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Gustaf Palmquist

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Gustaf Palmquist, also Palmqvist, (26 May 1812 – 18 September 1867) was a pioneer Swedish Baptist pastor and missionary in Sweden and the United States. He was one of three brothers, including Johannes and Per Palmqvist who were active early in the Baptist movement in Sweden.

Gustaf Palmquist
Born(1812-05-26)26 May 1812
Norra Solberga, Småland, Sweden
Died18 September 1867(1867-09-18) (aged 55)
Stockholm, Sweden
Other namesGustaf Palmqvist
OccupationBaptist pastor
Relatives6 siblings, including

Life

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Palmquist was born on the farm Pilabo in Norra Solberga parish, Småland, Sweden, on 26 May 1812 to Sven Larsson, a kyrkvärd, similar to a churchwarden, and Helena Nilsdotter. His father died when Palmquist was six years old, leaving his mother to raise seven children. She was described as "pious and zealous".[1] The children were raised in a Pietist environment and visited influential revivalist preachers such as Pehr Nyman [sv], Peter Lorenz Sellergren, and Jacob Otto Hoof.[2]

In 1837, he attended a music academy and normal school. He later worked as a teacher in several cities until 1851.[3] Palmquist was initially a Lutheran lay preacher. As a Lutheran, he came into contact with the pietist movement, emphasizing individual piety, doctrine, and Christian living. He became friends with Swedish pietist preacher Carl Olof Rosenius (he was described as "one of Rosenius' most devoted followers") and Finnish Lutheran Fredrik Gabriel Hedberg.[3] Palmquist also learned about the new and growing Baptist movement from pioneer Swedish Baptist pastor Anders Wiberg as well as Fredrik Olaus (F. O.) Nilsson, who founded the country's first free church in 1848, a Baptist congregation, and was eventually sentenced to exile by the authorities.[4][5][6]

In 1851, Palmquist and his brothers traveled to London. There they learned from Methodist preacher George Scott about Sunday school, which was common at the time in England but did not exist in Sweden.[7] He continued on to the United States to work as a teacher while his brothers returned home. His brother Per Palmqvist founded the first Baptist Sunday school in Sweden that year.[2]

Palmquist joined a Swedish Lutheran church in Galesburg, Illinois, in 1851 that had been founded by Lars Paul Esbjörn. At Esbjörn's request, Palmquist served briefly as its priest,[8] "but being a Baptist at heart, although not a confessed one, his work was not calculated to strengthen, but rather to disrupt and weaken the church, whose members were already wavering between the Methodist and the Congregational faith."[9] In 1852, he officially became a Baptist and was baptized. Palmquist then founded the first Swedish Baptist church in the country in Rock Island, Illinois.[10]

At one point he was a missionary in Swede Bend, Iowa, whose views on believers' baptism drew converts from the local Lutheran church – the preacher nearly included – upsetting some in the community.[11]

The churches founded by Baptist pioneers like Palmquist, Nilsson (who had emigrated to the United States while exiled), and Wiberg held their first gathering in September 1858 at a church founded by Nilsson in Scandia, Minnesota. These meetings led in 1879 to the formation of the Swedish Baptist General Conference of America[12] (which changed its name to the Baptist General Conference in 1945 and Converge in 2015).[13]

In 1857 he returned to Sweden to find the Baptist community there growing despite persecution. Dissenters were not allowed to marry outside of the state church; their children were considered illegitimate and in some cases were forcibly baptized by the state church.[14][15] At that time, the country had 200 church members comprising eight Baptist churches.[16] Palmquist faced legal troubles after performing a wedding and also found that one of his meetings was planned to be disrupted by wild youths, instigated by local priests.[7] In 1858, the Conventicle Act, which outlawed religious meetings other than those of the Lutheran Church of Sweden, was overturned.[17] By the following year, the Baptists had grown to a total of 4,311 members in 95 churches.[16]

A seminary for the growing Baptist community, Bethel Seminary (Betelseminariet), was founded in 1866 in Stockholm. Palmquist worked as a teacher there and at the institute founded by Wiberg in Örebro. He was also a hymnwriter, publishing a hymnal called Pilgrimssånger [sv] in 1859.[18]

At the end of his life, Palmquist was pastor of a church in Stockholm when he became ill and died a few days later, on 18 September 1867.[9]

Palmquist's work made its mark on the religious environment of both Sweden and the United States: by 1871, the American Swedish Baptist churches had over 1500 members in seven states, and by 1902, 22,000 members in 324 churches.[19] In Sweden, the total reached 31,000 Baptists by 1930.[20]

