from http://www.haugeinstitute.org/



Hans Nielsen Hauge was born on April 3, 1771, on the Hauge farm in the Tune parish of Østfold and he died March 29, 1824, on the Bredvedt farm in Aker outside the city Oslo. His life corresponded with a time in Norway that was filled with suffering, war, need and great changes -- a situation which was also true for his own life. He was born as a lower-class person in the Danish/Norwegian kingdom; he died as a respected middle-class man in a new Norway. His associates, the Haugians, were good farmers, craftsmen, and merchants who came to play an important part in the building up of life after 1814.

Hauge’s life falls into four parts:

• 1771-1796: he was at home
• 1796-1804: he travelled around as a lay preacher, wrote religious books, established and ran businesses
• 1804-1814: He sat in prison most of this time, while his case went forward. His final judgment came down on December 23, 1814.
• 1811-1824: He farmed first Bakkehaugen and then Bredvedt Hauge’s childhood home and his adolescence were strongly marked bythe pietism that dominated Norwegian church life in the first half of the18th century.

Through his confirmation instruction, devotional books andhymns, the lay folk learned to know what true Christianity was. In additionto this, Tune had an extreme pietist, that is, a Herrnhuter, as pastor. He wasinfluenced by a sentimental piety, believed in conversion and dwelt upon Jesus’ suffering and blood. However, the pastor realized that Hauge hadpromise and let him use his own private library. In addition to his bookishinterests, Hauge was handy, shrewd and rich in initiative.Two features characterized Hauge’s life before 1796: Pietistic Christianity and strong initiative and enterprise. After 1796 each of these strengthenedthe other. At the same time there was a necessary opposition to The Age of Reason and Enlightenment, theory and rationalism, which at the end of the 18th century was strong among pastors, officials and a large number of the middle class.

The restrictive boundaries the upper class gave to personal initiative, social movements and mobility. April 5th, 1796, was the soul-changing day in Hauge’s life. While he wasworking in the fields, he was singing «Jesus for Thee and Thy Blessed Communion.» When he came to the second stanza, he later wrote, «My mind wasso lifted up to God, that I didn’t know myself.» This is not the language ofa classic conversion from the awakening of Christian faith, but an ecstaticexperience with parallels in mysticism. The experience filled him with certaintythat he had a calling to be a witness to his nation. He began that sameday, first to his family, then to those in his home village, and soon to theneighbouring villages. In 1797 he began to travel around most parts of thecountry.

Hauge’s meetings and activities conflicted with the current Lutheran understandingof the pastor’s office and with a declaration from 1741, theConventicle Act. Its purpose had been to bring the pietistic lay meetingsunder control of the state. The pastor was to be informed beforehand andpreferably be at the meeting to assure that the preaching was not sectarianor attached to the spiritual or secular authorities.Hauge was not deterred by the Conventicle Act. And in late 1797 he was arrestedfor the first time while holding a meeting in Glemmen; and from thattime on, until the fall of 1804, he was imprisoned 10 times. During theseyears, he travelled most of the country, often on foot, holding meetings andwinning converts so effectively that we speak of this as the first Norwegianfolk movement. It shows, not least, the sensational spreading of the selftaughtpeasant’s son’s writing at the time.

Hauge’s practical sense and his enterprising ways saw all the unused possibilitiesaround him. He thought it was wrong that only the worldly-mindedshould harvest the earnings from merchants, factories and the like. For himwealth was an expression of God’s blessing. The correct Christian understandingwas not to let the material bind one but to be a faithful and wisesteward over what God had given one.He began a business in Bergen in 1801, and for him the work of running a businessand preaching went hand in hand. With such ideas he not only opposedthe pastor’s station, he also threatened the merchant’s patrimony. The result ofthis was a reputation for economic success and growth among his followers.

