"The Lord has laid great gifts on our believing laity": Gisle Johnson's Emergency Principle

Gisle Johnson lived during a time of immense change. Norway, along with the entire world, was quickly modernizing: the rural farmlife enjoyed by the bønder class was now becoming mixed up with the industrial revolution, and the vast expansion of the cities—particularly Kristiana (Oslo)—meant that mercy ministry and pastoral care via the state church was stretched thin. The chairman of the Inner Mission Society, Gisle was able to utilize the resources of this organization to rise to the exigencies of spiritual need in the rapidly-growing demographic of Norway’s metropolitan life. Indeed, the effects of the Industrial Revolution were stark, which “was heralded in 1846 with the construction of two modern textile mills.”[1]  With city centers booming at an alarming rate—Skarsten notes that “Christiania (Oslo) … grew from a population of 12,000 in 1801 to over 130,000 in 1885”—this meant that the State Church was at a severe disadvantage in rising to meet the needs of its countrymen. During the height of Gisle’s activity in the 1850’s and 60’s, “the capital city had 30,000 inhabitants and only one parish Church with three pastors.”^[2] 

In order to maneuver the Inner Mission Society to meet this exponentially disproportionate outgrowth, Gisle began advancing what is called the "emergency principle." The logic was this: “There are too few clergy in Norway, and many fall short of the ideal. Consequently, lay forces must be pressed into service. God has blessed Norway more richly than any other Lutheran land in the matter of ‘great gifts’ for lay-preaching.”[3] It should also be noted that Gisle fitted into this category, and Einar Molland notes, “Johnson himself was not an ordained clergyman, and he stated in his old age that it had often been a comfort to him that one of Church’s ordained servants had invited him to hold public Bible studies.”[4]  Thus the debates raged in Norway over the nature of the word "publicly" (Nor. offentlig) in article 14 of the Augsburg Confession: "Of Ecclesiastical Order they teach that no one should publicly teach in the Church or administer the Sacraments unless he be regularly called."

A key meeting in which the Inner Mission Society's stance on this was discussed came on July 11-13, 1860, in Drammen, Norway. There, Gisle delivered an address, where the voices of various other constituents in the organization afterward argued their case. One volume records the entirety of the meeting, including the opening speech by Gisle Johnson, the latter of which show's Gisle's deep concern for both the holiness and purity of the church, as well as the spiritual care of his countrymen. Gisle's speech is as follows , from pages 4-21 of Forhandlinger ved det kirkelige Møde i Drammen, 11-13 Juli 1860 (Kristiana: Wm. Gram & Co., 1860)]:

The Inner Mission

Prof. Johnson gave an introductory lecture, the content of which was in substance as follows:

The very term “Inner Mission” already suggests what one generally ought to think of in this connection. Even though the name “Mission” is of foreign origin, its meaning in our day must be assumed to be sufficiently known to every reasonably enlightened Christian; it is after all the common expression for the Christian’s activity in bringing the knowledge of, in general, the light of grace, the Gospel of salvation to those who still walk in the darkness of sin. When one now speaks of an “Inner Mission,” one must thereby immediately come to think of an activity within the Church’s own borders that corresponds to that outward one, to the proper work toward those standing outside it. Consequently, one can scarcely speak of such an Inner Mission without at the same time presupposing that there is still godlessness within the Church, a heathen darkness and a heathen misery that requires a similar treatment as the godlessness outside the Church; the Inner Mission is in general the Church’s activity for overcoming the godlessness that is still found within its own midst.

That we now really have full reason to speak of godlessness within the Church, about that there can scarcely be more than one opinion among Lutheran Christians. According to our Church’s faith and confession (Augsburg Confession, Art. 7), the Church is indeed properly and essentially “the assembly of true believers,” that is, the fellowship of those who are already caught in the net of grace and truth and thereby saved from sin and death and the power of Satan, delivered from the darkness and misery of godlessness. But it is equally certain that within the external church community there have always been and until the end there always will be souls who do not at the same time belong to the true, genuine Church—such as are members of the Church in name only, but in reality are so far from being members of Christ’s body that they are on the contrary “members of the devil” (Augsburg Confession, Art. 8, cf. Apology). In this respect too the whole congregation is like the individual Christian; just as the latter, as long as he is in this world, will always have to struggle with the sin that still dwells in his flesh, so too it belongs to the condition of the Church militant that it will never be able to prevent the devil from having his tares in the midst of the Lord’s field.

