INTRODUCTION

The children of Israel left Egypt with a “mixed multitude” among them (Exodus 12:38), and in the wilderness they were obstinate and rebellious, worshipping a golden calf even before Moses descended from Mount Sinai with the law (Exodus 32). Then, in the promised land, they did not take counsel at the mouth of the Lord but were fooled by the old clothing and moldy bread of the Gibeonites, who, by their hypocrisy, gained a right to live among them as laborers (Joshua 9). After the first generation passed away, “there arose another generation after them, which knew not the Lord, nor yet the works which he had done for Israel” (Judges 2:10). As in the case of those who were justified by faith (Hebrews 11:32), time would fail to tell of the incidents of rebellion of the people of God. Even Stephen, in the speech he gave before being stoned, cut short his account with the words: “Ye stiffnecked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Ghost. As your fathers did, so do ye. Which of the prophets have not your fathers persecuted? and they have slain them which showed before of the coming of the Just One, of whom ye have been now the betrayers and murderers” (Acts 7:51,52).

In the house of Abraham, the son of the bondwoman Hagar persecuted the son of the freewoman Sarah (Genesis 21). In the visible church, as in the household of Abraham, there are children of both the freewoman and the bondwoman (Galatians 4). The free children are known as believers, not workers, doers or servants, because they believe that through no merit of their own they have been granted an inheritance of eternal salvation as the due privilege of their status as heirs of God, which they have received freely by the tender mercies of God through the bitter suffering and death of his only begotten Son. This gives rise to envy and frustration among the children of the bondwoman, who never cease to assess and improve the quality of their service, which results only in persecution (John 16:2). They neither understand nor appreciate the focus of the others, who look not on themselves nor on their own miserable efforts but on the blood and righteousness of Christ, by which they are cleansed and justified through faith.

This untenable situation led, in the household of Abraham, to the expulsion of the bondwoman and her child (Genesis 21:10), and in the Church to schisms. Hagar’s descendants multiplied until they outnumbered by far the children of Sarah (Genesis 21:18). Likewise, the hypocrites and legalists grow in number until the children of grace remain but a remnant among those bearing the name of Christ (Romans 9:27).

As for the doctrine of the hypocrites and legalists, it is described in the ninth chapter of Revelation. The key opens the bottomless pit, and smoke rises, as the smoke of a great furnace, darkening the sun and air and emitting locusts, which are given power, as the scorpions of the earth have power. They have a king whose name is Abaddon or Apollyon, which means a destroyer, and go about with stings in their tails, tormenting those who lack the seal of God in their foreheads. The doctrine of the hypocrites and legalists, which promises liberty and forgiveness, is actually the doctrine of hell. It is not pure and transparent but muddled and dark, obscuring the light of the gospel and preventing men from breathing life from it. It gives birth, not to children of God, who are regenerated by the Word of God, but to tormentors. Their king is not the Saviour, as they claim, but the Destroyer, under whom they go about, after receiving power, not from above but from hell, oppressing those who have sworn loyalty to them. The citizens of this kingdom are not children of God, as they boast, but children of the devil (John 8). They are not free, as are the children of God, but are a prey and spoil and are bound by their captors, who torment them in their prison cells (Isaiah 42:22).

CHAPTER 1 EARLY ISSUES

Cold Jumping and Holy Flesh

The mood that prevailed upon the death of Pastor Lars Levi Laestadius in 1861 is described in a letter of his daughter Sofia:

The departure of the faithful spiritual shepherd left a sincere longing and sorrow, not only among the Christians and the awakened but also among the impenitent. Only then did their consciences accuse them of having shut their ears to his heartfelt warnings. Now they understood that a burning candle had been extinguished from their midst and that there was no longer anyone to visit their homes in the evenings, to hold prayers and seek the impenitent in their dark recesses with tender exhortations of love. As a result of this event, many people have been awakened to seriously consider the salvation of their souls in this village of Pajala and especially in other villages. Brotherly love, devotion and harmony have increased among the Christians since there is no longer anyone to teach and feed them with milk, as a mother her child.[1]

The sermons of Laestadius, by which God effected the revival in Swedish Lapland, speak of baptized pagans, who are enemies of true Christianity, of self-righteous persons, whose faith is based on their own repentance, of grace thieves, who hypocritically, without penitence or repentance, claim grace for themselves, and of fallen Christians, whose hearts the devil has stolen through love of the world and lack of vigilance -- truly a mixed multitude.[2] It is not surprising, therefore, that dissension soon appeared among the Christians.

By the latter half of the 1860s, disagreements existed in the arctic region of Norway. According to tradition, the trouble was caused by two preachers -- Juho Viheriä (also known as Johan Grøn) and a certain Terjeri.[3] In 1868, Juhani Raattamaa of Saivomuotka, Sweden, the leading preacher after Laestadius, wrote to the brethren in Vadsø (Vesisaari), Norway:

I have heard that the awakened are divided one against another, and thus it seems that they intend to build many kingdoms of Christ in Vadsø, but do not err: There is one sheepfold and one shepherd; stay together and keep the unity of the Spirit; ask for forgiveness and forgive one another. But the heretical ones will not humble themselves though the congregation counsels them, and the Apostle commands to flee from them. The teachers and confessors of cold jumping and holy flesh have come from Finland. They thought in their blindness that everyone must jump and that jumping is the best sign of Christianity. However, this is not how matters are. In the wedding chamber, there is playing or singing, and some jump, others sit, but they are, nevertheless, joyful from wine. Some are full of strength, as Stephen, and preach powerfully and rejoice in Spirit, which is seen in their faces; and the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy and peace and much more that the Apostle lists, but flesh remains flesh, and a Christian is not to walk so as to please it. As is written in Romans, there is “no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit” [Romans 8:1]. Thus, the righteousness of the Lord Christ is our righteousness, and his holiness is our holiness, though we are as sinful as Paul writes of himself in the seventh chapter of Romans.

Raattamaa, fearing that some might be tempted to reject their faith on account of the “cold jumping,” writes in the same letter:

This is also dung from Finland, that you are supposed to curse the former Christianity in which you have erred. To jump cold isn’t any extraordinary sin as long as your legs held out. Let all repent of this doctrinal error and believe the gospel so that they would become fervent in Spirit.[4]

Viheriä had arrived in Norway in 1866 from Kittilä, Finland. In an 1867 letter, Erkki Antti Antinpoika Juhonpieti, the well-known elder of Pajala, Sweden, mentions him by name, accusing him of leniency in doctrine and conduct:

And I will be straightforward and say: Let that preacher Viheriä also preach, but let him not be raised to the highest degree, for signs of deceit have been found in him along the way, but we still consider other preachers better because they are more pure in doctrine and conduct.[5]

In his 1882 autobiography, Erkki Välitalo, a believer of Kittilä, tells what happened after the revival reached his locality:

But the devil was also awake, trying to corrupt the work of the Lord by false doctrine. There came to the congregation a preacher who encouraged ‘cold jumping,’ as it has since been called. That is, people started jumping and rejoicing in a group, though hearts were cold and hard, so as to become fervent. The late Matti Laakso was the first to oppose this offensive activity, and others also zealously opposed it. Men also came here from Muonio to end this disturbance, and Maria Parkajoki, in particular, vehemently preached against it, and so this sad period of cold jumping did not last long.[6]

Välitalo mentions neither the name of the preacher of “cold jumping” nor when this activity occurred. It may be significant, however, that Viheriä, originally of Ii, Finland, moved to Kittilä in 1865, about two years after the revival began there.[7] Johan Paakkonen (also known as Paakkola), another preacher of Ii, who preached in the Simojärvi region in the early 1860s, is connected by tradition with “cold jumping” and has also been accused of being in the holy flesh doctrine, a concept that will be discussed later. Paakkonen, who appears to have been as much a Hedbergian as a Laestadian, eventually opted for Fredrik G. Hedberg’s antinomian Evangelical movement, which condemned the liikutuksia (emotional outbursts) of the Laestadian movement. Paakkonen’s letters of 1861-1871 to Hedberg, insofar as their content has been published, confirm only that Paakkonen defended liikutuksia, not necessarily “cold jumping.”[8]

Confession of Sin

Differing views of confession of sin have been a persistent cause of dissension. According to Part 5 of Luther’s Small Catechism: “Confession [Finnish: rippi] consists of two parts; the one is, that we confess our sins; the other, that we receive absolution from the confessor as of God Himself, in no wise doubting, but firmly believing that our sins are thus forgiven before God in heaven.” This doctrine is based on the words of Christ himself, who breathed on his disciples and said, “Receive ye the Holy Ghost. Whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them; and whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained” (John 20:22,23). However, at the beginning of the revival, absolution was not proclaimed, even to those who confessed their sins publicly. Six years passed before Raattamaa and some others began using the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven, that is, proclaiming forgiveness in the name and blood of Christ. According to tradition, Raattamaa, first used the keys to free a young woman from doubt and then reported the matter to Laestadius, who approved of his action. After Raattamaa’s “discovery” of the keys, they came into general use. By 1872, Raattamaa was referring to confession as the “pilgrim’s staff” (matkasauva): “Our Lord Christ has given into our hands the pilgrim’s staff, which is the asking for and the forgiving of sins.”[9]

Many eventually began to view confession as equivalent to justification. For example, Pastor Oskari Jussila writes in a 1929 book:

Jesus gave the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven to his disciples. All believers in Jesus, who have received the Holy Spirit, now have power and authority to remit and retain sins in the name of Jesus, that is, in accordance with his command on his behalf. He knew man and realized that the human wretch, stripped naked by the fall into sin, no longer retained any ability to free himself from his bonds by his own efforts. This recognition of helplessness becomes evident even to man himself when his conscience awakens. Until then, a person may imagine that he can free himself from the bonds of sin in some way other than through the keys of remission. Whoever thinks thus reveals that he has not yet become sufficiently pressured in his conscience after all, for he rejects the aid offered by Heaven and also remains so bold as to demand of God that aid be given in another way, determined by man himself. The keys of the Kingdom of Heaven have been lost many times, but the Holy Spirit of God has always fetched them anew from their hiding place for the use of Christ’s congregation, for the Lord of the congregation himself has promised that the gates of hell would not prevail against his congregation.[10]

Such extremists cannot adequately explain passages in the Bible such as Acts 10:44, where the Holy Ghost fell on those in the house of Cornelius as they heard the preaching of Peter. They also have trouble understanding how the revival could have even started without the keys. Some imagine, without any historical basis, that Laestadius was converted by absolution proclaimed by the Lapp woman Lapin Maija in 1844. Others seek indications of use of the keys before they were used by Raattamaa. Researcher Aulis Zidbäck, finding no solution, draws the simplistic conclusion:

Much needless suffering and mutual accusation has been caused in Laestadianism by the failure to fully understand, in regard to the two great doctrinal fathers of the revival movement, that it was not a question of differing gifts of grace but of two different views of Christianity and paths of salvation, tension between which, due to the nature of the matter, could only lead in time to an inevitable breakup of the movement.[11]

However, Raattamaa specifies that it was he -- not Laestadius -- who failed to understand the doctrine of the keys. He writes in an 1881 autobiography:

The spiritual movement had spread for six years already before I really understood the freedom. Since then, I and some brothers and sisters have put the keys of the kingdom of heaven into use, by which troubled souls began to be freed and prisoners of unbelief began to lose their chains, and they rejoiced in spirit.[12]

If Raattamaa views 1845 as the beginning of the revival, when the Lapp woman who was the first to experience grace jumped for joy, the time frame given here agrees with an 1891 letter to America in which he mentions that “the keys of the kingdom of heaven have indeed been in use over 40 years already in Swedish Lapland.”[13] According to tradition, Raattamaa discovered the keys by reading Luther’s sermons, but there is no reason to assume that Laestadius did not understand the doctrine of the keys, even if he was hesitant to use them. In 1849, Laestadius became entangled in a debate with some of his Pajala parishioners who did not approve of his refusal to grant absolution to a young woman who had committed fornication, and he was formally reprimanded for this in 1851. In his writings of that time, the issue of the proper use of the keys is quite prominent, and it is only reasonable to assume that he would also discuss the issue with his assistant Raattamaa. Laestadius believed that it was against the Bible, Luther’s doctrine and church rules to absolve impenitent persons and admit them to church privileges.[14] This is obviously the background, for example, for a sermon given on the nineteenth Sunday after Trinity, even if the year is unknown, in which Laestadius says:

But ecclesiastical punishment has in these days become hypocrisy and occurs only because of custom, for now a whore or thief is given forgiveness of sins even if no element of penitence or intention of repentance is detected in them.

In the same sermon, Laestadius says, on the basis of Matthew 9:1-8:

It is written in the Holy Bible that the just shall live by his faith, and one with living faith can live and die in the assurance that the Son of Man has power to forgive sins, not only by the preaching office but by every person who has himself experienced grace. This is an unshakable truth, whether the pharisees believe it or not.[15]

Compulsory Confession

According to tradition, at the first “big services,” which were held in Ylitornio (Alkkula), Finland, in 1875, Raattamaa rebuked preacher Johan Takkinen for teaching the doctrine of compulsory confession (pakkorippi).[16] If this occurred, no contemporary records document it. There are, moreover, many different ideas about the meaning of compulsory confession. Historian Hjalmar Westeson defines it as follows:

On one side, it was preached that only the unbelievers had to repent, and not the believers, but then other preachers explained that it was not sufficient to have confessed one’s sins and to have received forgiveness for them only once, but the believer should always recall his old sins as well, always confess them, always lay them before God and men.[17]

Pastor Väinö Havas writes accordingly in 1935:

Many of us have had to go to speak of the same sin even three times to the father confessor. First it was a bit too embellished; then we were too coarse, and even our third confession didn’t turn out to our liking. At least the penitence seemed too shallow.[18]

All confessionists (rippiläiset), as those who espouse the doctrine of compulsory confession are called, do not demand repetitive confession of the same sins, but they all believe that sins are forgiven only when confessed. Theologian and historian Uuras Saarnivaara writes, for example, in 1947:

The accusations of a believer’s conscience are from the devil only in the event that sins of which he has already repented and for which he has been forgiven trouble his conscience and try to make him despair. It is not necessary to confess the same sins more than once if done honestly. But a believer may have pangs of conscience over sins of which he has not repented, and then the voice is that of the Holy Spirit, to which he is to be obedient.[19]

A 1965 sermon of confessionist preacher Janne Marttiini -- as published in English -- is even more explicit:

Dead faith comes when we have sins upon our conscience that we have not put away. When we do not put them away, but we try to believe without putting them away. The Lord Jesus will knock for a time on your heart’s door. But if a person does not heed this, the Holy Spirit will depart, even though He has once been there.[20]

Pastor Paul Heideman also writes (before his ordination) in a 1910 letter, in which he criticizes self-righteous persons:

Regardless of how smooth and white they may be outwardly, within there is decay, unconfessed sins.[21]

In a 1924 article, Preacher Heikki Jussila (Oskari’s father) defends compulsory confession against its critics, saying:

And the voice of the Holy Spirit, which teaches in the conscience and by the Word of God to confess sins, is blasphemed by saying it is the voice of the devil. When the devil has caused sin to be committed, he would be divided against himself if he were to demand that it be confessed.[22]

Such views of the Holy Spirit are, of course, in conflict with the scriptural doctrine of justification and purification of the sinner’s conscience by faith alone (Romans 5:1, Acts 15:9, Hebrews 9:14). Laestadius explains the role of the Comforter (John 16:7-11) as follows:

We hear in today’s gospel that the Holy Spirit does not rebuke the disciples of Jesus, but the Holy Spirit is their Comforter and guides them into all truth.[23]

Laestadius also says, in sharp contrast with Heikki Jussila, in regard to the devil of self-righteousness (II Corinthians 11:14):

But the devil of self-righteousness is so serious that he will not at all urge one to commit sin but urges the awakened to repent. The devil of self-righteousness is so holy that he demands a pure heart before he will allow the awakened access to Jesus.[24]

Public Confession

In a 1925 article, Iisakki Ylinenpää of Övertorneå claims that at the 1875 “big services,” Raattamaa “opposed” public confession.[25] The demanding of public confession (julkirippi) is, in fact, the doctrine for which some say Takkinen was rebuked.[26] By the 1870s, public enumeration of sins was no longer demanded as strongly as in the time of Laestadius. An 1873 letter, signed by Pietari Hanhivaara (also known as Hanhi-Pieti), his brother Fredrik Paksuniemi (also known as Hanhi-Feetu) and Karl Heikel, contains the following comments:

We have heard with sorrow that a disagreement has emerged among you over the matter of confession. The public enumeration of all individual sins before the congregation was a custom in some places at the beginning of this Christianity, but since then it has been realized that this is not commanded in the Holy Bible and is neither profitable nor necessary for liberty of conscience or the advancement of Christianity. It is not mentioned in regard to people who came to John the Baptist in the wilderness that they there enumerated separate sins but only that they confessed their sins (generally) and were baptized with the baptism of repentance [Mark 1:5]. Neither are the words of the Apostle in I Cor. 14:25 to be understood in such a way that all practices of sin should be proclaimed there (in the assembly). Nor is it appropriate to take John 3:21 as a defense of public confession, for sins are by no means “wrought in God,” but a believing person lives in God and does all his deeds in God (which he does in faith). Therefore, he does not need to fear or hide his works -- he is a child of light. . . . The confession of sin is necessary for the purification of the heart, as is the opening of a vessel in order to wash it, but purity does not come by opening or confessing but by the blood of the Son of God claimed by faith (Acts 15:9, I John 1:7).[27]

Raattamaa’s writings do not confirm that he “opposed” public confession. He writes, for example, in an 1876 letter:

But let those who come in from the world’s crowd declare their deeds at least in a veiled manner so that the devil would not be able to get a grip on the awakened and rend them by the power of secular law.[28]

Raattamaa’s views are also stated in an 1878 letter of preacher Abram (Aapo) Tapani:

And as for your question about confession and enumeration of sin, elder Raattamaa answered that public confession of sin does not have to be broader than secular law permits. Neither is sin paid for or removed by the sword of secular law punishing the body. Nor do we consider it correct that anyone would be saved only by confession of sin, even if he were to confess all his sins to every person. Neither is confession of sin that which purifies the heart and conscience, but it is the innocent and bloody merit and righteousness of Jesus, received by faith, that purifies the heart and conscience from all mortifying works to serve the living God.[29]

The Three-Cubit God

The emphasis on confession led many to believe that God works only through the oral word and that forgiveness is given only through individual absolution. This view became known as the “three-cubit God” (kolmen kyynärän Jumala) doctrine, meaning that God is only three cubits tall, that is, as tall as a man. In his autobiography, Välitalo writes:

But since 1869, it began to be preached in our congregation that the Holy Spirit works only through the preached word. My brother Olli, together with the pastor and others, opposed this doctrine, but I held to those who were considered pillars and believed that they were right. However, when schoolteacher Raattamaa visited here, he explained and spoke of the effects of the Holy Spirit through the word that is read and preached and through the sacraments, and he applied the doctrine of the Bible and the experiences of the awakened. Then I understood this error too, but I didn’t ask for forgiveness at that time yet, for I waited for the others to become sinners. But this dispute lasted many years yet in our congregation, until Raattamaa firmly demanded that the expression that ‘the Holy Spirit does not work through the written word’ be eliminated. Since then, it hasn’t been taught publicly.[30]

In his article, Ylinenpää claims that in a sermon given in Övertorneå about two years after the 1875 “big services,” Raattamaa accused Hanhi-Pieti of bringing the “three-cubit God” doctrine to the Tornio River area from Kittilä. When a certain woman, Ahven-Elsa of Kittilä, was offended, feeling that Hanhi-Pieti was being oppressed, Raattamaa allegedly remarked in a sharp tone, “We are not oppressing Pieti, but Pieti also needs to repent of his faults and have his sins forgiven, just as does Raattamaa.” Ylinenpää then adds:

He then presented many passages from the Bible by which he clearly showed how God works through both the read and preached word and by his Spirit himself, for God’s greatness is unsearchable. He also said that confession of sins cannot be set as a foundation, that the preaching of faith is to be held of higher value than the preaching of confession of sins and that a single Christian, even a woman, is sufficient as a father confessor.

Ylinenpää’s story seems to be contradicted by a July 23, 1945 letter of Pastor Eliel A. Auno to Oiva Virkkala, according to which Hanhivaara told Auno that he had promised Raattamaa at the 1875 “big services” that he would cease teaching that only the preached word is effective.[31] Whatever the case, at least Välitalo’s account of Raattamaa’s visit to Kittilä is confirmed in an 1878 letter of Raattamaa, which says:

I have just come from Kittilä, and we were gathered together with all the teachers in the Kittilä parsonage, where the expression that the Holy Spirit does not work by means of the written word outside the congregation, as some have been saying, was eliminated from the teaching. They were satisfied when I said that the sphere of God’s wisdom cannot be measured by us. Indeed, he led the wise men from the east to Bethlehem.[32]

Pastor Grape and Princess Eugénie

In an 1880 letter to Per Olof Grape, Pastor of Övertorneå, Princess Eugénie of Sweden expressed a desire to become involved in the revival. In the letter, she made clear her love for the state church and appealed for Grape’s help in her effort “to reform the Laestadian movement, under the rugged surface of which there is certainly much substance.” She hoped that Grape, whom she viewed as enjoying the “confidence” of the Laestadians, would oppose their doctrinal errors, particularly their “distorted” view of confession and their “offensive” conduct during church services, and find for her some “serious, faithful and experienced itinerants, who would not work in the Laestadian manner but in a purely Christian and church manner, so that our work would not cause offense or expose itself to justifiable criticism.”

In his reply, Grape wrote in regard to confession:

It is true that some Laestadians have carried the doctrine of confession to a harmful extreme. It is also true that some have wanted to underrate the effects of the written word. Likewise, some have had a very muddled concept of the significance of private prayer, but a strong opposition has been raised against these misconceptions within the ‘Laestadian camp’ itself.

In regard to liikutuksia, Grape wrote:

And I have often seen how awakened souls have been so filled with joy, having grasped free grace, that they have burst into shouts of joy, clapped their hands and jumped for joy. I do not at all feel that these outward liikutuksia are essential signs of true Christian life or that they are of any special worth. It is indeed possible to be a true child of grace even without such liikutuksia, and most Laestadians do not have them and are nevertheless considered true Christians as long as they have the signs that the Holy Bible ascribes to the children of God.[33]

The involvement of the Princess was viewed adversely by many. It is said that Juhani Raattamaa’s outspoken older brother Pekka (not to be confused with Juhani’s son Pekka, who is also known as Petteri and Pietari) told Pastor Johannes Kerfstedt, who visited Lapland as a representative of the Princess in 1883, “Convey greetings to the Princess and tell her that up here we have enough Christianity for home use but that there is a shortage of flour.” Even if this account is true, at least the claim that the representative sent Pekka a sack of flour has an apocryphal ring.[34]

Johan Lantto of Tärendö, Sweden, writing in the 1940s, voices the view of the opposition. He claims that the first “missionaries” to arrive in his locality were Iisakki Ohtana (also known by the surname Poromäki) and Tuomas Puljula (also known as Nikkari-Tuomas). He writes:

This Nikkari-Tuomas had been sent by Pastor Grape, as the latter had promised to Princess Eugénie. In Tärendö, landowner Juntti received these new preachers, and services were held in his large home. At first, some old Christians in Tärendö were inclined to criticize somewhat the proclamation of this fenceless and borderless gospel, as it was called, to all the impenitent and unawakened as well as to Christians -- not to mention that unprecedented racket of singing that came with this new movement. Young people joined the group in droves, and spiritual songs were sung from Siionin laulukirja [Songbook of Zion]. Johan Raattamaa did not consider this kind of furious song-Christianity correct but preached firmly against it and said that this Christianity did not begin with the shouting of songs or the hollering of hymns, but it was born again in great travail, tears and groans in the dismal wilderness of Swedish Lapland.[35]

A 1974 history written by a committee of the Old Apostolic Lutheran Church of America claims that as a result of Grape’s correspondence with Princess Eugénie, Nikkari-Tuomas and others traveled up the Tornio River valley, opening the doors of “fleshly freedom” with the theme that “one should not preach of finery to the youth, they become timid. One should not preach to the aged of covetousness, it offends them.” As a result, “soon the voice of sorrow over sin and the sound of rejoicing over the forgiveness of sin began to disappear.”[36]

Joonas Purnu of Gällivare (Gellivaara), Sweden, who eventually became the leader of the opposition, as will be seen, writes in an 1897 letter:

The spiritual authorities would like to have this spiritual movement led into the lap of the state church so that the pastors who are obedient to the faith could finally say, Yes, they have corrected the heresy of Laestadius in order to receive honor for it![37]

Others focused on the beneficial aspects of the Princess’ involvement, such as the building of a mission school for Lapp children in Lannavaara, which the believers were allowed to use for their annual “big services.” When the Princess died in 1889, Raattamaa referred to her as “a beloved mother, who is now, as we believe, in a higher palace than the royal palace -- there, where the Lord of Lords and King of Kings is.”[38]

The Oral and Written Word

According to the record of an 1876 inspection of Kittilä Church carried out by Pastor A. G. Borg and quoted in the anti-Laestadian history of Bishop Johansson in 1892, Pastor Albert Heikel and his son Karl “admitted that the absolution used among the believers is wrong and intended to eliminate it.”[39] Karl felt compelled to justify himself to fellow Laestadians in an 1893 booklet, in which he explained that “the record is not precise or sufficiently clear in this matter.” According to him, the discussion that took place during the inspection related to the understanding that “one enters living faith only through a public appeal for forgiveness for unbelief and oral absolution from the Laestadians.” He explained, “My late father and I said that we have always opposed such a view and intend to oppose it in the future.”[40]

Heikki Jussila notes in his 1948 history that the inspector “testified that the Kittilä believers had adhered better to our church’s confession than any other believers examined in other parishes and expressed the hope that those in Kittilä would work toward correcting the believers throughout Finland.” Jussila then asks the rhetorical question, “Is it strange that the world expressed gratitude when it ascertained that the Kittilä Laestadians did not care much about the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven?”[41]

In 1885, Karl Heikel, P. O. Grape and other ordained pastors agreed at a meeting in Ii, Finland, that the “the work of the Holy Spirit and even a disciple’s mind and living faith are found outside the so-called Laestadian movement.” It was also agreed that “the written Word of God is able not only to awaken its reader but also to lead to participation in the grace of God in Jesus Christ.”[42] Such views have been rejected by other Laestadians as being contradictory to Romans 10:17 and other parts of Scripture. At the 1908 Ylivieska “big services,” for example, in reply to a question received in a letter from preacher Leonard Typpö as to “whether the written and preached Word of God are of equal effect,” the participants answered, “Would Jesus have counseled and commanded his disciples in vain to preach repentance and the forgiveness of sins to all creatures at a time when the books of the Old and New Testament were already available for reading if reading alone effects faith?” Also: “The scribes and pharisees have never been killed for reading the Bible, but only the witnesses and preachers of Jesus, who have diligently read and spoken about the Bible, for their preaching of the atonement of Jesus, of which the Bible testifies, has effected conversion and repentance, but this is precisely what the world has never been able to tolerate.”[43]

The Bible a Dead Letter?

The stress on the oral word led some to conclude that the Bible is without life or power, only ink and paper, a dead letter that will burn as will any combustible material. Early writers such as J. A. Englund, often attributed such views to the Laestadian movement as a whole.[44] In response to such accusations, Karl Heikel writes with undue optimism in an 1881 article:

The presentation of the Holy Scriptures as a dead letter can perhaps be considered a heresy that has been successfully overcome even among those who once held this view. Such a doctrine has never been approved by persons in this movement who have had somewhat more insight into spiritual matters.[45]

A thorough rebuttal of the doctrine is found in a 1919 article of preacher Matti Suo, who writes:

In the understanding of some, the word of the Bible is a dead letter and it comes alive only when persons who have received the Holy Spirit explain it. For if the word of the Bible were living, they would have received life by reading it. But since they have not received peace or life from it by reading, they have drawn the conclusion that it is a dead letter. And even Paul says, ‘The letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life’ (II Cor. 3:6). But if the word of the Bible were a dead letter, how then could there be a power to kill in it, as the words say, ‘The letter killeth’? It does not say that the letter is dead but that in the letter itself there is that killing power. . . . Thus, the law has the power to awaken a person sleeping in his sin into conviction, even as the Apostle says, ‘For by the law is the knowledge of sin’ (Rom. 3:20). So the law is by no means a dead letter, for that which is dead has no power to effect anything, but it is said of the law that ‘the strength of sin is the law’ (I Cor. 15:56). And since the law side of the word of the Bible is not a dead letter, by no means can the gospel side be a dead letter either. The Apostle calls the gospel the power of God (Rom. 1:16), and God’s power is by no means dead. Thus, the written word of the Bible, both read and preached, is the true, holy and living Word of God. ‘For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword’ (Heb. 4:12).[46]

In spite of such arguments, the Bible is still viewed as a dead letter by many who call themselves Laestadians.

Christ’s Descent into Hell

In an 1880 article, Karl Heikel noted that in a primer published the same year in Calumet, Michigan, entitled Amerikan Suomalainen Aapinen, Christ’s descent into hell in the Second Article of the Apostles’ Creed was placed in parentheses and rewritten to read, “astui Gethsemanessa alas helvettiin” (descended in Gethsemane into hell). Heikel also noted a unique reading in the Third Article, in which Christ’s name was not capitalized: “yhden pyhän kristuksen seurakunnan” (one holy congregation of christ). He viewed the first change as an inappropriate addition to a time-honored historical document accepted by all Christian denominations. As for the second change, he suspected that it might simply be a typographical error for “yhden pyhän kristillisen seurakunnan” (one holy Christian congregation). However, creeds published subsequently by the Old Apostolic Lutheran Church of America retain both readings, except for variations in regard to the parentheses and the capitalization of Christ’s name.

The first change caused a broad debate over whether Christ actually descended into hell after his crucifixion. Heikel qualifies his own position as follows:

I have never yet heard of anyone with an understanding of Christ’s descent into hell after his death that he went there to suffer, but these words are always explained in reference to the exaltation of Christ. As for the suffering of the pains of hell, I and the American brethren understand that our Saviour has suffered this inexpressible agony in Gethsemane and on the mount of Golgotha, and we are by no means alone in this understanding but many millions of Christians are with us. [47]

In the same 1880 article, Heikel claims that if the words “astui alas helvettiin” (descended into hell) had been changed to “astui alas tuonelaan” (descended into the underworld), no one would have been offended. It is surprising that Heikel, a Lutheran pastor, had never heard the doctrine that Christ, after his death on the cross, descended into hell to suffer for our sins. Johannes Aepinus, a sixteenth-century German theologian, is usually cited as the spokesman of the doctrine that Christ’s descent into hell was not the first phase of his exaltation but the last phase of his humiliation. Aepinus is clearly supported, however, by the writings of Luther, who, commenting on the words, “Whom God hath raised up, having loosed the pains of death” (Acts 2:24), says:

Thus, I will remain meanwhile by these words of Peter until I am instructed better, so that I believe that Christ, above all others, has experienced not only death but also the pains of death or hell, that his flesh has indeed rested in hope but that his soul has tasted of hell, and this is what he says here: ‘Thou wilt not leave my soul in hell.’[48]

Some of the elders did not share Heikel’s historical concerns. Erkki Antti wrote in an 1882 letter to America:

And I inform you of the opinions of the Christians of the Tornio valley in regard to the American primer, that it is more in accord with the Holy Bible than our primer, particularly in the creed section, and in my and our opinion, you may freely keep it.[49]

Raattamaa wrote in an 1881 letter to America:

As for your question in regard to the views of the people on the revision of the primer, all the enlightened Christians are of the same opinion as myself. And reading the American primer at our place, the old Christians of Lapland, whose hearts have been touched by the suffering of Jesus in Gethsemane, have said that the faith that they have in their hearts is that Jesus suffered the pains of hell in Gethsemane until his death on the cross. And the Evangelist writes that Jesus told the thief that he would go to paradise the same day.[50]

Raattamaa’s understanding of Christ’s descent into hell is by no means shared by all Laestadians. God, as the creator of all, is not subject to time or place (Revelation 13:8, John 3:13, II Peter 3:8). Even Laestadius says in a sermon:

Go now, all unbelievers, to weep and wail when Jesus has died. Go to complain that you have no refuge, neither in Heaven nor in the world. Turn your hope toward hell when you feel and see that Jesus is dead. Turn your hope toward hell and groan so heavily that a hole would appear in the roof. Perhaps these groans will be heard in hell, where the Crucified One is after his death. Perhaps death and hell will have to release him because the groans of the penitent, sorrowful and wailing ones cause unrest in hell.[51]

CHAPTER 2 The Reawakening

Origin

By the mid-1890s, preachers such as Frans Silén of Kittilä, commonly known as Metsänhoitaja Silén (Forester Silén), were charging that people had fallen asleep and that a “new awakening” was necessary. These preachers felt that unregenerate people were trusting in absolution without demonstrating any fruits of faith. Hanhivaara, who became one of the most prominent of these Reawakenists (uusheränneet), has noted, for example, that “there weren’t many houses in which there was even a New Testament, and yet they were Christians.”[52] Feeling that a Christian’s entire life should be one of penitence at the foot of Christ’s cross, some began demanding deeper contrition before proclaiming absolution. Juho Pyörre, a preacher who joined the Reawakening after visiting the “elders” in Kittilä, explains:

If, for example, a person with a puffed-up heart comes, as if to test whether forgiveness will be granted, I find myself faced with the question: Does God grant forgiveness to someone in that condition? And the answer seems to me to be: No, that person has to become humble.[53]

