RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Waldenses Waldenstroem
which most of his religious beliefs have found expression; in 1877-80 he was coeditor of Vittnet, a monthly periodical; and is the editor of the annual Calendar Ansgarius. He is prominent in politics, having been repeatedly elected a representative at the State diet, second chamber.
It is in the ecclesiastical field that he has exerted most of his influence. He is one of the foremost leaders of the Free Church movement in Sweden, and the father of a theological movement the supporters of which, found both in Sweden and in America, are called Waldenstrémianere, though they prefer to be known as Missionsviinner. In a sermon, published in Pietisten, 1872, he gave impetus to the theological movement with which he is identified by proclaiming his novel idea of the atonement. He holds that the reconciliation through Christ is of us to God, not of God to us: not through grace on account of Christ, but on account of grace through Christ. The subject is God, the Father of Christ; the source is the love of God; the object is the whole world; the mediator is Christ, the only begotten God (Waldenstrém accepts and defends the reading 6 povoyevy¢ O86¢ in John i. 18), the Son of God; the end is the restitution of men to God, not the reconciliation of God to men, which latter teaching, according to Waldenstrém, finds no support in Scripture.
This sermon called forth a storm of controversy. He then published (1873) Om férsoningens betydelse, which was combated by theologians but met with the favor of many lay people who were opposed to State religion, the nucleus of his subsequent constituency.
Within the ranks of Evangeliska Fosterlandsstiftelsen (a society for foreign and home missions, founded 1856 as the result of the evangelical work of Carl Olof Rosenius; q.v.), the adherents of Waldenstr6m soon brought matters to a schism. They submitted in 1878 a motion to annul the confessional basis of Fosterlandsstiftelsen by making adherence to the Augsburg Confession no longer obligatory for missionary workers. The motion failed to pass. The Waldenstrémians consequently left the Fosterlandsstiftelsen and organized, Aug., 1878, Svenska Missionsforbundet, now consisting of 1,144 congregations with 91,000 members. In 1904, Waldenstré6m became president of Missionsférbundet. Waldenstrém held his clerical position in the State church till 1882, when he resigned. His conflicts with the church authorities were caused by his manner of accommodating his idea of the Church to circumstances rather than by his doctrine of the atonement. When he once was called to serve a group of “believers ”’ by administering the Lord’s Supper, the authorities refused him the use of the church. This furnished him the opportunity of attacking the Church for refusing to believing ministers the opportunity to serve people who for the sake of their conscience could not partake of the Lord’s Supper except with believers.
For almost a generation Waldenstrém has been a leader of the Free Church movement in Sweden. His influence has also been felt in America, where his adherents number about 33,000. He visited America in 1889 and several times subsequently, the last
Waldhausen Walpurgis
THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
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time in 1910, and described his first visit in Genom Norra Amerikas Férenta Stater (1890). Two other books, Nya farder i Amerikas Férenta Stater (1902), and Genom Canada, Reseskildringar fran 1904 (1905) describe two subsequent tours in America. A visit to the Orient is described in his Till Oesterland. Skildringar, . . . hésten och vintern, 1894 (Stockholm, 1896).
To the writings already mentioned the following may be added: Brukspatron Adamsson eller hvar bor du? (1868, 5th ed., 1891); Forsék till granskning af M. Luther’s lilla katekes med kort utveckling (1873); Fader var eller bén och bénhérelse (1876); Predikningar éfver svenska kyrkans nya hégmessotexter (4 vols., 1876-80); Barndopets historia (1880, 4th ed., 1883); En dversittelse af Nya testamentet med forklarande anmédrkninger (1883-94); Guds eviga frélsningsrdd (3 vols., 2d ed., 1891); Kristi afsked fran sina lérjungar (1894); Jesu pinas och uppstandelses historia (1897); Dop och barndop (1898); Fralsning for all verden (1902); Ldt os behalla var gamla bibel (1902); Bibelns evangelium och de eviga straffen, eller huru staar det skrifvet ? (1904).
There have appeared in English: Blood of Jesus, What is its Significance? (Chicago, 1888); The Reconciliation—who was to be Reconciled, God or Man, or God and Man? (1888); and The Lord is Right: Meditations on Psalm xxv. (1889).
Joun O. Evsen. BrsrioGRaPpHy: M. W. Montgomery: A Wind from the Holy
Spirit in Sweden and Norway, New York, 1884.
WALDHAUSEN, valt’/hau-zen, KONRAD VON: Bohemian precursor of Huss (see Huss, Joun, Hussires), b. at Waldhausen, near Gran (70 m. w. of Vienna), c. 1820; d. at Prague Dec. 8, 1369. Of his early life and education little is known, but he must have entered the Upper Austrian monastery of Augustinian canons at Waldhausen while still a lad. He was ordained to the priesthood about 1348, and in his zeal for learning visited Bologna in 1349, being at Rome in the following year. Returning to Teutonic soil, he labored in various places, especially at Vienna, devoting himself primarily to preaching, for which he had a remarkable talent. At Prague his audiences were so large that he was obliged to deliver his sermons in the market-place instead of in the church of St. Gall; and his activity brought him into close relations with the Austrian court and Bishop Gottfried II. of Passau. The emperor summoned Konrad to Prague, where, at Easter, 1358, he became rector of St. Gall inthe Old City. There he unsparingly castigated the immorality, luxury, and greed prevailing in high society, and also incurred the jealousy and antagonism of the mendicant friars whom he accused of simony, unseemly trade in relics, and shameless exploiting of the common people. In their turn they charged him with being a disturber of the peace and a renegade from his order. The Dominican general, Simon of Langres, sought in vain to arbitrate the dispute, but Konrad continued his attacks, and the matter was placed in the hands of the archbishop. The Franciscans now drew up twenty-four charges against Konrad, and in the autumn of 1360 the archbishop nailed the charges to the doors of two monasteries, bidding all who would bring accusation against Konrad to appear
before him. The monks were unable to sustain their charges, and the results of Konrad’s preaching became manifest in a marked improvement in the morality of Prague. In 1361 he became rector of St. Thomas’, and in the following year invoked the aid of the bishop of ‘Passau. In 1363 he was made parish priest of All Saints’ at Leitmeritz, but was still permitted to live in Prague. The Franciscans renewed their attacks, which finally attracted the attention of Konrad’s duke, Rudolf IV. of Austria. He visited Prague in May, 1364, and soon satisfied himself of Konrad’s integrity. Konrad, however, declined an invitation to return to Vienna in view of his association with the emperor, though he composed a refutation of the twenty-four charges of his opponents. Early in 1365 he was placed over the great Teynkirche in Prague, whence, with the pope’s permission, he extended his reforming activity not only over the archdioceses of Bohemia and Salzburg, but also urged the emperor to intervene in the desperate conditions in Italy. His sermons, which have made some consider him a precursor of Huss (though he attacked neither the teaching nor the organization of the Church), have disappeared, those extant being merely some that he delivered before students to serve as sources and inspirations for young priests. (J. LosERTu.)
Brsuiocrapuy: F. Palacky, Geschichte von Béhmen, iii. 1, pp. 161-164, 5 vols. Prague, 1836 sqq.; idem, Die Vorliufer des Husitentums in Béhmen, pp. 16-17, Prague, 1869; G. V. Lechler, Johann von Wiclif und die Vorgeschichte der Reformation, ii. 111 sqq., Leipsic, 1873, Eng. transl., John Wiclif and his English Precursors, 2 vols., new ed., London, 1884; E. H. Gillett, Life and Times of John Huss, i. 14-19, 25, 72, ii. 628, Philadelphia, 1861.