By Peter Christensen

Op-Ed Commentary

My father immigrated from Denmark to Edgewater, B.C., where a few Danes had established homesteads in what was supposed to become British Columbia’s fruit growing paradise.

He cut railway ties for the CPR, harvested Christmas trees during the winter and built road for the Dominion Parks Branch, (The Banff-Windermere Highway). He established a small trucking enterprise hauling vegetables to the Banff Springs and Lake Louise Hotels, purchased an acreage above Highway 93 where he built a cabin that is still standing.

Paul was a Christian and attended Camrose Lutheran College, in Alberta, a ‘bible institute’, where he fed his belief and improved language and writing skills. (He had a beautiful ‘hand’).

In 1903, a small conclave of Danish pilgrims temporarily residing in Nebraska had been advised by an agent of the Canadian Government there was rich farmland available to homestead in the District of Alberta, Northwest Territory.

Seventeen compatriots loaded their belongings on a train bound for Calgary, made their way to Dickson, set up tents and began the arduous task of homesteading.   ‘Settlers’ could under the Dominion Land Act claim 160 acres (a quarter-section) by building a house and making improvements to the land. The group’s leader built a store that soon hosted a post office and became the centre for supplies. Alberta became a province in 1905.

I grew up on a run-down homestead three miles from Dickson that my father purchased in 1950 and improved with the help of an established patriarch. To farm and worship was the dream! Bethany Lutheran Church was the centre of community.

Pastors, the spiritual leaders, were sent from American Lutheran headquarters in Missouri to outreach communities like Dickson up until 1967 when, in keeping with the Dominion of Canada’s Centennial, Canadian Lutherans became independent and formed their own Synod.

Pastor Hansen, an energetic, progressive, pulpit pounder from America raised his four boys and a daughter in Dickson. It was the sixties: new ideas, the Beatles, rock and roll and anti Vietnam War demonstrations were commonplace, even in Canada!

A coming-of-age rite in the Lutheran Church known as ‘Confirmation’ took place around 8th to 10th grade (ages 13–15), when after two years of bible study and introduction to Lutheran theology young acolytes publicly confessed their faith and were welcomed into the church as adult members of the congregation.

Pastor Hansen, in keeping with the liberal spirit of the times, arranged for our ‘Confirmation’ class to attend church services at other denominations before being ‘Confirmed’: Anglican, Presbyterian and Catholic. Having experienced the rituals and beliefs of other denominations we would then choose to be Lutherans based on fair comparison; it was, of course, unthinkable that we would make any other decision!

The Roman Catholic formal religious rituals and observance proved to be very different from Protestant worship. One thing none of us had seen was the small fold down bench attached to back of each pew. At the appropriate signal from the Priest the congregation kneeled on the little bench and prayed for the forgiveness of their trespasses.

Lutherans had not kneeled before a representative of “the Pope” since the sixteenth century when a rebel theologian, Martin Luther, was excommunicated from the Catholic Church for remonstrating the practice of selling forgiveness or indulgences, a formal protest that initiated a major schism within Western Christianity. The Protestant Reformation was born.

We unconfirmed disciples of Martin Luther had not been prepped on what to do? Lutherans were proud, perhaps too proud. Instinctively we knew we would not be kneeling before a representative of the Pope.

At the appropriate time the mass of the Catholic congregation kneeled on the benches attached to the back of the pews to receive blessings, forgiveness of sins, inner peace, and eternal life. Our entire entourage of seven bewildered Lutheran devotees remained seated. From behind, the powerful hand of a huge matron slapped me across the side of the head, grabbled my neck and forced me to kneel.

Suddenly the Reformation made sense.

– Peter Christensen is a Columbia Valley based writer and poet.

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