Theology the Norwegian Way: The Curious Case of Gisle Johnson

Growing up in my family there was always a running joke stemming from our Norwegian heritage: If you were to do something, you could either do it the easy way, the hard way, or the Norwegian way. When inevitably the question was asked, “What is the Norwegian way?” the answer was given, “Well, it’s neither the easy way nor the hard way.” Both parties would chuckle and go about their business. 

As funny as this always was, it serves here so set up the uniqueness of a theologian who I think did theology “the Norwegian way”—unconventionally, counterintuitively, and perhaps a bit quirkily, but nonetheless still getting the job done one’s own way. This theologian is Gisle Christian Johnson. Johnson was a shining luminary in the firmament of theological innovators during the nineteenth century, one whose light has almost entirely dwindled. I first discovered Gisle Johnson when strolling through the library and coming across a volume entitled Scandinavian Pietists, which preserved a section on the doctrine of regeneration from his larger work, Grundrids af den Systematiske Theologi, something like Foundations of Systematic Theology. Aside from this, nothing else of Gisle’s has been published in English, and even his Norwegian writings ceased publication after their first printings in the 1890’s. It’s my hope to perhaps spark some interest in Johnson and the uniqueness of his contributions to theology, translating him out of his Norwegian context and into our own. 

But who was Gisle Johnson, and why does he matter? Why should we care about him and his theology? Perhaps in answering these questions we’ll approach an answer to our initial question, “What is the Norwegian way?” 

Born to an architect and harbor engineer in Southern Norway (Halden, to be exact), and grandson of an Icelandic pastor, Johnson’s parents took care to impress upon him the importance of his faith and piety, from the perspective of a Lutheran Pietism. In a personal letter to his son on the occasion of his confirmation, Gisle’s father, Georg, wrote to him:

“You took a step when you came into this life. Another stands before you today. It leads to death, not to physical but to eternal death, if you forget what you are today promising this world’s Father and Judge. May confirmation remind you that today you are stepping out on your own, that you have to answer for your deeds as you grow away more and more from your dear parents who kept you from falling by the help of God. May confirmation remind you, in a most solemn manner, that you have promised to keep yourself to the one true God and to Jesus Christ as your one and only sure guide in life.”¹ 

These words, which one author characterizes as communicating “an unsentimental and unshakable confidence in God that demanded a genuine Christian life,” are a sort of glimpse into the Norwegian spiritual life, one that sought a simple and experiential realism to its faith. Growing up, Gisle would have had similar values instilled in him from the pulpit by Ole Pedersen Noe, who guided him toward the path of vocational ministry. 

Gisle grew up during a time of seismic cultural, political, and even lifestyle shifts. The very presence of a more devotional form of Christianity, embodied in the early revivalist preaching of pietist Hans Nielsen Hauge, was due to the fact that Norway had just gained its independence from Denmark in 1814, establishing its own parliamentary body, the Lillething and the Storthing (somewhat humorously, this translates literally to “Little Thing” and “Big Thing,” which is where we get the word from), and ratifying its own constitution on May 17^th the same year. In fact, the University of Christiana (now Olso, but we’ll refer to it as Christiana) was founded just a few years prior (1811), meaning that Norway was now not tethered to Denmark for the production of its education. This newfound independence led to a flourishing of Norwegian music and culture, from Ibsen’s plays, to Munch’s “The Scream,” to Grieg’s music; and it also meant that the Danish State Church could no longer tell the Norwegian church what to do. In fact, it was now the Norwegian State Church (Statskirke). How church would approach matters of its relationship to the state, religious liberty, lay preaching and ministry, and social issues, was all still very much to be determined, and, largely, it would be Gisle Johnson who would help determine it. 

By the time Gisle Johnson attended the University of Christiana, he had already been well-prepared for his theological education by means of his mentor, Christian Thistedal (1813–1876), who taught at a local Latin school. Thistedahl knew his stuff, and was known for knowing his stuff, having turned down an offer from the university to be a full-time professor. Not only did he acquaint Gisle with theological figures from Protestant scholasticism and pietism, but he also taught the teenager a reading knowledge of Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek, and it’s notable that Gisle was later instrumental in a translation of the Bible into Norwegian (Bibelen). In fact, Thiseldahl did such a good job that Gisle is actually said to have gotten bored during his lectures and coursework at the university, reading well beyond his course load into broad and uncharted theological and philosophical territory from continental authors like Vitringa, Kierkegaard, Gesenius, Bengel, and more.² Passing his exit exam with the highest marks, the University of Christiana immediately turned around and offered Gisle the job of lecturer in theology. 

