I am proud (in a suitably humble way) to announce that my first article has appeared in Religion & Liberty Magazine, published by the Acton Institute.

Its topic, a sure crowd-pleaser, is the story of Professor Georg Sverdrup, Augsburg Seminary, and the Lutheran Free Church. Readers of this blog have enjoyed my accounts of the antics of the Free Lutherans for many years (as I’m editor of the Sverdrup Journal), but now the whole wide world can marvel at the story. The passion. The pathos. The pietism.

Getting back to the real world, I’m well aware that the saga of the Free Lutherans is pretty tall grass stuff, even for people generally interested in church history. And we Norwegian Americans do love our schisms, which complicates matters. Hot dishes and schisms, that’s how you can tell Norwegian-American Lutherans.

The obscurity of my topic was brought home to me in a surprising way when I received my copy of the magazine, opened it, and found that it had been illustrated with an image, not of the Georg Sverdrup I wrote about, but of his namesake great-uncle. I can sympathize with the artist – I wrote an article about the Reformation kings of Denmark for the Sverdrup Society newsletter a while back and got my Fredericks and Christians completely mixed up. Had to print a correction in the next issue.

The R&I editor, when I pointed the lapse out to him, was very apologetic, and the artist quickly produced a corrected version, which will be used when the article goes online next month. And I appreciate that.

But these are details. The important thing is that the article serves its higher purpose – the great cause for which I labor with unwearying toil.

The cause of me getting paid.

And, of course, contributing to public knowledge of the history of the Christian faith. That too.