Another prominent preacher who joined the Reawakening was Mikko Saarenpää of Jalasjärvi, the composer of the well-known song “Täältä halajaa mun sieluni” (From here my soul is yearning), which was published in 1886 -- before the Reawakening. This song describes Saarenpää’s conversion, which occurred in about 1875, after he returned home from the army, not long after the revival had reached Jalasjärvi. Verses 8 to 13, literally translated, read:

Naked, a wretch, I lay in deep wounds, in sorrow and severe pain -- in the pit of death. My conscience pressed me unto death, hell frightened me, which God’s holy law confirmed as correct. But I heard a sweet voice from God’s children: ‘Don’t doubt, poor one, but be secure. Your sins are forgiven in the name of Jesus, and your transgressions are paid in holy blood.’ From this I gained peace for my conscience and sweet repose, for which I sing eternal thanks to the Father. So I made an eternal covenant to ever follow the Bridegroom, and of his grace I even received the Holy Spirit as an earnest.[54]

Saarenpää began preaching, but on an 1880 trip to Tampere, he squandered his employer’s money on liquor. Returning home, he lived a dissolute life for about a year. He later repented and began preaching again but was not fully accepted everywhere. Reawakenist writer Frans Mäkivaara tells what happened next:

Mikko Saarenpää was the one to whom God particularly revealed that his Christianity and that of the other preachers was not in agreement with the Word of God. Therefore, he left for Kittilä, and there he made contact with Christians from the time of Laestadius. Now he received the light that his spirit had craved. On this trip he received a new spirit.[55]

In a published letter that was written in June 1899, about five years after his “reawakening,” Saarenpää reviewed his past in the new “light” that he had received:

When I returned home [from the army], I found that during my absence this doctrine of Christianity had come to our area, and my mother and older brother had joined it. Of course, they also talked to me about repentance. I couldn’t greatly resist their words because my conscience indeed said that in this condition my journey would end in hell. After a short time, I too tried to join Christianity. I confessed my sins and asked for absolution, which I received, but neither the Lord’s death nor love could move my heart and circumcise it, and for this reason the love of sin remained in my heart. A little nip and other such things remained permissible, and they toppled me again into the same slough in which I had lived before. I tried to ask for forgiveness again, but I didn’t receive any power to repent. Then I lived quite a wild life for about a year. I sinned and I condemned myself. I decided to try yet again to really start repenting. I asked for forgiveness once again, and so I started traveling 18 years ago. I don’t recall how much power I grasped, but my heart started thirsting for internal change from that time on, and I felt repelled by the teaching that absolution from sin is the same as justification and so forth. The saltless preaching of grace, which I myself also preached, still kept me in a lax spiritual condition, though I was able to avoid the deeds of the flesh. But then, five years ago, I became quite distressed in my conscience. As I viewed my spiritual condition alongside the Word of God, it always fell as a heavy load on my conscience that I and the others will perish and that we have gone astray from the path that the former travelers have followed to Heaven. The more I read the Holy Scriptures and the sermons of Pastor Laestadius, the more I became distressed in my conscience in regard to my soul. Then I decided to go in the fall to Kittilä, and so I went. I will never forget this visit. There, God’s Word was fervently and orally read and studied, and the suffering and death of Jesus on the cross and that great work of redemption were preached so sharply that my heart was crushed more keenly than ever before. Heavenly purification, which I had craved for myself so often, flowed into my soul from the wounds of Jesus.[56]

Saarenpää presented his case for the Reawakening in a letter to Raattamaa, written in July 1898:

Laestadius sought a path for the Word of God into people’s hearts, not into their reason, and he also found it, and for this reason his sermons effected in them a change of heart and mind, or true rebirth, without which no one will enter the Kingdom of God. But here much work has been done without much regard to a correct awakening of the conscience or to a breaking of the heart at the cross but mainly to make people understand the necessity of absolution from sin and the fact that men have the power to forgive sins. Change of heart and mind has not actually been preached very much to the conscience, and so, in many, Christianity has remained in the understanding and knowledge. Thus, many have remained unbroken and whole before the two-edged Word of God. Those who have entered Christianity in this way have become so complete that Christianity is no longer growth and struggle by the moment. Upon being absolved from sin, they are freed from following God’s Word and the footsteps of Jesus. All words of counsel, reproof and chastisement are law, which allegedly doesn’t belong to a free Christian. Daily repentance and vigilance in faith at the cross of Jesus are self-righteousness, etc.[57]

In 1899, the Reawakenists established their own magazine, Kolkuttaja, which marks their separation from the other Laestadians, who became known as the Conservatives (vanhoilliset).

The Third Use of the Law

The Reawakenists share the view of most nominal Christians that in Christ only the ceremonial law, not the moral law, is abolished. According to this doctrine, the moral law, from which the curse has been removed, remains as a rule of life and conduct for justified persons. Saarenpää writes, for example in 1900, in regard to Apostle Paul:

His writings show that when he speaks of the law, he does not always mean the law of the Ten Commandments, which Christ did not come to remove but to fulfill, as he himself says, ‘Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law’ [Matthew 5:18]. What the apostles, in their epistles to the Christians, write in regard to sanctification, as to how they should conduct themselves, is, in content, consistent with the Ten Commandments. However, Paul, in his writings, often refers to the ceremonial church law, which was imposed until the time of reformation (Hebrews 9:8-10) but ended in Christ.[58]

Saarenpää nowhere proves his point that Paul distinguishes between a “ceremonial” and “moral” law. Not understanding the Bible, he has fallen into the grand error of both Protestant and Catholic theologians. When Paul says in Romans 8:2 that believers are free from the law of sin and death, he is by no means speaking only of ceremonial aspects of the law, to which the Gentiles have never even been subject. In fact, throughout the epistle, he views the law from a moral perspective, saying, for example, in chapter 7, verse 7, “For I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet.” It is, therefore, quite clear here and throughout the Bible that the whole ministration of death, in all its aspects, whether moral or ceremonial, is abolished in and by Christ (II Corinthians 3:7-13, Hebrews 7:18), who fulfilled the strict demands of the law for every fallen sinner and then nailed it to his cross (Colossians 2:14).[59]

The Reawakenists state their position on the law in no uncertain terms in a 1924 article in their monthly Huutavan Ääni, written as a response in a debate initiated by an article of Heikki Jussila that had been published earlier the same year in America, which will be discussed later:

For man’s salvation, the Holy Spirit needs the law to awaken him and to mortify the old man, and the gospel to apply grace by faith in Christ. Also, in the sanctification of a Christian, the Holy Spirit uses grace as nourishment and God’s commandments (I Thess. 4:2) as a guide, as the apostles teach in all their epistles. But in these commandments there is no condemnation for Christians. Christ removed the enmity (Eph. 2:15).[60]

This doctrine, which is anathema to most Laestadians, is found in the Lutheran Confessions. The Formula of Concord (Section VI) teaches that the law has three uses: 1. To maintain external discipline among men; 2. To bring men to a knowledge of sin; 3. As a rule of life for the daily walk of the believer.

The Reawakenists have also found the third use of the law in an 1855 sermon of Laestadius:

Christians are not offended by John’s preaching of the law, for they feel that the word of the law is necessary, not only for the impenitent but for the Christians as well, for the awakening of the conscience and consciousness of sin and also as a guideline in daily life.[61]

Not surprisingly, the following editorial note appears in the English-language postil containing a translation of this sermon, published by the Old Apostolic Lutheran Church of America:

In the Evening sermon, 1855, on the Fourth Sunday of Advent, in the Postilla, will be found written, ‘the law for Christians in daily life.’ We are not able to believe that such words were written by Laestadius, even though they may appear in the manuscript, particularly when we are not able to find any words in the writings of Laestadius or Raattamaa that contain such an understanding, and therefore it is not proper to use such words in the Christianity.[62]

Despite this assertion, we find, in an 1853 letter of Laestadius to the King of Sweden, another mention of the law as a guideline for the Christian. Defending the Christians in their struggle with the enemies of the revival, he writes that the “readers,” as Christians were referred to at that time, demand, among other things, “that a Christian refrain from all willful sins and lead a holy life, that the law be preached for awakening to the impenitent and as a guideline for the life of the Christian who has experienced grace, that the gospel also be preached to penitent and contrite sinners, etc.”[63]

The Reawakenists have also found a passage in a sermon of Luther, given on the third Sunday in Advent, in which, after discussing the law, as being necessary for the ungodly, he adds:

In addition to this, the Ten Commandments must also be retained in the Church for the sake of those who are already holy and Christians, in order that they may know what is a truly godly life and what are good works which they are to do, and now since they are turned unto God, justified by faith in Christ, and God’s children, that they may also begin to live in obedience towards God.[64]

These words are found in the version of the sermon copied by Veit Dietrich but are missing from the version copied by Georg Roerer, who is reputed to have been an objective scribe, who refrained from adding his own thoughts to the sermons he heard.[65] Whatever the case, Reawakenists have not been any more successful than Lutheran theologians in establishing a Scriptural basis for the third use of the law. Raattamaa, responding to charges of antinomianism long before the Reawakening, writes in 1877:

Finally, we will also note, since voices have been heard that the followers of Laestadius have changed the doctrine after his death, that neither is this charge true. For all that is taught today is the same doctrine that was preached in the time of Laestadius, even if, in their church sermons, Luther and Laestadius have placed the law of Moses as a guideline for Christian congregations that live after the flesh so that God’s justice, by the chastisement of the law, would drive them to Christ to receive by faith the forgiveness of sins in the name and blood of Jesus and also the righteousness of Christ, which is a pure wedding garment before the glorious face of God, and power, by the Spirit, to mortify the deeds of the flesh. For such righteous ones the law is not established, Paul says. But we are not, therefore, without law. We have the law of Christ, which says that we should love one another. Christ’s love demands that all ungodly conduct be rejected. Also, by faith on the Lord Christ, a holy life is constructed. Thus, the law has been our schoolmaster unto Christ, but after faith came, we are no longer under that teacher.[66]

The Narva Reaction

The Reawakenists, who were a minority in most places, gained the upper hand in Karelia, St. Petersburg and Estonia. People lost their joy and assurance of salvation as a result of the new teaching that doubt and incessant penitence are true signs of Christianity. However, in Estonia a sharp reaction soon occurred in the form of the Narva movement, which even attracted some prominent Reawakenists, such as Silén, who also joined the movement. In a 1902 article, preacher Kaarle T. Lindström explains that in the summer of 1898, in the city of Narva and vicinity, the Christians began to study the new birth and their own spiritual condition. A certain Katariina Olli, a woman better known simply as “Narvan Katri” (Katri of Narva), was distressed because, though she had publicly confessed her sins and had experienced the effects of grace, she doubted that she had been born again. Lindström and others pointed out the words of Christ to Nicodemus in John 3:16 and the passage in Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress in which the traveler loses his burden at the foot of the cross. After this latter passage was repeatedly and insistently pointed out to her, she lost her burden and began singing praise to Jesus, feeling that she had entered through the strait gate into the Kingdom of Heaven. Later, she saw visions of Jesus on the cross and giving the Lord’s Supper (Revelation 3:20). Lindström describes the experiences of others:

Some felt themselves shaken by a strange force, some so powerfully that, without anyone touching them, they were thrown from a sitting position to their hands and knees. Others rolled on the ground, beat their chest and confessed their sins. It appeared to some as though living beings had come from within them. Some saw vivid images of how their sins had lacerated the Son of God and made him bloody and felt those same sins tearing their bodies, and they had to bring them into the light by shouting.

Lindström writes that “at first, the ignorance prevailed that all who are born again must see visions.” Some, he says, believed that those who felt that the visions occurred within themselves had Jesus in their hearts but that those who felt that the visions occurred outside themselves did not yet have Jesus in their hearts. He also tells that whereas previously there was only outward knowledge in many, now that “living feelings” had come, another one-sidedness tended to appear -- “that of remaining entirely under the guidance of internal feelings and also of believing that when a person has the Holy Spirit and is a child of God all that he says and does is of God.” Lindström then explains:

After a long struggle, they finally realized that knowledge without feelings of salvation is dead and again that feelings alone, without the light of God’s Word, cannot lead a person on the path of salvation. For there are also false feelings, which the Bible shows and corrects and which a man cannot conceive of as false without this counselor. Also, even if the Holy Spirit and living faith are received, there is much ignorance, lack of understanding and deficiency.[67]

In his 1945 history, Reawakenist apologist Oiva Virkkala tells how Lindström became involved in the Narva movement. He says that Lindström and Saarenpää had a discussion in St. Petersburg in the summer of 1899, a few months before this new movement reached that city. Virkkala writes:

Lindström remarked to Saarenpää that the Reawakening would ‘change into pietism’ [körttiläisyys], become dark and end unless one begins preaching the gospel. To this, Saarenpää said that he has also thought so but that he fears dead faith, ‘Erkki Antti’s faith,’ a light faith based on a broad gospel. Then, when the Narva movement came to St. Petersburg, Lindström opposed it, but soon he received a different light, and the very same year he made a public confession of sin, asking for forgiveness for his previous spirit of opposition.[68]

Outsiders often compare the Narva movement to the Kautokeino movement, which was also characterized by revelation and ecstaticism. Many saw in the Narva movement no more than an attempt to recover through “cold jumping” the good feelings that had been lost in the Reawakening. It has been said that, in the manner of the Kautokeino fanatics, the Narva adherents (narvalaiset) placed “inner light” above the written word. Väinö Havas alleges, for example, in his 1927 history that Katri of Narva said, “Write down what I say. It will become a new Bible.”[69]

Saarenpää observes, in a March 3, 1904 letter, that in St. Petersburg the Narva movement was divided into two groups.[70] Virkkala explains that there was a moderate side led by Lindström and a radical one led by Aleksanteri Kumpulainen of Lappeenranta, who is said to have eventually led many of his followers into the Pentecostal movement. He points out, as an example of differences between the two men, that Kumpulainen demanded as an unconditional requirement that everyone confess his sins openly on his knees while Lindström wasn’t as strict -- those who confessed didn’t have to go to their knees. The Narva movement is said to have spread like wildfire in Ingria and Southwest Finland, but the zeal soon abated, and most adherents joined other Laestadian groups. A reconciliation is said to have occurred with the Reawakenists in Viipuri in 1913. By the time Lindström died in 1917, the Narva movement was no longer viable, even if some adherents were still living in 1945.[71]

The Oulu Reconciliation Meeting

In response to an invitation from the Reawakenists, a “reconciliation meeting” was held in Oulu in 1911. After Chairman Viktor Virkkula and Pastor Aatu Laitinen had made earnest appeals for unity, the discussion commenced. Hanhivaara, who was one of the first to speak, said of the Reawakening:

As for how this awakening emerged, there was real reason for it, for the doctrine of justification tended to become so one-sided that sanctification was omitted. Upon closer examination, it was found that no sanctification appeared in either doctrine or life. Studying the matter of salvation more closely in the light of

the Word of God, it became apparent that God does not justify a person in the condition that he was in before. It began to be noticed that the matter of Christianity had grown dim, that with many it was only on the surface, and when a real awakening came, many became alarmed and had to cry to God for help.

The main rebuttal was made by Kalle Heliste, who said:

The first alien voice in our locality was the incessant phrase, ‘We’re sleeping.’ The next alien voice was the term, ‘new awakening.’ Then they took the next step and said, ‘Everyone is sleeping; everyone has to rise up.’ Then, children, they took another step and said, ‘God’s law has to be fulfilled.’ Then they said, ‘A person has to be a murderer of the Saviour until death.’ The suffering of Christ was made into another law, and not only so, but it was also said that ‘a person has to drink of the cup of the wrath of God, and if you have drunk once, you have to drink again.’ Then they said, ‘A person has to be a spiritual publican until death.’ Then they said, ‘Man has to remain in the [strait] gate until death.’ Then: ‘The Bible is not to be explained.’ Then: ‘The gospel spoils the work of God’ and ‘the gospel is slop [plaiskua].’ Then: ‘The forgiveness of sins is an exaggeration and is not within the covers of the Bible.’ Then: ‘It would be better for them to shout about a dog’s blood than about Christ’s blood.’ Then: ‘It would be better if they said they had been cleansed in the dragon’s blood than in Christ’s blood.’ Then: ‘There is only one law.’ Then: ‘One should not preach about the resurrection. It causes a light and lax Christianity.’ It was said of the preaching of Christ’s resurrection, ‘There they hover over the resurrection field.’ Of the effects of the grace of God, it was said that they are nervous symptoms, laxness, slackness, etc.

Antti Halttu said:

Hanhivaara mentioned that a man is not justified in the condition that he was in before, though the Bible says that God justifies a person in an ungodly state.

Hanhivaara replied:

In self-defense, I will say that I have never preached the kind of doctrine that a man is justified by works, for even at 15 years of age I understood that a man is justified by faith, but the path of sanctification begins in justification.

