Carl Olof Rosenius

Rosenius was born in Nysätra in Västerbotten. His father, Anders Rosenius, was a parish pastor who supported the revival movement in Sweden. His mother, Sarah Margaret Norenius, was the daughter of a clergyman. He had six siblings and was the brother of Martin Gabriel Rosenius. His father was part of the Reader (läsare) movement, bringing it to Nysätra in 1814.[2]

When Carl Olof was thirteen, his family moved to the town of Sävar. While living there he attended schools in Piteå, Umeå and Härnösand. His religious breakthrough came at the age of fifteen. Even then he led conventicles during school holidays.[1] A sermon that he delivered in Härnösand in 1833 is said to have surprised Bishop Franzén because of its emphasis on the central Lutheran doctrine of justification by faith.

One person who significantly influenced Rosenius was lay Reader preacher Maja-Lisa Söderlund from Frostkåge north of Skellefteå. She was twenty-two years his senior and supported him throughout his development at home as well as in Stockholm and Uppsala.[3] He often wrote home to her when his courage failed him, as it often did during his student years. Maja-Lisa was widely known in northern Västerbotten for her knowledge of the Bible and her ability to inspire hope: not least important in the years after the war of 1809, when the situation in the coastal areas of Norrland was very difficult, the mortality rate from various diseases was high and drunkenness was widespread, while the Conventicle Act severely restricted laymen's opportunities to preach outside the framework of the household. He referred to her as the "prophetess from Stor-Kåge".[4] A number of spiritual sayings and advice in Rosenius' Nytt och Gammalt från Nådens Rike, eller Några Guds ord och Wishetens goda ordspråk Samlade af C. O. Rosenius 1838 are attributed to her, as well as an excerpt printed in the February 1844 edition of Pietisten.[2]

In 1838 Rosenius began his theological studies at the University of Uppsala but was forced to give them up after a year due to failing health and financial difficulties. He instead found employment as a tutor at Länna farm outside of Stockholm. At this point he was beset with serious religious doubts. In Stockholm he met the Methodist minister George Scott, who helped dispel his uncertainties. Rosenius' religious breakthrough was also influenced by Lutheran revivalist preacher Pehr Brandell.[5][6] Rosenius abandoned his plans of becoming a priest and moved to Stockholm to assist Scott in his ministry. He had a room there near Hötorget (Haymarket Square) on the premises of the Engelska kyrka (English Church), which was not affiliated with the Church of England but financed by the Foreign Evangelical Society. In 1840 he met American preacher and temperance activist Robert Baird.[7]

Rosenius preaching in Bethlehem Church, likely sometime around 1864–1867.

In 1842 Scott had to leave Sweden, and the English church ceased operations. Rosenius did not, however, curtail his activities. He became a leader in the growing religious revival of Sweden, traveling throughout the country, preaching both at private gatherings (conventicles) and in public halls. He did face doubts at this time, however, stating in a letter to future bishop of the Diocese of Lund, Johan Henrik Thomander, that he felt "to preach and to be 'in the vineyard among the people', would be more his calling than writing, but that he is 'not fit to be a priest'."[8]

On August 2, 1843, he married Agatha Rosenius in Umeå.[4] The couple had seven children.[9]

Rosenius was also a close friend of the "Reader Count" Adolphe Stackelberg at Stensnäs Manor. Together they started a parish in Västervik in 1854. This was the starting point for the evangelical revival in Kalmar County to organize missionary societies, which in turn eventually gave rise to the Östra Småland Missionary Society.

When the Swedish Evangelical Mission was formed in 1856, Rosenius was one of its founders.[10] A year later the organization bought the English Church's old building and reopened it as Bethlehem Church. Rosenius was able to work there as well as on numerous preaching trips throughout the country. He continued to edit and publish Pietisten, the monthly that he and Scott had started in 1842, and which he published until his death (eventually with a circulation of 10,000). He also published and edited Missionstidningen and several other magazines.[10] During his last years he wrote an extensive series of articles on the Epistle to the Romans that appeared in Pietisten. On Pentecost Sunday, 1867, Rosenius suffered a stroke in the pulpit of St. John's Church in Gothenburg. He died the following year.

