Lee Molgaard interviewed by H.B. Simonsen
Corrected by H.B. Simonsen
[SPEAKER_01]: I'd like you to tell me your full name, please.
[SPEAKER_00]: My name is Leland Molgaard.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was born and raised in Northwest Iowa.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was baptized by Håkon Jorgensen, who was one of the patriarchs.
[SPEAKER_00]: In fact, he was the president of the Danish Lutheran Church for a while.
[SPEAKER_00]: I attended Grandview College, and then I attended Augustana College, Sioux Falls, South Dakota.
[SPEAKER_00]: which happened to be a Norwegian school, and not near as fun as Grandview.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then I went to the AELC Seminary, which was in Maywood, Illinois at the time.
[SPEAKER_00]: The seminary had moved from here at Grandview a couple years earlier.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I graduated from the Lutheran School of Theology in 1965.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then I served a parish in Brayton, Iowa, which was a merged parish of Oak Hill Lutheran Church and St.
[SPEAKER_00]: John's Lutheran Church.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're both in Audubon County in western Iowa.
[SPEAKER_00]: Again, a size of, well, near...
[SPEAKER_00]: Elk Horn, Kimballton, just to the east of them.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that was a heavy Danish area.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then I went on to the University of Minnesota and got a master's degree in medieval history.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then I served other parishes.
[SPEAKER_00]: I also taught history and political science for three years at what had been a Roman Catholic school.
[SPEAKER_00]: And late I've gotten into the trying to trace the
[SPEAKER_00]: where have all the congregations gone as far as the, what were the Danish Lutheran churches of the Grundtvig tradition.
[SPEAKER_00]: The merger occurred in 1962 and I, so I went and found the list of congregations that existed then and now we're almost 50 years later and I was wondering how have they survived.
[SPEAKER_00]: There were about 76 congregations at that time, and 24 of them were listed as rural, which meant they were literally out in the countryside.
[SPEAKER_00]: But in our definition of rural today, you could say almost all of the congregations were rural, except for Chicago and Los Angeles in very few cities.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have found that well over 60 congregations are still in existence in some form.
[SPEAKER_00]: Some merged with other groups and a good number of them are continuing on as was.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've been interested in how they have changed.
[SPEAKER_00]: Our Danish church in Watsonville, California now has Spanish-speaking services and almost all of the members of that Lutheran church are of Hispanic heritage.
[SPEAKER_00]: The Southside church in Chicago, St.
[SPEAKER_00]: Stephen's, that now is still going and strong as a Lutheran congregation and it is 100% African-American.
[SPEAKER_00]: So there we see cases where the congregations have really changed.
[SPEAKER_00]: There are a couple congregations that still have Danish services.
[SPEAKER_00]: St.
[SPEAKER_00]: Peter's in Minneapolis has a Christmas service, as does Solvang.
[SPEAKER_00]: And Yorba Linda, California, which the parent church was in Los Angeles downtown,
[SPEAKER_00]: And because of the changing demographics, they moved out to Yorba Linda, which is a southern suburb of Los Angeles.
[SPEAKER_00]: And they still call a Danish pastor to serve either two-year or four-year contract.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think immigration law determines that.
[SPEAKER_00]: So they have a Danish service every month and also teach Danish language, and
[SPEAKER_00]: minister to the au pair, the Danish au pair people that are coming over to work for American families in that area.
[SPEAKER_00]: The Farstrup Mortensen Lecture Series is probably the premier Grundtvigian event.
[SPEAKER_00]: The Solvang congregation
[SPEAKER_00]: is in charge of that, and they do a beautiful job bringing in top-notch lecturers every year on some topic, and they do a great job of that.
[SPEAKER_00]: On the more local scene, in West Denmark, they have a family camp, a long weekend each year,
[SPEAKER_00]: And Danebod at Tyler has three family camps, one June, one July, and one August.
[SPEAKER_00]: We have attended the August one for several years, and we get about 150 people, which is definitely capacity.
[SPEAKER_00]: And what's that?
