Turning Point

August 1988 brought a turn for the worse for those who loved rules and regulations. Leif Olstad led work parties for years, but he was not a minister of the Word. Sigurd Bratlie had shown confidence in Olstad, and he gradually began to teach from the pulpit. As time went on, he started using ex­amples and illustrations to express his views on child-rearing and what he felt was generally fitting in the church on a prac­tical level. This went on for a time, and Olstad declared a whole series of things to be “accursed things”—for example, windsurfing boards, slalom skiing, walkmans and certain items of clothing. He took this preaching with him to Holland, where he found some likeminded people who believed this was the correct way to work.

Many of the friends in Holland had come from the Reform Church and had their roots in Calvinism. The old legalistic traditions still had a strong appeal to certain individuals who had found their way to the church, though they weren’t really able to say why. Brother Littooij, who was the leader in Hol­land, clearly understood the danger in Leif Olstad’s preach­ing. Unrest developed in Holland because of Olstad’s activity, and Olaf Bekkevold from Oslo was the one who was sent to calm the situation and bring peace. He was the assistant leader in Oslo but had lived in Holland in his youth and spoke the language.

Olaf Bekkevold probably did not fully comprehend the problem at hand. Moreover, he agreed with Leif Olstad. His ministry only served to worsen the unrest that had already come to Holland.

I had traveled to youth conferences and gatherings in Hol­land quite a bit myself and had come to know brother Littooij quite well. One day in the late autumn of 1987, Olaf Bekkevold and Leif Olstad came to my house to talk about Holland. Their plan was to get me to agree with them and to have Sigurd Bratlie remove Littooij. During the conversation, Leif Olstad made strong attacks against preaching that was not sufficiently legalistic. He called the so-called “Norwegian brothers” harlot preachers. This was aimed at David Nielsen, Arild Tombre and Finn Corneliussen, who were all living abroad and working with the gospel.

When Leif Olstad started to attack the “Norwegian broth­ers,” I stopped him and forbade him to backbite my brothers in my own house. I asked them both to leave unless they stopped immediately. They realized quite quickly that they could not persuade me, and my guests left. This event alarmed me, and I contacted Sigurd Bratlie immediately and gave him my view of the situation in Holland.

At the 1988 summer conference at Brunstad, Leif Olstad gave one of his most infamous messages. Sigurd Bratlie and Aksel J. Smith were both listening. As far as Sigurd Bratlie was concerned, Leif Olstad’s message was pure accusation. With that message, he went one step too far. Right after the summer conference, before a number of us had returned from holidays, Sigurd Bratlie summoned us to a brothers’ meeting. Beginning with Deuteronomy 23:13, he confronted Leif Olstad. If, in the course of your ministry, you happen upon something that is not good, you should not make a pub­lic example of it before the entire church as an excuse to in­troduce rules such as “do not touch and do not taste.” We must address individual needs through personal exhorta­tions. But at our meetings, the Word must ring out clearly about a victorious life on the cross. Unfortunately, Olstad dis­agreed and tried to convince Bratlie of the need for rules and regulations. Sigurd Bratlie considered this to be no more than a “guard dog” ministry, while Olstad believed that a guard dog performs an important function by warning people that something is out of order. After this, Olstad’s ministry from the pulpit fell largely on deaf ears. However, a number of his own children, including his son-in-law, Knut Kronstad, agreed with him and became bitter against Sigurd Bratlie.

I was just as uninitiated in this process as most of the oth­ers. I viewed the whole thing as a spectator. Nonetheless, David Nielsen and I were asked to go to Holland to have meet­ings with these various individuals and bring matters to rest. God gave us grace, and our ministry brought peace in Hol­land. Sigurd Bratlie spent the entire autumn and winter months explaining, exposing, analyzing and setting in order the deceptions that legalistic preaching can lead to.

Olaf Bekkevold would not take a clear stance on the mat­ter. Personally, I don’t believe he fully understood the differ­ence between Sigurd Bratlie’s and Leif Olstad’s preaching. His understanding of the Scriptures was rather simple, and the fact that he had lost face in Holland seemed to mean quite a lot to him. As time went on, Bratlie’s Bible studies also be-gan to expose the fact that Bekkevold’s understanding was quite limited, and so at the end of June in 1989, he was asked to give up his place to Bernt Stadven. Sigurd Bratlie’s official reason for doing this was Bekkevold’s lack of ability to “dis­cern spirits.”