John Schmalzbauer: A small denomination's surprising influence
What influence did Swedish pietism have on country music?
I found out last month when Bob Wills’ Texas Playboys launched into a Western Swing version of How Great Thou Art at a concert in West Plains, Missouri.
Written in 1885 by Swedish pastor Carl Boberg, it traveled a circuitous route on its way to the Missouri Ozarks. Translated directly from Swedish to English in 1925, it did not appear in its current form until the post-war era. According to a 1973 hymnal, “The text widely known as How Great Thou Art is an English translation of a Russian version based on an earlier German translation of the original.”Since its debut at a 1955 Billy Graham crusade, it has been performed by the Blackwood Brothers, Mahalia Jackson, Elvis Presley, Marie Osmond, and Carrie Underwood.
Along with Warner Sallman’s iconic paintings of Jesus, the popularity of How Great Thou Art symbolizes the surprising impact of a Scandinavian revival movement on American religion. An offshoot of Swedish Lutheranism, this movement produced both the Mission Covenant Church of Sweden (1878) and the American Evangelical Covenant Church (1885). This year the U.S. branch of the movement is celebrating its 125th anniversary.
With just 700 congregations, the Covenant is dwarfed by denominations like the Southern Baptist Convention and the United Methodist Church. Yet for a church that nobody has heard of, it has contributed a significant number of religious leaders.
These include Yale Divinity School Professor Paul Holmer, a teacher of both William Willimon and Stanley Hauerwas. Described by Hauerwas as a “ Swedish pietist disguised as a philosopher ,” he instilled a deep knowledge of Kierkegaard and Wittgenstein in his students.
Other influential Covenanters include the late World Vision executive Paul Stromberg Rees, Life Church.tv pastor Craig Groeschel, Books and Culture editor John Wilson, ABC News medical correspondent Timothy Johnson, Beliefnet blogger Scot McKnight, and Asian-American religion expert Russell Jeung.
Since the sixties, the Covenant has contributed to the social awareness of evangelical Protestants. A former president of the National Association of Evangelicals, Rees was an original signer of the 1973 Chicago Declaration of Evangelical Social Concern .
As part of its commitment to social engagement, the Covenant remains an immigrant church. According to denominational president Gary Walter, “Names like Carlson and Johnson now share the Lord's Table with Galdamez and Herrera, Cha and Yee, Jemison and Davenport.” Currently, one-fourth of the denomination’s churches are among people of color or intentionally multiethnic.
More recently, the Covenant has participated in the rise of the Emerging Church through connections with Solomon's Porch in Minnesota and Seattle’s Quest Church. The latter remains affiliated with the denomination. Meanwhile, Soong-Chan Rah and Scot McKnight have been among the most perceptive critics of Emergent theology from their offices at the Covenant's North Park Theological Seminary and University.
What accounts for the denomination's outsized influence in North American Protestantism? Part of the reason may be its embrace of a centrist evangelicalism that does not emphasize cultural warfare. In the words of the Covenant Church’s webpage, it is "evangelical, but not exclusive." Such inclusiveness has made room for Sallman's head of Christ and Jesus People USA, nineteenth-century revival songs and twenty-first century praise and worship music, women clergy and environmental stewardship.
What is the future of the Covenant? Given its complex history, it would be foolish to make any firm predictions. At the same time, an evangelical denomination that bridges cultures and theological camps is poised to remain an important player in American Christianity.
John Schmalzbauer teaches sociology of religion at Missouri State University in Springfield, Missouri.
ECC's participation in CCT
The participation of the Evangelical Covenant Church in Christian Churches Together in the USA is a further sign of the church's penchant for "bridging cultures and theological camps". Through CCT, the ECC relates to 35 other communions, from Catholic to Orthodox to Protestants of all kinds.
Pietism and centrism
As a Covenanter, I'm grateful for this article on my obscure little church home. I think it displayed us at our best - centrist, non-exclusive, and grounded in social awareness and social engagement. We've had to fight for all those things throughout our history, and still do, but I think they are characteristics well worth fighting for. Pietism (as represented by August Hermann Francke in the city of Halle) has had a strong bent toward social involvement, but this is not always what its legacy has been. In any case, it is my hope and prayer that the Covenant can maintain the trajectory it's currently on. As Bread for the World once commented about the Covenant, we're little, but we "fight above our weight class."
Focus on What Unites
I found the Evangelical Covenant Church about seven years ago. The most attractive thing to me is that we focus on what unites is in faith instead of those things that divide us. It is nice, as a thinking person and christian, to have the ability to change my mind about my theology and not have to change denominations. It is not easy sometimes to look past our differences but if we love each other enough, it is possible and worth it.
Martin Marty on the ECC
Thanks for the story. It is good to see one's own tradition through the eyes of another.
Just to add to another's description of the ECC: Martin Marty once stated that the ECC is 'the most ecumenical, distinctively evangelical denomination in the United States.'
Also, though we have not been formally connected with WCC or NAE, we have been visiting members at both for many years.
