Mission Covenant Church of Sweden

The Mission Covenant Church of Sweden (Swedish: Svenska Missionskyrkan – until 2003 Svenska Missionsförbundet 'Swedish Mission Covenant'), founded in 1878, was a Swedish evangelical free church. It was the second-largest Protestant denomination in Sweden, after the national church, the Church of Sweden. In 2011, the Mission Covenant Church of Sweden completed a merger with two other denominations, resulting in the new denomination Uniting Church in Sweden (in Swedish: Equmeniakyrkan). The denomination was a member of the Swedish Free Church Council, the International Federation of Free Evangelical Churches,[1] and the World Communion of Reformed Churches.

Mission Covenant Church of Sweden
Immanuel Church, Stockholm, in January 2009
ClassificationProtestant
RegionSweden
Origin1878
Merged intoUniting Church in Sweden, 2012
Members61,000 (2009)

History

The Mission Covenant Church of Sweden is a breakaway from the Lutheran Church of Sweden. As a movement it had roots in Pietism and the spiritual awakenings of the 19th century such as Nyevangelism 'new Evangelism'. When Swedish Covenanters emigrated to the United States and Canada in the last half of the 19th century, they formed the Evangelical Covenant Church (see Mission Friends). The denominations are independent of each other but have maintained fraternal ties. The forming of the Swedish Mission Covenant was one of the first steps in forming free-church denominations in Sweden after the 1858 repeal of the Conventicle Act.[2]

The Swedish Evangelical Mission (Evangeliska fosterlandsstiftelsen 'Evangelical Homeland Foundation', EFS), from which the Mission Covenant Church of Sweden came, was founded in 1856. EFS was and is a movement within the Lutheran Church of Sweden and thus does not constitute a separate denomination. EFS had many affiliated local associations (missionary associations and EFS groups, with at least earlier names such as Evangelical Lutheran Missionary Society, Lutheran Missionary Society, Missionary Society, Chapel Society and Evangelical Lutheran Missionary Assembly).

The 1870s was a period of new ideas and divisions within the Church of Sweden. Priest Paul Petter Waldenström's new view of the atonement as being humanity's reconciliation with God – rather than the opposite[3][4] – was one that many followers in Pietistic circles began to follow after its publication in Pietisten, "the theological journal of Nyevangelism".[5] This led to a demand that the Swedish Evangelical Mission's missionaries should not be obliged to adhere to the Augsburg Confession. There was also a desire in some quarters to break with the church's order of communion; Waldenström began to distribute communion outside of the church, a factor leading to his resignation.[6][7] Jakob Ekman spearheaded the founding of the Mission Covenant Church of Sweden in 1878 and would become its first president.[8][9] When a proposal to change the Swedish Evangelical Mission's confessional stance was rejected at its 1878 conference, the Mission Covenant Church was founded at a preachers' meeting in the Baptists' Bethel Chapel in Stockholm. Waldenström had previously been dismissed from his position as EFS representative. From the start and for several decades, Mission Covenant members were called Waldenströmers.[10][11][12][13]

Missions

The church sent numerous missionaries to many countries around the world, such as China in the 19th and early 20th centuries, in particular Xinjiang, Japan, India, Russia and Caucasus, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Ecuador, Alaska, Spain and, in numbers of missionaries the largest field, Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Republic of Congo. In many other countries there were missionary projects.

The SMF also included missions in other countries in its program from 1880 and sent its first missionaries the same year: Carl Johan Engvall to the Congo in the service of the Livingstone Inland Mission, which was the start of the Swedish Congo Mission (Svenska kongomissionen). Högberg was sent to Russia and J. E. Ågren, A. Lindgren and K. J. Gustafsson to Lapland. From the early 1880s, there were several different missionary cooperative organizations in Sweden: the Swedish Church Mission (from 1876), the Swedish Evangelical Mission (from 1865), the Swedish Alliance Mission (from the early 1900s) and the Swedish Alliance Mission (from 1880). The Baptist Union of Sweden's congregations also had missionary activities (from 1881).[14] The Swedish Holiness Union (Helgelseförbundet, today part of the Evangelical Free Church in Sweden) came in 1887, the Örebro Mission in 1892 and the Swedish Pentecostal movement began its missionary activities after 1911.

