Tag Archives: Thomas E. Jacobson

Non-fiction, Reviews

‘Pain in the Belly: the Haugean Witness in American Lutheranism,’ by Thomas E. Jacobson

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This was quite a long book, but I read it pretty quickly. Because it fascinated me. I suspect it won’t be as fascinating to you (well-written though it is), because it’s about matters near to my own heart and history.

When the old Hauge’s Synod, a small Norwegian-Lutheran church group, entered into a merger with other Lutheran groups in 1917, someone expressed satisfaction that they’d be able to “gobble up” the Haugeans now through sheer weight of numbers. Someone replied that that might be so, but it was likely to give them pains in the belly. That’s the inspiration for the title of Pain in the Belly: The Haugean Witness in American Lutheranism, by Thomas E. Jacobson.

The Haugeans are my people, and I’ve written about them often here, so I won’t give a lot of background. The Haugeans were a movement of lay evangelism and pietism originating in Norway around the turn of the 19th Century. They never left the state church, but operated as an independent movement within it. When Norwegians began immigrating to America in the mid-1800s, the Haugeans, having no state church to react against, eventually organized themselves into a loosely organized church body of their own (the first Norwegian Lutheran church in America), which survived (with some splits) up until 1917, when they entered a merger with other Norwegian American Lutheran groups, for reasons that aren’t entirely clear.

Author Jacobson spends about half his book explaining this story to the reader. The information is available elsewhere, but is necessary to set the stage. The other half of the book involves more original scholarship, as Jacobson has gone through (sometimes meager) records to provide an account of how the Haugeans returned, in a sense, to their original position, operating as an independent force within a larger church – preaching, teaching, doing good works, and agitating for a more devoted Christian life.

I read with great interest, as almost every page mentioned places I know and institutions I’m familiar with. Also people whose children I’ve met (or heard preaching); some of them I met personally over the years. (I myself am cited as a source, by virtue of a booklet I wrote for the Association of Free Lutheran Congregations.)

First of all, I want to say that the book is very well written. Thomas E. Jacobson has a clear, lively style, most welcome in a historian. He is also admirably even-handed in dealing with controversies, in spite of a tendency to refer to any preaching involving law and morality as “dark and legalistic.”

Pain in the Belly, alas, is probably unlikely to attract a large audience. Students of American church history will be interested, as well as anyone involved in the burgeoning field of Lars Walker studies.

Reading, Religion

Black-suited Pietist

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Photo credit: Yunus Tug for Unsplash+. Unsplash license.

Today, after much soul-searching and delay, I made up my mind to go to a certain well-known men’s clothier and buy a suit. More than that, I allowed myself to be talked into ordering what’s known as a “bespoke” suit – cut to my size and tailored for my peculiar personal form. The waiting time will be more than a month.

You see, I’ve got a little money coming in, and I’ve frequently felt the incongruity of the fact that, for all my talk about men dressing decently, my own (only) suit is rather shabby. It’s a point of traditional wisdom that a “decent” suit is not an extravagance. A man ought to be prepared to present himself respectably when it’s called for.

My suit will be a rich, elegant black, so that I can wear it with my customary black Victorian vests.

Black is the traditional color associated with Pietism and Puritanism (though the Pilgrims of Plymouth Colony, generally depicted in illustrations in severe black suits, actually liked bright colors. And their hats were not tall and stiff, but soft).

I’ve been reading about my own Pietist roots, in Thomas E. Jacobson’s recent book, Pain In the Belly. It’s about the Norwegian pietist Haugean movement, especially its history in the United States. I’ll be reviewing it once I finish it, but one thing strikes me already:

Author Jacobson (who happens to be a friend of mine) likes to describe the conservatives, the party who wanted to follow the patterns of the old Norwegian state church, as “objective,” since they emphasized the efficacy of the sacraments, in which God does all the work and we are mere recipients of His grace.

My people, the pietist Haugeans, he describes as “subjective,” since we emphasized the necessity of a personal experience with Christ. We were suspicious of anyone who said their relationship with God was confined to receiving the sacraments. If faith is real, we argued, the individual will be transformed, and there will necessarily be an emotional component.

I’m not accustomed to thinking of us Haugeans as subjectivists. I’ve been a strong opponent of subjectivism in the church since college.

