Post: Readers Respond

The Number 4 issue of Volume VII of Pietisten was just given to me and prompts me to no longer postpone subscribing to your enlightening publication.

Articles by and about Irving Erickson, who like me grew up in the Lindstrom Addition of Stambaugh, Michigan; along with the article by Elder Lindahl, who with me was nurtured in Grace Covenant Church there; and finally, Art Anderson’s writing following on the heels of a pleasurable interim pastorate at our current church home, Bethany Covenant of Bedford, New Hampshire clinched our decision to welcome you into our home on a regular basis. Old schoolmates at North Park, Glen Wiberg and Arnie Bolin, added to the appeal. Authors being a part of your past enhance both the meaning and the value of their writings.

So keep up the good work and rush our subscription. Enclosed is the required $10. You are keeping alive a treasured tradition.

Warren W. Lindstrom, Bedford, New Hampshire.

I’m glad to have Pietisten. My great grandparents and on down came out of the conventicles. Ethel Palmberg, Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Dear Pietisten Editors: I’ve enclosed my year’s subscription and another for friends who will, I am sure, appreciate your publication as I do.

Thank you for continuing to provide provocative, instructive, inspiring, and amusing articles. Ann C. Pates, Burnsville, Minnesota.

I'm happy to renew my subscription to Pietisten. I look forward to each issue and always find articles which are thought provoking and mind-stretching. Evelyn Lindquist, Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Just finished the current issue — cover to cover. We continue to enjoy each issue and read with alacrity.

Jane and I celebrated Easter at North Park [Chicago] Church. Great service and splendid preaching! Tim Sporrong is creative, original, and inspiring.

Best wishes . . . . We appreciated Sandy’s [Johnson] contribution, but wished for more. Next time, perhaps.

Keep the presses going!! Hobart Edgren, Manistee, Michigan.

Hi everyone! We love the publication! Barb and Jerry Baker, Mitchellville, Maryland.

It is always a treat to get an issue of Pietisten. Thanks especially for printing the thoughtful comments of Jerry and Mel Soneson in the last issue. It was great to hear from them again. Ken Lund, Madison, Wisconsin.

Mel Soneson’s article was very moving! Thanks for getting it to those of us who were so wonderfully and powerfully influenced by his teaching. Tom Nelson, Dennis, Massachusetts.

Enclosed is a contribution for your fine magazine. I especially enjoy the poetry and navigation items. Sharon Carlson, St. Paul, Minnesota.

I enjoy reading items on topics Covenant Publications won’t touch; but recently I’ve found a topic of even greater interest to me, one that I hope your staff writers could research. Helen Fredrickson, my neighbor, returned from Sweden and told me a relative informed her that labor organizer and song writer Joe Hill (born Joel Emanuel Hagglund in 1879 in Gavle, Sweden) had been a Swedish (Covenant??) church organist before his martyrdom by hanging in Salt Lake City in 1915. Now perhaps this church organist bit is known to others, but it escaped me in my confirmation class.

This bears investigation. Perhaps an unknown branch of the Covenant evolutionary tree would be revealed. Perhaps Nils Lund was influenced by the same forces — he, too, was from Gavle, I believe. If so, which one took the road less travelled by? I hope to see a couple of pages about this in a future edition.

Thanks for your good work. Doug Nystrom, Chicago, Illinois.

Please send Pietisten, for which I have enclosed a check, to our friend. He will find it very interesting, as we have, especially Don Franklin’s "J .S. Bach and Pietism” (Spring, 1993). Thank you, Bonnevieve Opel, Roseville, Minnesota.

Thank you for the sample copy of Pietisten. I have no idea how Waldenström and Rosenius might react to the resurrected publication but must say, for myself, that it appears to offer a plenitude of convoluted wisdom, a unique and progressive(?) perspective, together with an unmistakable Midwestern, “svenskamerikansk” aura.

It’s meaningful to recall my personal early and parental influence — making careful distinction between public and private pietism. But I'm also happy to say that true values have endured through these many years even tho’ the labels may often seem confused. (Beware then!)

As a retired Lutheran church musician, it’s a real satisfaction to note the hidden “pietist” orientation of J .S. Bach — the “evangelist” and ultimate tonal artist for all humanity. I'll be awaiting with keen anticipation Part II of Don Franklin's excellent essay. Raymond W. Lindstrom, West Hartford, Connecticut.