The Reawakenists denied that Heliste’s charges were true of the Reawakening as a whole. Hanhivaara, knowing that the minutes would be published, tried -- unsuccessfully -- to have them reviewed. He said:

For example, the statement that Christ’s blood is no more than a dog’s blood horrifies me. It can’t be the statement of anyone other than some atheist perhaps, and it seems awful that the awakened are accused of it. It is so terrible that it defiles everything.

Heliste stuck to his charges, saying:

I could even point out the person who has told me, ‘It would be better for you to speak of a dog’s blood than of Christ’s blood.’ I have also been told, ‘It would be better for you to say that you are washed in the dragon’s blood than in Christ’s blood’ and ‘the forgiveness of sins is from the deepest hell.’

Hanhivaara said of the charges:

Some are true, such as the statement that ‘it is not considered necessary to explain the Bible but only to read the Bible.’ I have tried to impress on minds how important it is to read the books of the Bible, particularly the books of the New Testament. The Apostle has sent his epistles to the congregations, and they are to be read precisely as they are. I have endeavored to adhere to this and to explain less. I do not say that the Bible may not also be explained by one who has the ability to do so, but I am not so wise that I could explain it.[72]

Halttu replied:

I have heard elder Hanhivaara explain the Bible. Why then did the elder stop explaining when the Reawakening came? We see that the apostles explained the Bible and that on the road to Emmaus, Christ explained all the Scriptures that were written of him. So explaining the Bible is not wrong, but the expounder must have the same Spirit in which it is written, for the Bible is a book written by inspiration of the Holy Spirit.

During the meeting, Halttu asked Saarenpää whether he had ever considered the Conservatives “thieves of grace and the serpent’s seed,” to which Saarenpää replied that he did not remember. Halttu then asked more specifically whether he would admit to writing a letter in which he referred to the Conservatives as the serpent’s seed. Saarenpää replied, “I do not remember what I have written.” Halttu then read a portion of an October 27, 1904 letter to P. Kainulainen and others in Joensuu in which Saarenpää describes an incident that occurred in Viipuri:

Hermanni [Karjalainen] asked for forgiveness that he has spread the lies of the Tampere people about me there. It is not at all strange that impenitent persons and thieves of grace tell lies about the Christians. It has been so from the beginning and will be so to the end. No reconciliation is possible between the serpent’s seed and the woman’s seed.

After much discussion in regard to other matters, Saarenpää’s memory suddenly improved. He said:

We are accused of lacking forgiveness, but what is to be said of the method of bringing up the offense caused by the letter that I wrote to Joensuu, which was just read and for which I have asked forgiveness in the past and requested that the letter be burned? A promise was made to bury the matter, but now it appears that this has not happened after all, because the letter is still here. (Halttu said aloud, ‘I didn’t know that!’) In this procedure too, there is reason for repentance.

Conservative preacher Heikki Hooli, adopting a surprisingly moderate stance, said that the Reawakenists had calmed down so much that there was no longer much difference between the groups and that he would be “worse than a devil” to keep himself separate from them. He also said:

I would like to note, in regard to this new awakening, that it was indeed quite necessary. Before it began, dissension had already existed among the speakers for at least a decade. The elders of the Tornio River preached not only repentance and forgiveness of sins but also the words of counsel and reproof, but then an aversion to this preaching appeared, and it was said that it was no longer necessary to use the words of rebuke and warning but only to preach of the Son of God. This was said openly. Those who spoke the doctrine of the Bible in entirety were named law preachers. In those places where repentance sermons were opposed, carnality appeared. It is true that in those places a new awakening was necessary, but when it lumped everyone into the same dead state, it was not in the right form.

A. Tikkanen, the sole representative of the Firstborn, a group that will be discussed later, called for unity with the Christians of Lapland, saying:

Before the Reawakening, the preaching of repentance was omitted, and finery, love of the world, and other sins became permissible. Many thought that it isn’t fitting to preach repentance but only the gospel. Therefore, a new awakening was necessary, but it was guided amiss. There should not have been a new order of grace.

The Reawakenists remained on the defensive and even confessed some of their faults. Hanhivaara said, for example, “There have indeed been weakness and lack of love in me, for which I beg for forgiveness from my heart and pray God that in the future he would increasingly pour the Spirit of grace and love into my heart.” However, when Halttu asked whether the Reawakenists would admit doctrinal errors, Hanhivaara replied:

As for doctrine, I do not feel that any change has occurred in it through the Reawakening. I have remained in the doctrine in which I have obtained salvation and will remain in it until death. I have often erred in words, and, indeed, there would have been reason to have more love, but I do not feel that I am guilty in respect to doctrine.[73]

Later in the year, at the 1911 “big services” in Kokkola, Hooli repented of the position he had taken in the Oulu discussion. He said:

I am compelled by my conscience to say, in regard to some points in the statements I made at the so-called reconciliation meeting in Oulu, which some surmised to have been motivated by patience: I was in error, for patience has its limits, lest error be mixed with it. For this reason, I ask of those who are ailing over this whether they are able to grant forgiveness?

According to the minutes, “with moved hearts, the brothers and sisters granted forgiveness.”[74]

Renewed efforts at reconciliation, initiated by the Reawakenists, resulted in poorly attended meetings in Haapajärvi in 1922 and in Oulu in 1923. Other meetings with less sparkle, fizzled later, even if, in Soviet Russia, a lasting reconciliation apparently occurred in 1924 when the Reawakenists saw the error of their ways.[75]

Issues and Schisms

In 1905 and 1906, a debate occurred among the Reawakenists in regard to the permissibility of consuming blood. The issue is summed up in an editorial comment in the Conservative monthly Armonsanoma, published by Pastor Laitinen, which continued to carry articles written by Reawakenists. Laitinen writes:

Due to the weak consciences of Jewish Christians, whose ceremonial law forbade the consumption of blood, the apostles also preserved it for Christians, even though no food in itself is unclean and all eaters of meat consume some blood with it. But the main point in this issue, which ‘does not involve justification by faith,’ is that these matters not be viewed as a reason for judging or despising others.[76]

Problems of a more serious nature emerged for the Reawakenists in the 1920s, when the preacher Aatu Heiskanen adopted the doctrine of rebaptism and began to acquire support for his views. According to Väinö Havas, at their “big services” in Kittilä in 1925, the Reawakenists had to “fervently defend the doctrine of infant baptism and the Lutheran Church’s views of it.” Heiskanen, who finally had himself rebaptized, retained a following of a few dozen people in Kittilä, Kalajoki and Impilahti.[77]

The Reawakenist mouthpiece Kolkuttaja ceased to exist in 1918 and was replaced the following year by Huutavan Ääni. Internal dissension with regard to cooperation with the state church in mission activity led an internal opposition group led by Einari Peura to reestablish Kolkuttaja in 1939, but with the abatement of dissension during the Winter War, both papers were replaced in 1941 by a single mouthpiece, Vartijan Ääni, with Peura as its editor. The group also terminated the “Suomen lähetysseuran laestadiolainen haaraosasto” (The Laestadian Branch of the Finnish Missionary Society), which had served as a central organization for the the Reawakenists since 1908.

In 1947, Saarnivaara still noted two trends within the Reawakening. He writes:

Nowadays, the differences, particularly between Conservatism and the newer branch of the Reawakening, are relatively small, for the latter has grown closer to Conservatism’s view of Christianity. Within the Reawakening there is, however, still an older branch, which is close to the original manner of thinking.[78]

As will be seen, however, the reason for this rapprochement of views is to be sought as much in changes in Conservatism as in developments in the Reawakening. In 1952, in any case, the internal friction finally led to a split in the ranks of the Reawakening. The following year, Mikko Torvinen replaced Peura as editor of Vartijan Ääni. Peura, who is said to have been influenced by Pentecostalism, then established his own magazine, Kolkuttaja, in 1954, from which his supporters became known as the Kolkuttaja Group, which was said to be the more radical of the two groups. Peura himself served as editor for only a short time in 1955, the year of his death.

Thus two Reawakenist organizations are included in researcher Pekka Raittila’s 1967 list of Laestadian groups: the more moderate “Suomen lestadiolaisten lähetysyhdistysten keskusliitto” (Finnish Central Association of Laestadian Missionary Associations), with its mouthpiece Vartijan Ääni, and “Suomen laestadiolainen lähetysliitto” (Finnish Laestadian Missionary Union) -- the Kolkuttaja Group.[79] It is said that Peura initially intended to have his group, the Kolkuttaja Group, support the missionary activity of the state church, but this idea was vetoed by his second-in-command, Jaakko Miettunen.

Einari Peura’s followers, known also as “peuralaiset,” suffered another schism in 1960. One side was led by Eskil Peura, a brother of Einari, and the other by Heikki Kontio. Eskil Peura’s group is now extinct, but Kontio’s followers, known as “kontiolaiset,” are said to still exist -- without preachers -- in Sodankylä, Pyhäjoki, and Noormarkku, where services are held in homes. Kolkuttaja ceased publication in 1976. Many Kolkuttaja Group supporters returned to the more moderate group, which is said to be divided into three “currents.” The first of these is the most conservative of the three and uses the old translation of the Bible. The second is noted for being favorable to the state church and all its activities. The third “neo-pietistical” entity feels an attraction to Pentecostalism and is involved in non-Lutheran religious activity. The number of supporters is steadily dwindling, but the group still publishes its own periodical -- Lähettäjä.[80]

Reawakenist missionaries have been active in other countries, particularly China. They have also toured America, where Saarenpää and Pyörre, for example, preached in 1910 and 1913. Saarnivaara wrote in 1947 that the Reawakenists in America also had two preachers of their own, Lars Levi Aaltonen and Leonard Estola.[81] In spite of this, the American Reawakenists have never formed a separate group but have remained, to some extent secretly, among the Little Firstborn, who will be discussed later.

Typpö’s Summary

Leonard Typpö, summing up the Conservative position in a 1904 book, claims that the Reawakenists “mixed the gospel with the law, trying to achieve a sinless congregation, but everything went otherwise.” He explains:

The Lord’s Apostle Paul writes in Philippians 3:1: ‘Finally, my brethren, rejoice in the Lord. To write the same things to you, to me indeed is not grievous, but for you it is safe.’ It is a treacherous trap of the old serpent, by which he ensnares people for himself, when he presents the old gospel, preached from the beginning, as so powerless and ineffective that one has to start changing it and preaching differently and writing differently. It is alleged that the preaching of faith is lax and soft, that people have fallen into slumber and sin, and so it isn’t appropriate to preach faith at this time, but now works and sanctification have to be preached so that people would awaken to better vigilance and a more earnest struggle. Here another manner of preaching and writing appears, by which consciences are led astray from the word of faith and the merit of Jesus into works and the law. Thus, birth is given to mere slaves and children of the bondwoman, who mock and persecute those born of the promise. Preaching and writing are always to occur in one manner, as Jesus commanded, ‘Repentance and remission of sins are to be preached in my name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem unto the ends of the earth’ [Luke 24:47, Acts 1:8]. And again: ‘Preach the gospel to every creature’ [Mark 16:15]. This preaching is correct until the end of the world, repentance wherever vices have taken hold, free gospel, grace and the remission of sins to the penitent and believing. It strengthens you when you always hear the same gospel, the same preaching of faith, by which you received the Spirit. By the gospel, God does mighty works among you. ‘For it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth’ [Romans 1:16]. Here is cause for joy. When the gospel is preached in one manner, it always supports, strengthens, secures and establishes us on that rock that stands forever, which is Christ. Shortcomings are not repaired by the doctrine of law and works. It is not by them that powerful works are done in the Kingdom of God for the life, edification and peace of souls, but their true fruit has always been disturbances and heresies. The new man created in God’s image is not renewed by the works of the law, even if they are pressed on him with the threat of death. He is renewed only by faith, in the knowledge of Jesus, where he first received life and the Spirit.[82]

CHAPTER 3 THE FIRSTBORN GROUP

Origin

The Firstborn Group is characterized by asceticism, compulsory confession and subservience to its leadership in Swedish Lapland, specifically Gällivare. Under its first leader, Joonas Purnu, the group separated from the other Laestadians in Europe in 1900, but its roots go back nearly a quarter of a century, to the arrival of preacher Johan Takkinen in America in 1877 as a mediator in disputes that existed at that time.

Dissension appeared in America almost as soon as congregations were formed in 1872-73 in Calumet, Michigan, with Salomon Korteniemi as pastor, and in Cokato, Minnesota, with Iisakki Barberg as pastor. Some early issues in America seem rather petty, however, such as the one mentioned in an 1877 letter of Mathilda Fogman of Övertorneå (Matarengi), Sweden, to Barberg:

It is clear that your heart may have first been offended, my dear brother, with [Jaakko] Rovainen, because he demanded conviction and confession of the fact that when you first arrived in America you wrote to us too boastfully of your external circumstances, saying, for example, that you wouldn’t trade your advantages for the best land in Matarengi, although it was reported here that even at that time you were in great poverty.[83]

It is difficult to determine to what degree doctrinal issues really existed. J. A. Englund mentions in his history that a dispute had emerged in Minnesota “over whether the crucified Christ or the resurrected Christ is to be preached.”[84] Little more is known about this matter except that it reappeared in Finland as a dispute in the Reawakening. Preacher Juuso Runtti discusses it in 1923 in a sermon given in Viipuri (Vyborg) on Isaiah 53:

Some feared the preaching of the resurrected Christ and of his victory, presuming that it would result in a Christianity of the brain or knowledge, and so they left it as a matter of secondary importance and considered it more important instead to study the suffering of Christ. Others, however, feared the preaching of the Crucified One in the light presented by the prophet here, thinking that it would lead to legalism, and for this reason they only wanted to view the victory of Christ in the triumphant field of the resurrection.[85]

The elders in Lapland first sent Heikki Parkajoki (also known as Parka-Heikki) and Abram Tapani to try to effect a reconciliation. Their efforts resulted in only a temporary settlement in 1876, which began to come apart in some places even before the emissaries arrived home. In any case, the terms of the settlement, under which Korteniemi and Barberg retained their positions, did not appeal to the elders, who supported the opposition. When the emissaries returned home, they found that they were under pressure to repent, which they did, to the great disappointment of those whom they had supported in America.[86]

Takkinen Era Begins

The elders now decided to send Takkinen to America. Takkinen’s view of Christianity is aptly summarized in an 1876 letter he sent to Raattamaa after a trip to St. Petersburg:

But along the coast, I was saddened by workers and supporters of the truth because they do not have the strength to care for the wall of the vineyard and bear Christ’s yoke, and they are governed by freedom. Only grace is to be preached, not self-denial or brotherly rebuke, for that is legalism, let alone finery -- that is to dull your sword in the sand.[87]

On June 26, 1877, before Takkinen’s arrival in Calumet, Raattamaa wrote to Mathilda Fogman, who served the elders as an informal secretary, in regard to certain letters that had arrived from America. These letters had criticized the support of the elders for the opposition in Calumet, and also in Cokato, where Jaakko Rovainen was vying for the pastor’s office with Barberg. Raattamaa wrote:

Caleb Wuollet has also written a long letter to me in which he mentions that you have slandered Barberg and Korteniemi and even says in his letter that there were also bad women in the Old Testament, such as Jezebel. Today I have also heard what Salomon Korteniemi has written. He is of the same opinion as before and demands repentance of you and us because we are strengthening the hands of Rovainen. Caleb also says that you are strengthening Rovainen’s dirty hands, but I believe that even today Rovainen’s hands are as pure and clean as those of Caleb and Korteniemi.[88]

Raattamaa wrote to Fogman again on July 7, 1877, saying, “I and Parka-Heikki are demanding that Caleb and the others ask for forgiveness for what they have written about you” and telling her that Korteniemi, who was from Alkkula, needed to ask for forgiveness from the Christians there for his old sins. Raattamaa then adds: “In his letter, Caleb seeks the names of Salomon Korteniemi’s sins. Brother Huhtasaari can name them if the things that we have been told are true.” At the end of his letter, Raattamaa expresses fear that Korteniemi and his friends will form a wild-reindeer herd (“mettä tokka”) because “Korteniemi has already written to Abram Tapani that they have their own wash basin and Holy Spirit, that they don’t need to fetch them from Europe, etc. and rejects our letters, saying that they don’t need contentious letters such as these.”[89]

Takkinen arrived in Calumet in the fall of 1877. In a November 30, 1877 letter from America, he writes that Korteniemi finally repented, albeit reluctantly, of the “Alkkula matter.” At first, according to Takkinen, Korteniemi tried to justify himself, but when no one supported him, he “confessed the matter and asked for forgiveness.”[90] Korteniemi was finally deposed in the winter of 1877-78.

It was not long before David Castrén of Calumet, who had been a staunch supporter of Korteniemi, changed sides, and, in a series of bombastic articles in the newspaper Sven Tuuva, began denouncing him as a power-hungry tyrant who, being unlearned and not gifted, was compelled to write his sermons beforehand. In his third article, he accuses Korteniemi of saying:

For broader reading and studying of the Bible make the life of faith mere history in the intellect, and so the internal power of faith disappears and becomes ‘dead faith,’ and the power of grace and the Spirit come to naught, and the justified soul is hurled into a fallen state, etc.!

