From Whence I Came

I am a 3rd generation American from Sweden and my family's genealogist.  I found it curious how our religions diverged from the mother Lutheran faith.  My far-reaching extended family runs the gamut from atheist to Catholic. I am a Methodist and reading some of the posts here, it sounds as though these two churches are very similar.  So if that is true, why would a Lutheran become a Methodist?  I know this is a personal question and should be asked of the individual, but my grandparents are no longer around to be asked this question.  Any insight would be appreciated.


Hello Keith,

While there could be many complex personal and individual reasons, I could venture a few guesses.

The most common and mundane is marriage. When two people of different denominations get married they usually end up either both not attending church or both joining the church of the husband (or wife if she wears the pants).

The slightly more involved reason could be that Methodism is a lot more common in American than Lutheranism. Methodism, along with the closely related Pentecostalism, was spread widely through rural and backwoods areas by traveling "big tent revival" preachers. When Lutheran settlers came over to the states, especially as they ventured out of port cities into rural areas, they were a small minority.

Thus, in small towns, it was popular to have "federated" or "union" churches in which two or more denominations would share a building with the idea that Lutherans would come when the Lutheran preacher was in town, Baptists when the traveling Baptist preacher was in town and so forth. However, these almost always ended up with an amalgamated church much more Methodist in character than Lutheran. Another very simple reason for this is that most hymnals and religious books published in the English language were Methodist or Baptistic or the like. As folks changed from their native tongue to English, so did their religious reading.

The third and most speculative reason is socio-theological . Swedish Lutheranism, especially in the late 1800's and early 1900's when many were coming over to the states, was heavily Pietistic. The Pietist movement emphasized individual spiritual experiences and moral rigor over traditional Lutheran doctrine and the sacraments.

Picture a Swedish Lutheran Pietist, strongly against drinking, smoking, dancing, card-playing, and so forth arriving in America. Would he find more in common with the "formal" worshipping, beer-drinking, cigar-smoking German Lutherans or the staunch strict Methodist majority?

Food for thought,

Pastor Harris