Grave of Carl Olof Rosenius in Stockholm

Rosenius' pietism retained key features of the northern Swedish religious revival with Lutheran objective atonement and justification by grace alone at its core. Like his father, he was part of the läsare (Reader) movement.[11] He often found himself taking the middle ground between the subjectivity and emotionalism of the Herrnhuters (Moravian Brethren) and the strictness of Pietism.[12] In the Schartauan emphasis on the order of grace, he suspected legalism; "come as you are!" was his sermon. He was on friendly terms with the Herrnhuters and had much in common with the Finnish evangelist Fredrik Gabriel Hedberg, despite believing that he went too far in the direction of antinomianism. Evidence of Scott’s Methodist faith was more apparent in Rosenius' evangelistic work than in his theology. He had a strong dislike of Erik Janssonism.

Large parts of the Church of Sweden dismissed him initially. He did not use the Swedish hymnbook but rather song collections of a more personal religious nature, including those published by Oscar Ahnfelt. Throughout his life Rosenius remained a member of the Swedish Church, baptizing his children and taking Communion in that faith and rejecting separatism and the free distribution of Communion.[1]

He had a number of disciples. Among them was a lay preacher from Småland named Nicolaus Bergensköld, who immigrated to the United States in the 1860s and was a leader of the revivalist movement in the Scandinavian settlements of the Midwest. He was also friends with and influenced Anders Wiberg, Per Palmqvist, and Gustaf Palmquist, Lutherans who became Baptist pioneers in Sweden and the United States.[13][14] He had a great impact on the religious development of Mathilda Foy, an early innovator of Sunday school in Sweden known for her charitable work, who was introduced to Rosenius by Theodore Hamberg, a missionary equally captivated by his preaching.[15]

Rosenius had a strong influence on Sweden's religious development during the 19th century. His commitment to personal involvement in religious belief affected not only the practices of the free church but also those of the state church, especially in northern and central Sweden. In his time he became one of Sweden's most widely read religious writers and a leading figure in the religious revival of the country. Two million copies of Rosenius' writings have been published in Swedish and one million in other languages. Dagbetraktelserna accounts for 180,000 copies in 36 editions. This makes him one of Sweden's most widely read authors – only Selma Lagerlöf and August Strindberg are clearly more widely read.[16] He also played an important role in the formation of Evangeliska Fosterlandsstiftelsen (The Swedish Evangelical Mission).[1]

Shortly after his death a large segment of his followers, led by his successor as publisher of Pietisten, Peter Paul Waldenström, broke with his ecclesiastical views and became separatists.

Outside Sweden's borders, particularly in Denmark and Norway, as well as among Scandinavian settlers in the American Midwest, the Rosenius movement gained followers through the Missionsvännerna ('Mission Friends').

A literary society, the Carl Olof Rosenius Society, was founded in 2017 to promote his writings and work and engage in research.[17]

• Carl Olof Rosenius at Kristnet
• Carl Olof Rosenius at Project Runeberg
• Rosenius' 1853 translation of The Pilgrim's Progress
• Missionsvännerna i Amerika by C. V. Bowman, (Minneapolis: Minneapolis Veckoblad, 1907)
• Daily Meditations by Carl Olof Rosenius, (Minneapolis: Lutheran Colportage Service, 1973)
• The Prayer of Faith by Carl Olof Rosenius and Warren M Ojala, (New Hampshire: Pietan Publications, 2010)

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Carl Olof Rosenius.

Pietisten masthead 1851

• Rosenius profile
• Carl Olof Rosenius at HymnTime
• Carl Olof Rosenius at the Hymnary
• Hymns by Rosenius at Swedish Wikisource
• Rosenius photo at the National Archives of Sweden
• Carl Olof Rosenius and The Great Swedish Awakening
• Swedish pietism: Carl Olof Rosenius and George Scott

Pietisten Journal

• A Letter of Carl Olof Rosenius
• Interview with Carl Olof Rosenius

American hymn

• I'm a pilgrim: Mary S. Shindler
• I'm a pilgrim: Swedish translation

Danish hymn

• Tænk, når engang den tåge er forsvunden: W.A. Wexels
• Tenk når engang den tåke er forsvunnet: Norwegian recording
• Tänk, när en gång det töcken har försvunnit: Swedish translation

Swedish hymn

• Var jag går i skogar, berg och dalar: Carl Olof Rosenius
• Var jag går i skogar, berg och dalar: English translation

Streaming audio

• Carl Olof Rosenius