But Gisle turned it down. Why? Perhaps he learned a bit of humility from Thistedahl: he didn’t feel as though he was well equipped enough to fully develop a meaningful system of theology and impart it to his students. Instead, Gisle acted on a scholarship to travel abroad and learn from the most esteemed institutions in continental Europe: Berlin, Leipzig and Tubingen, Paris, Heidelberg, and Erlangen. This point should give us pause: anyone who knows anything about the ideas of the time should immediately have a red flag raised at the sight of Tubingen, known for its critical approach. Yet, Johnson approached his study as one who was already established in his beliefs, well-read and with a healthy spiritual identity. One author writes, “What disturbed Johnson most about the Tubingen School was the manner in which the sacred was submitted to the same test as the secular resulting in the Gospel’s being reduced to an edifying myth.”³ Gisle sat under F.C. Bauer, but he didn’t buy into F.C. Bauer: he insisted on continuing to do theology the Norwegian way.  

It was during his time in Erlangen that his sensibilities as both a confessionalist and biblicist resonated. Gisle wrote in his dairy (dagbok), “This University offered me such a rich assortment (samling) of all that could possibly have been of interest and meaning for my studies, that … if I had been able to spend another half year abroad would in a moment have thought of nothing other than Erlangen.”⁴ This is because theologians like Hoffman and Thomasius, representative of such a school, held a similar tripartite commitment to the principles of Scripture, Confessions, and religious experience, i.e. faith.⁵

Yet once again, Gisle was not entirely taken with every voice and emphasis within Erlangen theology. Thomasius is notable even today as having articulated a view of Christology known as Kenoticism, which held that Christ emptied Himself of deity at the point of incarnation.⁶ This is not satisfying to Johnson, who will later consider Christ’s work along properly Chalcedonian lines:  

Instead of raising the human nature up into Himself in His glory, He Himself descends to it and joins it in its inferiority. He does not thereby give up any of His divine nature with its attributes. He brings all of it with Him into His new human existence, but because of the character of this existence, His divinity is kept from developing and appearing in its complete form. The humiliated God-man possesses the fulness of the whole Deity dwelling in His flesh, but as a hidden power. The Son of Man is throughout the whole of the development of His earthly life in all His works and in all His suffering, truly the Son of God. This is why His total life’s work on earth is not merely a human, but a divine-human work – the product of the co-operation of both natures.⁷

Johnson returned to Norway and accepted the position of lecturer in theology at the University of Christiana in 1849, becoming full professor in 1860. Johnson was as popular as he was controversial, known for his faithful adherence to the norms of orthodox Lutheran theology and his application of those norms to the issues of his day and age. In the classroom, it was recounted that he spoke with a piercing theological dynamism, and Gisle Johnson scholar Roger Nostbakken recounts that one particular student, J.C. Heuch, “was so gripped by the forcefulness and the interest of Johnson’s lectures that on more than one occasion he caught himself sitting with mouth open and pen fallen on the desk completely fascinated by the address.” 

In fact, the revivalist and pietist spirit of his theology led to a revivalist preaching movement far and wide in Norway, where one account has him traveling over a thousand miles in one year across the harsh and rugged climate of the north. His personal homiletic was one that focused on Gospel-driven content, emphasizing the classical Lutheran paradigm of Law & Gospel preaching leading to repentance and conversion:  

“The proper distinction between Law and Gospel could best be answered by a study of their relationship to each other, Gisle Johnson insisted. The Law involved the necessity of preaching for conversion. A true conversion involved a recognition of sin and guilt, and a humble turning to God in true repentance and confession of sin.”⁸

This focused and content-driven emphasis reminds one of George Marsden’s appraisal of Jonathan Edwards’s preaching when he writes that he spoke with a “personal intensity” on a focused theme, but that “his voice was weak.”⁹ In fact, the comparison is made by Nostbakken, who writes of Johnson’s revivalism:

“People poured into the meeting place and sat spellbound while he spoke, often for as long as two hours. His words seemed to grip his hearers with an almost mystic power. He was not an emotional preacher, but he was a strong preacher of repentance. One is reminded of the awakening under Jonathan Edwards when one reads about Johnson that when in a thin and quiet voice he read the words ‘There is no peace for the ungodly, saith my God’ a visible tremor ran through the audience.”¹⁰ 

Before his death in 1894, Gisle’s revivalist and even social accomplishments were vast. He helped found the Christiana Inner Mission in conjunction of advancing a doctrine of lay preaching that led to establishing missional communities in the growing slums of Norway’s cities. His preaching for universalist repentance along with strict advocacy of the State Church (Statskirke) and Lutheran Orthodoxy helped break down long-entrenched class barriers between the aristocratic ministerial class and congregants and also ensured that heterodox sects like Grundtvigianism and Mormonism would never gain a foothold in Norwegian religion life. 