That we now really have full reason to speak of godlessness within the Church, there can hardly be any disagreement among Lutheran Christians on that point. According to the Church’s faith and confession (Augsburg Confession, Art. 7), the Church is in reality the assembly of true believers, that is, the fellowship of those who are already caught in the net of grace and truth and have been saved from sin and death and the power of Satan, delivered from the darkness and misery of godlessness. But it is equally certain that within the external church community there have always been, and still are, souls who do not truly belong to the real Church—such as are members of the Church in name only, but in reality are far from being living members (Augsburg Confession, Art. 8, and the Apology). In this respect the whole congregation is like the individual Christian; just as the latter, as long as he is in this world, will always have to struggle with the sin that still dwells in his flesh, so too it belongs to the condition of the Church militant that it will never be able to prevent the devil from having his influence in the world.

Main matter. Thus there is always enough godlessness within the Church, always enough of the old Adam’s nature remaining in those who are nevertheless truly grafted into the second Adam, and always enough of those for whom this latter has not yet taken place, in whom the old Adam, the nature of sin and the world, is still the ruling power.

Insofar as one were now to take the word “Inner Mission” in its widest sense and thereby include everything the Church does to overcome and eradicate the godlessness that exists within its own midst, then it would obviously be something the Church has never been without and never can be without. But in this comprehensive sense one does not usually use the word. According to ordinary linguistic usage, one thinks thereby only of a specific, distinctive form of that work of the Church against the inner godlessness.

The history of the Church confirms what also lies in the very nature of the matter: that godlessness within the Church, although it never disappears, can at different times appear in different ways, manifest itself in different forms, and make itself felt with different degrees of strength. There can be times when it is more repressed, when it must, as it were, hide itself from men’s eyes and does not dare to step forward in its true form. But then again there are other times when it comes to power and dominance, when the tares sprout so luxuriantly among the wheat that they often seem almost to hide it. It is in such times that there can be talk of Inner Mission in the more restricted sense of the word, in that the special, extraordinary distress calls forth the use of special, extraordinary means for the relief of that distress; what one ordinarily designates by that expression is the Church’s activity for overcoming godlessness within its own midst, insofar as, on account of the enemy’s overwhelming power, it must resort to extraordinary means and appear in distinctive forms.

But it is precisely such a time that is also the time in which we live. Everyone who knows a little of the Church’s history knows that behind us lies a time when unbelief was powerful within the Lutheran congregation also in our fatherland. For half a century ago there was great scarcity of bread in this country; though we may dare to hope that even then there were those who had not bowed the knee to Baal, we must nevertheless confess that for human eyes there was little else to discover than darkness and death. If we turn our gaze from that time to our own, it cannot be denied that much is now different; one testimony after another meets us concerning the Lord’s nearness and the power of His grace; in these days He has again poured out His Spirit upon our people, and in a fullness of which we could not even dream a short time ago. Yet all this is still only a beginning, the new life is still only a small, weak sprout, which the still far too powerful tares threaten at every moment to choke. Even if our eye meets joyful “signs from on high,” there is nevertheless no lack of terrible “signs from the deep”; while we must thank and praise our God for the light of grace and truth that He lets shine for us, we cannot be blind to the overwhelming power with which the darkness of sin and death still makes itself felt among those who should all be children of light, shining as lights in the world. The question for us can only be whether this power of godlessness within the Church and the distress of the Church grounded therein can now also be said to be great enough to justify the necessity of what is called Inner Mission.