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a week, a week-long event, Sunday evening till Saturday morning.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the one we're at, it's interesting, we have some non-Danish families who have come.
[SPEAKER_00]: A gentleman who's in charge of medical research at the University of Colorado and is a very active member and does wonderful lecture every year because he's into stem cell research.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he's an ophthalmologist by training, but especially focuses on diabetes.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that's the family camp.
[SPEAKER_01]: In short, what is the program during the day at the family camp?
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, it starts at 7 in the morning with gymnastic and then breakfast.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then we have singing for an hour.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then the children go to children's folk dancing for a good half hour.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then we have, uh, the adults have a discussion from 10 30 till noon.
[SPEAKER_00]: And again, it's the topics are wild and diverse.
[SPEAKER_01]: There will be a lecture.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a lecture and, uh, yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: And what's interesting at comparing our family camp to the folk meeting, the family camp insists upon calling it a discussion.
[SPEAKER_00]: so that there will be input from the audience.
[SPEAKER_00]: But the folk meeting, they want a lecture because it's hard to hear the questions from the people who ask the question if they don't use the microphone.
[SPEAKER_00]: So there's a little...
[SPEAKER_00]: generational difference in what but basically it's kind of the same and so then we have a noon meal and then in the early afternoon there are crafts and there probably be 10 or 15 people who are part of the camp
[SPEAKER_00]: who will do their craft.
[SPEAKER_00]: One does needlework.
[SPEAKER_00]: There will probably be wood carving and several children's crafts which are there.
[SPEAKER_00]: And probably the most famous is the wood carving and sanding.
[SPEAKER_00]: A gentleman by the name of Harold Petersen did that for ages and he would have the
[SPEAKER_00]: They're like little seals or a little elephant and they're different types of woods and the kids get them already, they're already cut out.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then they sand them until they have to be tremendously soft.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you can't imagine seeing all those young kids from early morning to late at night sanding away on their otter.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, otter is one of them.
[SPEAKER_00]: And our grandkids, you know, they arrived on Sunday and Monday morning they were standing at the door to the basement of the gym hall to get their animals so they could start sanding.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's just unreal.
[SPEAKER_00]: Every year you go there and those kids are just sanding their old hearts out.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then when it's finally finished and there are different grades of sandpaper, then they put the coating on it and they're very proud.
[SPEAKER_00]: And our grandkids have a,
[SPEAKER_00]: house full of them by now, but they get one every year.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then at 3.30 there is coffee, and then there is a tea time, which will be a half-hour presentation by someone about something.
[SPEAKER_00]: For instance, the ophthalmologist's son had gone to South Africa to the soccer or football
[SPEAKER_00]: And his daughter had done charity work in Haiti.
[SPEAKER_00]: So she gave a presentation on that.
[SPEAKER_00]: I had been to El Salvador for the 30th anniversary memorializing Archbishop Oscar Romero when he was assassinated.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's these kinds of presentations that will happen then.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then...
[SPEAKER_00]: Later in the afternoon there's usually a kind of major musical presentation.
[SPEAKER_00]: So there will be practices for the group that are going to do that.
[SPEAKER_00]: The rest of us sit and visit.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then we have a happy hour before, an hour before dinner at six o'clock.
[SPEAKER_00]: After that there's more singing.
[SPEAKER_01]: What does that mean?
[SPEAKER_00]: Uh, we gather out in a circle and everybody brings their, uh, uh, beer or, uh, liquor and we have, and then we have some snacks.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, um, we are told to behave ourselves, which we do, but, uh, that is our happy hour that we have.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then we have the dinner and then we go again, sing for an hour and a half.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then there's always campfire.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the camp group is broken up into five different campfire groups.
[SPEAKER_00]: And they will do some hilarious presentation for 15, 20 minutes, spoofing the camp or any other topic of interest to everyone.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then after that is some campfire songs.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then we have coffee again.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then there's adult folk dancing.
