Note: Rev. Stefan Jonasson presents the topic "Religion in the New World" in an Icelandic Roots Webinar on October 28, 2024. The webinar is open to the public. For more details on the webinar and access to the link click here.
By Rev. Stefan Jonasson
“Icelanders have always been, and still are to this day, divertingly apathetic in religious matters, amazingly free from ecclesiastical dogmas and rather indifferent to Christian missionaries and other kinds of fanaticism,” wrote the beloved novelist Þórbergur Þórðarson in 1928, a little more than half a century after the major wave of emigration
to North America began. “Generally speaking, they are rationalists. There are many people in this country, nonetheless, who have a contemplative leaning to mysticism and a psychic sensitivity to invisible powers. My compatriots’ capabilities, however, are most often free from any specific religious ideology or ecclesiastically backed dogmas, and they are usually manifested in a contemplative curiosity mingled with the shade of mysticism born along by a groundswell of emotions free of extremism.”
Like most generalizations about religion, Þórbergur’s bold assertion about Icelanders’ religious ambivalence was true for many of his compatriots, perhaps even most of his fellow citizens, but not necessarily a correct portrayal of the country’s overall religious landscape. Despite its outward uniformity, the Church of Iceland has been a rather heterodox institution for generations, embracing a wide range of views among clergy and laypersons alike. There has been greater uniformity in practice than belief. Many Icelanders who remain in the National Church betray little commitment to the teachings of its clergy, although they stand by the church as an institution, more important to them socially than religiously. When it comes to church involvement, Icelanders today have perfected nominalism. The church is taken for granted by most, opposed by a few, and ignored by the rest.
The dominance of a state church makes ambivalence about religion easier, even if the people are in general agreement with its doctrines and practices. It’s there and it isn’t going away, even if people compartmentalize their religion from the other cares of life. In their new home in North America, though, the church took on new roles in the collective life of the immigrants. While the clergy in Iceland had always been important local and national leaders, their leadership role was even more important in a setting where Icelanders were just one of several ethnocultural groups finding a place for themselves in a new social environment. Prior to the establishment of secular
organizations, the church itself became the primary organization holding the immigrants together as a community. Then, as time passed, the churches became vehicles for the assimilation of Icelanders into the larger North America society.
Since neither Canada nor the United States had established churches, the Icelandic immigrants in the two countries enjoyed both the freedom and the responsibility to organize their own congregations and denominational associations. Every church was a free church, an idea that was barely imaginable in the Iceland they left behind. The church’s different relationship to the state (and its funding) was one of the key factors leading to the religious pluralism that came to prevail among the Icelanders in North America. If the “Luther rose” reflected the hegemony of the Church of Iceland, then the religious diversity that emerged in their new home might be thought of as a mixed bouquet.
While Lutheranism continued to be the most common confession among them, Mormonism and Unitarianism attracted significant numbers of Icelanders, while other denominations also sought to win Icelandic converts. But over the past century and a half, the forces of secularism have largely won the day.
Although a stray Icelander or two may have made their way to North America shores
independently, it was the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons) that first lured Icelandic converts to America, providing material support in the form of loans and companionship on the way to Utah, where they established the first Icelandic community on this continent at Spanish Fork.
Most Icelanders, though, arrived in Canada and the United States as Lutherans. The legendary religious disputation between Rev. Jón Bjarnason and Rev. Páll Þorláksson in New Iceland, when the colony had been barely established, and people were still living in makeshift homes, was a harbinger of what was to come. It was more than theological. While it is something of an oversimplification, it can be argued that Jón maintained the liberal and more inclusive teachings and practices of the Church of Iceland, while Páll promoted the doctrines and practices of the Norwegian Synod, which was anxious to exert its influence over the Icelanders. The dispute contributed to the departure of some members of the colony for Dakota Territory, although material considerations were a dominant factor. But the dispute marked the beginning of division even within Icelandic Lutheran ranks, well before Unitarianism became a threat to the effective Lutheran monopoly on the religious lives of the immigrants.
Even before the Icelandic Evangelical Lutheran Synod was organized in 1885, the Icelandic Cultural Society in North Dakota, which was founded by Stephan G. Stephansson, as much as a substitute for religion as a cultural organization, revealed the cracks on the left flank of the church. By 1886, Rev. Björn Pétursson, a former member of Alþingi, was undertaking missionary work among the immigrants on behalf of the American Unitarian Association, which resulted in the establishment of a Unitarian congregation in Winnipeg in 1891. The Unitarians mushroomed in size when Rev. Magnús J. Skaptason led several of his Lake Winnipeg congregations out of the Lutheran Synod in the spring of that year.
With the community now divided between Lutherans and Unitarians, a third Icelandic
congregation was organized in Winnipeg known as Tjaldbúðin, or the Tabernacle Church. It was originally an orthodox Lutheran congregation, though outside of the synod, but after the arrival of Rev. Friðrik J. Bergmann in the early years of the 20th century, it moved rapidly in a liberal direction known as the “New Theology,” at first affiliating with the synod and then dramatically withdrawing from it, taking several rural congregations in Manitoba, North Dakota, and Saskatchewan with it. During the First World War, the Unitarians and New Theology congregations merged to form the United Conference of Icelandic Churches and they were commonly known as the Icelandic Federated Churches over the next two generations, although the Unitarian dominance was clear to everyone.
The religious developments in Winnipeg tended to be felt throughout the Icelandic communities across the continent, especially in Canada, even when they didn’t lead to organized efforts in other localities. For the most part, though, Icelandic congregations in the United States were immune to the religious division among Icelandic Canadians, save for the West Coast, where Unitarian congregations were organized in Seattle and Blaine, and a few short-lived experiments.
