Battle in the Church

When I was 16, I was sitting very quietly at my first youth meeting listening to the message. Suddenly the youth leader stormed over to me, grabbed hold of my arm and threw me out of the hall. My sister, who was somewhat older than I, asked him what I had done to make him react that way. He finally admitted that I had done nothing wrong, but he had picked on me because I was sitting closest. After that, I de­cided to stay home from the youth meetings. My mother, who realized this could be dangerous for me, strongly exhorted me never to hold a grudge against anyone. She was afraid that bitterness would destroy me. When that brother came and asked me for forgiveness, I forgave him. Besides, he gave me a big banana!

Several of these people whom I experienced as “drill ser­geants” were working with the children and youth in the church, as well as in other ministries. I felt that they brought something foreign into the church, something that had not been there from the beginning. A number of them had also come from the religious world and had brought some of that legalistic system with them into their ministry in the church. For example, they had strong opinions and points of view about the way children should behave, how they should sit at the meetings, how they should play and so on. In many ways I felt like I was handled with ice-cold hands, and something began to freeze up in my good, warm child’s heart. But I al­ways knew that it had not been this way from the beginning. I never experienced that from the friends who had frequented my parents’ hospitable home. But these others really went to town on us, wanting to decide, for example, how we should dress and other outward things. This attitude was very appar­ent in their words and in their deeds. And if we did not obey their instructions and ideas, I at least felt that hellfire was near.

The Christmas feasts in Oslo were an unending agony. The leading brother’s understanding of the need to discipline one’s children meant that the “juletrefest” (Christmas feast) was transformed in my mind into a “juling-trefest” (“spanking feast”). He probably felt he had to use the opportunity while so many parents and children were present. The Christmas feast, which should have been a blessed, joyful time for the children and families was instead used as an opportunity for a powerful sermon on the importance of discipline and spank­ing. It was not enough that the children sat in silence beside their parents. I remember him “bellowing” at our parents that the children were not only to sit still, but they were also to be awake! If we fell asleep on our father’s lap during the meet­ing, we weren’t allowed to sit in the front rows. Much of this was done in ignorance. The leading brother was a good man, but his lack of wisdom in this area (among others) was fertile soil for the growth of the “drill sergeants,” who cast some dark shadows over my beautiful childhood kingdom.