Theologian. Parents: Second Lieutenant, later Harbor Director Georg Daniel Barth Johnson (1794–1872; see NBL1, vol. 7) and Wilhelmine (“Mina”) Hanssen (1800–69). Married 31.10.1849 to Emilie (“Milla”) Helgine Sophie Dybwad (15.9.1825–14.2.1898), daughter of merchant Jacob Erasmus Dybwad (1792–1854) and Christiane Lange (1795–1885). Grandfather of Lauritz Johnson (1906–92); uncle of Johannes Johnson (1864–1916) and Gisle Carl Torsten Johnson (1876–1946); brother-in-law of Jacob Dybwad (1823–99).
Gisle Johnson was one of the 19th century's most important Norwegian theologians - Lutheran-confessional, but at the same time characterized by a modern way of thinking. For over a century he worked at the Faculty of Theology in Kristiania, and he exercised great influence on the future priests. He co-founded the internal emissary in Norway and was for a long time one of its foremost leaders. With his preaching of penance, he left his strong mark on religious life in Norway from the 1850s.
Johnson was born in Fredrikshald, but grew up in Kristiansand, interrupted by two years (1832–34) in Lyngdal. In Kristiansand he went to the city's cathedral school and graduated from there to the exam artium 1839. At home he received a harmonious Christian upbringing. Also important was his long-standing and close friendship with assistant professor Ole Christian Thistedahl, who led him into 17th-century Lutheran orthodoxy and a pietistic-colored scriptural theology rooted in classical education.
After artium, Johnson studied theology at the University of Christiania and became cand.theol. 1845. The following year he traveled to Germany with a scientific scholarship. He visited Berlin and Leipzig and found a suitable place of study in Erlangen, where he met the Lutheran-denominational experience theology ("Erlangen School"). After two years abroad, he returned to Christiania, where in 1849 he was appointed associate professor at the Faculty of Theology. In 1860 he became professor with responsibility for systematic theology. In 1855–74 he also taught pedagogy at the practical-theological seminary.
In the 1850s, the state church faced great challenges. The resignation of the priest G. A. Lammers (1856) and the establishment of a free church which eventually became Baptist, caused unrest. In the laity there was great dissatisfaction with the Grundtvigian priests. In 1851, Gisle Johnson also emerged as an uncompromising critic of Grundtvigianism. Its lack of sense of the exclusive authority of Scripture, its optimistic view of man and its cultural openness were for him incompatible with Lutheran doctrine and with the pietistic basic attitude he shared with the "awakened" lay people. The Church's infant baptism was attacked by Baptists. Johnson responded with the book Nogle Ord om Barnedaaben (Some Words on Infant Baptism).
In 1855, Johnson initiated the founding of the Christiania Indremissionsforening. Social and spiritual distress necessitated internal emigration; it should be concentrated on edification, "soul care", dissemination of edifying writings and diakonia - a supplement to the state church's public service. From 1855 he held for a time Bible readings in Christiania with a large influx. Johnson broke social and cultural barriers when he became a popular preacher as a professor. The Pietist revival of the 1850s was named after him (the "Johnson Revival"). Priests who had sat under his catheter helped bring it to church life. An alliance was developed between the Orthodox-Pietist clergy ("Johnson priests") and the people of the inner mission, which was to become significant well into the 20th century.
Johnson was behind the establishment of the Norwegian Lutheran Foundation (1868), a nationwide central body for internal mission work and the forerunner of the Norwegian Lutheran Internal Mission Society, which was established in 1891. He was also involved in the establishment of a number of institutions, such as. Diakonissehuset (1868), the first nursing school in Norway.
As a Lutheran-denominational theologian, Gisle Johnson had difficulties with the public lay sermon, which accompanied the inner mission. When the Lutheran Foundation's unorthodox preachers preached publicly, it was clearly contrary to the confession, he believed. Johnson sought a solution to his so-called "distress principle": When the church was in spiritual "distress," the layman had to use his gift of grace to preach; but when and where it should happen, the lay preacher himself had to consider. In that sense, the Lutheran Foundation took no responsibility. When the Lutheran Foundation was transformed into the Home Mission Society in 1891, the "emergency principle" was abolished, and Johnson resigned from the leadership.