What has the Church to do in a time of distress? To pray and to work. But how then shall the work be done, by whom, and by what means? The means are given to us; there are no others than the means of grace entrusted to the Church by her Lord; with His Word and His Sacraments souls shall be caught and godlessness within and without the Church overcome. But into whose hands has the Lord now placed these means of grace? They properly belong to the whole congregation in all its members. We do not know — as the Papists do — any specially privileged clerical estate within the Church with regard to the administration of the means of grace; we believe that the means of grace have their power in themselves and are therefore equally powerful in the mouth and hand of every member of the congregation. But “God is not a God of confusion, but of peace;” therefore in the Lord’s congregation “all things should be done decently and in order.” And what order He now, with regard to the administration of the means of grace and especially the proclamation of the Word, will have observed in His congregation, He Himself has made known by the difference which He has established among its various members through the different distribution of His gifts of grace. This difference with regard to gifts naturally brings with it a corresponding difference in calling, service, and work; God has thereby in action declared it to be His will that there should be such a difference among the members of the congregation that they should not all serve their Lord and promote its edification in the same way, especially “not all be teachers.” Therefore, from the very beginning, from the time of the Apostles, there have always been in the Church those whom God, through His gifts, has designated for the congregation as specially appointed by Him to administer the public management of its means of grace, and whom the congregation on its part, in recognition of this will and ordinance of God, has taken into its service and entrusted with a special ministerial office, something which essentially belongs to it in all its members. Where the Church thus has its “elders,” “overseers,” “leaders,” “shepherds,” or, as we gladly call them, pastors, then its call to combat godlessness within its midst must first and foremost rest upon them as something that belongs to their office as stewards of the means of grace. But by no means does this imply that the Church’s other members have nothing to do with this matter. The word of the Gospel: “From now on you will catch men,” applies not only to the shepherds of the congregation, but to all its true, living members. They are all called to “admonish one another and build up, one the other,” and thereby also to “warn the unruly, comfort the fainthearted, and help the weak”; they are all obligated and entitled to take their part in the common work of the Church, including insofar as it aims at combating godlessness within its own midst. What the order of the Church requires of them here is only that they not interfere disruptively in the work that is entrusted to the congregation’s appointed leaders—the public administration of the means of grace—but that with their activity for the common purpose they keep themselves within the bounds which God, through the gifts He has bestowed upon them and the station and position in which He has placed them, has assigned to each one of them. Where everything is as it should be, then all the true members of the congregation—each according to his gift and his calling, each in his place and in his circle, each on the way and in the manner appointed to him by the heavenly Head of the body—will, in harmonious cooperation and mutual assistance, work for the common purpose of catching souls for the kingdom of God. There they will also, with united strength, hand in hand, advance in the field against the power of godlessness.

This is the normal state; where the task—the Church’s struggle against its inner enemy—can be solved in this way, then everything that can be subsumed under the Inner Mission must become unnecessary and thereby also ecclesiastically unjustified. The question, therefore, is whether the condition of the Church at the present time is really such that the task can be solved in the manner described.

Where godlessness within the Church has gained such dominance as is the case in our days, one cannot expect that everything will go according to the ideal. Such a disproportion among the components of the church community cannot but exert its influence also on the solution of the task with which we are here concerned.

To the same degree that darkness grows within the Church, the good powers that should combat and overcome it will naturally also dwindle and decrease, becoming fewer and fewer, weaker and weaker. This will particularly also show itself with regard to the appointed teaching office, which proceeds from the bosom of the congregation and therefore must always more or less be borne by its life and strength. A congregation in which darkness has gained the upper hand will have little appreciation for the significance of the teaching office; soon it will be said: “What do we need with pastors? We have more than enough of them,”—and the practical consequence will be that the number of pastors, if not actually reduced, will at least not be increased in proportion to what the need arising from the distress requires. To this must be added that, as the congregation is, so also will the pastors who proceed from it always be, more or less; the godlessness gaining the upper hand in the congregation will also press into the teaching office and find its prey. Complaints are made in our days about both the one and the other, and not without good reason. However much has been done in recent times among us to remedy the shortage of pastors, there is probably no church body in this part of the world that, in proportion to the population and local conditions, has as few pastors as the Lutheran Church in Norway. And as regards the second point, one may very well acknowledge both the share that the whole congregation has in the guilt for that which is here complained of, and also the change for the better that has taken place here in more recent times, and yet, when one wishes to be true to the truth in love, feel compelled to openly confess that even in this matter there is still all too much reason for complaint. But if it is now the case that our Church has far too few pastors, and that among these few there are far too many who are not what they should be, then it must also be evident that its teaching office cannot at present be said to be equal to its task, and cannot be expected to sufficiently fill its place in the struggle that the Church has to wage against godlessness within its own midst.