[SPEAKER_00]: But the younger kids that can do it and can stay up that late come.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so that is from 10 to about 11.30.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then those of us who are still able wander over to the Kronberg, which is a local watering hole where we have pizza and beer.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so that's about midnight.
[SPEAKER_00]: So here's something for you to do from seven in the morning.
[SPEAKER_00]: till midnight and everybody has a wonderful time.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now each of the weeks will have a different schedule.
[SPEAKER_00]: The big things for our camp I think are the singing.
[SPEAKER_00]: Rita Juhl has been doing the piano since the 60s and she's wonderful.
[SPEAKER_00]: She's from St.
[SPEAKER_00]: Peter's Minneapolis.
[SPEAKER_00]: Mark Nussel from Chicago.
[SPEAKER_00]: He and his daughter and now granddaughter
[SPEAKER_00]: lead the folk dancing.
[SPEAKER_00]: And her daughter does the kids folk dancing in the morning and then they all do the evening folk dancing.
[SPEAKER_00]: But they also have modern line dancing for the teenagers.
[SPEAKER_00]: And, you know, when you say, well, kids don't like folk dancing anymore, that is not true.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's amazing.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're out there dancing their hearts out.
[SPEAKER_00]: And especially the line dancing before, which needless to say is beyond me.
[SPEAKER_00]: But they'll literally fill the floor of the gym hall.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that's wonderful.
[SPEAKER_00]: And as far as the camp is concerned, it is all,
[SPEAKER_00]: Participant run and managed.
[SPEAKER_00]: There is no professional camp director.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's passed around to a different family each year.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now the people, you know, the same person does gymnastic every year, folk dancing every year.
[SPEAKER_00]: Most of the crafts, they've been doing it for ages, but
[SPEAKER_00]: Again, when I talk to my friends who are not of our tradition, they can't believe you could run a camp like that with all volunteer help.
[SPEAKER_00]: But there has a tremendous buy-in and ownership.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that's a wonderful event.
[SPEAKER_01]: Do you see this camp, the family camp, growing out as something that has grown out of the Grundtvigian tradition?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, yes.
[SPEAKER_00]: When Enok Mortensen came to Tyler, Minnesota, the folk school was in horrible disrepair.
[SPEAKER_00]: It had not been used.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm amazed that it didn't get torn down because a building of that size, three stories, there's some maintenance involved.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, he wanted to do some of the Grundtvigian folk school.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it started out as a recreational camp for adults.
[SPEAKER_00]: And especially 4-H leaders and other youth leaders would go there to kind of learn how to run a camp.
[SPEAKER_00]: And a lot of stress on nature, but also crafts and also singing and folk dancing.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that's how it arose.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then it evolved into what we call our folk camps and the family camps.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it started just with one week.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then when it overfilled, they started with two weeks.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then they started, you know, the adults could bring their family.
[SPEAKER_00]: where early on it was just for adults.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it has now evolved from Enok's recreational camp in 1947 to now, well, we had the 60th anniversary three years ago.
[SPEAKER_00]: And they're really wondering how they can get a third family camp because they're all getting so full.
[SPEAKER_00]: And one challenge is that the folk school, fortunately, is well enough used by other organizations in southwest Minnesota that it's almost hard to block out another week for the family camp.
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's go on.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it definitely, Enok Mortensen, the Grundtvigian Folk School, that's where all the family camps and the Danebod family meeting all trace back to that.
[SPEAKER_00]: So without his vision,
[SPEAKER_00]: It might not have happened.
[SPEAKER_01]: The Tyler Folk Meeting is a place where it's elder people and some of them might think that it's a tradition that won't go on for a very long time because of this generation.
[SPEAKER_01]: But could you imagine?
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: It'll go.
[SPEAKER_00]: It'll go.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I've spoken to it a couple of times and I've spoken to those things.
[SPEAKER_00]: And, you know, obviously, none of us are going to last forever as human beings.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I'm amazed that, you know, some of the family camp attenders later on
[SPEAKER_00]: move into the folk meeting.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the folk meeting is really a remnant of the church convention that was held every summer in the American Evangelical Lutheran Church.
