Pietisten ("The Pietist") was a Swedish Christian monthly publication "for religious revival and edification", described by one scholar as "the theological journal of Nyevangelism ", [1] and founded in January 1842 by the Scottish Methodist minister George Scott, who had immigrated to Sweden. [2] The word pietist, from the Latin word pietas, meaning 'piety, godliness', refers to the Pietist movement.
Scott founded the journal with the goal of "practical edification without polemics" [3] and was its editor for several months until he was forced to leave the country. During that time, he focused primarily on topics such as conversion stories and Christian living. [2] After Scott's departure in April 1842, Pietisten was edited by preacher Carl Olof Rosenius, who was left to continue Scott's work; its tone changed somewhat as Rosenius took it in a Moravian Brethren-influenced direction, [3] and began to include biblical exposition as well as occasional material from Johann Konrad Wilhelm Löhe, John Charles Ryle, Erik Pontoppidan, and others. [4] During Rosenius' editorship, the magazine was essentially written by him, and was his main literary channel. In this way it had a great influence. His articles have subsequently been published as reflections and writings with a total circulation of two million, and another million in other languages, despite the fact that they are not particularly reader-friendly. [5]
Rosenius continued until his death in 1868, [6] after which the editorship was taken over by Paul Peter Waldenström. [7] In contrast to Scott and his emphasis on more neutral subjects, Waldenström would publish his new view on the doctrine of the atonement, in conflict with the traditional Lutheran doctrine, in Pietisten in 1872. His view would find ground among Pietists and the Mission Friends in particular. In the last years, Pietisten's editorial staff included Janne Nyrén (1914–1915), Johan Peter Norberg (from 1916), Theodor Andersson (from 1917) and Jakob Emanuel Lundahl (1918). [8]
600 copies were published in Pietisten's first year and around 10,000 copies were published between 1853 and 1865. The journal was for the Mission Friends but was widely popular among revivalists as a whole: selections were copied, translated, and published freely at the time. A Finland-Swedish version entitled Den evangeliska budbäraren ('The Evangelical Messenger') was also published. [9] [10]
Rosenius and Waldenström contributed to the founding of Evangeliska Fosterlandsstiftelsen (EFS, the Swedish Evangelical Mission, 1856) and the Svenska Missionsförbundet (SMF, Swedish Mission Covenant, 1878) respectively, the former a revivalist movement within the Church of Sweden, the latter a free church which split from EFS in part due to differing views on the atonement held by Waldenström and his followers. [11] [1] This contradiction led the EFS, in reaction to the founding of the SMF, to reissue the first fifteen volumes under the title Pietisten. Nytt och gammalt från nådens rike, which Rosenius had edited, while Pietisten under Waldenström became the official voice of the SMF in 1909 and was merged with the magazine Missionsförbundet in 1919.
A namesake journal, self-described as the "spiritual heir" of the original Pietisten, has been published in Minneapolis, Minnesota, since its founding in 1986 by David Hawkinson and Peter Sandstrom. [12]
Paul Petter Waldenström was a Swedish lecturer, priest in the Church of Sweden and theologian, member of the Riksdag, and writer, who became the most prominent leader of the free church movement in late 19th-century Sweden.
The Mission Covenant Church of Sweden, founded in 1878, was a Swedish evangelical free church. It was the second-largest Protestant denomination in Sweden, after the national church, the Church of Sweden. In 2011, the Mission Covenant Church of Sweden completed a merger with two other denominations, resulting in the new denomination Uniting Church in Sweden. The denomination was a member of the Swedish Free Church Council, the International Federation of Free Evangelical Churches, and the World Communion of Reformed Churches.
The Swedish Evangelical Mission (SEM) is an independent, low-church, New Evangelical movement within the Church of Sweden. Described as "middle-of-the-road" due to maintaining its independence within the church while not separating from it, the association emphasizes the importance of lay involvement and is rooted in 19th-century Swedish revivalism and the Mission Friends movement.
Fredrik Gabriel Hedberg was a Finnish Lutheran priest and vicar. He was a Neo-Lutheran theologian, a prominent figure in the Finnish evangelical revival movement and a leader of confessional Lutheranism in Finland.