What the Church under such circumstances most urgently must demand of its friends can naturally be nothing other than that each one does his part so that the mentioned deficiencies may be remedied. But however much may be worked and accomplished in this direction through the prayer of faith and the work of faith, however many and however capable pastors our Church may obtain in this way, it will probably never thereby be able to achieve everything that is needed. Our country is a poor country, which will certainly never have the means and ability to provide the necessary support for a sufficient number of scientifically educated pastors who should live exclusively for the discharge of their office. There therefore seems in our conditions to lie a strong summons to seek to increase the number of the regular workers called by the Church in another way—by taking into the service of the Church the labor forces already present in our churchly laity. It concerns here not merely an increase of the forces that private soul-care within the congregation might require—a need that could essentially be remedied by assistants or congregational councils. What is needed is in reality not only a more extended private care of souls, but equally a more abundant public proclamation of the Word. It is something that the experience of our days sufficiently confirms: that where hunger and thirst for the preaching of the Word truly awaken in the congregation, in the vast majority of cases the pastor alone is unable to satisfy the need; the more conscientious he is, the more painfully he also feels how the extent of the field of labor hinders him from also attending to this his duty as he should. But if one now has no reason to expect that our Church will ever be able to obtain the necessary number of pastors in the ordinary sense of the word, then one must surely have full reason to investigate whether it does not, outside the circle of its scientifically educated members, possess forces which, with hope of blessing and fruit, it could also employ for the public proclamation of the Word. However highly one may value the worth of scientific education for the servants of the Word in the Church, and however much a church body that had to do without the gift of grace that our fathers used to call “sacred theology” would be to be lamented, one must not set it up as an absolute, unalterable requirement for everyone to whom the Church is to entrust the administration of its means of grace. There can be cases where necessity forces it to lower its requirements, to content itself with something less than it could and would under other conditions and circumstances, and — precisely in such a necessity our Church, according to what has been stated above, must be said to find itself. When we now, driven by this distress of the Church, cast our eye beyond what is usually called the laity in the Church, then our eye meets a fact which cannot but on its part strengthen us in the conviction that we have here come upon the right track. It is something that must strike everyone who is not struck with spiritual blindness: that the Lord has laid great gifts on our believing laity precisely for a public proclamation of His Word. There are scarcely any Lutheran church body that He has so blessed in this respect as ours; it almost appears as if, in this abundance of spiritual powers, He has wished to give our people compensation for the temporal poverty in which it has pleased Him to place it. But such a treasure He cannot have entrusted to us so that we should bury it in the ground; where He gives gifts to His congregation, there He also wants them to be used for that to which they are intended; in the very nature of the gift itself He gives us a hint as to what and how He wants it applied. Thus the Church’s need and the Lord’s gift meet here in such a way that there seems to be little doubt about what we have to do. It seems that it must be a goal toward which all the friends of the Church among us should work with united strength: that the gifts for working in the public proclamation of the Word, which are laid down in our churchly laity, be taken into the Church’s ordinary service and used to relieve the need from which it suffers to so high a degree precisely in this direction. This is not the place to go more closely into this matter; it must suffice with these more general remarks to have indicated what seems to have to be a goal for the striving of all those who have a heart for the Church’s distress and an eye for the Lord’s grace, but who also gladly wish to contribute their part so that everything may be done “decently and in order.”

This, therefore, seems to have to be what we, in the face of godlessness within the Church, most nearly have to do; that the need—not only the conscious, the felt, but equally also the still slumbering, unconscious, but therefore no less real need—for the public proclamation of the Word in the congregation may be satisfied in the manner that is in accordance with the churchly order grounded in God’s Word: this must be the goal of our striving, while we, for the rest, naturally have in the prayer of faith and the work of faith to continue the struggle against that enemy of the Church, wherever it confronts us, each one on the post where the Lord of the Church has placed him.

