Peter Paul Waldenstrom (1838-1917) ***
Swedish
theologian, preacher, and writer who was a key leader in the organization of
the pietist revivals into the permanent Swedish Mission Covenant. He was also a
major figure in the establishment and early life of two American denominations
with Swedish roots, the Evangelical Covenant Church and the Evangelical Free
Church. The Covenant has retained significant continuity with Waldenstrom's
pietism and modified Lutheranism.
Born
in Lulea, Waldenstrom studied theology and classical languages at Uppsala
University. His ordination as a priest in the Lutheran state church took place
in 1863. Later he resigned his clerical
standing as theological and practical differences with the Lutheran hierarchy
increased.
From
the beginning Waldenstrom opposed the liturgism of the state church, which too
often replaced rather than enhanced a genuine, personal faith in Jesus Christ.
In the pietist tradition of Spener, Francke, Zinzendorf, and Wesley, he
approved the gathering of devout Christians and serious seekers into small
conventicles for mutual prayer, Bible study, and conversation. From this
starting point Waldenstrom's journey illustrates the worst fears of the
orthodox critics of pietism. While retaining a fully Lutheran understanding of
the sacraments, he approved, and occasionally presided at, celebrations of the
Lord's Supper in these small gatherings of the devout. This meant celebrating
the Lord's Supper outside the regular parish structure of the state church.
This in turn led to the demand for a regenerate church in which only believers
would be admitted, where one's status as a believer was determined by one's
conversion to Jesus Christ and not by the affirmation of a creed or by
participation in certain sacraments. In short, the mark of the true church, in
Waldenstrom's opinion, was neither a proper creed nor the preaching of a
doctrinally correct gospel nor the celebration of the sacraments; rather,
living faith was the central mark of the church. Waldenstrom emphasized, in consistency with this position, the
primacy of the local congregation, and he rejected the authority of the great
Lutheran and ecumenical creeds on which the Swedish state church was based. In
place of the creeds he substituted a simple biblicism. The status of any
doctrine could be determined, according to him, by asking, "Where in the
Bible is it written? " Any form of higher criticism would threaten such a
biblicism, and Waldenstrom, even after his study in Germany, rejected it
furiously.
While
Waldenstrom's theology annoyed the Swedish Lutheran hierarchy, it won approval
in other places. In 1889 Yale University, responding apparently to his emphasis
on congregational polity, awarded him a doctorate of divinity during the first
of his three trips to the United States. True to the pietist impulses in his
heritage, Waldenstrom strongly encouraged evangelism and missions and supported
various social projects, serving from 1884 to 1905 in the Swedish House of
Representatives. In 1913 his own university, Uppsala, bestowed upon him the
Jubilee doctorate of philosophy.
Waldenstrom
is best remembered for his doctrine of the atonement, which foreshadowed many
of the emphases of twentieth century Scandinavian work on this doctrine,
especially Gustaf Aulen's Christus Victor. The specific form of Waldenstrom's
restatement of the atonement, however, illustrates the strengths of his
biblicism. The state church had been teaching that the atonement on the cross,
among other effects, reconciled God to man. Waldenstrom at first continued to
teach the doctrine of the state church; but when challenged, "Where is it
written?" he discovered that it was no where stated in Scripture. This
caused him to rethink the issue.
The
least controversial thesis in Waldenstrom's restatement of the atonement was
that the incarnation, the cross, the resurrection, and Christ's atoning work
proceeded fundamentally from God's love and not his wrath. Even theologians
such as Luther (in most of his emphases) and Calvin (clearly and repeatedly)
agreed that the foundation of Christ's atonement is the love of God. But
Waldenstrom added the claim that in no sense did the cross reconcile God to
man; rather, the atonement only reconciled man to God. This conflicted with the
Lutheran confessions; but Waldenstrom rejected them, and he challenged anyone
to find a biblical text that asserted that the cross reconciled God to
man. (As a part of his argument, he
denied that the term "propitiation" is anywhere found in the Greek
text in reference to Christ's relation to the Father.) When asked what took
place on the cross, Waldenstrom answered that Christ had won the victory over
death, evil, and Satan.