Le Nord : revue internationale des Pays de Nord - 01.06.1943, Blaðsíða 122

LE NORD
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man proceeds, so that he is revived and enlightened. In this way
he came to a distinction between sleepers and watchers, but he
never intended the watchers to combine within or outside the
Church. The Spirit is active through the word and the sacraments
in the Church, and therefore the ordinary forms of the Church
are fully sufficient for the Christian.
Schartau has had many followers, who have been named
Schartauaner ('Schartauans’). Always loyal to the rules of the
Church they have constituted the bulwork of the Church, and
clergymen and bishops to a great extent have been recruited from
their ranks. Opposed to all kinds of formation of Christian asso-
ciations, the genuine Schartauans have often been staunch con-
servatives and have been ununderstanding to the need of new
times for new methods.
Even if Schartau’s view of Christianity has influenced people
in many parts of the country, Schartauanism proper has led a
fairly isolated life in Southern and Western Sweden with Gothen-
burg as its centre. In other tracts of the country the idea of the
Church therefore has developed other shades. 'When liberal theo-
logy towards the end of the last century emphasized the im-
portance of the individual at the expense of the Church, this was
again led into the centre of the interest of theology, chiefly by
Professor, later Bishop Einar Billing. With penetrating profound-
ness he developed what he called “the religiously motivated idea
of the established church.” Christianity to him first of all meant
the forgiveness of sins, and this Christian article in his opinion
in the best way came to its own within the framework of the
established church, in which infant baptism marked God’s anti-
cipatory grace.
Einar Billing and Nathan Söderblom together with Bishop
/. A. Eklund, the hymnist, and Manfred Björkquist became the
leaders of the “young-church” revival. This got its centre in the
Student Christian Movement, of which Swedish sections were
established about the turn of the century. Here the future leaders
of the Church have to a great extent been bred and received
impulses. Its greatest contribution so far, the Student Movement
has made in the young-church revival, which, without becoming
a really popular revival, still has aroused much new love of the
Swedish church. A lasting result is the Sigtuna Foundation, direct-
ed by Björkquist until 1942, when he became Bishop of Stock-
holm. Sigtuna has become the place in which the Church more