But can we now also stop here? Must not necessity force us to take a step further? That goal still seems to lie rather far in the distance. Especially must the churchly ordering of the activity of the Christian laity for the proclamation of the Word for the present—and certainly not only for the present—be said to be a pious wish. Meanwhile time passes. Meanwhile the “many” walk, to too high a degree left to themselves, for the most part unwarned and unadmonished—at least not warned and admonished as they should be—along “the broad way that leads to destruction.” Meanwhile one precious soul after another goes, in the deepest spiritual blindness, in the most terrible ignorance and ungodliness, “to its own place.” Can Christians—can people who have had their eyes opened to what sin and grace are, what death and life mean—look with equanimity upon such misery? Can one who, with this misery before his eyes, has learned to understand that the harvest is great but the workers are few, has learned to pray the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into His harvest—can such a one here fold his hands in his lap? Does it not also here apply to pray and to work? Must not also here the extraordinary distress require extraordinary measures? And would it not really be to fold one’s hands in one’s lap instead of working while it is day, if, in the face of such distress, we were to refrain from using the means of help that the Lord gives us, because our conduct thereby, in relation to a churchly order that is calculated for an orderly, a normal condition, might take on an “extraordinary” appearance?

It is these and similar considerations that in our days have given rise to what is called “the Inner Mission.” It is a fruit of the Church’s distress, of the power of godlessness within the Church and the Church’s powerlessness in the face of this, its enemy. It is no new means of grace, but only a new form in which the Church’s old activity—to combat and overcome the old enemy with the old weapons—has appeared under special conditions and circumstances. And what is new and special in this activity consists generally in this: that members of the congregation, pastors and laity, into whose hearts the love of Jesus has entered, instead of limiting themselves to working for this cause, each for himself, each in his place and in his circle, now draw closer together, form special associations with this definite goal in view—in the hope, namely, that through such a union and cooperation of the forces which, though united in spirit, are nevertheless in external reality often far too divided, they might be able to work all the more powerfully toward the attainment of the goal. It has happened here as it has happened with the heathen mission; it is not the name alone that has been taken from it. Just as the urge to work for the conversion of the heathen, when it awoke among Christians in more recent times, necessarily had to lead to the formation of private mission societies and mission associations—because the individual alone could accomplish little or nothing, while the Church, the organism of the external church community, completely neglected the work that ought most nearly to fall upon it and should ordinarily proceed from it—so too was it quite natural that those members of the Church who truly gained insight into the godlessness within its own midst sought, through a union of the forces from which the resistance must proceed, to make amends for their acknowledged weakness and frailty.

