Norway: the best model of a transformed nation today
David S. Lim, Ph.D.
Since the turn to the 21st century, the United Nations has ranked Norway as the number one nation in the world in terms of human development. The Human Development Index is based on wealth, life expectancy, education and other factors as human freedom, dignity and human agency, that is, the role of people in their development. Norway is also ranked as the top nation in the Global Peace Index in 2007, the second country in the world in giving per capita, as well as the primary country in sending the most missionaries per capita, which to me is the foremost indicator of a truly transformed nation!
How did this come to be? The evidence of God’s kingdom values in the institutions of society can be found in Norway. It is truly a case of the transformation of a nation. Change is evident not only in the lives of its inhabitants but also in the fabric of its institutions.
When Norway became a nation in 1814, it had been shaped most significantly by Haugianism. It began with the life and faith of Hans Nielsen Hauge (1771-1824). He encountered God on April 5, 1796. 25 years old at that time, this son of a farmer became God’s instrument to mold a whole nation. He came from very poor background, but he had power and boldness through his simple faith in God and from his fellowship with an increasing number of friends. His religious earnestness and his ability to create all kinds of new businesses provided great initiatives for creating jobs across the country. His enthusiasm among the people led to a mass movement. It led to a new democratic movement among the farmers and among the people in the cities and towns. This grassroots movement also viewed women as equals. That’s why Norway has become the foremost model of a social and spiritual transformation in nation building.
When Hauge was born, Norway was a part of Denmark. Most of the inhabitants were Norwegian. Just two years before his birth, there were 728,000 people. Children and youth were in the majority and the expected life span was 35-40 years old. Nine out of ten people lived in the rural districts, but more and more were moving into towns. At that time modernization was happening, and the farmers were moving to the cities; so the farmers became fewer and the farms became smaller. Eventually the farms became so small, that it became impossible to live off the land as the sole source of income. There was widespread poverty; and to make matters worst, a conflict developed between the middle classes and the farmers. The middle classes lent money to farmers, for the latter to meet their obligations. If the harvest was bad or if the farmers had less income than expected, they went bankrupt and lost their farms to the middle class. Many farmers lost their property in this way which contributed to the crisis in the land.
Personal Transformation
After his encounter with God, Hauge soon saw the needs of his people and immediately set out to do something about it: on one hand, preaching the word of God, and on the other hand, using his natural skills as an entrepreneur to begin many small businesses throughout Norway. How did he encounter God? He claimed that he was walking behind the plow, singing a hymn, when suddenly his mind was lifted to God. He testified that it was beyond emotions, outside his body, and he could not say whether the experience was happening to him or within him. It was such an overwhelming, ecstatic experience that words could not describe what he saw or the joy he felt. Later he spoke of it as though he by the grace of God has been allowed a foretaste of the kingdom of God. This was a turning-point, not only for Hans but also for the transformation of Norway. The spiritual experience liberated him and gave him a mission.
The transformation that came to Hauge himself during his encounter with God included his remorse for his sins, for not having served God in all things. After that repentance, he felt that nothing in the world mattered, and the worldliness in which he struggled so hard just vanished. His mind and his spirit were transformed, converted and renewed through this powerful experience. From here on, he saw everything with new eyes. He received new understanding of the scriptures and felt a deep love for God, and this desire led him to persuade others to be partakers of the same grace as he had received everywhere, even out in the fields. He was driven by this call for the rest of his life.
He was sometimes challenged by some church leaders about what he taught. He had to struggle alone, and had no one but God and the Bible to lean on. This is how he said it, “I conversed with the Lord concerning the matters I was struggling with both about the basics of God’s words and how I was to make His name known for the purpose of bringing the people to repentance. Then it was that He clearly spoke to me in the spirit providing me with the right answer.” The first to be influenced by the born again Hans were two of his own sisters, and that was on the same day he encountered God.