However, while remaining Lutheran and part of the Icelandic Synod, they drifted in a more conservative direction over the decades, which may have been driven as much by political currents and the source of clergy as it was by doctrinal considerations.
The Lutherans and Unitarians both attracted ministers from Iceland who would serve Icelandic Canadian or Icelandic American churches and then return home. The Church of Iceland was remarkably open to both major denominations in North America, maintaining cordial relations with the Icelandic Evangelical Lutheran Synod and the United Conference of Icelandic Churches (Unitarian) until the 1950s, when it focused exclusively on North American Lutherans.
Beyond the two major denominations among the Western Icelanders, there were individual Icelandic North Americans who came to play a role in other denominations. In some cases, this marked a venturing forth into the larger society, while in other cases the individuals sought to missionize Icelanders, both in North America and at home.
Rev. P. Adelstein Johnson (1868-1949), who grew up in the Icelandic settlements in
southwestern Minnesota, studied at Yale Divinity School and became a Congregationalist minister, emerging as one of the leading 20th-century Congregationalists in Iowa. After serving congregations in Connecticut, Minnesota, and Iowa, he was state superintendent for Iowa from 1907 until 1938. He was one of the founders and directors of the School of Religion at the University of Iowa. He also wrote the centennial history of the denomination in that state: The First Century of Congregationalism in Iowa, 1840-1940.
Sigurður Sigvaldason (1860-1947), whose nickname was “Siggi Biblía,” emigrated from
Vopnafjörður to Minneota, Minnesota, in 1876 at the age of 16. He graduated from the
University of Minnesota in 1893 and reportedly taught school in Minnesota and Missouri before moving north to Winnipeg around 1905, where he lectured as a “missionary,” beginning in the Sunday school hall at First Lutheran Church. Four years later, he embarked upon a life as a wandering missionary, although Winnipeg seemed to remain his home base until he returned to Iceland permanently. Between the wars, he appears to have divided his time between Winnipeg and Reykjavík. In later years, he would perch on the steps of Júlíus Björnsson’s electronics shop on Austurstræti selling bibles, tracts, and his own books. He eventually retired to Reykjavík, where he lived in the old folks’ home Grund until his death.
The 1930s saw the establishment of the First Icelandic Pentecostal Church (Fyrsta íslenska hvítasunnukirkjan) in Winnipeg at 603 Alverstone Street in the West End. Arni Sveinbjörnsson and Páll Johnson appear to have been its leaders. Páll had been editor of a monthly Pentecostal magazine in Reykjavík, Ljós of sannleikur, from 1919 to 1920, and the Pentecostal church in that city dates to 1921. Although he was a pioneer of Pentecostalism in Iceland, it’s not known whether he first became involved in that faith there or in Canada.
Sigrun Lindal (1892-1963), who is best remembered for having been the first Fjallkona at
Íslendingadagurinn in 1921, was active in Winnipeg’s Unitarian congregation from the time she moved to the city until the late 1930s, when her religious explorations led her to embrace the Bahá’í Faith. She was one of the members of the city’s first Spiritual Assembly of Bahá’ís in 1942, bringing other Icelanders with her, and she took on increasingly important leadership roles as time progressed. She spent her later years promoting the Bahá’í Faith in California and the Caribbean.
Rev. Bjorn Johannson (1892-1968), who was born in Akra, North Dakota, became a leading figure in the Church of the New Jerusalem, commonly known as Swedenborgians. He served churches across America (Maine, Oregon, New York, and Ohio) and in Copenhagen, Denmark. He taught theology at Urbana College and reached the pinnacle of his influence while serving as editor of his denomination’s national periodical, The New Church Messenger, from 1954 to 1966.
Today, it seems probable that most Icelandic Canadians are neither Lutheran nor Unitarian, and that a plurality of those who do identify with a particular religion may be adherents of the United Church of Canada. This is largely a consequence of assimilation and intermarriage. Other Icelandic Canadians have gravitated towards Anglican, Roman Catholic, Baptist, and Evangelical churches. The Lutherans in the United States may have fared somewhat better in retaining Icelandic adherents, but even in the US, after so many generations, people of Icelandic descent have become increasingly dispersed across denominations. All that said, the more an individual identifies with their Icelandic heritage, the more likely it is that they will continue to identify as Lutherans or, to a lesser degree, Unitarians.
Census figures from 2021 for the Rural Municipality of Gimli reveal that while 20.6% of the population identifies as Icelandic, only 10.4% identifies as Lutheran. And fully 41.5% report no religion or secular perspectives. (It is impossible to determine what percentage of the population identifies as Unitarian since that group’s percentage of the national population is so small that Statistics Canada does not report Unitarians as a distinct group in local samples.) In other municipalities, the ratio of Lutherans to Icelanders is even lower, with the exception of Arborg and Lundar (RM of Coldwell). As the census data might be seen to suggest, it is almost certain that nearly half of all Icelandic Canadians follow no religion or hold secular perspectives, and while the percentage of Icelandic Americans who adhere to a religious faith may be higher,
especially in North Dakota and Utah, it’s likely that “none” is the most common answer given by Icelandic Americans today when asked about their religion, although some may still have a vague sense of being Lutheran, even if they’re unbaptized and not attending a church.
So, even if Þórbergur Þórðarson’s observations about Icelanders and religion a century ago were something of an overstatement at the time, it may well be the case that his words reflect the current reality among Icelandic North Americans. Overall, the descendants of the immigrants seem ambivalent towards religion, free from dogma, and indifferent to the appeals of those with strong religious beliefs. They lean towards rationalism, although there are some of more mystical or spiritual perspectives, which may or may not find expression in organized religion. Yet, they may remain curious about the role those religious institutions and traditions had in shaping the
Icelandic communities on this continent.