Hymns

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See also

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References

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  1. ^ Örebro läns förvaltning och bebyggelse (in Swedish). Vol. II. Närke. 1948–1950. p. 197.
  2. ^ a b Bexell, Oloph. "Per Palmqvist". Svenskt Biografiskt Lexikon (in Swedish). Archived from the original on 20 January 2022. Retrieved 9 April 2022.
  3. ^ a b Jakobsson Byström, Jakob; Hedvall, Fredrik Emanuel (1926). Betelseminariet 1866-1926; porträtt och kortfattade biografiska uppgifter över lärare och elever samt ledamöter av styrelseutskottet, utg. till sextioårsjubileet den 7 juni 1926 (PDF) (in Swedish). Betelseminariet (Stockholm, Sweden) (2nd ed.). Stockholm: Föreningen Betelseminariet. OCLC 6101156.
  4. ^ Weaver, C. Douglas (2008). In search of the New Testament church: the Baptist story (1st ed.). Macon, Georgia. ISBN 978-0-88146-106-0. OCLC 180752918.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  5. ^ "Borekullastugan". www.hembygd.se (in Swedish). Archived from the original on 19 January 2022. Retrieved 19 January 2022.
  6. ^ Lenhammar, Harry. "Fredrik O Nilsson". Svenskt biografiskt lexikon (in Swedish). National Archives of Sweden. Retrieved 16 January 2022.
  7. ^ a b Backlund, Jonas Oscar (1942). A pioneer trio: F.O. Nilsson, G. Palmquist, A. Wiberg, leaders in the first decade of Swedish-American baptists. Bethel University. OCLC 186772440.
  8. ^ Söderberg, Kjell (January 2021). "Carl Olof Rosenius and Swedish Emigration to America". Currents in Theology and Mission. 48 (1): 33. Archived from the original on 7 April 2022. Retrieved 14 April 2022.
  9. ^ a b Olson, Ernst Wilhelm; Schön, Anders; Engberg, Martin J. (1908). History of the Swedes of Illinois. Engberg-Holmberg. OCLC 1032036835.
  10. ^ Wyatt, Barbara (1986). Cultural resource management in Wisconsin: a manual for historic properties. Madison, Wisconsin: Historic Preservation Division, State Historical Society of Wisconsin. ISBN 0-87020-247-2. OCLC 14973935.
  11. ^ Arden, Gothard Everett (1963). Augustana heritage; a history of the Augustana Lutheran Church. Rock Island, Illinois: Augustana Press. p. 26. OCLC 248089782.
  12. ^ "Baptist General Conference". www.britannica.com. Archived from the original on 20 November 2021. Retrieved 19 January 2022.
  13. ^ Kurian, George Thomas; Lamport, Mark A., eds. (2016). Encyclopedia of Christianity in the United States. Lanham, Maryland. ISBN 978-1-4422-4431-3. OCLC 945232024.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  14. ^ Vedder, Henry Clay (1907). A short history of the Baptists. Philadelphia: American Baptist Publication Society. ISBN 0-8170-0162-X. OCLC 2483206.
  15. ^ "Brev 48". urbaptistiskpingst.se (in Swedish). Archived from the original on 20 January 2022. Retrieved 20 January 2022.
  16. ^ a b Wyman, Mark (2018). "PART THREE. The Remigrant at Home. Churches, Traditions, and the Remigrant". Round-Trip to America: The Immigrants Return to Europe, 1880–1930. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. p. 179. doi:10.7591/9781501732621-004. ISBN 9781501732621. S2CID 243303311.
  17. ^ "Landsförvisad för sin tros skull - Släktband". Sveriges Radio (in Swedish). Archived from the original on 11 July 2021. Retrieved 4 July 2021.
  18. ^ "Kungsholms baptistförsamling 1870-1985, Gustaf Palmqvist". Stockholmskällan (in Swedish). Archived from the original on 2 February 2022. Retrieved 19 January 2022.
  19. ^ "5. Baptist Groups: Denominations, Subdenominations, and Churches". Baptists in America. New York Chichester, West Sussex: Columbia University Press. 2005. p. 112. doi:10.7312/leon12702-005. ISBN 9780231127035.
  20. ^ Wyman, Mark (2018). "PART THREE. The Remigrant at Home. Churches, Traditions, and the Remigrant". Round-Trip to America: The Immigrants Return to Europe, 1880–1930. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. p. 179. doi:10.7591/9781501732621-004. ISBN 9781501732621. S2CID 243303311.
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