Upon publication of this article, the newspaper abruptly commented, “The editors of Sven Tuuva feel this is enough already, without continuation.”[91] A few days later, in a letter to the editor, a reader recalled the love and unity of a few years past and wrote that “thorns had been sown” in people’s hearts by persons motivated by “a spirit of envy” but that “the first preachers sent from Europe removed the thorns and testified by the Bible that the Christianity in America was correct.” After a period of peace, “the serpent’s seed soon began to sprout again,” according to the same writer, who adds:

These baneful persons, who dress in the garb of humility, sent out lies in their circular letters and with their poisonous tongues in order to win over the hearts of the Europeans and get the fine preacher Takkinen to come here. This man Takkinen thought that, by means of the book of Revelation, he could write Korteniemi off as a bad angel, and by his doctrinal prowess, he removed him from office, which was, after all, the wholehearted pursuit of these sheepskin-devils. Then Takkinen began to preach a new awakening, the only text of which that could be found was S. Korteniemi. Such a procedure has turned many dozens over to drunkenness and the taverns.[92]

In the fall of 1878, Takkinen, after a trip to Lapland, took Korteniemi’s place as pastor of the Calumet church. In his 1920 history, John Pollari, the well-known preacher of Maple, Wisconsin, tells what happened next:

But now when other believers started to come from Finland, perhaps Takkinen feared that they might, in turn, start to overthrow his rule. Thus, a careful examination of newcomers began so that no secret intrigues would undermine and damage his throne. This was an examination of how repentance had been done, whether sins had been carefully confessed, and how well one loved the elders of Lapland. And this enumeration of sins was generally demanded in those days.[93]

The Hallites

In 1891, Henrik Koller of Calumet, a supporter of Takkinen, wrote a series of articles in the periodical Siionin Sanomat, of which he was the editor, claiming that Korteniemi had joined an opposition group led by Heikki Berg and Johan Mullo. He describes the group as follows:

Thus, about a decade ago, these malcontents tore themselves away from the majority of the congregation even outwardly, for internally they had already separated into that ‘evangelical’ kingdom and their own faction, away from the kingdom of the ‘law,’ as they called Takkinen’s instructional leadership and the majority of the congregation, for they could not endure the teaching of anyone under whom they would have to blend into obedience.

Koller goes on to say that when Peter Strolberg joined this group, which became known as the Hallites (haalilaiset) after they began meeting in a hall that was built in 1885, “they came up with the doctrine of believing ‘as pure,’ that a person who believes is entirely pure and not sinful, and if he does not believe this, he is still under the law.” Koller adds in a footnote: “Salomon Korteniemi is said to have taught even in his time that in a Christian the soul does not sin but only the body, although the Lord says, ‘The soul that sinneth, it shall die’ (Ezekiel 18:4).”[94]

According to the Bible, a believer is simultaneously sinful (I John 1:10) and pure (I John 3:6), for the new man, which receives birth from the Word of God, is created in holiness while the flesh remains unregenerate and impure (Ephesians 4:22-24). However, Pollari asserts in his 1920 history that some of the Hallites held the doctrine that their flesh was holy, many of whom were also rebaptized.[95]

Who are the Firstborn?

After the separation of the Hallites, dissension continued in the church because of Takkinen’s strong-arm tactics and his demand for strict obedience to the elders in Lapland, who were referred to at that time as the “firstborn” (esikoiset). In a July 15, 1872 letter, Raattamaa applied the term “firstborn” to himself:

Since I am the firstborn among many brethren, I also greet all the Christians of Pajala and Juhonpieti with the warning that we should endeavor to keep the unity of the Spirit so that the bonds of love would not break.[96]

In other writings, Raattamaa uses the term “firstborn” to refer to the elders generally, as, for example, in a June 13, 1889 letter to his son Pekka, who had moved to America in 1883, where he sided with the opposition to Takkinen:

I will also answer your question as to where the firstborn are: They have been born again in our time in travail in Swedish Lapland, and this flock, in living faith, has sent preachers to Norway, Finland, Sweden and America, though preachers have been sent first from Lapland to Muonio and the Pajala congregation, which the good shepherd Jesus has brought into one sheepfold, even into the congregation of the firstborn, which are written in heaven.[97]

In an 1891 letter, in which Raattamaa again defines “the congregation of the firstborn of our time” as being “first born in travail in Swedish Lapland,” he adds that “it is in accordance with the Holy Bible to heed the congregation of the firstborn as widely as the revival has spread, which is the pillar and ground of the truth, where Jesus Christ is the chief cornerstone.”[98] Erkki Antti also writes in an 1877 letter:

But do you understand that the congregation of the firstborn are those who have first become Christians and then have remained in the doctrine in which the Spirit and life have been received and that those who separate from this flock are no longer part of the congregation but a wild-reindeer herd and lost sheep, for the Chief Shepherd has said that there is to be one sheepfold and one shepherd, and that is the congregation?[99]

The Scriptural passage in question is: “But ye are come unto mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn, which are written in heaven, etc.” (Hebrews 12:22,23). The word “firstborn” (Greek: prototokon) is in the genitive plural in the Finnish Bible, where it is rendered “esikoisten.” According to the Bible, all firstborn belong to the Lord and are hallowed unto him (Numbers 3:13). Thus, all believers, being in Christ, the true Firstborn, unto whom all precedence, priority and holiness are ascribed in the Word of God (Colossians 1:12-19), are the Lord’s, and may claim firstborn status as heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ (Romans 8:17).

Takkinen Era Ends

A reconciliation was effected in Calumet in 1885 during a visit of Minnesota preachers Jacob Wuollet (a brother of Caleb) and Pekka Raattamaa. Forgiveness was mutually proclaimed but it was not long before the quarreling resumed. In 1887, Takkinen and Kalle Daniels (also known as Tiinan Kalle) made a trip to Finland, where they sought help from the elders. When they returned to America the following year, matters were the same, if not worse, for many were seeking a new pastor from Finland, but the elders refused to send anyone to replace Takkinen. However, Koller writes that when the old and respected preacher Eliel Juola arrived in 1888 and was allowed to preach, “all the old disputants, including those in the hall, were soon gathered together, and all were welcome in the condition they were in, for he was the one who was to blend all into one, into good soil, in the land of America.” Koller then adds in regard to Juola:

After awhile he condemned the emissary of the congregation of the firstborn, Johan Takkinen, as a heretic, and he compared the firstborn, that is, the first preachers of this movement of Christianity, to Cain, Ishmael and Esau, saying that these were also firstborn and telling how dangerous it is to be obedient to them.[100]

Takkinen was finally replaced as pastor by Johan Roanpää in an annual church election in 1888.[101] Takkinen’s supporters contested the election -- unsuccessfully -- in court. Takkinen’s side claimed that, among other irregularities, non-members, including Hallites, had been allowed to vote.[102] Raattamaa’s reaction to Takkinen’s removal is given in his June 13, l889 letter to his son Pekka (Pietari):

In many letters, I have asked you to avoid contentious disputes. I am still surprised that you argue against Takkinen, regarding whom you have written to me previously that he has shown you fatherly love both materially and spiritually. Your late mother said that many preachers have visited here from Finland but Takkinen is the best. . . . Eliel Juola might be a good preacher, but his doctrine caused a greater dispute among the Christians than had existed previously in America. I indeed, with a large congregation, testify to you, Pietari, in the name and precious blood of Jesus, the forgiveness of your weaknesses and faults, and my opinion is that you should reconcile with brother Takkinen, each forgiving the other his shortcomings.

The raising of the issue of the election in the secular courts was particularly offensive to many. In fact, the unconditional support that Takkinen had received from the elders, particularly Erkki Antti, waned as a result. Erkki Antti writes in an 1889 letter:

Is that, moreover, the fruit of peace and love that a Christian goes to court with Christians before the world’s judges in regard to the pastorate and church? I, however, feel indeed that someone better than me would be appropriate for this precious office. And if the Christians were to say that I am not suitable this time, I would give the position to another. Since the Christians wanted it so, why didn’t brother Takkinen let Roanpää fill the position for a year, without going to court?[103]

In an 1890 letter, Erkki Antti writes:

I have not written to Takkinen’s party recently, but now I have decided to write nothing but gospel. Since they have so little for others, they probably have very little for themselves, for a person gives what he has. Even a generous person cannot give what he does not have.[104]

The elders continued to demand reconciliation. Raattamaa and a large number of preachers, who were gathered in Lannavaara in 1890, signed a joint letter to America in which they called for a restoration of love, expressing “great sorrow” that Takkinen has been “forbidden” to preach in the church. They added that the “denying of the church to Takkinen has not happened in accordance with the Scriptures or God’s Word but is a transgression requiring repentance.”[105]

In the summer of 1890, Arthur Leopold Heideman, an ordained pastor, arrived in America, in response to a request from the Calumet church, to replace Roanpää as pastor. Later in the year, preacher and songwriter Paavali Ervasti visited America, where his pure evangelical sermons endeared him to Heideman’s group. Pollari claims that this is when the Hallites returned to the church. This seems to conflict with Koller’s account, which is given above. Whatever the case, Pollari writes that repentance was demanded of the Hallites for their “false doctrine.” They, in turn, demanded that the others ask for forgiveness for condemning them. According to Pollari, there were “legalistic hearts” on both sides. Pollari also mentions that the preacher Johan Perä, influenced by Mullo, started to attack the men who preached in Calumet at that time, namely, Antti Rajaniemi, Matti Tauriainen, the Wuollet brothers, Pekka Raattamaa and Johan Mursu. Perä found as a “good reason” that “the fear of the Lord” had been rejected, and so he began to preach it, but the others rose against it, fearing legalism. Pollari goes on to say that Mullo and his friends also started demanding that the Ten Commandments be preached, but the others opposed this, saying, “the law is not for the righteous.”[106]

On March 1, 1891, the Calumet church held a meeting at which it was decided to seek a settlement with Takkinen’s supporters (takkislaiset). However, Takkinen -- who realized about this time that the litigation was to no avail -- decided to build his own church. In the fall, therefore, his supporters built their “little church” across the street (Pine Street), but then both congregations decided to hold a joint meeting to settle their differences, which brought great joy to many. However, such a simple solution was apparently unacceptable to Takkinen, who said that the elders should send someone to supervise the proceedings. He then traveled with Olli Matoniemi to Lapland to explain the situation, leaving Kalle Ojala as pastor in his place.

While Takkinen and Matoniemi were in Lapland, two letters arrived from Calumet, one from each congregation, criticizing Takkinen’s actions. Heideman’s church wrote on November 3, 1891:

Some here in Calumet do not seem to be striving to unite, which is confirmed by the [new] church building, but we have effected a reconciliation with brother Kalle [Daniels] and some others and have decided to hold a general meeting here in America, to which the preachers would be invited, to investigate the origin of the dispute, and we presented this idea to Takkinen, some of us together with some of those who currently love him, but he rose against it, saying that there is no judge to decide matters, and he intends to fetch judges from there in Europe.

Takkinen’s supporters wrote on November 10, 1891:

Beloved brother Takkinen has received a commission to Europe from a small group. And our wish would be that brother Takkinen would return from Europe, preaching reconciliation, because we who love Takkinen in America have been greatly grieved by Takkinen’s current trip to Europe, for we had the intention that brother Takkinen would participate with us in the voice of reconciliation, in accordance with the advice of the elders.[107]

A December 14, 1891 letter of Raattamaa to America approving of the reconciliation contains the following postscript signed by Takkinen and Matoniemi:

We also want to participate in this reconciliation. We ask forgiveness from the brothers with whom we have been disputing and, in the name and blood of Jesus, we forgive them from the heart.[108]

In Finland, Takkinen died of pneumonia on February 13, 1892, and Matoniemi, who recovered from the same ailment, returned alone to America. In May 1892, a letter was published in Siionin Sanomat in which Takkinen’s followers asked for forgiveness for having tried to recover the Calumet church in court.

The 1897 Lannavaara Services

In 1897, at the annual “big services” in Lannavaara, which is in Vittangi Parish in Sweden, a dispute occurred over Pastor Aatu Laitinen’s spiritual condition. According to historian Carl Edquist, when the services continued later at a meeting place known as Nikukka in Vittangi, Joonas Purnu mentioned in a sermon that a “Finnish lad, who has never come into the church of the firstborn, tramples the elders of the firstborn congregation under his feet and corrupts Christianity in our communities through his leaflets, which make their way into every home.” The listeners took this to be a reference to Laitinen and his magazine Sanomia Siionista. According to Edquist, Laitinen’s friends conferred and decided to rebuke Purnu. The next day, therefore, after Raattamaa had preached, August Lundberg, who had been sent by Princess Eugénie to run her school for Lapp children in Lannavaara, asked the elders publicly and individually whether pastors Grape and Laitinen had rightly entered God’s congregation and were to be respected as true teachers and shepherds. Affirmative answers were given in turn by Raattamaa and other elders, including Purnu, who denied that the “Finnish lad” he had referred to was Laitinen. In spite of this, according to Edquist, Lundberg said that he was convinced that not all were telling the whole truth, and he presented, on behalf of the congregation, a warning to Purnu, pointing out, on the basis of the fifth chapter of Acts, the danger of lying to the Holy Ghost.[109]

A differing account of the meeting is given by Viktor Appelqvist, a defender of Purnu. In a letter to Edquist, he claims that Lundberg asked the elders, including Purnu, whether Laitinen had been born again and received affirmative answers. Then Lundberg said that Purnu had preached against Laitinen the previous winter in Svappavaara and that witnesses were present. However, despite efforts, he could not produce them, was at a loss as to what to do next, and, turning to Purnu, said: “I consider Joonas a precious elder. Now you speak!” Appelqvist claims that during this incident, Raattamaa, realizing that Lundberg was behaving imprudently, left the room, sighing, “Oh, my, the honor of these pastors!”[110]

According to an anonymous account of the same meeting, which has been found among Erkki Antti’s papers in the Oulu provincial archives, Iisakki Kuoksu, a Purnu supporter, pointed out as a fault of Laitinen that the latter had written that it is not permissible to preach the forgiveness of sins seiniä myöten, that is, “all-inclusively” or “indiscriminately.” Lundberg pointed out that the expression “forgiveness of sins seiniä myöten” is found neither in the Bible nor in the sermons of Laestadius and that only penitent persons were present in the house of Cornelius (Acts 10). He explained:

Brother Kuoksu is a poor fisherman if he salts good and rotten fish in the same crock. Peter did not testify forgiveness to Simon the sorcerer but said, ‘thou hast neither part nor lot in this word, for thy heart is not right in the sight of God’ [Acts 8:21]. We must correctly divide the Word of God, proclaiming to the penitent, grace and the forgiveness of sins, but to the impenitent, God’s judgment and punishment until they repent.

Strangely, these comments did not evoke a broader debate, though Raattamaa is said to be the first preacher to have proclaimed the forgiveness of sins seiniä myöten -- from behind a table in the Sakko home in Kitkiöjoki in the winter of 1853-54.[111] Also, according to Johansson’s 1892 history, “Sins are occasionally forgiven ‘seiniä myöten’ at services, and the one absolved ‘is supposed to scrupulously believe all his sins forgiven.’ ”[112] Such a doctrine is, of course, anathema to Reawakenists such as Aatto Salo, who writes in 1918:

The proclamation of the forgiveness of sins in later Laestadianism by extremists, without consideration of spiritual condition, seiniä myöten, is far from the point of view of Laestadius.[113]

Juuso Runtti, in the 1923 sermon cited previously, presents his own view of the matter:

The Lord says, ‘To the poor the gospel is preached’ [Luke 7:22]. But Peter says that it is to be preached to all creatures [Acts 2:39]. Here we are faced with two differing Bible passages. However, by studying the Bible, we can draw the conclusion from them that the gospel is to be preached to all but that it is acceptable only to the poor, to those who are out of provisions and are being swallowed up by a gaping bottomless pit that has inescapably opened before them.[114]

Pollari is evidently defending the practice of proclaiming absolution seiniä myöten when he writes:

We do not preach the forgiveness of sins to the holy or sinless, neither generally nor individually, but to sinners we are obligated to declare the forgiveness of sins in the name of Jesus, and whoever believes is justified by his grace, through the redemption that is in Jesus Christ, whom God has set forth to be a mercy seat through faith in his blood.[115]

Did Raattamaa Bless Purnu?

