Georg Sverdrup was a Norwegian theologian, educator, and statesman. He is most well known for being a member of the Norwegian Parliament and was also responsible for the development of the first Norwegian university library.
Background
Georg Sverdrup was born on December 16, 1848 at Balestrand near Bergen, Norway. He was the son of Harald Ulrik and Karoline Metella (Suur) Sverdrup. His father was a clergyman and for many years a member of the Storthing; his uncle Johan was for a generation the leader of the political liberals in the Storthing and prime minister of Norway from 1884 to 1889. One of his brothers likewise was a member of the Storthing.
Education
Georg Sverdrup received a classical education in the Nissen Cathedral School in Christiania and was graduated in theology from Christiania University in 1871. He then studied Semitics in the University of Paris, where he came to know Sven Oftedal, and visited several German universities.
Career
In 1874 Georg Sverdrup left Norway to become a professor of theology in Augsburg Seminary, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, where he taught for thirty-three years. From 1876 he was president of the institution.
As a practical churchman - he had no desire to be ordained - he stressed "Spirit and Life" over against dead orthodoxy and congregational inactivity. His peculiar view in the field of church polity that the local church is the right form of the Kingdom of God was followed by the Norwegian Lutheran Conference, 1869-90, and specifically adopted by its heir, the Norwegian Lutheran Free Church, whose moderator he was for several years.
These bodies thus deviated from the well-grounded doctrine of the Lutheran Church that church polity is an adiaphoron. To Sverdrup the state church conception of church, of ministry, and of ministerial education was highly objectionable. Through Augsburg Seminary he wished to resurrect what he claimed to be the New Testament idea of ekklesia and to educate a democratic ministry.
Georg Sverdrup is buried at Var Frelsers gravlund.
A conservative eclectic Lutheran, with wholesome liberal leanings, Sverdrup's special fields were the Old Testament and dogmatics. He was active on many church boards, especially those handling foreign missions and deaconess work sponsored by Norwegian-Americans.
Views
Sverdrup championed congregationalistic ideas, which he called "free church ideas, " in the lecture room, on the floor of synod, and in the press. He regarded the organized local congregation of believers as the only quantity entitled to the name of church. All other so-called ecclesiastical organizations such as council, synod, state church, were purely human. He stressed lay preaching as the chief charism, a complement to the public ministry, which he regarded as highly necessary, but not as a jure divino institution. In liturgy, he was a low churchman.
Connections
Georg Sverdrup was twice married: to Kathrine Elisabet Heiberg in 1874, and, three years after her death in 1887, to her sister Elise Susanna Heiberg. He was survived by his widow, five children of his first wife, and two of his second.