Spiritual transformation
Hauge was used by God to bring about spiritual transformation, social transformation and national transformation of his people. Foremost, his preaching released spiritual liberation among the people. Most (Lutheran) priests at that time were rationalistic. They spoke mostly to people’s intellect, whereas Hauge spoke to their hearts. As a result of his preaching, several spiritual societies were founded, and these centers were organized into a network with Hauge as leader. They were organized into workers’ movement and farmers’ movement, etc. which developed Norway in the middle of the 19th century. Despite the resistance that Hauge met from the leaders of the church, he still asked his friends to stay in the church. In his testament which is sent to friends all over the country, he emphasized that they had to protect the state church because it was the important foundation for the whole nation. Haugian centers were meant to be living cells within the state church.
Wherever he shared about his gift of grace, those who heard him wept, the awakening spread fast to the neighbors in Tune, and then to the neighboring villages, and finally to almost all of the country as he traveled. He traveled all the way north to Troms and the revival went that far. There are many stories of people whose lives changed on hearing Hauge preach or just speak. He developed an intense prayer life. Wherever he shared, people listened and followed his advice, whether it concerned the establishment of a business or a spiritual fellowship in their community. Hauge became more and more convinced about the realization of the Lord’s Prayer, ‘Your Kingdom come.’ The kingdom of God exists or is present wherever the King is obeyed, wherever His will is done. In heaven, God’s will is fully done. If God’s intentions are fully realized on earth, His kingdom has truly come on earth (Matthew 6:10)!
Social transformation
Hauge was born into a particular culture: Farmers at that time were bound to the farm in the area where they were born. Sons took over their father’s farm, and people remained where they had always lived. There was no tradition of leaving ones’ birthplace, and neither was their any tradition of being established elsewhere or doing anything else. The forefathers of Norwegians were Vikings, but by this time, they were all settled in their land. Hauge’s ideas stimulated individuals to make independent choices in spiritual and practical matters. He challenged farmers’ sons to move away from their farms to become tradesmen in the towns and to live and work in other parts of the country. After sometime, there were businesses run by Haugians all over the country, and many of them moved to other areas to start or run businesses. Some established shops, others started with handicrafts, while yet others founded factories and other industrial projects. A social transformation was blooming across the nation.
In a newspaper article in 1802, Hauge said, “My calling is to love God and my fellowmen.” This was the vision for all his work in a nutshell: preaching, working, farming and producing are all parts of serving men, the community and God’s kingdom on earth. It has a vision of wholeness that includes everything in life or existence in general. His view of riches and other excess funds was that they are simple gifts from God, which one should use to serve one’s fellowmen and the community.
Christians should engage in business with enthusiasm when opportunity presented itself because in this manner, he could set a good example for his fellowmen. Anything one owned (both capital and other material goods) should be kept in stewardship for the good of one’s fellowmen, especially the poor. One was not supposed to use profit for personal gain, luxuries and excesses, but to reinvest in promising projects to create work for others and to contribute to remunerative work, so others can improve their lives.
Hauge showed from Scriptures that God had called shepherds, fishermen and others of low status to do His work. He established new businesses and industries wherever he can. He knitted as he traveled on foot, and the gloves and socks which he made were given away to the poor who needed them. It was his incredible working capacity combined with his pioneering spirit that made him such a successful businessman. He was at the height of his activity during the years 1800 to 1804. In these five years, he established many industries all over the country from Lista in the south to Trons in the north. Fishing industries, brick yards, spinning wheels, shipping yards, salt and mineral mines, harnessing a waterfall, paper mills and printing plants were some of the industries he established.
The profits were invested in new activities. Neither did he hesitate to ask his friends for loans and investments if he thought they were in a position to assist. Once he had established these ventures, he delegated the daily management to those who he thought were the most capable. But he was always the strategist who planned and motivated them to action. Later when he was in the area, he would visit the works and he would contribute and help wherever necessary. He became an inspiration and an example to those who knew him. Many found the courage to break away from the traditional pattern especially in the outlying districts, and to establish their own enterprises, as they saw what Hauge did and saw that enterprise development was possible.