The Firstborn claim that at the 1897 Vittangi services Raattamaa ceded his authority to Joonas Purnu. In a 1901 letter to editor Johan Kieri in America, the Gällivare elders write:

And as Raattamaa said even the last time in Vittangi, while laying his hands on Joonas Purnu, ‘Now we are leaving this entire government and office with you, for you are the one we have found faithful to take care of and show concern for all the congregations so that the Lord’s flock would remain united, as I have done together with the congregation of the firstborn.’[116]

The letters in Kieri’s book Aikakautemme Vanhinten Kirjoituksia, from which this passage is quoted, have been revised to some extent by Kieri, a strong supporter of Purnu and Takkinen. There is no evidence, however, to support the oft-repeated charge that Raattamaa’s second wife Karoliina did not accurately write that which the aged preacher dictated. Comparisons of the letters in Kieri’s book with the originals and other copies prove that the changes were made after they had been sent. These changes involve mainly the word “firstborn,” which, as historian Olaus Brännström claims, has been systematically inserted in places deemed appropriate, as for example, before the word “congregation.”[117] However, as Raittila has pointed out, many of the discrepancies noted by Brännström are the result of changes made by opponents of the Firstborn.[118] This is evidently the case in the previously quoted July 15, 1872 letter of Raattamaa, as published by the Conservatives in 1907, in which Raattamaa, instead of being the “firstborn among many brethren” is the “elder among many brethren.”[119]

There is a degree of unreliability in all published material. A glaring example is a two-volume book published in 1884 by Laitinen under the title Valituita kristittyin kirjeitä (Selected Christian Letters). Karl Heikel comments on these volumes in a November 14, 1884 letter to Grape:

It is unfortunate that some of the ‘selected Christian letters’ are completely changed. There are also errors: One that bears my signature is Olli Välitalo’s -- an excellent letter otherwise.[120]

Historians, who are often dependent on published material, point out, perhaps too optimistically, that most editors will not radically distort the words of living writers, who might object to inaccurate publication of their writings.

Even if the 1901 letter quoted above is genuine -- and there is no evidence that it is not -- this does not mean that Raattamaa is quoted correctly in it or, much less, that his actual words, whatever they were, are to be interpreted in the papistical manner of the Firstborn. Saarnivaara seems to agree, however, with the Firstborn account of Raattamaa’s ceding of power to Purnu. He claims that Jalmar Kyrö of Elo, Michigan, but originally from Korpilompolo, Sweden, told him that he heard Iisakki Ohtana and Nikkari-Tuomas, say, after returning from the Lannavaara services, that Raattamaa had specifically blessed Joonas Purnu to be the leader of the “firstborn congregation” because he himself was too old.[121]

According to Firstborn writer Lauri Koistinen, Raattamaa’s blessing meant that Purnu could never fall away:

In 1897, Raattamaa turned his position over to Joonas Purnu by a public laying on of hands in the presence of the congregation in Lannavaara. This act was not based on any human invention, but the Holy Spirit was present. God’s Spirit has never erred in such laying on of hands, but the one who has received the blessing by this means has remained faithful in this calling to the very end.[122]

Raattamaa’s death in 1899 facilitated the formation of a separate group of Firstborn. This group is also known as Western Laestadians and “gellivaaralaiset” as distinguished from the Eastern Laestadians, that is, the Conservatives. The holding of separate services by the two sides in Svappavaara, Sweden, in 1900 marks the beginning of the schism, at least in Swedish Lapland.

The 1901 Gällivare Meeting

In Edquist’s history there is an account of an attempt at reconciliation that took place when certain Conservative preachers arrived in Gällivare in 1901. When Firstborn preachers, hearing of their presence, also arrived, meetings were held, where Appelqvist gave a sermon, the first part of which is identical with the July 25, 1897 letter of Purnu quoted previously. Appelqvist thus, repeating by heart this letter of Purnu, who was also present, urged the listeners to remain in the doctrine from which they have received life and the Spirit and not to be offended by the congregation of the firstborn. He reminded them of how, in the time of the apostles and Luther, the ordained pastors opposed Christianity and noted how few of them, even today, have a desire, together with the lay preachers, to build the congregation of the Lord, to remain in unity of spirit with it and to be reproached for the name of Jesus. Therefore, confidence should not be placed in them or in “any congregation other than the one that we have entered through the bloody door, which, according to the Apostle’s statement, is the mother of us all.” Noting that the camp of the saints was surrounded by Gog and Magog, Appelqvist said of Nikkari-Tuomas, whose name means “Thomas the carpenter”:

As long as Raattamaa was alive, he planed and hammered, and so Raattamaa never knew him. But now that Raattamaa has died, he is growing so old and trembles so much that he cannot work as a carpenter, and so he has become a preacher.

While saying these words, Appelqvist allegedly imitated Tuomas’ voice and manner of trembling and then turned to Mikko Pääkkölä, a partner of Tuomas, with the question: “Who is the firstborn?” When Pääkkölä replied, “Christ,” Appelqvist continued:

When asked who the firstborn is, they reply in a querulous tone that it is Christ. We know, of course, that Christ was the first firstborn, that he gave the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven to Peter and that Peter was the rock on which Christ built his congregation. At that time, the Christians were also very zealous in gathering around the elder in Jerusalem. In Christ’s stead, he led the congregation. But the question is: Who is now the firstborn? Who now has the keys of the kingdom of heaven, around whom we are now to gather to be saved?

According to Edquist, when Pääkkölä did not answer, Appelqvist presented the same question to Tuomas, who began to explain at length that Abel was the firstborn in his time, mentioning other Old Testament types of Christ, but Appelqvist interrupted him, saying,

We are simple folk and do not understand learned explanations. If you have no better reply, keep your mouth shut!

Edquist then describes a disorderly debate that ensued over whether Johan Sirkanmaa had written a letter containing accusations against Purnu.[123] Someone shouted, “Brothers and sisters, believe in Joonas Purnu!” Joonas, hearing this in another room, where he had been drinking coffee, stuck his head in through the door, saying, “Believe in God!” Pastor Olof Bergqvist then rose with an open Bible and read, in an earnest tone, the words of Christ in Luke 11:32: “Behold, a greater than Jonas is here.” These words, according to Edquist, had a dampening effect because “many no doubt believed that Christ had spoken specifically about Joonas Purnu.” When the commotion resumed, Meri-Pietari (also known as Peder Fjeldal) shouted:

For 40 years, I traveled and preached with Raattamaa, but as for these Finnish fellows, Nikkari-Tuomas, Sirkanmaa and Pääkkölä, I never caught sight of them. I don’t know where they were, whether they were underground or in Finland, Norway or Russia, but now they have come from Finland and hell to besiege the camp of the saints, the beloved city.

The Firstborn, strong proponents of the view that preachers should remain in their assigned areas, apparently felt that their rivals had no business preaching on their turf. Appelqvist, in a 1916 letter to Edquist, in which he discusses this meeting, which the Firstborn refer to as the “robber synod” (ryöväri synoodi), seems to confirm, if nothing else, at least that he followed the line of questioning described above in regard to apostolic succession:

For my text, I took the eighth chapter of Romans. During the explanation, I presented a question to Pääkkölä, but when he did not reply, Nikkari-Tuomas offered to do so. The assertion that I asked Tuomas to be quiet is just as much a lie as everything else. I think I have received the kind of upbringing from my parents, in addition to what I have learned from Christianity, that I do not ask an old man to be silent. [124]

Internal Dissension

After Purnu’s death in 1902, the Firstborn leadership is said to have become “collective” in nature.[125] As for Appelqvist, historian Dagmar Sivertsen writes that his unsuitability as a leader became so evident by 1915-1916 that he was “expelled” from the group.[126] However, even if Appelqvist was eclipsed by Viktor Björkman, Frans Parakka and others, he remained a member of the group and continued to sign letters with them until at least 1928, about 10 years before his death.

The Firstborn are known in Finland by the name “Vanha-Laestadiolais-Kristillinen Yhdistys” (Old Laestadian-Christian Association). Their doctrine has been disseminated in their periodicals Fadersrösten and Rauhan Side. Firstborn preachers rarely fail, whenever the opportunity arises, to assert “full trust and confidence in the elders in Lapland.” In its 1974 history, the American branch, known as the Old Apostolic Lutheran Church of America, draws a “lesson” from past schisms:

This lesson causes us to try and test ourselves that we wouldn’t begin to form our own opinions, but rather place our understandings, no matter how right they seem to us, before the right judges: Christians having the Holy Spirit. This lowliness, humility and obedience to the rule of the congregation is the secret of strength. We must place our trust in God and His congregation that has the Holy Spirit. Man can err but the Holy Spirit does not err.[127]

At about the turn of the century, the Firstborn in America divided into two groups, the Old Firstborn and Little Firstborn. As will be seen, the more radical Old Firstborn received the support of the Firstborn in Europe, and the other group began to repair relations with Heideman’s church. By 1914, the Old Firstborn were again divided internally. Some sided with Matoniemi and others with Kieri. A reconciliation appeared to be effected in 1916, when Kaarlo Toivonen arrived from Lapland, but by the following year it was evident that the split was not healed, and even a third group was forming. The problems continued until 1920, when a reconciliation finally took place as the result of a visit to America by elders Iisakki Niku and Frans Parakka.[128]

In 1965, a schism occurred among the Firstborn in Europe. A radical minority broke with the main group, led by Elder Gunnar Jönsson. The minority is known by the names “leeviläiset” and “pikkuleeviläiset” after its main leader, Levi Älvgren, also known as “Pikku-Leevi” (Little Levi) because he was only 153 centimeters tall. According to Lauri Koistinen, a spokesman for the minority, the trouble actually began in 1946, when J. P. Stöckel and Gunnar Jönsson, traveling in America, established “a new spiritual government” with former leader Arthur Niska now outranked by Samuel Juvonen. Koistinen charges, among other things, that the majority group began to tolerate pictures, photographs, flowers and fashionable clothing; women ceased using aprons; men began wearing modern hats and white shirts; organs, radios and televisions became permissible; wreaths were laid at funerals; birthdays and father’s and mother’s days were celebrated; and people engaged in sports, even on Sundays. Koistinen also accuses the majority of using the new translation of the Swedish Bible and a revised Swedish edition of Laestadius’ sermons published by Per Boreman in 1957 under the name Evangeliepostilla. According to the minority, none of Laestadius’ words, even obscene ones, should be changed or omitted because he is the seventh angel of Revelation 10:7 and “every word he preached after 1844 is by the Holy Spirit” and “every word is God’s Word and is to be taken seriously.”[129]

By 1976, the minority had acquired support in other countries -- in America, mainly in Minnesota, among the offspring and friends of Arthur Niska, and in Norway in a group of radicals led by Thoralf Jensen, August Krågh and Hans Danielsen. The minority ran into new trouble, however, when Sten Johansson refused to add his signature to those of other minority leaders in the introduction to Koistinen’s history of the 1965 schism. Johansson did not object to the history -- at least initially -- but felt that signatures were unnecessary. In any case, his refusal began to cause another schism in 1976. [130] According to Koistinen, Johansson was actually trying to usurp the leadership of the group. Koistinen writes:

Sten Johansson became so enthusiastic about the success of our congregation in America and Norway that he felt that he had already satisfactorily reached the goal of becoming the leading figure of an international movement. It is not by his work, however, that the international ‘conquests’ were achieved, but the person responsible for this is mainly this author.[131]

By 1977, the power struggle within the minority left Älvgren and Koistinen with only one supporter in America, the late Sophia Hill of South Dakota. Koistinen and certain fellow preachers have made several trips to America, however, where they claim to have “new connections” in various Laestadian camps. Their goal, according to Koistinen, is to “break down the dividing walls among awakened and broken hearts with the pure gospel of Christ, which gathers all the followers of Jesus to one mountain of Zion, into the lap of the congregation of the firstborn.”[132] The Firstborn tradition of using vulgar language in the manner of Laestadius has not been an asset in this floundering ecumenical endeavor.

In 1979, Sten Johansson’s followers, known as “steeniläiset,” suffered another schism. Melvin and Ralph Niska -- sons of Arthur Niska -- divided into two camps in America. Ralph left Melvin and Johansson but remained in spiritual union with Jensen in Norway, who split from Krågh and Danielsen, who stayed with Johansson. Ralph Niska is accused of rejecting exhortation in regard to conduct, saying that fruit comes of itself and that if a preacher demands fruit it is legalism. Melvin is said to have 13 children, about half of whom have sided with Ralph. After Melvin’s death, a son (“Little Melvin”) who remained loyal to his father became the leader of his group.

Conservative Views of the Firstborn

In a February 28, 1907 letter, a large number of Conservative preachers, meeting in Lannavaara, wrote to America:

Neither at the last meeting in Vittangi nor anywhere else has the late Raattamaa given rule over the congregation into the custody of Joonas Purnu or any other preacher, though there were indeed many preachers in whom the late Raattamaa had even more confidence than in Joonas Purnu. Neither firstborn status nor age appears to make anyone infallible, but the devil tempted even the Son of God, and thus he tempts young and old Christians; and let him who thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall, for God resisteth the proud but he giveth his grace unto the humble.

The letter goes on to say that “it was not the congregation” that chose men such as David, Solomon, John the Baptist, Luther, Laestadius and Raattamaa, but “it was all done by the Lord Sabaoth, when he selected these men while still in their mother’s womb for this work and, from their childhood, without their knowledge or that of the congregation, trained them and gave them the Spirit and gifts.”[133]

Typpö, in his 1904 book, sums up the Conservative view of the Firstborn:

When the devil saw that this new [Reawakenist] doctrine did not succeed very well to his honor, he inflated new soldiers for himself in Swedish Lapland in an old Christian’s guise. They have now come boasting of their firstborn status, their infallibility, in the manner of the pope. Thus, the devil, in the form of an angel of light, took the old ship, intending to send the children of God sailing to destruction in it, since he didn’t succeed with his new vessel. Oh, dear friends, be not deceived by divers and strange winds of doctrine. Always hold fast, in childlike faith, to the rock of salvation that stands forever, which is Jesus Christ, the Son of the living God, the true Firstborn among many brethren, by whose bloody merit each of us is blessed with the same inheritance.[134]

Chapter 4 THE LITTLE FIRSTBORN

Origin

In 1893, during a visit of Joonas Purnu and Jöns Mäntyvaara as emissaries of the elders, the reconciliation was formalized in Calumet. A committee of 12 men from each side was formed, which drew up a formal letter of reconciliation to be sent to Europe. It was also decided to alternately hold services in both churches, but this arrangement was short-lived, and it was not long before the practice of holding separate services resumed.

In 1899, Matoniemi moved to Lake Norden, South Dakota, apparently because he realized that the majority in the “little church” preferred Kalle Ojala as pastor. Torsten Estensen was pastor there, but Matoniemi evidently feared competition more from John Lumijärvi of Astoria, Oregon, who had arrived in America in 1882 with the blessing of the elders and preached in South Dakota occasionally. As a result of Matoniemi’s accusatory letters, Lumijärvi went to Lapland in 1902. Mäntyvaara and other preachers then confirmed in an August 18, 1902 letter to America that Lumijärvi was a “preacher of pure doctrine.”[135] According to Saarnivaara, this “testimony” of “old preachers” was revoked later by a letter sent by younger preachers in whom Matoniemi had instilled suspicion of Lumijärvi. Saarnivaara tells how, after long negotiations, an apparent reconciliation was achieved, with both sides asking for forgiveness, but Matoniemi then resumed his slandering, and the two sides began to hold services at separate times.[136] The Firstborn elders were still working for a reconciliation as late as 1906.[137] By then, however, the group was irreconcilably divided into the strict and ascetic Old Firstborn (vanhat esikoiset) of Matoniemi, Koller and Kieri and the moderate Little Firstborn (pikkuesikoiset) of Lumijärvi, Ojala and Estensen.

The Annual Conventions

In an attempt at reconciliation, all the groups were invited to a conference in Calumet in 1908. The Old Firstborn did not participate, but the other groups, including the Little Firstborn, were present, and the Little Firstborn leaders even repented there.[138] Mullo’s Hallites, who were still members of the “big church,” though spiritually separate, also participated fully in the reconciliation. Before the meeting began, Arthur Heideman left for Finland with his son Paul, whom he left there to study theology. Saarnivaara claims that when Arthur was asked by preacher Jacob Uitti whether he had anything against participating, he only replied, “Will Roosevelt also be coming?”[139]

At the 1908 meeting, it was decided to hold a similar meeting the following year in New York Mills, Minnesota -- and annual meetings, known as conventions, have been held to this day. However, in New York Mills, a dispute emerged because, as Pollari says, Ojala and Mullo, who had not abandoned their “old leaven” in doctrine, “rose against the gospel as before.”[140] The scanty minutes published in Armonsanoma give no hint of a dispute, but Heikki Jussila claimed to have some details in 1934:

The Christians explained there that the law is not established for the righteous. But a terrible fight erupted when those heretics rose to fight with postils and formulas of concord to show that the law belongs to the Christian. The man chosen to write the minutes told how the meeting ended. He showed the width of a span with his hand, saying that he did not get any more than a span written before the meeting became as rowdy as an American tavern.[141]

Saarnivaara, however, claims that the third use of the law was not even an issue in America until 1923, when it emerged in connection with the publication of Määttälä’s Jeesuksen Askeleille, which will be discussed later. According to Saarnivaara, after the 1908 meeting, the groups began to level accusations at each other, one side charging “legalism” and the other “carnal liberty.” He claims that it was not a disagreement between Conservatives and Reawakenists but between Conservatives and “extreme-evangelicals.” He also claims that at the 1909 meeting, William Alajoki accused certain other preachers of “legalism” and that the “extreme-evangelicals” accused the other group of binding people into the law by means of the apostolic counsels and compulsory confession.[142]

According to the minutes of the 1911 meeting, held again in Calumet, preacher Johan Mursu noted that many people were absent, that “the decisions of the original Calumet meeting had not produced the desired results,” and that several preachers, such as Arthur Heideman, William Lahtinen, William Alajoki, Pekka Raattamaa, Matti Tauriainen and Jacob Vuollet, were maligning the annual meetings, which had been initiated by “Ojala’s party,” and he proposed that they not be held for a couple of years until “better men” reinitiate them. According to the minutes, Pollari “confirmed” Mursu’s words. He recalled the reconciliations of the previous meetings and how all who were now criticizing the meetings had rejoiced over them but reminded the assembly of the dispute at the New York Mills meeting. He recommended -- to no avail -- that the meetings not be held until the participants were in one doctrine.[143] The congregations that still participate in these annual events are referred to not only as Little Firstborn but also as Conventionists (isoseuralaiset). Since 1928, they have also been called Federationists (kirkkokuntalaiset) because they established a church federation in that year, known at that time as the Finnish Apostolic Lutheran Church of America and today as the Apostolic Lutheran Church of America.

