FINNS: An Oral History- Keeping Services

Keeping Services - Interview with Randy Kangas

FINNS: An Oral History of Finnish-Americans in New Hampshire’s Monadnock Region

Excerpted from FINNS: An Oral History... by Patricia Kangas Ktistes, 1997, all rights reserved.

Keeping Services

Laestadius fought with all his might against the spreading  godlessness and above all against drunkenness, a vice that had  assumed terrible proportions among the settlers and Lapps. His  was a commanding personality; he started a religious revival  that spread like a forest fire through the Lapp territory of three countries. 

Lapland: Short Guide for Tourists

Randy Kangas  

One thing about the [main] Apostolic Finnish community that is seen as odd by outsiders is  abstinence from television. Relatively few, maybe at the most 5 or 10 percent, in the congregation  have television. Although what you do see now is a video player. A lot of homes, even conservative  homes, do have videos for educational purposes. Some do have video camcorders. Even of those  families that do have video players, a very small percentage would actually use the TV part of it.  

In the media—Reader’s Digest articles and NPR—you’re hearing about bad effects of  television, so it’s not a totally strange idea not to have it. For the 5 percent of “good” that’s on, it’s not  worth the 95 percent of garbage. I’ve often read in National Geographic that in many cultures,  television—because of its homogenizing effect—destroys culture. In the South, where folklore was a  common entertainment, you’d sit on the porch and old folks would share stories with the young.  

Today, people are watching television and folklore is being forgotten In Iceland, the Icelandic  language is directly descended from language the Vikings spoke and now Icelanders are losing their  language because of American television. And in Canada, a lot of Indian tribes are losing tribal ways —handicrafts, how to make things out of wood—because young folks aren’t interested. Even South  Africa until recently didn’t have very much for television until satellite technology.  

A lot of things historically were shunned in the Apostolic community. In the 1930s, having a  washing machine or refrigerator or telephone was considered taboo. Partly out of superstition. Partly  out of, “What’s the need for such a thing?” When telephones came out, people figured housewives  weren’t going to get chores done and they’d gossip all day but telephones became a useful part of  society. But unfortunately, television—because of the power of advertising—became so corrupted, it’s  almost impossible to reform. Sometimes, children in school who have television ask Apostolic  children from, “Well, what do you do in the evenings? Sit there and look at the corner of the room?”  But these children are busy. They’re playing. They’re using a computer. They’re reading, singing,  doing crafts. They’re working when they don’t have a TV to watch. 29 

One of the early Christian church fathers, John Chrysostom, said, “The desire to lead is the  mother of all heresy.” And thus divisions within our church have happened. Not that sometimes it’s not  justified. Sometimes it’s just that an individual’s personality insists that they be in charge. One group  that recently split off from the main Apostolic Lutheran church is a relatively small minority  influenced by the Pentecostal movement. A lot of them admired that kind of Christianity and see it is  fruitless to try and bring it in, so they’re doing it on their own. They’re not finding the vibrancy they  want in the more orthodox Apostolic Lutheranism.  

Within the church, there’s social cohesion of like-minded people. But there’s also unique  doctrine which people in their hearts can’t feel free to separate from. Even though they may physically  separate from the church, they feel a strong kinship to it. The main difference between the Apostolic  Lutherans and mainstream Lutheranism is Apostolics place strong emphasis on the priesthood of all  believers. They believe a child of God has authority and commission through Christ to preach  repentance and remission of sins in a direct, personal way; not just a general way, as in a sermon. John  20:23, Matthew 18:18, and II Corinthians 2:10 support this view. When a person desires to be  absolved of sin, he or she would find it hard to [receive] immediate consolation without presence of  the Christian community. It’s a teaching rooted in Luther’s work, but in mainstream Lutheranism this  died out. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a German Lutheran pastor who was killed by the Nazis, encouraged the  use of this gift in two of his books, The Cost of Discipleship and Life Together. 

Socially Apostolic Lutherans and Independents are pretty much the same: simple-living,  family-oriented, with a strong emphasis on a simple Christianity. But the main difference between the  two is how they view the doctrine of forgiveness of sins: the act of pardoning within congregations,  declaring sins forgiven to another’s troubled conscience. But the reason this teaching of absolving one  another’s sins has fallen into disuse is the result of a split that originated within the Heideman group,  known as the First Apostolic Lutherans, in the Midwest. Here in New Ipswich, it just so happened that  the split occurred within what was called the Michaelson group, the main Apostolic Lutheran church.  Perhaps it was partly due to the fact that years ago, teaching of confession of sin had a much more  legalistic bent and there was a stronger emphasis on cleansing of conscience and enumeration of sins. 

The move away from public confession was more of a swing of the pendulum: it swung the  other way as a protest against this practice. John Pollari, who led the Independent Apostolic Lutherans,  didn’t object to the teaching of forgiving sins but more to abuses and what the Independents felt to be  a ‘law-spirited’ teaching: keeping Christians in terror and fear of hell if all sins were not enumerated  as opposed to walking, living in, and preaching Christ. Within the mainstream Apostolic movement, I  think people are very welcoming and open toward Independents and would want to hold the majority  of them to be in spiritual kinship.  

Even after the groups separated, Emmanuel Aho and different ones visited my grandparents.  But then, as younger generations grew up, they didn’t fellowship quite so much, although periodically  there have been times when those from the Independent group dated someone from the main Apostolic  group. When some of the old timers in the Independent group died, their funerals were conducted by  the main church because there were no preachers in this area for the Independents, although now they  have lay preachers and they regularly have preachers from the Midwest come out.  

 I understand the Inter-Lutheran Theological Seminary was started by Dr. Uuras Saarnivara,  who wrote English and Finnish versions of the history of the Laestadian movement. But because of his  fellowship with mainstream Lutherans, he was not accepted by Apostolic hierarchy though he still had  a following among some of the people. I think he’s in Finland; probably in his 90s. The seminary had  been in Minneapolis; now it is in Hancock, Michigan. The current leader is not from an Apostolic  background but is welcomed in many Apostolic churches. I met him at a church convention. The most  conservative Apostolics may be skeptical of him, but the more free-thinking ones welcome his  sentiments, insights into scriptures, and intelligence. Many seminarian preachers go to other Lutheran  churches to serve, but many have found pastorates in Apostolic Lutheran churches.

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