And yet the description is perfectly fair. I’m used to thinking of the subjective as just mushy emotionalism, but it doesn’t have to be. Real life is, in fact, a combination of the objective and the subjective, just as it involves the combination of the physical and the spiritual.

But this led to a further puzzling thought.

We Haugeans are often accused of Pharisaism, but Pharisaism is a defect of objective theology. The Pharisee makes a list of his duties, checks each item off the list, and considers himself square with God.

Haugeans are the opposite. We emphasize the passion of faith, total submission in all areas of life.

And yet, it’s not unfair to compare us to Pharisees. We do tend to get obsessed with lists of rules, as means of demonstrating our inner piety. I comment extensively on this characteristic in my novel, Troll Valley.

Perhaps the bottom line is that nothing human is entirely one thing or another.

Bookselling, Music, Religion

Book plug: ‘Pain In the Belly,’ by Thomas E. Jacobson

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Last Saturday I ventured outside my comfort zone to make the perilous drive to downtown Minneapolis (one of the still unburned parts), to hear a lecture. The lecture was delivered at the Mindekirken, the Norwegian Memorial Church (there’s one in Chicago too), where they hold a Norwegian language service every Sunday. You’d think I’d go there all the time, but they’re not really my kind of Lutherans. However, they offer cultural and language programs too, and I lectured myself there once, at one of their regular lunchtime events.

One reason I don’t go there more often is that it’s an awful place to drive to. The conservative Center Of the American Experiment, based here in Minnesota, has documented the fact that our city planners have it as an explicit goal to make driving around here as inconvenient as possible – so we peasants will be compelled to use buses and the wonderful light rail they’re forcing us to pay for. I don’t think I’ve ever driven to the Mindekirken without getting turned around in some way – even with GPS.

Anyway, I arrived at last, only a few minutes late. I came in during the introduction, so I didn’t miss any of the lecture.

The lecturer was my online friend, Pastor Thomas E. Jacobson, who has recently had a book released. It boasts the surprising title, Pain In the Belly: The Haugean Witness In American Lutheranism. I’ve written about the Norwegian lay evangelist Hans Nielsen Hauge many times before in this space – just do a search in the box up above if you’re curious. We Haugeans (I still identify as a Haugean) have been called a sect, but we never separated from Lutheranism or denied its basic tenets. In Norway, the Haugeans in any parish tended to pool their money to build a “bedehus,” a prayer house. There, after having attended regular services in their local Lutheran churches, they could gather among themselves and hold “edification meetings” and other social and educational functions. Many bedehuser still exist in Norway, and continue to be used for something like their original purpose.

I haven’t read Tom’s book yet, but I thought I’d give it a plug here anyway. It focuses on the influence of the Haugeans on Lutheranism in the USA. The title comes from a comment made by a Haugean leader when the old Hauge Synod at last agreed to join a church merger. When told that a theologian in one of the more conservative groups entering new church body had said that he rejoiced that the Haugeans would now be “swallowed up” in mainstream Lutheranism, this man said he expected to cause them “a pain in the belly.”

Sadly (in my view), in the long run the new church body and its successors turned out to have a pretty iron digestion.

In any case, we sang a hymn that Hans Nielsen Hauge wrote in 1799, “With God in Grace I’m Dwelling.” He wrote it during one of his imprisonments for illegal lay preaching.  I looked for a video of somebody singing it, but as far as I can tell nobody has ever been bold enough to perform the hymn and leave a permanent record. So I’ll just transcribe a couple verses here. A common tune used for it is “Passion Chorale,” the one we use for “O Sacred Head, Now Wounded.”

With God in grace I’m dwelling, 
What harm can come to me  
From worldly pow’rs compelling  
My way thus closed to be?  
Though they in chains may bind me  
Inside this prison cell,  
Yet Christmas here can find me;  
Within my heart ʼtis well.
Our God has promised surely  
To free each seeking soul,  
Who walks in spirit purely  
With truth as way and goal.  
Whose heart the world’s deceiving  
Can never lead astray,  
Who, constantly believing,  
Will walk the Kingdom’s way.
God grant us now His power,  
And help us by His might  
To follow truth this hour,  
All guided by His light;  
And may we work together  
As one in mutual love,  
Forsaking self and gather  
At last in heav’n above.

(Translation: P. A. Sweegen, 1931)