Norsk lekmannskristendom i USA Norwegian Laymen's Religion in America

The first organized emigration from Norway to America took place in 1825, leaded by Cleng Peerson. The group consisted of both Quakers and followers of the Norwegian layleader Hans Nielsen Hauge. The article discusses the reasons for emigration, either religious or economical, both pull-factors and push-factors. One possible impulse for this first emigration was a ship that stranded in Bergen in 1817. Aboard was a group of Germans heading for a colony in Pennsylvania called Harmony, where a Lutheran dissident, Johann Rapp from Württemberg, waited with his flock for the second coming of Christ. The Rappites, in addition to the Shakers in Pennsylvania, are mentioned by Friedrich Engels in 1845 as the first example of communist societies. Norwegian Haugians were influenced by communitarian principles, but did not succeed in building such a society in America. The number of Norwegians in America grew from a thousand in 1840 to a million in 1900. The Haugian movement introduced by the lay-preacher and later ordained Pastor Elling Eielsen, was especially important in the early phase of immigration, even if many converted to Mormonism. Later, the Norwegian Synod, representing the continuation of the Church of Norway, became the most important religious institution in the new land. Yet a few were faithful to the heritage of Hans Nielsen Hauge, and formed a Church more like the inner-mission organisations in Norway.