Missionaries and preachers were trained at two mission schools, located in Vinslöv in Scania and in Kristinehamn in eastern Värmland. The mission school in Kristinehamn was established as early as 1871 by Värmlands Ansgariiförening but was taken over in 1878 or 1879 by the Swedish Mission Covenant. It moved in 1890 to Stockholm and in 1908 to Stockby in Lidingö. It is today known as Lidingö Folk High School. The originally two-year preacher training program became three years in 1888 and four years in 1915. The school's directors were Andreas Fernholm (1871–1872), Karl Hultkrantz (1874–1878), Jakob Ekman (1878–1886), N. F. Graflund (1886–1888), N. Wikander (1888–1910), Paul Petter Waldenström (1910–1912) and Gustav Mosesson (1912–1937).[15]

Theology

The Mission Covenant Church of Sweden primarily held to the legacy of Lutheran Nyevangelism, Waldenström, and low-churchism, along with reformed, evangelical and charismatic elements. This did not prevent it from belonging internationally to the World Alliance of Reformed Churches. Its organizational form was congregationalism. Waldenström's legacy included a desire for ecumenism, which was expressed, for instance, in communion[16] with the Church of Sweden, membership in the World Council of Churches[17] and close cooperation[18] with the Baptist Union of Sweden and the United Methodist Church in Sweden.

The church held a tradition of freedom for individuals and congregations in theological matters; one example is dual views on baptism (both infant baptism and believer's baptism); another example is on the view of the Bible, which includes both liberal theological and evangelical views. At its founding, the Mission Covenant Church broke with Lutheran orthodoxy due to the doctrine of atonement, contrary to the teachings of the Church of Sweden; thus, Waldenström lost his office as a priest, the Swedish Evangelical Mission split, and the Mission Covenant Church of Sweden was formed. There are also those who see a reformed influence already present in Carl Olof Rosenius of the Swedish Evangelical Mission and more clearly in Waldenström.[19][20]

The Mission Covenant Church of Sweden's tradition of ecumenism and freedom makes it difficult to place on the theological map. While it was a member of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches, its theology and practice showed a heritage from Luther rather than Calvin. Due to free church and reformed elements and the fact that it did not affirm the Lutheran creeds, membership in the Lutheran World Federation is not relevant. Since infant baptism was the most common form of baptism in the Mission Covenant Church,[21] the church cannot be described as Baptist; the European Baptist Federation, for example, clearly states that believer's baptism is the biblical form of baptism.[22] Even believer's baptism is practiced and sometimes rebaptism of infants is practiced; therefore, there was a certain kinship with the Baptist movement in terms of views on baptism.[23] Since re-baptism can be a problem for ecumenism, the Mission Covenant Church introduced an act of baptismal confirmation to replace re-baptism.[24][25]

Organisation

The church had 61,000 members in 700 congregations in 2009.[26]

Prior to 2003, the Mission Covenant Church was called Svenska Missionsförbundet (literally 'Swedish Mission Covenant', though the official English name already was Mission Covenant Church of Sweden at that time). The Swedish Salvation Army (Svenska Frälsningsarmén (SFA), which is a separate organisation from the international Salvation Army, which also operates in Sweden) was a non-territorial district of the church until its dissolution in 2016.[27]

In 2011, the Mission Covenant Church of Sweden completed a long-planned merger with the Baptist Union of Sweden and the United Methodist Church of Sweden. The new denomination was called Joint Future Church until the new name Equmeniakyrkan (Uniting Church in Sweden) was adopted by the general assembly in May 2013.