[SPEAKER_00]: And they would meet at a
[SPEAKER_00]: site where there was a congregation.
[SPEAKER_00]: And sometimes they were rather small congregations, but yet they would host the convention.
[SPEAKER_00]: And in those days, when you went to convention, you didn't go to a hotel.
[SPEAKER_00]: The members of the congregation would open their homes.
[SPEAKER_00]: So again, it was really a folk meeting in the fact that you literally lived with a family of that community.
[SPEAKER_00]: And when the merger came around,
[SPEAKER_00]: And then the conventions, you know, only two people could attend, two lay people from each congregation and one pastor from each congregation.
[SPEAKER_00]: That left a vacuum.
[SPEAKER_00]: So the folk meeting kind of arose to fill that.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it has all the feeling of what were the synod conventions before 1962.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, they look forward to seeing each other next year.
[SPEAKER_00]: And they come from New York, California, Texas, and in between.
[SPEAKER_00]: So they...
[SPEAKER_00]: The genesis of the two are quite different, from the church convention over against the folk school, but yet they have many of the same ideas and format.
[SPEAKER_01]: So this is a Grundtvigian tradition that keeps going.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: You talked about Elder Hostel.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's something quite different, but also with a Grundtvigian idea.
[SPEAKER_00]: And there I'd have to look up to be more exact on the history of that, but...
[SPEAKER_00]: The Elder Hostel comes out of, I think, Vermont, the university.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it is for, now it's for people age 50 and older.
[SPEAKER_00]: It used to be 60 and older, and they moved it down.
[SPEAKER_00]: And many schools, universities, campuses will host it.
[SPEAKER_00]: and it can be all kinds of the studio arts lectures series on everything.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was doing other work out in the Napa Valley several years ago and they were, Elder Hostel was having a wine and vineyard
[SPEAKER_00]: Elder Hostel.
[SPEAKER_00]: So they'd hear lectures on viniculture and then go out and sample some.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's that kind of thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: A lot of them are overseas and I know many people, that's the way they travel overseas, you know, to Guatemala or Antarctica is through Elder Hostel.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it is, I think it has a different name now.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'd have to look up.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think they changed it from Elder Hostel to get rid of the old people concept.
[SPEAKER_00]: But anyway, from what I've read or heard, the people who founded Elder Hostel had communication with Enok Mortensen about the Grundtvigian folk school.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it was that folk school idea that gave birth to the Elder Hostel movement, which is now...
[SPEAKER_00]: big in the United States, and I don't know if other countries have adopted that or not.
[SPEAKER_00]: But that is probably the most international ramification of the Grundtvigian movement.
[SPEAKER_01]: As for the... Well, going on with folk schools, you mentioned also that there would be specific folk schools in the USA.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_01]: Of the Danish background.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's one up at Grand Marais, and whether they claim a Danish or Norwegian, I don't know which, but it is definitely of the folk school heritage.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think it's called Northland or Northwoods, and it's just on the western edge of Grand Marais as you come in.
[SPEAKER_00]: And they do a lot with...
[SPEAKER_00]: uh crafts like but not simple crafts it would be like weaving and wood carving and even, you know, boat making and that kind of stuff, so that is very popular. There's another one down in the Carolinas which I'll have to look up and see where they are, but uh it's in the Appalachian area which of course had a long history of folk art
[SPEAKER_00]: So that is a popular folk school.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it'll be like one week events or even longer events in the Carolinas.
[SPEAKER_00]: So those are the folk schools.
[SPEAKER_00]: Of the other folk schools that the Danish Lutheran Church was a part of,
[SPEAKER_00]: they have all closed other than the West Denmark one of course which has their week and long weekend folk family camp. But the ones like in Askov and Nysted, Nebraska I think even a lot of those I think the one at Nysted was even torn down just a few years ago that congregation
[SPEAKER_00]: pastor that came in there was of quite a different ilk, much more of a fundamentalist Pentecostal.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that church has changed, that congregation has changed.