Thus there have also arisen in our fatherland “Associations for the Inner Mission.” Their purpose can in general be said to be what at least one of them has designated as its purpose: within a certain, wider or narrower circle to serve the Church by contributing its part to the spreading of God’s Kingdom where spiritual ignorance and moral corruption seem to require a more extended care of souls than that which the Church is at present able to provide—an aim which they then in general seek to attain by ensuring that God’s Word may be brought to those to whom it would otherwise not reach, in the form in which it can be most “profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness.” What the individual members of such an association can do toward the attainment of its purpose is nothing new for them; it is essentially nothing other than what all Christians, each according to his gift of grace, in his calling, in his own way, have to do in order to combat godlessness within the Church. By coming together in an association for Inner Mission, they will just as little take upon themselves something that does not already rest upon them, as they will exempt from anything that rests upon them as Christians. Their intention with this is nearest only this: in this way so much the better to be able “as good stewards of God’s manifold grace to serve one another, each with the gift of grace he has received,” to supply one another’s lacks in temporal as in spiritual matters and thus “by the fellowship that mutual assistance gives” to contribute to the advancement of the cause for which they here work. But by joining together in such an association, they will at the same time be able to give their activity a wider extent, insofar as circumstances may require it and their abilities permit it. Where within the sphere of the association’s activity the mass of those who openly walk in the way of the heathen is so great that it does not lie in the power of the individual members to reach all the dark corners of darkness and misery, there the association as such will be able to employ the forces that the Lord may have bestowed upon it, in its service and under its supervision to work for its cause in wider circles and in another way than is possible for its other members. Thus can then an association for Inner Mission work for its purpose by sending out “lay preachers.” It is something that belongs to the curse that rests over godlessness within the Church, that there are crowds of baptized and in their baptismal covenant confirmed members of the congregation, for whom God’s Word in the Holy Scripture is an altogether unknown thing, even though they have this treasure in the midst of them; it must therefore also lie near to an association for Inner Mission, when the Lord gives it the Spirit for it, to send out such a one into the crowd, to seek out the baptized heathen and bring them the word of life, offer them the Holy Scripture and other writings corresponding to the purpose for sale or as a gift, while he then at the same time, insofar as the Lord gives grace and opportunity for it, accompanies the printed Word that he brings forth with a simple, heartfelt testimony about the Lord who through that Word speaks to the children of men, and a friendly admonition to listen to Him. Such lay preaching cannot yet be said to fall under the public proclamation of the Word; it bears essentially the same private character as every other Christian’s activity in spreading God’s Word in his Circle. Among us, however, as indicated above, the distress will in most cases require something more, even a more complete public proclamation of the Word than that which the Church with its ordinary powers, through its called servants, is at present able to provide, will in general form part of what an Association for Inner Mission in our country must feel called upon to work for. Since it is of course also here a matter of bringing the Word to those to whom it would otherwise not reach, and of presenting it to them in the form in which it can best correspond to their need, the means to which an Association for Inner Mission with this purpose in view will find itself directed appear chiefly to have to consist of house visits in connection with Bible readings and similar lectures suitable for Christian awakening, enlightenment, and edification. That this is an activity for which the members of such an Association in general can neither be presumed to have the gift nor the opportunity is something that speaks for itself; to what extent it will be able to work for its purpose in this way will therefore always depend on the Lord giving it the necessary powers for this, sending it men who are capable and willing to seek out the souls wandering in darkness and bring them the light of grace and truth—whether by conversing with individuals about their soul’s condition or by gathering them about himself in larger or smaller circles to hear the Gospel of salvation. — Since God’s Word is the means which alone is mighty in truth to overcome godlessness both within and without the congregation, then also such an activity—partly more private, partly more public—for the spreading of the Word must always remain the main thing in the work of the Inner Mission. At the same time, however, it must lie near to them also to keep an eye directed toward temporal distress and misery, which as a rule is both the daughter and mother of spiritual misery; by relieving the one, one will in many cases be able to contribute to checking or even preventing the other. In any case, one will often, by showing the unfortunate that one has a heart for their temporal need, be able to prepare the way for the Word that shall both awaken and satisfy their longing for an eternal life, a path to their hearts. An activity directed toward this end, which thus especially appears in Christian care for the sick and the poor, care for neglected and wayward children, for released prisoners etc., therefore also constitutes in other countries an essential and important branch of the work of the Inner Mission, which can be nothing other than God’s holy and saving Word, as it is believed, confessed, and proclaimed in the world by the Evangelical-Lutheran Church.

But the servant relationship in which the Inner Mission thus stands to the Church will also determine its relationship to the ecclesiastical office and the men to whom it is entrusted. If it wishes to serve the Church, then it must also show its office all due respect and give its called servants all possible support in their work in its service. The most natural and desirable thing would undoubtedly be that the pastor, the shepherd of the congregation, should also here take the lead, so that the whole work would have in him both its starting point and its living center—that he, therefore, in the living recognition of his need for help from the side of the believing members of the congregation, would either himself gather around him those of them whom he might find suited and willing to give him such help, or in general exhort all those in the congregation who could and would support him in his work to gather around him, and then seek to order and lead their activity so that it might become a benefit and joy both for themselves and for the whole congregation. Where it is not the pastor of the congregation, but others of its members, in whom the thought of Inner Mission first awakens, and from whom the impulse to such an activity originally proceeds, there respect for the ecclesiastical office will require that one does not bypass one’s pastor, that one at least does not lay hand to the work before one has presented the matter to him and heard his opinion about it. If he then enters into the matter, either in such a way that he directly joins it, or in such a way that he, for reasons that must be respected, should prefer to remain outside, yet at least gladly accepts the assistance thereby offered him, then the whole will be relatively easily ordered. But if he now declares himself against the matter, whether because he cannot in general acknowledge its ecclesiastical justification, or because he considers it unnecessary in the particular case, or because he does not have the necessary confidence in the forces that here offer their service—what then are the friends of the Inner Mission to do? Here too respect for the office must require that they take the reasons that might thus be put forward against the cause, under conscientious consideration. But if they through this still should not be able to come to agreement with the pastor, are they then obligated to submit unconditionally to his opinion? This question must be answered in the negative. To the ecclesiastical office belongs no monopoly on deciding what in such a case is truth and right, and no right to tyrannize the congregation. Under such circumstances there is nothing else to do than to follow one’s conviction and in the name of the Lord to do, without the pastor’s cooperation, what one would most gladly have done in harmonious cooperation with him. And this applies not only where the matter is about beginning an Inner Mission work, but equally also where the question becomes in what relationship one in such a work has to place oneself to the pastor’s activity as proclaimer of the Word. The normative thing is of course also here that one supports him in this his activity, that he and the friends of the Inner Mission work in harmonious cooperation for the attainment of the common goal. But to what extent this can now also in reality be done will of course depend on whether he is really a true proclaimer of the Word, a true servant of the Church; circumstances may obviously also be such that through one’s sincere striving to serve the Church one comes to oppose the Church’s servant instead of supporting him.