Kalle Ojala, who was not allowed to preach in Heideman’s church in Calumet, occasionally held services in the “little church.” At the 1916 convention, Jacob Uitti, defending the Conventionists, explained that the 1908 meeting was not initiated by Ojala but by Heideman’s church in Calumet and exhorted Ojala to refrain from performing pastoral functions in the “little church.”[144] The next year, Ojala was living in Astoria, Oregon, where he became pastor of the Apostolic Lutheran Church. At the convention held in Ironwood, Michigan, in 1923, he finally asked for forgiveness for having preached in the “little church.”[145]

Evert Määttälä’s Book

Pastor Evert Määttälä, a Conventionist, writes in his book Jeesuksen Askeleille (Into the Footsteps of Jesus), published in 1923:

The law, correctly followed, is indeed good (I Tim. 1:8) and should be a guide of life for all mortal men, including believers (Deut. 5:32-33, 8:6, 10:12, 10:22, Josh. 1:7, 23:6, Ezek. 20:19, Ps. 1:1).[146]

In the book, Määttälä also quotes passages from the Formula of Concord in defense of his doctrine. Heikki Jussila, a strong opponent of the third use of the law, was visiting America shortly after the book was published. After reading it, he suggested, in a 1924 article, a better title for the book: “From the footsteps of Jesus to the footsteps of Moses.”[147] Jussila also deals with this issue in his history, in which he says:

The decision on the third use of the law was made at the meeting of the apostles in agreement with the congregation (Acts 15:22), and it was sent in writing to the congregations in Antioch, Syria and Cilicia. In it, the doctrine of the teachers of the law on the use of the law for Christians as a guideline, a reminder of sin and a teacher of good works is rejected as a subversive doctrine and as a practice that troubles the souls of the righteous (Acts 15:24).[148]

According to Saarnivaara, Määttälä quoted the Formula of Concord because there were, among the Apostolic-Lutherans, “extreme-evangelicals,” who “rejected all teaching of God’s commandments and rebukes to believers.”[149] Määttälä defends himself with similar words in a 1932 article. However, neither Saarnivaara nor Määttälä explain how the establishment of the law as a rule of life for believers is a proper method of dealing with extremism of any kind. In his article, Määttälä discusses a particularly offensive portion of the Formula of Concord, which he had quoted from the Lutheran Confessions (Book of Concord) in support of his position:

This was the rock of offense, the quoting of which made teacher Jussila say that it leads to the footsteps of Moses, as though Moses were on the path to hell. And the late Juhani Rautio, the apostle of the Tornio River valley, said that the book is good except that it makes the Ten Commandments a guideline of God’s Kingdom. Already years ago, at the [1924] Calumet convention, I asked for forgiveness at the meeting of preachers for having been so unobservant as to quote that passage from the Confessions in my book. My intention was not to bring the Ten Commandments, nor can anyone bring them, into God’s Kingdom, for the Holy God himself brought them there. And the whip of the law there in God’s Kingdom has also driven me to the door of the sheepfold, and God, the Holy Spirit, through the Son, that is, the bloody door of the sheepfold, has granted me access into the sheepfold, the living congregation.[150]

Määttälä’s signature is found with those of a large number of other Conventionist preachers on the following statement issued on June 15, 1933:

We preachers of the Finnish Apostolic Lutheran Church, gathered at Virginia, Minnesota, in conjunction with the convention, in which our brothers from Finland, Antti Krekula and Ville Kaikkonen, are also present, in discussing differences in the understanding of doctrine, have come to the conclusion that we do not approve nor support, neither do we follow the Reawakenist doctrine of the law as a guideline for the righteous; neither do we approve of the liberty that we have in Christ becoming an occasion to the flesh. It must not serve us as a cloak of evil. Neither do we approve nor do we desire to confess any congregation of firstborn other than the one that has begun with Abel and still exists, in which Jesus is the firstborn among many brethren. And we hope for the great blessing of God so that the matters that have caused disagreements and dissension in Christianity thus far could be corrected by asking for forgiveness and granting forgiveness, and thus we could remain united by the bond of peace in one spirit.[151]

However, the critics of the Conventionists were not persuaded that Määttälä and his friends were sincere in their disavowals of the third use of the law, and rightly so, for with the help of the Federation, Määttälä continued to sell his book.[152] An English edition is even being disseminated today, along with other literature teaching the third use of the law, by Reawakenist elements in the Federation.

In 1947, Saarnivaara described a “legalistic” faction in the West (Oregon, Washington), led by Carl J. Sacarisen, which rejects ordination, is more scrupulous about apparel and teaches the third use of the law.[153] Sacarisen’s view of the law is made quite clear in a 1961 sermon on I John 2:1-7, given in Hockinson, Washington:

Thus, the Apostle writes here to the believing children of God and says: ‘He is the propitiation for our sins and not for ours only, but also of the whole world. And hereby do we know that we know Him if we keep His commandments.’ But what does the Apostle mean and what does he refer to? Does he mean the law of Ten Commandments, or does he mean the law of the ordinances, or does he mean the communal law? (Some brethren answered that the Apostle was referring to and meaning the law of the Ten Commandments.) That is also my understanding, as also we read in the Revelation, where Jesus says of all them that keep God’s commandments -- that they have access to the tree of life and may enter in through the gates into the city.[154]

Sacarisen thus blatantly disregards Apostle John’s own explanation of what he means by God’s commandments: “And this is his commandment, That we should believe on the name of his Son Jesus Christ, and love one another, as he gave us commandment” (I John 3:23).

Saarnivaara interprets the meaning of “commandments” in John’s epistles no less legalistically. He writes in his 1947 English-language history:

This law of Christ, and all the teachings, reproofs, corrections and instruction contained in the New Testament, contain all the main points of the Ten Commandments and even more, but it does not pronounce a curse and a condemnation upon all those who do not observe all things written in it, as the law of Moses does. The Christian is willing to obey all the commandments of God, for love of God is that we keep His commandments (I John 5:3). But because of the corruption which is still in the Christian, he is able to keep them only in part, and he may believe that according to His promise, God will not impute his remaining sins and weaknesses to him for guilt and condemnation, but will forgive them and account him righteous and a fulfiller of the law for Christ’s sake.[155]

Saarnivaara also falls here into another error of nominal Christians, that of assuming that man is able to keep the law in part. This assumption is, of course, contradictory to the fundamental doctrine of total depravity, which is made so clear in Holy Scripture (Genesis 6:5, Romans 7:14,18,19) that it is hard to imagine that it could be denied.

Expulsion of the Conventionists

When Arthur Heideman died in 1928, he was succeeded as pastor by his son Paul. In 1929, the Conventionists in Calumet were expelled from Heideman’s church, and they then established their own congregation in Laurium, which joined the federation that had been established in 1928. Thus far, only one preacher from Finland, Pauli Rantala, had attended a convention -- the one held in Calumet in 1911. According to Heikki Jussila, he was “rebuked” for doing so at the Rovaniemi “big services” in 1912, and the following year, at the Kajaani services, he repented of his trip after a “lengthy examination” of the matter.[156] Saarnivaara admits that repentance was demanded of Rantala but denies that Rantala, who had the support of Runtti, Suo and other prominent preachers, repented in Kajaani, where Jussila himself was under pressure to repent, as will be noted later. Saarnivaara feels that his version of events is confirmed by Rantala’s continued support for the Conventionists.[157]

The Conventionists eventually appealed to Antti Pietilä, a prominent non-Laestadian professor in Finland, for help in procuring a Conservative preacher to preach at their conventions.[158] As a result, Väinö Juntunen left for America in 1932. The same year, in spite of warnings, preachers Antti Krekula and Ville Kaikkonen responded to invitations from the Conventionists. According to Saarnivaara, before any of these men had even returned, a meeting of preachers was held in Oulu, at which it was decided that by going to America they had “committed a violation against the congregation” and had “separated themselves from the general love of the Christians.” Upon their return, a circular was sent on December 27, 1933, to the various congregations, ordering that “all children of God separate themselves from such preachers and their supporters, who do not obey the counsels of love of God’s children and congregations but act against them.”[159]

The matter was taken up again at the 1934 “big services” in Oulu, where it was decided that the three preachers had supported the wrong group in America. The participants, sensitive to charges that they were modifying Christ’s command to preach to all (Matthew 28:19), issued a statement in which it was said that these preachers had “not been prohibited from preaching to all, even to those to whom they went, but this work should have occurred in cooperation with the children of God in America who are known in heart, Paul Heideman and his friends.” The three men were admonished as follows:

We hope and pray that the beloved Father would give these brothers, Juntunen, Krekula and Kaikkonen, the grace to repent from their violation against love and their support of mixed fellowship, but unless this occurs, these brothers will, in spite of all the counsels of love that they have received, rend themselves from the love of the Christians. We also regret that certain beloved brothers have started to enthusiastically and even zealously support the mentioned travelers to America. We hope that they will cease from this activity, which has caused dissension and disagreement, but unless this occurs, these brothers will also rend themselves from the love of the Christians.

At the meeting, “an appeal was also made to their consciences as to whether the preservation of unity of the Spirit and the mutual bond of peace of God’s children were not more precious to them than their own opinions and whether there was not reason for them to humble themselves to repentance from the sin of disobedience against the general love of the Christians, but these brothers, in spite of heartfelt exhortations, did not submit to repentance but rigidly remained in their own opinion.”[160]

The expelled preachers, supported by Pauli Rantala, Sakari Ainali, Heikki Hooli, Janne Marttiini and others, gained a foothold mainly in the Tornio River valley. Not surprisingly, efforts at reconciliation in 1945 and 1946 failed. The group is commonly referred to in Finland as the Little Firstborn and formally as Lähetysyhdistys Rauhan Sana. It has its own mouthpiece, Rauhan Sana. Swedish-speaking supporters in Finland are known formally as Laestadianernas Fridsföreningars Förbund (Association of Laestadian Peace Associations) and publish Zions Missionstidning. The group remains in spiritual harmony with the American Federationists, whose views have been published in Kristillinen Kuukauslehti (not to be confused with the monthly published in the last century in Finland under the same name) and Christian Monthly. The Federation is heavily involved in missionary work in Africa, Russia, India, Guatemala and elsewhere.

There is tension in the Federation not only between Reawakenists and so-called evangelicals but also between lay preachers and graduates (“seminarians”) of the Inter-Lutheran Theological Seminary (“Saarnivaara’s school”), now located in Hancock, Michigan. Numerous local schisms have occurred. In Ironwood, Michigan, for example, one such schism led to the Reawakenist elements remaining in the Federation and the other side establishing its own church, the Good Shepherd Community - Apostolic Lutheran Church, with Seminary graduate Norman Kangas as pastor. The charismatic movement has penetrated the Federation in the form of an internal entity known as Christian Outreach, which is active in Battleground, Washington, in Rindge, New Hampshire, and in Greer, South Carolina. Even multiple congregations have emerged in the same community. In Greer, there are no less than four congregations: Rutherford Road (the official Federation body), Eastside (Seminarian), Christian Outreach, and a new entity that emerged in the fall of 2000 with Arvi Aho as pastor. In Washington, two congregations (Orchards and Vancouver) have separated from Hockinson and its strong Reawakenist element.

CHAPTER 5 THE SRK GROUP

Origin

The Finnish Central Association of the Associations of Peace (Suomen rauhanyhdistysten keskusyhdistys) was established in Oulu in 1914. It is usually referred to simply as the SRK, and its supporters are known as “rauhanyhdistysläiset.” This body eventually became the nucleus of a large group of member associations that joined it and became known as the SRK Group. As its influence increased, the group began demanding strict obedience to the decisions of its meetings as the “decisions of the Holy Spirit.” J. A. Tauriainen writes, for example, in this spirit in a 1926 article in Siionin Lähetyslehti, which became the SRK’s mouthpiece:

Our spiritual mother is the Kingdom of God. Therefore, it is not at all appropriate for a child to oppose his mother or object to the precious truths of God’s Word taught by her. The unity and love of the Spirit are precious and are also a uniting bond. Whether a disagreement is of a temporal or spiritual nature, when it spoils fraternal and common love, it is required as a condition of salvation that one submit in humility to the common understanding of the Kingdom of God and publicly repent.[161]

The SRK gained the support of Paul Heideman and his friends in America, known as Heidemanians (heidemanilaiset), who have also demanded strict compliance with their decisions. Preacher Peter Nevala writes in this spirit in a 1975 English-language article:

The humility of children is the acceptance of all things from the hand of God, who in the fellowship of His kingdom cares for His own. The humility of a child of God is total acceptance of the voice of His Spirit, which speaks through the mouths of the previously believing. ‘He that heareth thee, heareth me.’ The true humility of a child is realized obedience to the voice of the congregation, the kingdom, and ‘Mother’ of us all. ‘Behold, the tabernacle of God among men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself shall be with them and be their God’ Rev. 21:3. This is why Paul calls the kingdom, the congregation, ‘the ground and pillar of truth.’ The Spirit of God, which dwells in the kingdom, the communion of saints, the holy congregation, is an unerring, infallible Teacher; for Jesus says: ‘It shall lead you unto all truth.’[162]

The doctrinal methods used by the SRK to consolidate its power within Conservatism were legalistic use of the apostolic “counsels and teachings,” compulsory confession and accusations of carnality. Today, the SRK, having suppressed and expelled evangelical and other critical elements, enjoys the support of the majority of Laestadians in Finland. The doctrine of the SRK Group has been aptly described as that of the “three-cubit God,” for its preachers teach that forgiveness, even for a believer, is offered only through a brother’s mouth, that is, through absolution. The doctrine that there is forgiveness of sins in the sacraments (as taught, for example, in Luther’s Small Catechism) is rejected.[163] Saarnivaara finds evidence of the “three-cubit God” doctrine in the SRK in a 1946 resolution, which states:

The work of God, the Holy Spirit, in the world takes place through the congregation. Christ, the head of the congregation, does not take a single step further than does his congregation, which is the temple of the Holy Spirit.[164]

Carnality and the 1916 Discussion

In his 1956 history, SRK supporter Kullervo Hulkko paints a rather negative picture of certain preachers:

At the turn of the century, preachers who tried to effect powerful ‘liikutuksia’ by sermons that appealed to the emotions began circulating again. Thus the fire of ‘cold jumping’ burst into full flame. Preachers Risto Veteläinen and Herman Ahola fanned this false flame in Kuusamo Parish, as did Olli Alatalo in Taivalkoski and Pudasjärvi. The testimony has been given of these men that for years they circulated as preachers with unclean consciences. Their concept of Christianity was the typical ‘carnal liberty’ doctrine, as has been reported in Kuusamo and Pudasjärvi.[165]

It is difficult to assess the validity of all these charges, made by an author who tends to classify all liikutuksia as “cold jumping.” Hulkko’s comments on the “sign of grace,” which marked the beginning of the revival in 1845, when a Lapp woman jumped for joy, reveals his prejudice against liikutuksia:

But precisely because the message of the revival movement led to a severe psychic turning point in the life of those carried away by the movement, the revival could not, any more than any other of our ecclesiastical revival movements, entirely avoid visions, revelations, speaking in tongues, trance preaching or other so-called ecstatic phenomena [hurmosilmiöt], among which the ‘sign of grace’ now under consideration also belongs in a sense.[166]

The issue of “carnality” among the preachers was taken up at the 1916 “big services” in Oulu, where a participant by the name of Välitalo asked, “Why does carnality seek to enter the kingdom of God?” He explained:

Now many fear false spirituality and self-righteousness, but alongside this, they grant a foothold to carnality and make little use of the words of counsel and teaching, which we need because we are not at all holier than the former travelers on the path of life. Such persons have gone into a false doctrine and have rent the congregation of God.