[SPEAKER_00]: But it's still a part of the Lutheran Church.
[SPEAKER_01]: Just a little more about the folk tradition.
[SPEAKER_01]: You mentioned also a family camp taking place in Oregon.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's Menuchen, M-E-N-U-C-H-E-N, I believe, Oregon.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's just 20 miles east of Portland.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that is run by the Northwest Danish Foundation, a name similar to that.
[SPEAKER_00]: And they have a long weekend there.
[SPEAKER_00]: where they bring in top notch speakers and have lots of crafts.
[SPEAKER_00]: And last I've heard, they were having a bit of a challenge with enrollment and that.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I don't know what the scene there is, but from those I've talked to, it appeared they were having more of a problem where the one at Tyler is growing very much.
[SPEAKER_00]: But the one up at Grand Marais and Carolinas, they're not of the Danish heritage, but it's still the Grundtvigian folk school idea that is very strong with them.
[SPEAKER_01]: So you've been describing a wide variety of Grundtvigian inferences outside the churches, actually, family camps and so on.
[SPEAKER_01]: What about the church, what is now ELCA, the big Lutheran church?
[SPEAKER_01]: The Danish congregate, what used to be Danish congregations, they would have ministers of
[SPEAKER_01]: all sorts of backgrounds.
[SPEAKER_01]: Would there be ministers who are occupied with the Grundtivigian ideas?
[SPEAKER_00]: I know not of one, I'm sad to say.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think the education that was done in that area was done at Lutheran School of Theology with Axel Kildegaard and Johannes Knudsen.
[SPEAKER_00]: In Chicago?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, in Chicago.
[SPEAKER_00]: We have all retired.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I would be very much surprised if you heard the word Grundtvig during any lecture at the seminary at this time, which I think is a shame.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, several of the ideas of Grundtvig, you know, now the whole care of the earth and, you know, it isn't us versus the world, but we're a part of the world.
[SPEAKER_00]: Human first, Christian next.
[SPEAKER_00]: And also lifelong learning.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm always amused when people in education come up with this as if it was the newest idea in the world.
[SPEAKER_00]: And Grundtvig had it, what, 150 years ago.
[SPEAKER_00]: So these things are happening, but they sure don't have the Grundtvig stamp on them.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I've talked to...
[SPEAKER_00]: other educators in other situations.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I've been amazed.
[SPEAKER_00]: They'll often bring up the idea, oh yeah, Grundtvig and the folk school movement.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's known out there in the church.
[SPEAKER_00]: And of course, within the Lutheran church, there were groups that really thought Grundtvigianism was heresy.
[SPEAKER_00]: And in fact, in the archives, there's a copy of a lawsuit between a church in Racine and the Lutheran Church, Missouri Synod.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I was probably over church property or something like that.
[SPEAKER_00]: But anyhow, I don't know how the suit came out.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I do remember the bottom statement by the Missouri Synod folk was that was a heresy that had to be
[SPEAKER_00]: eradicated by any means possible.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we were facing it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Just a moment.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, Virginia.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: How about Huxley?
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, uh, you know, I could imagine some Taliban type attack from them because of this heresy that had to be driven out.
[SPEAKER_00]: And in fact, even a professor by the name of Wentz, who had a history of Lutheranism in America, in his touch on Grundtvig, he noted it as a heresy or something.
[SPEAKER_00]: And of course, Johannes Knudsen called him up and straightened him out very quickly about that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Grundtvig was strong in Grandview.
[SPEAKER_00]: Obviously the
[SPEAKER_00]: Holy Danes did not have as favorable a view of him.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it was basically within the AELC, the Danish Lutheran Church, that he was put.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I guess where I get my encouragement is seeing his ideas showing up in the most unlikely places.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so what if they don't acknowledge Grundtvig?
[SPEAKER_00]: It's the idea and the movement that's important, not whether their quote, he has his stamp of approval all the time.