Notable members

See also

References
  1. IFFEC, archived from the original on 2020-01-23, retrieved 2020-03-09.
  2. Olsson, Karl (2002), By One Spirit, Chicago: Covenant Publications.
  3. "Paul Peter Waldenström", Store norske leksikon (in Norwegian), 2023-01-25, archived from the original on 2023-04-12, retrieved 2023-04-11
  4. "1. Waldenström, Paul Peter". Svenskt biografiskt handlexikon (in Swedish). Vol. II. 1906. p. 681. Archived from the original on 2023-04-12. Retrieved 2023-04-12 – via Project Runeberg.
  5. Kussak, Åke (1982). Författaren som predikant: ett frikyrkosamfunds litterära verksamhet 1910–1939 (PDF) (in Swedish). Stockholm. p. 26. ISBN 91-7070-645-X. OCLC 1284714401.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  6. "EFS missionsförening, Vårgårda". Church of Sweden (in Swedish). Archived from the original on 2023-04-12. Retrieved 2023-04-11.
  7. "1. Waldström, Paul Peter". Svenskt biografiskt handlexikon (in Swedish). 1906. pp. 681–682. Archived from the original on 2023-04-12. Retrieved 2023-04-12 – via Project Runeberg.
  8. Kussak, Åke (1982). Författaren som predikant: ett frikyrkosamfunds litterära verksamhet 1910–1939 (PDF) (in Swedish). Stockholm. p. 19. ISBN 91-7070-645-X. OCLC 1284714401.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  9. Danielsen, Gustav (Spring 2016). Ecclesiola og presterollen: Ecclesiolatankegangens innvirkning på presterollen i de tre skandinaviske land, med fokus på andre halvdel av 1800-tallet (PDF) (Thesis) (in Norwegian). Det teologiske Menighetsfakultet. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2022-07-07. Retrieved 2023-04-12.
  10. "Intervju med missionspastorn Isak Boström - Arbetarnas talesman i Sundsvallsstrejken 1879. Fackföreningsrörelsen, årgång 1941". sundsvall.se (in Swedish). Archived from the original on 2014-12-26.
  11. Sundbaum, A. A. (1913). Hvarföre jag ej kan, vill eller vågar gilla eller understödja den religiösa verksamhet, som bedrifves af frikyrklige (Waldenströmare), baptister, frälsningsarmén m.fl (in Swedish).
  12. Hökby, Nils (1928). Två generationer Waldenströmare (in Swedish). Söndagskolförl.
  13. Edin, Karl Arvid (December 1928). "1930 års folkräkning". Statsvetenskapelig tidskrift för politik, statistik, ekonomi (in Swedish). 31 (5). Archived from the original on 2014-12-26.
  14. Fridén, George, ed. (1948). Svensk baptism 1848–1948 – en krönika i ord och bild (in Swedish). Baptistmissionens förlags AB.
  15. "Svenska missionsförbundets missionsskola". Nordisk familjebok (in Swedish) (Supplement to the 2nd ed.). 1926. pp. 655–656. Archived from the original on 2023-04-12. Retrieved 2023-04-12 – via Project Runeberg.
  16. "Svenska Missionskyrkan - Kyrkogemenskap mellan Svenska kyrkan och Svenska Missionskyrkan". Svenska Missionskyrkan (in Swedish). Archived from the original on 2008-06-11.
  17. "Sweden". World Council of Churches. Archived from the original on 2008-07-08.
  18. "Svenska Missionskyrkan - Utmaning till enhet". Svenska Missionskyrkan (in Swedish). Archived from the original on 2008-06-25.
  19. Furberg, Ingemar (1975). "ÅTER NÅGOT OM ROSENIUS". Tidskriften Biblicum (in Swedish) (4–5). Archived from the original on 2018-10-17. Retrieved 2023-04-12.
  20. "Waldenström". Nordisk Familjebok (in Swedish) (Uggleupplagan ed.). 1921. p. 399. Archived from the original on 2023-04-12. Retrieved 2023-04-12 – via Project Runeberg. Efter uteslutningen ur Evangeliska fosterlandsstiftelsen behöfde W:s vänner ett nytt enande organ. Då visade det sig, huru det reformerta inflytandet genom metodister och baptister på väckelserörelsen burit frukt. W:s slagord: "Hvar står det skrifvet?" är prägladt af reformert lagiskhet och icke af luthersk evangelisk frihet.
  21. Selinder, Per-Magnus. "Historik - Missionskyrkan". Missionskyrkan (in Swedish). Archived from the original on 2008-03-18.
  22. "Statement of Identity". European Baptist Federation. Archived from the original on 2008-06-15.
  23. "... men synen på dopet gör samverkan svårare". Dagen (in Swedish). Archived from the original on 2023-04-12. Retrieved 2023-04-11.
  24. Sverker, Jonatan (2005-01-21). "Missionskyrkan söker sig mot flera samfund". Dagen (in Swedish). Archived from the original on 2006-07-17.
  25. Svensson, Anders; Wiborn, Karin (2008). Selinder, Per-Magnus (ed.). Gemensam framtid? – en rastplats för eftertanke på vandringen med Baptistsamfundet, Metodistkyrkan och Missionskyrkan (in Swedish). Samarbetsrådet mellan Metodistkyrkan i Sverige, Svenska Baptistsamfundet och Svenska Missionskyrkan.
  26. "Bara ett under kan Frikyrkan", DI (in Swedish), 2010-06-19, archived from the original on 2013-05-26, retrieved 2013-05-29.
  27. "Svenska Frälsningsarmén avvecklar efter 110 år". Dagens Nyheter (in Swedish). 2015-06-12. ISSN 1101-2447. Archived from the original on 2023-04-12. Retrieved 2023-04-11.

This article contains content from the Owl Edition of Nordisk familjebok, a Swedish encyclopedia published between 1904 and 1926, now in the public domain.

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