Hans Nielsen Hauge

My grand grandfather Lorentz Andersen's cousin.

Hans Nielsen Hauge (April 3, 1771 March 29, 1824) was a revivalist Norwegian lay preacher who spoke up against the Church establishment in Norway. He and his followers were persecuted in their time, though their teachings were in keeping with Lutheran doctrine. He began preaching about "the living faith" in Norway and Denmark after a mystical experience that he believed called him to share the assurance of salvation with others. At the time, itinerant preaching and religious gatherings held without the supervision of a pastor were illegal, and Hauge was arrested several times. Hauge is considered an influential personality in the industrialization of Norway. He is commemorated annually on March 29 as a renewer of the church by the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.


Biography
Hans Nielsen Hauge was born the fifth of ten children on April 3, 1771 in his ancestral farm of Hauge in Tune, near Sarpsborg in the county of Østfold. He had a poor and otherwise ordinary youth until April 5, 1796, when he received his "spiritual baptism" in a field near his farm. Within two months, he had founded a revival movement in his own community, written a book, and decided to take his mission on the road. He wrote a series of books in his lifetime.
In the next several years, Hauge traveled - mostly by foot - throughout most of Norway, from Tromsø in the north to Denmark in the south.
He faced great personal suffering: his first wife died and three of his four children died in infancy. He was imprisoned for much of the period between 1804 and 1811. At the time, Norwegians did not have the right of religious assembly outside of the auspices of the state church. Hauge also found himself accused of various other spurious charges. By all accounts, his time in prison broke his health and led to his premature death. Upon his release from prison in 1811, he took up work as a farmer and industrialist at Bakkehaugen near Christiania (present day's Oslo), and in 1815 he married Andrea Andersdatter, who died in childbirth. In 1817, he remarried Ingeborg Marie Olsdatter and bought the Bredtvet farm (now the site of Bredtvet Church in Oslo) where he died March 29, 1824.
Hauge's message emphasized the type of spirituality he felt originated with Martin Luther. He led charismatic meetings, and his organization became an informal network that in many ways challenged the establishment of the state church. As a result, he and his followers were persecuted in various ways. Hauge was imprisoned on several occasions, spending nine years in prison. Nevertheless, the "Haugeans" increased their influence over time. It is generally agreed that Hauge had a profound influence on both secular and religious history in Norway.

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