Some Consequences of Hauge’s Work.During Hauge’s time, the farmers were bound to the farm and the areawhere they had grown up, a tradition that had remained for centuries.Sons took over their fathers’ farms and people remained where they hadalways been. There was no tradition of leaving one’s place of birth, andneither was there any tradition of getting established elsewhere, nor ofdoing anything else. Hauge was born into this particular tradition.Hauge’s preaching released a spiritual liberation among the people inthe provinces. It stimulated individuals to making independent choicesin spiritual and eventually in practical matters as well. As a result farmers’sons moved away from their farms to establish themselves as tradersin the towns, or moved to other parts of the country to live and work invarious fields. Over a period of time, there were businesses run by theHaugians all over the country and many of them, encouraged by Hauge orother brothers, moved to other areas to start or run businesses.

Some established shops, others started with handicraft while yet others startedup factories and other industrial projects. A mental and spiritual liberationoccurred which was without comparison in Norway at that time.Interest in Hauge’s letters and writings stimulated the majority of thepeople to learn to read and write. This contributed to a general increaseof knowledge in the population. It was well known that Haugians read agreat deal and that they were knowledgeable people, which contributedto the fact that many Haugians received positions of trust and influencein the community.

Hauge also preached equality between men and women. He encouragedmen to learn to do housework and women to work on the farms. This wasrevolutionary at that time, and not everybody took it seriously. Hauge hadno objection to placing women in leadership positions, whether it was inbusiness or as preachers or.... in the Societies of Friends. The most importantquestion for him was placing the right person in the right place. Healso placed great emphasis on the equality of the sexes in his teaching,but after his death this idea eventually faded out.It is difficult to document to what extent Hauge and the Haugians influ-enced the historic events that unfolded in Norway at that time. However,certain basic traits of the Haugian movement represented somethingcompletely new and contributed in their way to the revolution. For example,the fact that the Haugian movement was countrywide was one ofseveral factors, which contributed to broadening individuals’ perspectivefrom the local to the national view. During Hauge’s lifetime, people wentfrom considering themselves as part of a class in the districts somewherein the country, to considering themselves as mobile individuals, citizensof Norway with the responsibility and the possibility of influencing Norway’sfuture.

The fact that people learned to see themselves as individuals in a national context to a greater degree contributed to the development of a strongernational identity, and this consciousness in turn contributed to a growingnational spirit of community. This eventually led to an increasing desirefor national independence, which the farmers’ uprising induced. In 1814Norway received its own constitution. Hauge himself was not present atthe writing of it, but of the 112 men at Eidsvoll there were 3 Haugians.After Hauge’s death, the Haugians contributed to the abolishment of theConventicle Ordinance in 1842. The clergy had so far enjoyed a monopolyon the preaching of the word of God for a hundred years. With its disappearance,there occurred a tremendous blossoming of freedom to organise religious groups towards the end of the 1800’s. Missionary organisations,temperance societies, and political groups saw the light of day, and to this day Norway has the largest number of organisations in relation toits population.Earlier, trade and trading had been considered incompatible with living agood Christian life. Nonetheless Hauge and his Friends proved that it waspossible to combine spirituality and practicality in an exemplary fashion.

They were honest and dignified in their business dealings, while they understoodthe need for profit and profitability. Instead of laying up as muchmoney as they could for themselves, they used it to reinvest in order tocreate new benefits for a continually growing number of the population.While trading had been reserved as a privilege for the middle classes, ithad now become a living for a growing number of people from all walks of life. This made for a continually growing number of new ventures, andNorway now received a new middle class made up of farmers and othersfrom the labouring class who had found a living through some other venturethan traditional farming.

Conclusion Hans Nielsen Hauge was an unorthodox man who broke both new groundin religion and economic life in Norway. He walk the talk, and influencedpeople wherever he went, whatever their station in life. Hauge contributedactively to a spiritual and mental liberation, making people more independentthan ever, in particular farmers and workers. The influence ofthe Haugian Movement on the Norwegian population contributed to theformation of a national spirit of indentity and community, which was tobecome one of the fundamental pillars of the Norwegian independencemovement. Time has proven that the opinions and principles that Haugelived by, in both his Christian life and his business ventures were timelessand universal. They would be well worth following today.