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From Private Counsellor to Public Church Politician – Three Female Expressions of Conservative, Urban Lutheranism in Western Sweden, 1810–1910

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 March 2016

Anders Jarlert
Anders Jarlert*
Affiliation:
Lund University
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Extract

During the nineteenth century, the High Church revival tradition initiated by Henric Schartau (1757-1825) was widely spread and accepted in western Sweden. According to Bishop Wordsworth of Salisbury, Schartau ‘had something of the character of Dr. Pusey in his relation to those who consulted him, but, in his position at Lund, and his general influence, he was perhaps more like his English contemporary, Charles Simeon (1759-1836), at Cambridge’. Wordsworth found great merit in his teaching, being ‘strong and spiritual, and without the defects of Moravian or Pietistic sentimentality’. During his Scandinavian journey in 1889, Randall Davidson characterized the followers of Schartau as a High Church party in their emphasis on private confession and their strict rules of conduct. On the other hand he found them to be zealous about the Sabbath, and preaching conversion in a quasi-Methodist way. Here, we shall study this movement through the examples of three women of urban culture. The Schartau tradition has been studied mainly with emphasis on its doctrines and clergy, and as a rural tradition connected to the unchanging values and structures of the old rural society. Through these examples of urban women, the general impact of the tradition is widened, and the emphasis is put on the changes in reception of the tradition among lay people in a changing society.

Type
Research Article
Information
Studies in Church History , Volume 34: Gender and Christian Religion , 1998 , pp. 295 - 307
Copyright
Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 1998

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References

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3 See Hulthén, Tore, Jesu Regering. En studie i Henric Schartaus teologiska ȧskȧdning i jämförelse med ortodox, pietistisk och wolffiansk lärouppfattning, 1 (Lund, 1969), p. 172.Google Scholar

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9 Ibid., pp. 113–14; Banks, Faces of Feminism, p. 13.

10 As early as in 1812 she copied Schartau’s instructions for a correct reading of the Scriptures, which were not printed until the 1820s, Carl S. Lindblad, ‘Författarinnan och hennes skrifter’, in Abela Gullbransson, For hemmets stilla stunder. Betraktelser, ed. Carl S. Lindblad (Stockholm, 1923), p. VI. The correspondence has been noted by Valborg Lindgarde, ‘Ordets kraft’, in Fadcrshuset. 1800-talet. Nordisk kvinnolitteraturhistoria, 2 (Höganäs, 1993), p. 195.

11 Hulthén, Jesu Regering, pp. 172–3.

12 Goteborg, Göteborgs Universitetsbibliotek, C. S. Lindblads samling. Cf. Lindgärde, ‘Ordets kraft’, p. 195.

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16 Ibid., p. 119.

17 Lauretis, ‘Feminist studies/critical studies’, p. 180.

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21 Ibid., p. 39.

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23 Jarlert, ‘Och lar mig sucka innerlig’, pp. 39–40.

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25 Jarlert, ‘Och lar mig sucka innerlig’, pp. 37–8.

26 On the following, see ibid., ch. 7.

27 Johan A. Bogren, Den kyrkliga själavȧrden. Föredrag vid prästsälbkapets sammantmde i Goteborg 14 sept. 1926 (Goteborg, 1926).

28 Jarlert, ‘Och lär mig sucka innerlig’, p. 59, and further Hjalmar Sundén, Religionen och rollerna. Ett psykologiskt studium av fromheten (Stockholm, 1959), p. 361.

29 ‘Kvinnan i kyrkans rjanst. En interview med D:r Parker’, Idun (1895), pp. 91–3.

30 With the author, duplicated memoirs, ‘Signe Hellbcrgs memoarer’, pp. 37–43.

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33 ‘Kyrkostamman med Uddevalla och Bäfve’, Bohusläningen, 12 Dec. 1890. On the background to the duplicated main services, see Hellman, Gället, pp. 87–8.

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36 UKA, ‘Den ifrȧgasatta nya kyrkan i Uddevalla’, Bohusläningen, 12 Oct. 1893; ‘Kyrkostämman i tisdags med Uddevalla och Bäfve församlingar’, Bohusläns Annonsblad, 13 Oct. 1893. One person could ‘own’ several votes.

37 See Yngve Larsson, Pȧ marsch mot demokratin. Frȧn hundragradig skala till allman rösträtt (1900-1920) (Stockholm, 1967), pp. 116–17, 131–2.

38 [Gustaf Ȧberger,] Schartauanismen i lära och lefverne af en svenska kyrkans vän-BRG. (Stockholm, 1901), pp. 106–8.

39 Alcoff, ‘Cultural feminism’, pp. 434–5.

40 See Christer Winberg, Fabriksfolket. Textilindustrin i Mark och arbetarrörelsens genombrott (Göteborg, 1989), p. 167.

41 Ruth Franzén, ‘Kvinnoperspektiv pȧ kyrkohistorisk forskning’, in Kirkkoja politiikka. Juhlakirja professori Eino Murtorinteen täyttäessä 60 vuotta 25.11.1990 (Helsinki, 1990), p. 125.

42 Banks, Faces of Feminism, p. 26.

43 Aberg, ‘Revivalism, philanthropy and emancipation’, p. 420.