulings- one of which was to invalidate Eielsen’s ordination.

As you might imagine that invalidation meant nothing to Elling, who soon moved to Jefferson Prairie and was a true “circuit” preacher visiting the Lutheran Norwegian congregations across the Midwest and as far west as the Dakotas and as far south as Texas. He would also minister to the Potawatomi tribe.

He would help to found the Eielsen synod- a Lutheran synod that required proof of conversion as a prerequisite for church membership. It would split from the Hauge synod, and many of the churches would unite as the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. You could still find churches belonging to the “Eielsen Synod” in the 1960s before the great Lutheran synodical shakeup at the end of the last century, which gave us a new alphabet soup of Lutheran synods.

After 1873 Elling Eielsen lived in Chicago, where he died on the 10th of January in 1883. He was 78 years old.

The last word for today comes from the daily lectionary from Acts 8:

9 Now for some time a man named Simon had practiced sorcery in the city and amazed all the people of Samaria. He boasted that he was someone great, 10 and all the people, both high and low, gave him their attention and exclaimed, “This man is rightly called the Great Power of God.” 11 They followed him because he had amazed them for a long time with his sorcery. 12 But when they believed Philip as he proclaimed the good news of the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized, both men and women. 13 Simon himself believed and was baptized. And he followed Philip everywhere, astonished by the great signs and miracles he saw.

This has been the Christian History Almanac for the 10th of January 2023, brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org. 

The show is produced by a man who once told me he thought Norwegians were just Swedes without the charm… He is Christopher Gillespie.

The show is written and read by a man who, if not using Bing, is using Hotbot or Ask Jeeves. I’m Dan van Voorhis.

You can catch us here every day- and remember that the rumors of grace, forgiveness, and the redemption of all things are true…. Everything is going to be ok.