Even the civic authorities recognized his business acumen. They released him from jail for six months after having imprisoned him for five years, for defying the “Konventikkel Ordinance,” a law that forbade gathering and preaching independent of the state church at that time. During those six months, he established a salt mine for the government when the country was threatened by famine at that time!
National transformation
The Haugian movement was countrywide, contributing to the broadening of the worldview of the citizens from the local to the national level. During Hauge’s lifetime, people were transformed from just seeing themselves as part of a lower class in a small district to remaking themselves into mobile individuals, citizens of a nation, with the responsibility and the possibility of influencing the future of Norway. The people increasingly learned to see themselves as individuals in a national context, contributed to the development of a national consciousness which in turn contributed to a growing sense of nationhood. Eventually this led to an increasing desire for national independence. Then in 1814, Norway received its own constitution. Hauge himself was not involved in the writing, but among the 112 men at Eidsvoll, there were three Haugians. The former president of the Nobel Peace Prize Committee, Professor Francis Sejersted declared, “The Hauge movement was a major contributing factor for developing democracy in Norway.”
Hauge became the spiritual leader of the Societies of Friends which grew around him, and he also became the acknowledged leader for the business ventures which he initiated.
His “societies” were distinguished by the fact that the people lived in community, helping one another both practically and spiritually. They behaved righteously and were hardworking, and never refused anybody if they could be of assistance. They showed initiative, charity and sacrifice. Many of the cottage industries started by the Haugians were financed with the help of gifts from other friends all over the country. These societies did not discriminate: the old class distinctions of the traditional culture were gradually wiped out, so that men and women, farmers and servants, the crippled and the elderly were all treated as equals. Unselfish love and cooperation distinguished them from all other groups. Haugians spent much time together. They taught and advised one another on spiritual as well as practical things. The letters and writings of Hauge were also read diligently for all to hear and see.
Multiplication strategy
Hauge followed the example of Jesus in reproducing Himself in the life of others. Upon receiving the call on his life, he began to reproduce himself in the lives of others. He used the same strategy as Jesus did. As he traveled, he knitted as he walked. He talked to those who have time to talk with him, and trained them to work and do it for God. He would do it with them, and then ask them to do it themselves; and then he moves on to the next place. In just seven years of active ministry, Hauge left a grassroots movement that influenced the development of Norway which continues to the present day.
Hauge guided the Society of Friends through his letters. He was very diligent in writing letters with admonitions, personal greetings and spiritual guidance. As the cottage industries developed, the business content of his letters also grew. For him there was no discrepancy in including both spiritual and business matters in the same letter. He would mention the possibilities of various trading and business ventures, and he would ask the people to send him some corn to be used in the establishment of new ventures. Interest in reading his writings stimulated many people to learn to read and write. This contributed to a general increase of literacy, knowledge and education in the population. It was well-known that Haugians read a great deal and that they were knowledgeable people, so that many Haugians would receive positions of trust and influence in the community. He also developed a set of ethics based on kingdom values.
When Norway became an independent nation in 1814, these kingdom values were integrated into the rhythm of daily life and were institutionalized into laws, school curricula and business practices in Norway. Economic conditions improved and led to the eradication of poverty in the land. Today, Norway continues to be the best country in the world in human development for the seventh year in a row. Norwegians have imbibed this spirit of volunteerism and have stretched their sense of responsibility from involvement in their local community beyond to the global community of nations. So Norway has the highest ratio of missionaries per capita, and most unusually in holistic and transformational servant-leadership roles. Through the Nobel prizes, she recognizes accomplished leaders in science, economics and peace-making. Here the culture has been transformed, the values of the kingdom of God manifested in all spheres of life. This national transformation has seen God’s kingdom culture passed on from generation to generation! May this happen among all nations in the world!
Main source: Sigbjorn Ravnasen, a Norwegian journalist.