In the 1870s, Johnson gave up teaching systematic theology and took over dogma history instead. He was clearly burnt out. Nor did he seem able to meet the challenges of modern culture. During the constitutional struggle in the 1880s, he was behind the conservative appeal To the Friends of Christianity in Our Country, published in 1883 as a warning against political radicalism within the left movement. The appeal provoked violent reactions on a liberal and radical level. Even within the lay movement it did not gain general support; large parts of it parish to the party Venstre.
Scripture, the Reformation confessions, and Luther himself were the decisive authorities in Johnson's "system." But it rested on modern principles: The valid theology was rooted in the individual faith experience. The Lutheran teaching content could be internalized in the believer because it expressed the experience of faith in a comprehensive way. In this way, the experience also had a dogmatically correct content. He justified this method theologically-psychologically in his pissing (learning about the nature of faith). Struggle for pure Lutheran doctrine, preaching of revival and emphasis on personal piety were natural consequences of his principled theological position.
Johnson's professional writing was rather limited. He influenced primarily through teaching and preaching. But he emphasized journalistic communication: in 1859 he started (together with CP Caspari and RT Nissen) Theological Journal of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Norway and edited it until 1891. In 1863 he founded the Lutheran Church Gazette and was its editor until 1875, and In 1864–71 he published Gammelt og Nyt, a Journal of Enlightenment and Building for Lutheran Christians.
For the Grundtvigians and the spokesmen of liberalism, Gisle Johnson represented orthodox dogmatism and dark pietism, for the conservative clergy and the pietistic lay movement in the inner mission he was a "church leader". He was a member of the Society of Sciences in Christiania (now the Norwegian Academy of Sciences) from its foundation in 1857 and of the Royal Society of Norwegian Sciences from the same year. He was knighted by St. Olav's Order 1866 and received the Commander's Cross of 1st Class 1882; In 1879 he was created an honorary doctor at the University of Copenhagen.
Works
- Some Words about Barnedaaben, 1857
- 1859–91 Theological Journal of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Norway
- Spare. Konkordiebogen or the evangelical Lutheran Church's Bekjendelsesskrifter (sm.m. C. P. Caspari), 1861–66 (and later edition)
- Ed. Lutheran Kirketidende 1863–75
- red. Old and New, a Journal of Enlightenment and Edifice for Lutheran Christne 1864–71
- Outline of systematic Theology, for Use at Lectures, 1879–81 (and later circulation)
- Spare. Dr. Martin Luther's great Katechismus (sm.m. C. P. Caspari), 1881 (and later edition)
- To the Friends of Christendom in Our Land, 1883
- Lectures on Dogma History, (posthumously) 1897
- Lectures on the Christian Ethik, (posthumously) 1898
A selection
Sources and literature
- Biografi i NFL, bd. 3, 1892
- A. Brandrud: Theology at the Royal Frederick University 1811–1911, special prints of festive writing published on the occasion of the university's 100th anniversary, 1911
- G. Gran: Norwegians in the 19th century, bd. 2, 1914
- L. Selmer: NBL1 biographers, bd. 7, 1936
- G. Ousland: A church chief. Gisle Johnson as theologian and churchman, 1950
- O. Rudvin: History of the Inner Mission Company, bd. 1, 1967
- E. Molland: Norwegian church history in the 19th century, bd. 1, 1979
- B. T. Oftestad: "Ecclesiastical Legitimacy of Lekmannsprekenen", in TTK 1980, p. 189–206
- G. Johnson Høibo: The Johnson family. Norway – Iceland – Norway, 1983
- S. Wollert: Gisle Johnson's Study Trip to Germany 1846/47, 1998
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