Living Faith: The Truth About Smith's Friends  Photo captions: Smith Friends leading brothers : Sverre Riksfjord and Kare Smith, both Norwegians; The Bettridge Family of Yakima, Washington, USA;The Conference Center at Brunstad, Norway

	Here I was-standing before five thousand men and women in a cavernous auditorium in Brunstad, Norway. I did not expect to be here four years ago when the doctors told me about the cancer that was eating away at my insides. I did not expect to be anywhere. I expected to be dead within two years. But here I was, hale and hearty, with virtually no sense of anxiety, about to tell five thousand dedicated Christians what I found commendable and not so commendable about their way of life-a "good news, bad news" story if ever there was one.

		“Smith’s Friends”the name meant nothing to me until December of 1994, when a very concerned young mother phoned me from her home in Yakima, Washington.  Little did I know that her phone call would lead me during the next two years to 13 countries.  There I would examine a vital and growing free churchan impressive movement that is largely unknown.  While among the disciples of this path, I would meet   an elderly Norwegian who was imprisoned in Iraq; an Egyptian physicist who was tortured by his Iraqi jailers; one of the world’s leading cancer researchers; a superior court judge; a man with 150 living blood relatives (his parents, 14 brothers and sisters, children, grandchildren, cousins, nieces, nephews.  .  .  .  ), all of whom shared his faith; a Dutch “leading brother,” his English wife, and their 7 American children; friends of a convicted murderer, whose transformed life had astounded prison authorities;  young women with braided hair, who wore skirts down to their ankles even when they skied but who never wear a bit of jewelry or makeup; an Austrian woman who was kidnapped by American deprogrammers; another Austrian woman whose father publicly attacks and maligns Smith’s Friends but does not maintain contact with his daughter, who is readily available to him; Polish piano tuners; the world’s tallest and blondest Danish royal guardsman; a hospitable retired German teacher who sings Kumbaya in several languages (and who in less than thirty minutes arranged a multinational tea party in honor of my wife); an American who got lost in the wilderness and was located through randomly chosen Bible verses; a Norwegian fisherman who spent his youth on whaling ships in Antartica; an Austrian language teacher who begs medical supplies for needy Russians; a Finnish divorcee who supervises a factory manufacturing racehorse tack in St.  Petersburg, Russia; an Indian shopkeeper from an Arab emirate; a thin, charming Finnish woman attorney, who has broken many hearts but never found “right man”; a Viennese linguist, who plays a mean ragtime piano; a translator of technical articles, who devotes his time and energy to devising ways to help the unemployed of the countryside in Tanzania help themselves; a Hungarian family in a Slavonic village with dogs, chickens, and hogs in their front yard; a German husband and an American wife with a passel of adopted third-world children; a honey merchant from Oregon, who writes beautiful hymns; a married couple, the son of a British brewer and the daughter of titled parents, who travel the world preaching the Gospel.  The list goes on and on! Founded in Norway more than ninety years ago, it is a church without membership rolls, clergy, central administration, tithing, or even a name.  Outsiders call them “Smith’s Friends” after their founder, Johan Oscar Smith.  On a worldwide basis, nearly thirty thousandfifteen thousand adults and an equal number of childrenparticipate in 211 churches in 50 countries. As a participant/observer, I have attempted to be descriptive, analytic, and constructively critical.  In order to set Smith’s Friends in historical, social, and religious perspective, I have examined their similarities to and differences from earlier Norwegian revival movements.  As we have seen, such movements have remained within the state Lutheran church, whereas Smith’s Friends has not.  Smith’s Friends has thus become a classic free church.  When awakenings or revivals have occurred during the present century, they seem to have bypassed Lutheran pietistic groups and set out in fresh directions.  Among the new movements was one begun by a Norwegian naval officer who shunned the apathy of the state church together with the organizational, structural rigidity of the mission societies and the newly arrived free church denominations such as the Methodists, the Baptists, the Salvation Army, and Pentecostalism.  His name, of course, was Johan Oscar Smith.  I have next attempted a detailed phenomenological report of Smith’s Friends.  This report is based on field study in America and Europe, including attendance at worship services, national and international conferences, and visits with participant families in several countries.  I have described their worship, their hymnody, their theology, and their everyday way of life.  It has become abundantly clear that they believe that the Christian life begins with the “born again” experience.  The Christian life begins with an act of faith, a faith that is itself a gift of God’s grace.  However, after the born again experience, grace operates in conjunction with the believer’s will, granting the individual the power to live according to the will of God.  Being born again is not enough.  It is not full salvation.  It is only a beginning.  Their motto seems to be, “Work out your salvation with fear and trembling” (Philippians 2:12), but it might as well be the words of James 2:17: “So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead.” Smith’s Friends believe that one’s past sins are forgiven by God as a result of the atoning death of Christ at Calvary.  This, however, is only being saved by his death.  As it says in Romans 5:10, we are “much more saved by his life.” This “much more” salvation is sanctification, the partaking “of the divine nature,” spoken of in 2 Peter 1:4.  Having been saved from past sin, the Christian must now be saved from the power of sin, from “the law of sin that dwells in our members” (Romans 7:23). Worship is exuberant and enthusiastic.  Worship services reinforce the dedication of members to live godly, loving lives while shunning anger, hostility, backbiting, and hypocrisy.  The movement has developed its own hymnals and other song books. The church hymnals contain a wide range of songs suitable for different age groups and for various occasions.  The songbooks typically include songs original to the movement as well as those commonly sung in the Christian community, some of which are written by well-known hymn writers.  There are songs of praise, expressions of prayer, and songs of invitation to the unconverted, besides a wide variety of songs of encouragement to a life of faith and faithfulness. I have looked into the question of whether or not Smith’s Friends is in any sense a cult or a dangerous spiritual movement.  