Strangers to Sisters - Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary Library: Essays

Koren sees Kierkegaard as a one who helped form a fitting mindset when
approaching the work of the church. Yet, Koren also was quick to recognize that
Kierkegaard’s greatest weakness was that he never contributed any objective basis for his
subjective views. But with the instruction of Johnson and Caspari, as well as a solid
reading of Luther, the men of the Norwegian Synod were properly grounded in Lutheran
theology as they began their ministry in America. 31
The desire for pure Lutheran doctrine and practice is clearly seen already in the
re-writing of the original constitution of the Norwegian Synod. The first Norwegian
pastors in this country, Claus Clausen and J.W.C. Dietrichson, were heavily influenced
by Grundtvig and the errors he advocated. 32
They had inserted Grundtvigian language in
the first draft of the Norwegian Synod’s constitution,
The doctrine of the Church is that which is revealed
through God’s holy Word in our baptismal covenant and
also in the canonical books of the Old and New
Testaments, interpreted in agreement with the Symbolic
writings of the Church of Norway. 33
Yet, the arrival of new pastors in 1852, most notably Herman Amberg Preus and
Jakob Aal Ottesen, along with Nils Brant and H.A. Stub, and in 1853, Ulrik Vilhem
Koren, brought about an immediate change. These men were fully committed to
confessional Lutheranism and the confessional principle “Sola Scriptura.” They
31 Koren, Memories, 4.
32 Danish pastor and noted hymn-writer Nikolai Grundtvig (1783-1872), although he had broken from the
rationalism of the Danish state church, had moved from the “Sola Scriptura” principle of the Lutheran
Confessions. He sought to form an apologetic for orthodox Lutheranism on the basis of the “Living Word”
that had been confessed down through the ages by the church in the form of the Apostles’ Creed. He
despaired of defending the faith through the use of the written Scriptures, feeling that it had been destroyed
beyond repair by rationalism.
33 Ylvisaker, Grace for Grace, 36.
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