Freeday 27 December 2002

Once again, I lack ideas for a picture. Perhaps another year.

Employed by God?

Since nothing remarkable happened on my birthday, I'll just comment on a book I've finished reading. It is probably of no interest to you, but there may be one or two readers who take an interest in the small and obscure congregation DKM Brunstad or "Smith's Friends" as it is usually called by everyone else. So in good tradition, I'll leave the 99 readers for a field trip to the one. Be back soon, I hope.

The book is only available in Norwegian, as far as I know. And if I could help it stay that way, I would. "Ansatt av Gud" (Employed by God) is a highly personal, highly partial, and highly critical book about DKM. It is written by Johan Velten, who left the congregation 30 years ago. Evidently he has never been able to let go. (This is common for those who leave the church, actually, and often because they have family still in the church.)

The book starts with the story of his own family and its relationship with the church. Later he looks at the history of the church as represented by its leaders. These are not many, since they tend to stay on for life. He acknowledges their spartan lifestyle (except for the current leader Kåre Smith, whom I believe no one will accuse of asceticism if they see him). But Velten is highly critical of their ruling techniques and their aura of grandeur, the way they allow the common church members to worship them as near-gods.

A bone of contention is DKM's claim that its teachings have the power to transform humans from evil to good. Velten claims that good people are born that way, and that selfish and power-hungry people remain that way even after 50 years in the church. This flat out contradicts what I have seen with my own eyes, as I know several people who were substance addicts and were liberated to a far happier life by the gospel. Of course, this happens in other congregations too, and even other religions (or at least the Hare Krishna movement, a branch of Hinduism with some disturbing similarities to revivalist Christian sects). But I think it is safe to say that religion does have power to change people's lives, and it certainly happens in DKM.

However, not all changes are from evil to good. There is, as always in a close-knit community, a peer pressure to conform in matters of clothes, customs and manners. Humans learn by example more than by listening, and I am sure there are many people still among Smith's Friends who feel constrained by the collective habits of the congregation. Actually, I believe the church is working on this point now. The side effect of this may be that the common church members will rush headlong into a fully worldly lifestyle, marked by materialism and self-indulgence, like most people in our culture. If so, it is because they have never truly had the longing for holiness that the first few men and women had who gathered in their homes to pray and exchange their revelations in the Scriptures.

As a Christian mystic myself, I cannot help noticing that Johan Oscar Smith and his early friends were mystics too. This is all the more obvious as they quote a famous mystic such as Madame Guyon, a Catholic. The mystic experience transcends such petty boundaries, and the early Smith's Friends were well aware of this. They were also well aware that most of the people who gathered around them had no such personal experience. Still, they tried to educate them as best they could.

I was never part of the leadership of DKM, and I had no access to sources other than those available to all who attended the meetings. If anything, I had less inside information, since I was not part of any of the families of old. Yet I knew for most of my time there that much of their doctrine was inspired by Madame Guyon and Mrs. Penn-Lewis, and that Smith had a past among the Methodists, and that Aksel Smith (the dentist) had worked together with Barratt of the Pentecostals. All these things are presented by Johan Velten in his book as if they were news. They probably were, to those who had taken little interest in the doctrine.

Frankly, I don't think there is a need for this book. It is not as if DKM is generally held in too high esteem by the larger society today. I am sure some of the members have a too rosy view of their leaders, and could use some moderating influence. I am equally sure that these people will never read the book, much less believe a word of it. And the one-sided, partial nature of the book will guarantee this, should there ever be a doubt. It is an ant's attack on an elephant. It will have no impact on his opponent, and no interest for the rest of society, but I suppose some of his fellow outcasts may feel consoled by it.

For the possible interested reader, you can find some of those frustrated outcasts at the Norwegian website forlosning.com.