I have come to an unequivocal opinion that Smith’s Friends can in no way be characterized as a cult or a harmful movement.  To explain: Smith’s Friends does not have a living leader who is the ultimate authority on matters of faith and practice.  While it, as all established religious groups, does have a history, a founder or founders, defined doctrines, and expectations as to what constitutes acceptable and unacceptable behavior, its authority structure is amazingly open and flexible. Further, members of Smith’s Friends make their own decisions regarding life partners, family size, vocation, housing, wearing apparel, entertainment, etc.  As far as I can determine, there are no explicit rules in any of these areas.  That is not to say that there are not implicit standards such as those communicated through the social pressures characteristic of all human groupsreligious, social, civic, political or otherwise.  The lives of “respected” brothers and sisters, particularly the former, carry enormous weight. Smith’s Friends is unique in that it has virtually no structure or central authority.  Smith’s Friends believes in the literal second coming of Jesus, but it is not preoccupied with apocalyptic speculation or survivalist fantasies. Participation is entirely voluntary, and there is in fact little recruitment effort.  Those who are interested are free to come and go.  There is not a hint of deception or manipulation. Personal and corporate forms of worship among Smith’s Friends are impassioned and spirited, but they are in no way forms of thought reform or mind control.  There are no tithes or dues and few collections.  The management of money by churches seems completely honorable, if somewhat loosely managed.  Smith’s Friends is in no sense totalistic or totalitarian.  Since there are no full-time clergy, administrative leaders, or church employees other than one custodian at the Brunstad conference center, employment for all practical purposes is outside the confines of the group.  Members are not group dependent.  Real estate purchased or enhanced by the various groups of Smith’s Friends are used for group-approved worship, fellowship, and recreational purposes for the benefit of all and not for a select few.  Many conference sites are made available to outside groups on a fee-paid basis. I have found no instance of the countenancing of illegal or immoral behavior.  Smith’s Friends strive to live at peace with their neighbors and to obey the laws of their respective communities.  They would never approve of an “ends justify the means” form of morality. Members pursue a wide variety of occupations ranging from menial to professional.  While a significant percentage of adult female members are homemakers, many pursue vocations and professions. In the months that I have observed Smith’s Friends in the United States (Oregon and Washington State) as well as in Norway, Germany, Austria, and the Netherlands, I have never discovered one instance of threats, punishment, or violence being countenanced or employed on the part of church leaders or church members.  As a court-approved expert on child abuse and child neglect, I can state wholeheartedly that I have found no evidence of inappropriate behavior toward children among the hundred of families that I have personally observed, in some of whose homes I have stayed as a guest for days at a time.  The churches that constitute this movement definitely do not break up families.  Members are very committed to the family, are very tolerant of children who as adults choose not to follow in their parents’ footsteps within the group, maintain contact whenever possible with family members who have never joined the movement or have for some reason chosen other paths. Smith’s Friends is a high expectations group.  Members are expected to live a holy, sin-free, and unselfish life.  The are expected to shun immoral behavioras such behavior is defined in any society.  They will admonish the immoral and arrogant among them, but they do not resort to excommunication, punishments, beatings, etc.  in order to maintain discipline.  They are a high demands group in the sense that individual members make high demands on their own behavior.  Thus, each member is expected to accept responsibility for his or her life, vocation, avocations, family activities, personal involvements, education, and so forth. As with all clearly defined social groups, there is a degree of elitism among the Friends.  They clearly believe that they have not only found salvation through their personal faith commitments, but that observing the particular doctrinal-ethical lifestyle of the Friends yields a Christian experience superior to that enjoyed by non-Friends.  Do they believe that there is no salvation apart from their group?  Definitely not.  Do they believe that those who have been members of the group and, for one reason or another, have left the group have forfeited their salvation?  I have found no evidence that this is true. Smith’s Friends share more than they know with such renewal movements as Methodism, Holiness, and neo-Pentecostalism.  Even their sizable families find parallels in many established groups.  Their “Spirit led” form of worship is not unlike the Society of Friends and the Plymouth Brethren.  What is uniquely theirs is a special mix of emphases, personalities, customs, and, above all, a degree of non-hypocritical faithfulness to ideal standards that is rarely duplicated in spiritual communities with which I am familiar. Yet this degree of faithfulness does not approach fanaticism.  I have never found the Friends mindless in their devotion.  And I have witnessed differences of opinion among members, openness to novelty (within certain bounds), charity toward non-believers, and a remarkable aptitude for self-criticism on the part of individuals and the various organizational elements of the movement. Are they perfect?  Of course not.  But are they a destructive cult?  Certainly not.  I have looked into the question of whether or not Smith’s Friends is a sect in the sense in which this term is used in sociology of religion.  While Smith’s Friends undeniably conforms to the sect pattern as defined by Troeltsch and others, I have questioned whether it is wise to use this term at all, given its pejorative connotations.  I have also looked at the useful category “charismatic group,” which was coined by American psychiatrist Marc Galanter.  I have noted numerous similarities as well as significant differences.  The most accurate description of Smith’s Friends would be minority religion, alternative religion, church movement of protest and reaffirmation, or, my favorite designation, Christian fellowship (trossamfunn in Norwegian).  I have attempted to discover the spiritual heritage or ancestry of Smith’s Friends by exploring the Reformation, Arminianism, Pietism, Wesleyanism, Holiness, pentecostalism, and fundamentalism.  Once again, similarities and differences have been noted.  Although there are more than superficial resemblances, the uniqueness of Smith’s Friends is apparent.
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