The Covenant Church has been
The Covenant Church has been my "home church" forever! I was born to members of Elim Covenant Church in Minneapolis, MN. I attended Minnehaha Academy (church high school) and North Park College. I worked at the world missions office in national headquarters before marrying a seminary graduate. He has pastored churches in Gresham, Milwaukie, and Portland, OR; Teien and Rochester, MN; and Olympia, WA. This history has resulted in enduring friendships and spiritual fellowship spanning the U.S. and mission fields. I am thankful for the Covenant.
I love the Covenant
Thank God for the ECC. Introduced to the Covenant Church by a neighbor pastor in the early 1990s it took me and our African American congregation nearly 10 years (2001) to become members of this remarkable movement called the Evangelical Covenant Church. My hesitation was that this is too good to be true, but it is. What a thrill to belong to a communion that is willing to live with the tensions that come with a healthy self identity but also the desire to embrace the wider church.
How Great the Joy
Thanks for all the comments. Reading them (especially the last), reminds me of Nils Frykman's hymns, "How Great the Joy" and "Our Mighty God Works Mighty Wonders," songs of the early Covenant.
Cyberhymnal tells the story of the second: "One evening in 1876, there was a revival meeting in a farm house. The place was full of people singing, rejoicing, and crying all at the same time. A man who had walked a long way to see what was happening stood at the doorway, and Frykman saw a look of amazement on his face. Inspired by a God who worked wonders to draw that man to the farmhouse, Frykman penned this hymn as one of his friends preached at the meeting."
Can anything good come from Springfield?
Hey John,
Thanks for this lovely piece. Who else could weave Bob Wills, West Plains, MO and the ECC into one post?
Shaun
Comment Ev Cov Ch
I am a graduate of Duke Divinity School. I was ordained in the Methodist Church in Durham, NC, and did my ministry mostly in the State of Maine. A retired ECC minister came to live in Portland to be near family members. He attended the Methodist Church where I was serving and we became very close friends. In 1990 I had my credentials transferred into the ECC. It's true, we do stress the Apostles' Creed as a statement of faith that unites all Christians. My decision to join the ECC had nothing to do with my Swedish heritage, although many do tease me about this.
Comment Ev Cov Ch
I am a graduate of the Duke Divinity School. I was ordained in the Methodist Church in Durham, NC, in 1961 and served mostly in the State of Maine. A retired pastor of the ECC came to live in Portland to be near family members. He attended the Methodist Church where I was serving, and we became very close life-long friends. In 1990 I had my credentials transferred into the ECC. It's true, we stress the Apostles' Creed as a statement of faith that unites all Christians. My decision to join the ECC had nothing to do with my Swedish heritage, although many will tease me about this.
Covenant Women
Over on the website of the Covenant Church (http://www.covchurch.org/cov/news/item7883), Zanne Dailey notes that my piece neglected to mention the contributions of Covenant.
Here are three impressive leaders who either currently identify with the Covenant or have a connection to the denomination:
-Harvard University sociologist Kathryn Edin, who has made nationally recognized contributions to the study of poverty and family life.
-Worship innovation expert and author Sally Morgenthaler, described as a "long-time friend of the Covenant" on the denomination's web site.
-North Park Theological Seminary Professor Michelle A. Clifton-Soderstrom, author of a new study on the pietist tradition's relevance to evangelicalism and social reform.
Covenant Women
Over on the website of the Covenant Church (http://www.covchurch.org/cov/news/item7883), Zanne Dailey notes that my piece neglected to mention the contributions of Covenant.
Here are three impressive leaders who either currently identify with the Covenant or have a connection to the denomination:
-Harvard University sociologist Kathryn Edin, who has made nationally recognized contributions to the study of poverty and family life.
-Worship innovation expert and author Sally Morgenthaler, described as a "long-time friend of the Covenant" on the denomination's web site.
-North Park Theological Seminary Professor Michelle A. Clifton-Soderstrom, author of a new study on the pietist tradition's relevance to evangelicalism and social reform.
How great thou art
The hymn was translated into English by Stuart K Hine who had been a Plymouth Brethren missionary in eastern Europe.
I was raised in the Plymouth Brethren (as was Garrison Keilor)and I met Mr. Hine when I was a teenager and he was living his retirement years in Somerset (UK)
How Great Thou Art & Pope Benedict XVI
And Susan Boyle will sing "How Great Thou Art" at a papal mass in Scotland during Pope Benedict XVI's visit. I'm sure that Carl Boberg would be surprised.
thank you!
wow--thank you, john, for adding in that list of influential covenant women--it's much appreciated!
and indeed, you chose some women who are really, as you say, contributing to Christianity in impressive and significant ways, and make me proud to be a fellow covenanter.
well done!
Spent Seminary Time @ Pasadena Covenant
I'm a Disciples of Christ pastor today, but during my stay at Fuller Seminary, I spent a couple of years at Pasadena Covenant Church (John Bray was pastor). It was a great place to be at a time when I was figuring out what I was going to be in life! I appreciate especially John's preaching and teaching.
I may have decided against ECC as my home, but it's still part of my journey, and for that I'm grateful.
Susan Boyle and The Pope
As one who is a big fan of Susan Boyle, your website provided me with a very lovely piece of news that I was not aware of...
The news that Pope Benedict XVI had the opportunity to hear Susan.
Surely, he must have returned to the Vatican with the knowledge that he had heard an Angel, prior to his arrival in Heaven...
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