[SPEAKER_00]: Excuse me again.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, dear.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, thank you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, so as I say, it did not have that...
[SPEAKER_00]: wide approval, but it was intense where it was.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think, again, California and especially in the Midwest, Nebraska, Iowa, Minnesota, some in the Dakotas, some in Illinois.
[SPEAKER_01]: That might be a little side way, but you mentioned, we talked about Walter Capps from California.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was a representative from a district in California and was tragically killed in an airplane crash, a small plane crash as I remember.
[SPEAKER_00]: and his wife Lois Capps was elected, or has filled his position since.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know the whole story on how he came about, but he is probably one of the most Grundtvigian congresspersons we've ever had, and his wife likewise.
[SPEAKER_00]: And they both have spoken at the Solvang meeting several times.
[SPEAKER_00]: So there is a case where he's a believer, and I don't know where he...
[SPEAKER_00]: I imagine they were attending the congregation in Solvang, but I'm not that specific on him.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, we pretty much got around the areas that I liked that we should do, and you kept on the track.
[SPEAKER_00]: That was very good.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, interestingly enough, one of our persons who attend the family camp wanted to do that in their congregation, which was not of any ethnic heritage.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the local folk thought, why would a church have a gathering where you sing and you dance and you do crafts and you don't study the Bible?
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think camp in the United States, well, there are Boy Scouts camp and a 4-H camp, but any...
[SPEAKER_00]: religious camp has to focus on the Bible and as we point out we really have nothing against the Bible but you know life is even bigger than that and so I use that as an example of how
[SPEAKER_00]: How difficult it can be to transplant that in a hostile environment.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it shouldn't be.
[SPEAKER_00]: But on the other side, I'll repeat, I have Norwegian and Swedish friends who, when they hear about our camps and our folk meetings and that, they say,
[SPEAKER_00]: they really covet a tradition, a heritage that we have, and they really can't recreate it in their ethnic heritage.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that's why I think we need to continue to emphasize, and that's where the Church and Life periodical and Joy Ibsen's doing a wonderful job.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think that is probably our best vehicle of
[SPEAKER_01]: communication of our fold. It's the tool that gets the word out yeah yeah. Well that was just about what I was about to ask you about is whether you see any way that the specific Grundtvigian tradition and Grundtvig himself would have any chance of getting a
[SPEAKER_01]: along and getting known in this country.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, Joy is working very hard on that, bless her soul, of trying to see this as kind of a Grundtvigian newsletter in some respects.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, I was looking at some of the old Church and Life right after the merger, and there was a strong push that there would be a Grundtvigian Institute started at Grandview.
[SPEAKER_02]: Hmm?
[SPEAKER_00]: And it didn't happen.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't, I haven't read far enough to know, uh, what, what was the cause of that demise.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, uh, as president of the Danish Interest Conference now, which oversees the, uh, publication of Church and Life, that is definitely one of our goals of, uh, it being a way for the Grundtvigians and not just the, uh,
[SPEAKER_00]: remnant of the Danish Lutheran Church, but as a vehicle of communication with groups that have an interest of Grundtvig.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's a gentleman in England that wrote one of the most recent tomes on Grundtvig.
[SPEAKER_01]: Bradley?
[SPEAKER_00]: I can't even... Something like that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well done.
[SPEAKER_00]: So there are scholars around that are doing it, but they aren't in the Evangelical Lutheran Church today.
[SPEAKER_01]: And there wouldn't be very many in the USA of scholars?
[SPEAKER_00]: No, no, no, no.
[SPEAKER_00]: No, no, no, no.
[SPEAKER_00]: Where I see, you know, there are Grundtvigian conferences, obviously, in Europe.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: But no, you won't find that in the United States.
[SPEAKER_00]: And in a way, with the death of Johannes Knudsen, Axel Kildegaard, and Ernest Nielsen, they were the three Grundtvigian scholars.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: A lot of other believers, but not the scholars.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think I'll say thanks very much.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're welcome.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's been a pleasure.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you won't have anything else to add, that'll be it.