Carl Olof Rosenius was a Swedish lay preacher, author and editor of the monthly Pietisten from 1842 to 1868. He was one of the country's most widely-heard preachers of his day and has been described as being of "extraordinary importance for the low-church evangelical revival not only in Sweden but also in the other Nordic countries".
Nils Frykman (1842-1911) was a Swedish teacher, evangelist and hymnwriter. He came to the United States in 1888 and was a pastor at Covenant Churches in Illinois and Minnesota for nearly two decades. Known as "the joyous Christian singer", Frykman wrote over three hundred hymns, many of which are still sung by worshipers in Sweden and the United States.
George Scott was a Scottish Methodist missionary active in Stockholm from 1830 to 1842. His preaching has been described as the start of Sweden's Great Awakening that began in the 1840s.
Läsare or the Reader movement was a Swedish Pietistic Christian revival movement of people who stressed the importance of reading, that is, reading the Bible and other Christian literature. It was influenced by both the Herrnhuters and the Methodists and has been described by scholar George M. Stephenson as a "second religious reformation in Sweden".
Olof Palmgren was a Swedish farmer and one of the leaders of the Christian läsare (Reader) movement starting around 1810, of which his sect was known as the "Palmgren awakening".
Lars Vilhelm Henschen was a Swedish jurist and politician and involved in the free church movement. He was the father of doctor Salomon Eberhard Henschen, educator Maria Henschen, and publicist Wilhelm (William) August Henschen, and grandfather of museum curator Gunhild Lugn.
Gerhard Gerhardsson was a Swedish craftsman and religious leader.
The Mission Friends was an interdenominational Christian, mostly Pietist and Radical Pietist association in Sweden and among Swedish Americans in the United States, that eventually had an impact on several Protestant denominations and their missionary societies today, even outside of Lutheranism, the Swedish community, and the United States, eventually influencing other communities and forming new independent Radical Pietist, Baptist – especially Swedish Baptist – and later on Pentecostal and Charismatic free church denominations.
Reinhold Adolphe Louis Stackelberg was a Swedish count (greve), estate owner, and metalworking plant owner as well as one of the firebrands of the Christian revival movement in Småland.
Nyevangelism is a term for a branch of revivalist Protestant Christianity which emerged in Norrland, Sweden, at the beginning of the 19th century. The term, in opposition to Old Pietism, has been in use since the 1850s.
Carl August Björk was a Swedish missionary preacher in the Midwestern United States. He was the founder of the Mission Friends – some of which later developed into the Evangelical Covenant Church, a Radical Pietistic Christian denomination with Lutheran roots, which he played a key role in founding. Björk served as the first president of the Swedish Evangelical Mission Covenant Synod.
Pro Fide et Christianismo is a Christian association within the Church of Sweden. The organization was an "informal or semi-official national school board" prior to the founding of Sweden's public education system and made a significant impact on Sweden's early education system.
Bethlehem Church is the Swedish Evangelical Mission's church in Stockholm, Sweden. The old church building was consecrated in October 1840 as Sweden's first free church building, under the name Engelska kapellet. It was located near Hötorget in Norrmalm, where the second and third Hötorget buildings are now located and was taken over by the Swedish Evangelical Mission in connection with the founding of the organization in 1856. The church was demolished in 1953 in conjunction with the redevelopment of Norrmalm. The new church was consecrated in 1956 at Luntmakargatan in Vasastan.
Evangelisk Luthersk Mission – Bibeltrogna Vänner (ELM) is a Christian low-church mission organization part of the Church of Sweden, which is active in Sweden and abroad.
Agatha Rosenius was a Swedish hymnwriter.
Erik Jakob Ekman, called Ekman i Kristinehamn and Ekman i Stockholm in the Riksdag was a Swedish priest, free church leader, and author. He was one of the founders of what became the Mission Covenant Church of Sweden and was a member of Parliament for a total of about seven years. He was the father of entrepreneur and member of Parliament Josef Ekman.
| Authority control: National |
|---|
