Hans Nielsen Hauge (1771-1824) was a lay preacher who created the largest religious mass movement in Norwegian history. He was born on a farm in Tune, near Sarpsborg, Østfold, and it was in a nearby field that, on 5 April 1796, he had a profound religious experience, ‘a spiritual meeting with God’, that was to influence him throughout the rest of his life.
Hauge started preaching the gospel, a radical move as lay preaching was illegal in those days. He was imprisoned for the first time in Fredrikstad in 1797. He was released just a few weeks later, but in 1804 he was put to jail again, and he spent most of the next decade behind bars. By that time he had developed a lay religious movement with branches all over Norway and had therefore become a force to reckon with.
Unlike many lay religious preachers, Hauge called on his followers to take active part in society and not withdraw from it in puritanical fashion. He helped establish several businesses, and he also inspired his followers to share material goods according to their needs. One of Hauge’s aims in getting the movement involved in various businesses was to create wealth to break the business monopoly of the rich, and thus stop their exploitation of the poor.
He empowered ordinary Norwegians by making them more independent in religious matters, and by inspiring them to look after each other, he also helped to create a new social awareness, and political interest. A central ambition was to make sure that ordinary people should not have to beg or suffer from hunger and that everybody should have work. This is the reasoning behind Hauge’s endeavours to establish industry and trade for his followers.
Hauge died 29 March 1824 and was buried at Old Aker Cemetery in Oslo. In the decades after his death many kinds of organizations were formed for the first time among common folk in Norway, and Hauge was undoubtedly a decisive impulse behind this social and politically important development.
You can visit the Hans Nielsen Hauges Minne at Hans Nielsen Hauges vei 39, Rolvsøy, between Fredrikstad and Sarpsborg. Tel: 91 35 65 61 (no website, but they do have a page on facebook). Open May to Aug.