Relations with the Church Bodies
From 1825 to 1843 it was the Hauge revival movement which carried on all soul-saving work among us. Since 1884 we have had the Hauge movement carried on by Inner Mission Societies with more or less help from the various church bodies. Between 1843--or more correctly 1846- and 1884 the Hauge movement was carried on solely by church bodies and local congregations. So most of our early Haugean soul winners worked solely as servants of the organized church. Definitely so before 1884, and to a great extent also since.
The attitude of the various church bodies toward a number of the promoters of the Hauge movement will be briefly touched upon now and then. And brief sketches of these men of God will be given.
Some Questions of the Day - Enumeration of the Church Bodies
When Eielsen came back from his extended trip to Norway in 1863, and the excellent leader Gudmund Strand had died in the previous year, the country was in a dreadful condition on account of the Civil War. The Indians had also been committing dreadful depredations in Minnesota . Sinners seemed to be in the hands of an angry God, and His punishing righteousness was raining down upon them from heaven.
During these years, and for some years after, the Norwegian Lutheran preachers were engaged in discussion of three debated questions, but as the Haugeans did not have so much to do with them, we shall just mention them.
1. The slavery question. The Norwegian Lutheran preachers educated at St. Louis in the anti-layman Seminary there, held it was no sin to own slaves. Only the abuse made it sin. This was fiercely contradicted by many of their own church members. The church battle and literary battle about this raged for years. The Haugeans had already taken their stand in 1846 on this question, declaring in their constitution that the slave-traffic was a "dreadful Sin."
2. The absolution or justification of the world, or as one of their leading men declared:
"The Gospel gives, bestows and imparts forgiveness of sin to all who hear, whether they believe it or not." Yet they taught that only believers were saved. Under this, then, came their wholesale traffic of declaring to the people the forgiveness of sin in their communion practice. It was about this un-Biblical practice Elling often declared: "They go to the communion table as the swine to the trough."