What has here been stated about the Inner Mission’s relationship to the ecclesiastical office rests throughout on the presupposition that it keeps itself within the boundaries of the individual congregation. And this must undoubtedly also in general be said to be the natural and desirable thing. To the same degree that one here really strives to proceed with the caution that the extraordinary in such a work requires, one will also feel the problematic nature of extending one’s activity beyond the natural limit that is set for it in the relevant congregation’s boundaries. It is after all here a matter in every respect of being able to properly survey the field of labor, on the one hand of being able to rightly assess the distress and on the other hand of being able to rightly order and lead the work aimed at relieving that distress; but both the one and the other will, according to the nature of the matter, become all the more difficult the wider the circle is over which one extends one’s activity. The problematic aspect of extending this circle beyond the congregation’s boundaries will especially become apparent when one maintains that the most natural and desirable ordering of the Inner Mission is that the pastor of the congregation stands at the head of the whole work; for him, on account of his official position, it will always be a very delicate matter to participate in an activity that extends beyond the definite circle that has been assigned to him as his field of labor. But with all this it is by no means the intention to designate every connection, every bond of fellowship between the friends of the Inner Mission in a wider circle as unjustified or inadvisable. Thus, for example, one would scarcely have anything to object to if the friends of the cause from different congregations now and then came together for common deliberation and mutual strengthening. Just as little could one with reason complain if the various associations for Inner Mission sought to promote the common cause through mutual assistance, by coming to each other’s help and serving one another, each with the gift of grace that had been given to it—that, for example, an association whose forces did not stand in proportion to the distress it had to contend with sought and received help from another, in whose circle the distress might be less and the forces greater, or that several neighboring associations, in the feeling of their weakness in one respect or another, drew closer together in order thus in one way or another to be able to work with so much greater power. It would only be desirable that every such association and cooperation should be as free as possible. Any actual organization of the Inner Mission that was to encompass a wider circle—for example, an entire diocese or perhaps even the whole country—seems to belong to those things that every humble, simple, and prudent Christian will be afraid to get involved in.

There could certainly still be much to say about this matter, but the intention with these remarks was not by any exhaustive development to anticipate the following treatment of it, but on the contrary only to introduce such by a preliminary orientation, to form a starting point for the common deliberations by directing attention to the essential points of view from which the matter will be considered.

[1] Kaasa, 341. Part of the controversy revolved around the Book of Concord (article 14 of the Augsburg Confesssion) and its use of the word “publicly” (offentlige) in relation to preaching, public preaching being forbidden. 

[2] Molland, 36. According to Uuras Saarnivaarat, was Pastor Sven Bryn; Uuras Saarnivaarat, They Lived in the Power of God: Lutheran Revival Leaders in Northern Europe (Minneapolis, MN: Ambassador Publications, 2011), 282.

[3] Trygve Skarsten, Gisle Johnson: A Study of the Interaction of Confessionalism and Pietism (Dissertation; Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago, 1968), 169.

[4] Kaasa, 333.