And yet, one the personal level, it is recounted that Gisle had a personally gracious, open, and genuine Christ-like character, perhaps reflecting those early admonishments of his father. He opened his home to his students, and another scholar, Trygve Skarsten, records the approachability demonstrated by Gisle:  

“Every other Saturday evening the theological students had a standing invitation to come to the home of Gisle Johnson. These gatherings were not just theological ‘bull sessions’ with the professor. From Gisle Johnson’s side, they were an attempt to lead the students into a personal type of Christianity and a living faith. The sessions were always informal, full of fun and laughter. Toward the close of the evening Gisle Johnson would usually lead in devotions.”¹¹

“In fact, after his death, his son Jonathan Johnson told several amusing stories highlighting his father’s undoubtedly quirky Norwegian sense of humor in an early article that I have, sadly, been unable to acquire directly.”¹²

Sadly, the years of intense traveling and revivalist activity quickly took a toll on Gisle’s health. Even as early as the later 1860’s, his health began to decline: “As a revival preacher, Gisle Johnson’s activity came to an end in the late ‘sixties. He had never been strong physically, and he found that he just could not stand up under the constant strain of lecturing and preaching.”¹³ The years of constant attentiveness to the spiritual health of his countrymen had come at the expense of his own physical health. After nearly half a decade of lecturing and ministering, what was written of Abraham could be written of Gisle Johnson, that he “breathed his last and died at a good old age, an old man and satisfied with life; and he was gathered to his people” (Gen. 25:8):  

On July 17, 1894 he died in his sleep. During his last days he spoke of the nearness of his salvation in Christ. On the day before his death when questioned as to whether or not he held firmly to reconciliation in Christ, he answered, “Ja visselig” (yes, certainly). Those were his last words.¹⁴

To paraphrase his father’s early encouragement, Gisle had fulfilled ‘his promise to keep himself to the one true God and to Jesus Christ as his one and only sure guide in life.’ His impact was one that shaped Norwegian theology for nearly a century, lasting well after his death, and this was due to his unique brand of theology that was biblically-based, confessionally faithful, and focused on the absolute need for a new life of faith in Jesus Christ. Although not a Baptist (in fact, it has to be admitted that Johnson’s efforts largely expunged Baptist ministry from Norway in the 19^th century!), his dogged focus on the core gospel values of salvation by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, by Scripture alone, and to the glory of God alone led to a legacy of theological faithfulness that has value across the Protestant tradition. 

What were the characteristics and emphases of Johnson’s own theological writings that so inspired students and parishioners alike? What were the specifics of his involvement in the unique theological, social, and political climate of his time? These are the questions I hope to explore in coming entries, focusing on his dogmatics, ethics, and politics, and maybe by the end we’ll all learn the value of doing theology “the Norwegian way.” 

1. George Johnson, Familien Johnson (Kristiania: Jacob Dybwads Forlag, 1908), 44.  ↩︎
2. A fuller list includes: Ewald, Gesenius, Vitringa, Michaelis, Umbreit, Hengstberger, Havernick, Hitzig, Trick, Baumgarten, Winer, Bengel, Mattheis, Jochmann, Sartorius, J.T. Beck, Guericke (Godvin Ousland, En kirkehøvding: professor Gisle Johnson som teolog og kirkemann [Oslo: Lutherstiftelsens Forlag, 1950], 22–23).  ↩︎
3. Roger Nostbakken, The theology of Gisle Christian Johnson: an inquiry into its sources, its nature and its significance (Dissertation; Princeton, NJ: Princeton Theological Seminary, 1962), 37.  ↩︎
4. Ousland, 32. ↩︎
5. Nostbakken, 42. ↩︎
6. For a sympathetic analysis of Thomasius, see Bruce D. McCormack, The Humility of the Eternal Son: Reformed Kenoticism and the Repair of Chalcedon (Cambridge University Press, 2021).  ↩︎
7. Grundrids af den Systematiske Theologi (Christiana: Jacbo Dybwads Forlang, 1897), s. 135. Translated by Johan Koren.  ↩︎
8. Trygve Skarsten, Gisle Johnson: A Study of the Interaction of Confessionalism and Pietism (Dissertation; Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago, 1968), 203.  ↩︎
9. George Marsden, Jonathan Edwards: A Life (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004), 206.  ↩︎
10. Nostbakken, 227.  ↩︎
11. Skarsten, 81–82. ↩︎
12. Jonathan Johnson, “Gisle Johnson intime,” Norsk Teologisk Tidsskrift 39: 225. ↩︎
13. Skarsten, 223–4  ↩︎
14. Nostkbakken, 236.  ↩︎