Strangers to Sisters - Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary Library: Essays

unbelief, in recent times such men as Johnson, Caspari,
Thistedahl, Bugge, Heuch, Landstad to mention only
some. 25
II. The Norwegian Hermeneutic in the Old Norwegian Synod (1853-1910)
A detailed examination of the history and writings of the great Norwegian troika
(Preus, Koren, and Ottesen) reveals that for almost 60 years, the Norwegian Hermeneutic
found active and agile expression in the sermons, theological writings, and doctrinal
defenses of these men. One can only understand the doctrinal contentiousness of the
founding fathers of the Norwegian Synod only if one understands the deep reverence
with which they held the Holy Scriptures,
The founders of the Norwegian Synod were from the
beginning zealous for the truth of God’s Word in all its
parts and were not willing to compromise one iota of its
teachings, whether they concerned the fundamental
doctrines of salvation or matters of the law or of church
polity. Their teachings were the teachings of the Bible,
nothing more, nothing less. 26
Herman Amberg Preus, the long time president of the Norwegian Synod, clearly
articulated this devotion to the Holy Scriptures in his 1869 presidential address to the
Norwegian Synod convention,
The Word is not ours which we can do with as might please
us. It is the Word of the holy, righteous God which He has
in grace and indescribable love committed to us pure and
unadulterated which we therefore are to proclaim pure and
unadulterated, without addition, without suppression,
without obscuring, without distortion, and which we are to
preserve unfalsified and unabridged as our most precious
heritage to our descendants. 27
25 S.C. Ylvisaker. Grace for Grace: A Brief History of the Norwegian Synod (Mankato: Lutheran Synod
Book Company, 1943), 8.
26 Ylvisaker, Grace for Grace, 135.
26 Herman Amberg Preus, Presidential address given to the 10 th regular convention of the Norwegian
Synod, Spring Grove, WI, June 17-27, 1869.
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