Baptistic Theologies, 2009

ng in conventiclers, and the right for laypersons to participate in teaching and preaching. The Pietistic-Moravian spirit can be traced to a lesser extent through a number of revival movements. Moravians were influential in renewal in Norway. Even though Norway was under the control of Denmark and Sweden for most of its history up to the nineteenth century, Norwegians were able to read various publications and as a result Moravians had an effect upon Norway, as elsewhere. A Moravian leader, A. Spangenberg, said of the movement: ‘It made a good impression in Europe’. 21 As late as 1848 it can be documented that Moravians had a significant influence in Norway. An established Moravian missions institute in Stavanger, in the southern part of Norway, shows how important the influence must have been. We know about this influence not only in Norway but also in the USA. J. T. Hamilton writes about this. 22 Stavanger is geographically located approximately 100 miles from the 1740s. Like many who became Pietist in their thinking, he became an ardent supporter of the Royal Danish Lutheran Missions. Here we can see that Pontoppidan as bishop in Norway was a key link with the Moravians. He was one who for nine years had considerable influence in Norway as a result of his position within the Lutheran Church. The translation of Spangenbergs’s Exposition of Christian Doctrine as taught in the Moravian Brethren, was published in 1779. See J.C.S. Mason. The Moravian church and the missionary awakening in England 1760 - 1800 (Woodbridge: Boydell Press 2002), p. 17. 20 0hrn, Baptist Work in Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden, p. 51. 21 A. Spangenberg, Exposition of Christian doctrine as taught in the Protestant Church of the United Bretheren (Germ, 1779), p. 66. 22 He writes about John Frederick Fett, born 1800, near Nuremberg, of Lutheran parents. In 1848 he had been working as a home missionary amongst the Germans in Philadelphia. He was undertaking a tour amongst the German immigrants of the north-western territories, with Milwaukee, Wisconsin and Quincy, Illinois, being the special points of interest. Correspondence had already been exchanged with Andrew M. Iverson, of Milwaukee, a native of Norway, who had learned about the Moravian Church through its Diaspora while a student in the missions institute at Stavanger. He was now ministering to a small congregation of Scandinavians in Milwaukee and with them sought the fellowship of the Moravian Church. Fett arrived at Milwaukee in the middle of October, 1849, and found a number of Germans formerly connected with the Moravian Church of Europe. He cordially urged the ordination of Iverson and the reception of his Scandinavians into the Moravian Church. J. Taylor Hamilton, The History of the church known as the Moravian Church (New York: Ames Press, 1900), p. 402. Baptist Beginnings in Norway 107 Drammen and Skien, where Frederick Rymker would later establish the f