Review of Current Religious Thought: September 13, 1963

To the two thousand Americans who attended the Lutheran World Federation Congress last month, Finland presented some intriguing paradoxes. Only 3 per cent of Helsinki’s population go to church on an average Sunday, yet the closing meeting of the congress drew 20,000 to the city’s Olympic Stadium. One-quarter of the seats in the Finnish Parliament are held by Communists, but nothing annoys a Finn more than the suggestion that his automobile’s international registration letters “SF” mean “Soviet Finland.” During the past decade there has been a steep rise in the number of people leaving the national church, yet a poll taken among reserve officers in 1961 disclosed that more than 92 per cent believed in the forgiveness of sins through Jesus Christ.

In an area slightly smaller than Montana, the Finns carried out post-war an incredible program of resettlement of 460,000 fellow-countrymen forced out of those territories ceded to the U. S. S. R. Indeed, the Finnish church can be understood only against the background of Finnish political history, and of that elusive (in definition) national characteristic known as sisu—delicately translated by one finicky foreigner as “intestinal fortitude.” “Humiliated violated, wounded and bleeding through … centuries of conflict,” says one writer graphically, “Finland arose time and again from red snows and passed through the healing saunas of time.” Not surprisingly, this has contributed to Finnish Christianity’s biblical basis, a steadfast and sure anchor in turbulent times.

In the course of the past century the Church of Finland has experienced revival movements, and these have prompted close, investigation of the essence of Lutheran Christianity and of the doctrine of justification by faith. It was this very doctrine which the 1963 LWF Congress set itself to spell out in modern terms. “Good theology will talk in understandable language,” Bishop Hanns Lilje told his colleagues.

What is still a burning issue was raised in 1925 by the aged Finnish Archbishop Gustaf Johansson. Asked to select the Finnish delegates for the World Conference of Life and Work in Stockholm, Johansson not only refused to accede but caused a sensation by writing an essay against the conference. With markedly eschatological views himself, the archbishop made trenchant criticism of the Swedish Nathan Soderblom, leader of the ecumenists, as one who denied Christ’s physical resurrection. Johansson rejected the ecumenical movement as trying only to improve human well-being, as not looking toward Christ’s second coming, and as affording a platform for unitarians. Continually in studying Finnish church history one comes across words still universally relevant. Sessions of the Finnish Parliament and law courts are preceded and concluded by a religious service, and it is common for preachers to discuss questions of domestic politics in the light of the New Testament ethic. The state arranges for religious education to be given, and pays the salaries of the theological faculty at Helsinki.

The old Finnish Pietist movement is still a force in the land, though it is difficult to calculate its precise numerical strength. The annual summer meeting held under its auspices may bring together 20,000 people from all over the country. In parishes where pastor and a majority of the congregation are members of the movement, it is not unusual for ten hours a week to be given to special devotional services, apart from the official diets of worship. Yet while the participants hold that the Christian life is one of estrangement from earthly entanglements, they have not lost a deep sense of responsibility toward their neighbor and toward the nation. (Many of them fell in Finland’s recent struggles with Russia.) Pietism has remained within the framework of the Church of Finland.

While in Helsinki, some of us arranged to go on a specially organized bus tour to Leningrad, about 250 miles away. The more zealous of our number, with an eye on the unique evangelistic opportunity, took various forms of Christian literature with them. In the course of a three-hour wait at the frontier and an examination of the U. S. S. R.’s regulations which require travelers to declare all printed matter, a nice point of conscience was mooted: does the biblical injunction of submission to every ordinance of man apply to a godless regime?

A three-day stay in Leningrad provoked mixed reactions. Our guide, an engaging youth who was a member of the Young Communist League, spoke his piece well. A local cathedral was full of worshipers on Sunday morning, but the high proportion of elderly women underscored the success of Communism since the Revolution. Part of the 124th Article of the U. S. S. R.’s Constitution says: “Freedom of religious worship and freedom of anti-religious propaganda is recognized for all citizens.” Though the wording is significant, it does give a specious impression of equal rights between those who believe and those who do not. But Mr. Khrushchev has said: “The Communist way of education demands that the conscience be free from religious prejudices and superstitions which even now prevent some Soviet citizens from making full use of their constructive energies.”

Some of us while in Russia used our constructive energies in ways of which we may not speak. Though we never discussed religion with him directly, our guide had tears in his eyes when he waved us goodbye. Out of the blue at that moment I remembered the closing words with which a writer had tried to express the unspoken plea of Christless millions:

We long for the Desire of every Nation,

And oh, we die so fast!

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