Juho Heilala asked, “What is to be thought of the spiritual condition of preachers who repeatedly fall into carnality and carnal conduct but always repent to a different father confessor?” Heilala explained:

Carnal liberty can lie close alongside Christian freedom. If a preacher has fallen and first tells the matter to one father confessor and then falls again but tells it to a different father confessor, this is a way of sparing the flesh, for it would hurt the flesh if one always went to the same father confessor. But here the words of the Bible are disregarded: ‘He that hath suffered in the flesh hath ceased from sin [I Peter 4:1].’

Juuso Runtti said:

The disease of carnality appears in two forms: First, speakers speak evil of others, which is due to self-admiration. And I think that one reason for this is that not very many are able to regard praise as dangerous as it is. From these heights of vain glory, the path often begins into carnal liberty. The righteous indeed falls, but he also rises, and I do not believe that he repeatedly falls into the same slough. But if this happens with trust in the forgiveness of sins, then the gospel is made a gospel of the flesh. Then one begins to believe too much in the forgiveness of sins -- as precious and valuable a gift as it is. For if penitence, repentance and faith in the gospel have indeed occurred in the heart, it gives power to abandon and cease from sin. It does not entirely free the Christian from sin, but it makes him a soldier and one who keeps his body under subjection. I do not say this out of disdain for absolution from sin but so that it would not be made into a savior.

Runtti added later:

At times during these last 45 years, one has gone entirely to an extreme in the gospel, but when it was noticed that this wouldn’t succeed long, one started to ‘sharpen’ the Word of God, and so one arrived at another extreme. I readily turn to the brothers present here with the wish that they would take the Word of the Lord in entirety. But I have been told, ‘The consciences of Christians do not bear all the writings of the Bible.’ But if we must once appear before the judgment seat of God, we should indeed become so familiar with the Word of the Lord that we could bear it. I have noticed a kind of ‘competitive gospel,’ that when someone preaches well, I don’t want to be worse. But, in any case, I would hope that we discard all ‘fashionable gospels’ and that our only question would be what God speaks and to cease from our own words with holy reverence. . . . I remember when some spread the doctrine of public confession. When they cleared up from this, they noticed in their minds that they had gone under the law, and then they put away all words of counsel and reproof -- now grace and the forgiveness of sins were to be preached. Then, when the Reawakening came, all those, our most evangelical people, were in the forefront condemning the Christians and turning their hope toward hell. I think I have noticed that this fear of the law has made many sensitive, so that they cannot preach about anything other than false doctrine. So now let’s not cease preaching the gospel to sinners on account of these faults, but neither must we be afraid of preaching the truth.

At the end of the meeting, Runtti proposed the following resolution, which was approved:

The preachers, gathered in the name of Jesus, have unanimously decided that all preachers who live and walk in works of the flesh -- insofar as such has become evident -- should cease preaching, and the Missionary Committee is authorized to present rebukes on behalf of this discussion meeting with the warning that if they do not desist and agree to improve they will be declared publicly.

A second resolution was also approved:

Preachers not recognized as preachers, who have not been invited by common consent and whom no one has sent, should be prevented from traveling as preachers of Christianity.[167]

Runtti’s statements, not surprisingly, were assailed after the meeting. Adolf Suoraniemi wrote in a 1917 letter:

Now I ask you, Brother: What is the difference between the gospel and the truth if the gospel isn’t the truth? But with this trick, this fine trick of self-righteousness, they claim to be trying to set a barrier to carnality. But here they go now from ‘one extreme to another.’ For if the gospel isn’t the truth, there isn’t any other truth that would make a sinner righteous and thus saved, for ‘ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free’ [John 8:32]. Also: ‘Ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation’ [Ephesians 1:13]. And whoever abandons the gospel also abandons the truth, and whoever preaches the gospel according to the scripture, also preaches the truth, not a lie. The Reawakenists called the law the word of truth. Now those who have never really become clear about the Reawakening heresy call the words of counsel and instruction the word of truth, but whoever rightly understands the truth of the gospel and preaches it correctly also preaches the words of counsel and instruction, and reproof as well, and does not avoid them, but he doesn’t make of this another power and savior, as in this case, even if it isn’t their purpose, but what happens is that the gospel and truth are divided when they start watching that a person doesn’t become too lax and thus a follower of sin. But the words of counsel and instruction haven’t given anyone power, but only wholesome grace, the truth of the gospel, claimed by faith, has given power to become a child of God. This has given power to follow the will of God, and this has taught one to deny all ungodly conduct and to live virtuously and righteously in this world.[168]

The Fear of the Lord

In a 1962 interview in Finland, Jaakko Perä, a son of Johan Perä, claimed that four preachers taught that “there is no need to fear God”: Iisakki Rova, Adolf Suoraniemi, Kalle Heliste and Juhani Hautajärvi.[169] However, such a statement is an oversimplification, for when the issue was raised at the 1909 “big services” in Haaparanta, Heliste said:

Let’s look at the children of God who lived during the period between the Old Testament and New Testament, as, for example, the Virgin Mary. Through the power of the Holy Spirit, she preaches of the mercy of God toward those who fear him (Luke 1:46-56). But then Zacharias says, ‘that we might serve him without fear’ (Luke 1:74). How is this to be understood correctly? The child of God also feels a kind of fear that is to be removed by preaching so that, as Zacharias says, we might serve him without fear.

Pauli Rantala commented:

I don’t have the understanding that righteous souls should be in this fear: ‘Am I acceptable to the Father?’ For such is a wrong fear that comes from doubts, but I mean a fear that comes from God’s love, which would never again grieve the mind of the Heavenly Father in any way, for such a child’s fear only leads the child closer to the heart of the Father.

Leonard Typpö, quoting Hebrews 12:28, agreed with Rantala, saying that he had the “same understanding of the fear of the Lord.” A quotation from Luther, used by Typpö, was approved as a final statement:

Servile fear comes from the law and its curse, but childlike fear comes from the gospel and its comfort.[170]

In a 1917 article, Matti Suo presented an imaginary dialogue, in which a “certain brother” says:

But at the same time that we were made free from that condemning law, we entered the law of Christ, which was now left for us to follow. In it, the Holy Spirit with love is a teacher, urging us to reject all ungodly conduct. Then the child of God promised, ‘Now I no longer want to grieve the heart of my lover with willful sins and transgressions, but I want to show obedience to his holy will.’ And this is precisely what it is to journey in the correct fear of God, which is effected not by the servile fear that flows from the law but by the eternal love of Jesus.

Another imaginary “brother,” who was at first opposed to the “fear of God,” now sees the light. He says:

If that is then to be understood as the fear of God, when a Christian struggles as a victor over sin and as a mortifier of the old man through faith, and as long as there isn’t any secret treachery of the devil hidden under it, this is indeed entirely correct, and I don’t have anything against it. For a Christian must always be in warfare here on earth, as the Lord’s servant Job has also said [Job 7:1, Finnish Bible]. And, indeed, this old portion always has to be mortified and subjugated so that it doesn’t bear fruit to death. If sin still besets us and slows our pace on the path of life, we always have to lay it aside and endeavor to struggle in steps of repentance, believing our sins forgiven in the blood of Jesus.[171]

In his 1917 letter, Suoraniemi replies:

But now fear, love and obedience are jumbled together, and so fearlessness [pelkäämättömyys], the nature of the mercy of God, entirely disappears. And fear is explained as ‘childlike’ fear, a fear of ‘love’ and a fear of ‘obedience,’ of which the whole dead Christian world also preaches and still doesn’t know what fear and fearlessness are, that is, they don’t understand the righteousness of God. And one has in places started to oppose carnality with this word of fear. But now it has happened here in Kuusamo that those who are in the so-called childlike fear and have been in disagreement from the beginning with the Kingdom of God, fearing that the teaching is too lenient, have now become the most zealous defenders of Herman Ahola. Therefore, as has occurred here, when a man goes astray in one thing, he goes astray in another, and so they finally end up as sheep without a shepherd. Thus, the complaint of the Lord through the Prophet suits them: ‘This people draw near me with their mouth, and with their lips do honour me, but have removed their heart far from me, and their fear toward me is taught by the precept of men’ (Isaiah 29:13). . . . Last fall in Kemijärvi, when I visited there, the enlightened children of God marveled that this childlike fear, which, before the Reawakening, was a matter of contention with those who were in the forefront headed into the Reawakening, had remained in the Kingdom of God after all. And, indeed, it does seem amazing, but as I have already said, it stems from the fact that they do not understand the righteousness of God. And so they have to start explaining with lame parables and novels, as does M. Suo in the February issue of Siionin Lähetyslehti, in which all fearlessness disappears. Therefore, a schism will yet occur in the Kingdom of God because of this word, for such signs are here, as I have already said above as to who are Ahola’s most zealous defenders. And this indeed is what happened when the Reawakening began. When some became entirely fleshly, efforts were initiated to correct them with the law and childlike fear, and they became so well corrected that through false doctrine there came a heresy, and those who were corrected became the most zealous preachers of the false doctrine.

The concept of “fearlessness” was finally classified as a “false doctrine” in a statement of a 1931 meeting of preachers in Oulu, which includes the following words:

The doctrine of fearlessness toward God indeed reared its head among us to some extent in times past, but it was rejected as a false doctrine, and the brothers who found themselves in it have repented of their error.[172]

Cliques Emerge in Finland

Saarnivaara writes, in regard to the beloved Minnesota preacher William Lahtinen, who died with his wife on the Titanic in 1912, that when he was in Finland in 1911-12, he criticized Juuso Runtti, Juhani Rautio, Pauli Rantala and others as being “teachers of the law.” According to Saarnivaara, “he explained that teaching the words of instruction, counsel and reproof to Christians was to bind them to the law.”[173]

Pastor Vilho Kivioja of Kalajoki writes in a February 6, 1936 letter, “Here in 1917, at the time of the Easter services, [August] Back and Heikki Jussila were on the same side, and [Leonard] Typpö and [Juuso] Runtti were arguing against them, precisely over the matters of the minutes of the meeting of the previous year, and the same matters are at issue now.”[174] Saarnivaara also writes, in regard to the same era, that in Rovaniemi there was a group that considered Leonard Typpö, Juuso Runtti, Juhani Rautio, Pauli Rantala and Matti Suo correct, and another group that was on the side of Juho Kanniainen, August Back and Heikki Jussila. When Typpö or his friends preached, their group sat in front, and when Kanniainen or his friends preached, the other group sat in front. Typpö and his friends, according to Saarnivaara, were called “little Reawakenists” because they proclaimed the Word of God more fully, “not just the gospel but also the words of counsel and reproof for Christians.” Saarnivaara alleges in regard to Jussila, a member of the other -- “evangelical” -- group, that he was viewed for awhile as having been contaminated with the “three-cubit God” doctrine and also with Sandbergism (samperilaisuus), named after Heikki Sandberg of Kemi, who is also known as “viisas Sandberg” (wise Sandberg).[175]

Sandberg’s doctrine is described in Virkkala’s history:

Although he preached of ‘circumcision of the heart,’ the work of atonement and sanctification in the manner of the Reawakenists, he was of the opinion that the way in which the Reawakenists presented the sufferings of Jesus and daily penitence led to a heavy spirit of bondage. As for himself, he wanted to speak more boldly about believing freely.

According to Virkkala, after Sandberg’s death in 1908, his followers, at least in Teuva and Kemi, joined the Reawakening.[176] Saarnivaara alleges that Heikki Jussila was urged to repent of Sandbergism at the 1910 Helsinki “big services” and that he finally did so, albeit privately, at the 1913 services in Kajaani.[177]

Toivo Korpela

In 1929, a meeting of preachers was held in Oulu, to which Toivo Korpela of Ähtäri, Finland, was summoned to answer certain accusations in regard to his conduct that remain rather vague. According to Hulkko, who had access to the SRK archives, Korpela initially confessed some of his “transgressions” but retracted his confession during the meeting. Hulkko comments in his history that “continuing love for and tolerance of sin led to such spinelessness.”[178] The meeting’s resolution included the following words:

Since heavy charges have been made at this meeting against preacher Toivo Korpela in regard to matters over which Korpela’s conscience does not appear to be convicted, the meeting views it necessary to firmly forbid Korpela from appearing as a preacher for the time being, until the Christianity of his community views his condition as such that he can be allowed to preach. Even in the event that Korpela is allowed to travel as a preacher, the meeting is of the view that he needs an older and tested preacher as his companion.[179]

In spite of the ban against him, Korpela continued to preach in Sattajärvi, Kiruna and other localities in Sweden. When Korpela showed up at the 1932 New Year’s services in Lannavaara, he was, at first, not allowed to preach. According to the account given by Pentecostal writer Frans Raattamaa, the “atmosphere was charged to the breaking point,” for the opposition had grown so strong that the leaders were apprehensive of losing their power. According to Raattamaa, there was great interest in hearing Korpela, but the leaders demanded that he confess his offenses and ask for forgiveness. A document was drafted along these lines for him to sign, which he did, after which he thanked the brothers for having led him onto the right path. However, Korpela’s supporters did not approve of the document, which was supposed to be sent to a newspaper in Finland. A few days later, in a sermon in Övre Soppero, where the services continued, he retracted his signature and claimed that he had been forced to sign the document. The other preachers, who were generally viewed as being “envious of Korpela because it was easier for him to effect the so-called liikutuksia,” issued a statement against him, but all the people in the area, except for a few individuals, went over to Korpela’s side, and the movement also “spread like wildfire” in Karesuando and Pajala.[180]

In the summer of 1932, Korpela’s case was discussed at the “big services” in Iisalmi, where the following resolution was passed:

Inasmuch as Toivo Korpela, who has traveled in northern Finland and northern Sweden without being sent by God’s congregation, has spread deceitful accusations that the preachers and the Board of the Finnish Central Association of the Associations of Peace have been motivated only by envy in banning him from making preaching trips, the general conference of Christians gathered in Iisalmi, having once again thoroughly studied the matter, resolves that since Korpela has been detected to be a liar and disobedient and slanderous of Christians, the congregation of God will continue to concur in the decisions made in regard to him, Korpela, by the meeting of preachers in Oulu and the Swedish brethren in Lannavaara.[181]

The Revised Finnish Bible

In early 1934, while Korpela was in Finland, it was “revealed” to Sigurd Siikavaara and Arthur Niemi, who had begun to preach to Korpela’s followers in Sweden, that the abomination of desolation of Daniel, which they identified with the revised version of the Finnish Bible, had been set up on January 1, 1934. They calculated, therefore, on the basis of Daniel 12:12, that there would be 1,335 days to judgment day, which would occur on July 24, 1937.[182]

The new corrupt Bible, strangely enough, has been accepted to some extent by Laestadians. It is used, for example, in a 1935 address of Väinö Havas to a meeting of pastors in Tampere,[183] in a 1957 address of Pastor Leonard Pietari Tapaninen to a meeting of preachers in Kuopio,[184] and in a 1963 book of Janne Marttiini.[185] At the 1930 “big services” in Kajaani, the following resolution was approved:

Since the old translation of the Bible is dear to the great majority of Christians, and we have become accustomed to it from childhood, and since there are a number of very weak points in the new translation, it is to be wished that all preachers of Christianity -- insofar as is possible -- would read their texts at services from the old translation and would also use it in writings in Siionin Lähetyslehti.[186]

A committee was also established in Kajaani to examine the proposed new Bible. The members, which included Väinö Havas, who had repented from the Reawakening in 1929, examined it and presented a list of criticisms in a booklet published in 1933. Strangely, the booklet admits that the research in it is based on a comparison of the new translation with editions of the original texts prepared by Bible critics -- Rudolf Kittel’s Hebrew Old Testament and Eberhard Nestle’s Greek New Testament.[187] Thus the list overlooks many changes in the new translation, to which the committee should have objected, such as the omission of the Trinity in I John 5:7.

The Federationists are much more supportive of Bible revision than are other groups. Saarnivaara actually writes, in regard to I John 5:7, that it is an unwarranted addition to the original text:

This addition is indeed in accordance with the teachings of the Bible, but it (the so-called comma Johanneum) is not part of the original text of I John.[188]

Surprisingly, Saarnivaara uses Revelation 22:19 -- which is normally used by opponents of textual revision -- to justify the omission:

Since according to this verse of Revelation, nothing is to be added that is not there, those who prepared the Bible translation have been obligated to eliminate from it the passages that are not in the oldest manuscripts and thus, judging from everything, were not in the original New Testament.[189]

Since the 1642 and 1776 versions of the Finnish Bible were published, the Finnish language has not changed nearly as much as has the English language since 1611, when the King James Version appeared. Yet, curiously, it is often claimed that even the 1776 version is difficult to understand. The spelling of the 1776 version was updated in the last century, leading some, like Pastor Ossi Ylipekkala, to conclude that a new translation was made then. In a 1992 article, Ylipekkala justifies the then eagerly awaited newest Finnish Bible (which was published the same year):