Life of Bo Giertz

As the 20th century was coming to an end, KYRKANS TIDNING, the official weekly newspaper of the Church of Sweden, asked its readers, "Who wasthe most influential Swedish church leader during the 1900s?". Bo Giertz received more votes than anyone else, including Soderblom, Nygren, and Aulen! It was both through his inspiring leadership as a pastor and a bishop, and as an author of many bestsellers, that Giertz exerted such matchless influence in Sweden and beyond.

Giertz was born August 31, 1905 into a very prominent family, his father being an acclaimed surgeon and head of the fourth largest hospital in the country. In 1924 he enrolled in the School of Medicine at the University of Uppsala. However, through the influence of students of theology, he moved away from his father's atheism, embraced the faith of the Church, and switched to the University School of Theology.

Bo Giertz was ordained in the Linkoping Cathedral in 1934 and became an assistant to the bishop with special responsibility for youth work. He conveyed to thousands of teenagers his own zeal for the Church and the relevance of the Christian faith. As an appreciated (and attacked) writer both in periodicals and newspapers, he became known to the general public as a bold and gifted expounder of church doctrine as anchored in Scripture, confessed in the Creeds, and explained in the Lutheran Confessions.

During his time as pastor in Torpa (1938-1949), Giertz authored four monumental theological works, Christ's Church (1939), Church Piety (1939), The Great Lie and the Great Truth (1945), and The Battle for Man (1946); two engaging novels, The Hammer of God (1941), and Faith Alone (1943); a retelling of the gospel events, With My Own Eyes (1947); and The Foundation (1942), a widely-used (225,000 copies sold by 1977) catechetical textbook - even translated into Tamil and Zulu!

When he was Bishop in Gothenburg (1949-1970), Giertz invited in 1958 all confessional groups in the Church of Sweden to form The Church Movement for Bible and Confession in response to the Churchwide Assembly's decision to ordain women. As Bishop Emeritus, Giertz once again became a prolific writer: The ABCs of Our Christian Faith (1971); another best-selling novel, The Knights of Rhodos (1972) the devotional books To Believe in Christ (1973) and To Live with Christ (1974); a new translation of the New Testament with Commentary (1977-1982); and at age 90(!) The Living God - A Guide to the Christian Faith (1995). Most of Giertz's writings are not available in English.

Among those that are available are With My Own Eyes (MacMillan, 1960), and The Hammer of God (see below), the #3(!) bestseller in Sweden 1941. To Believe in Christ will be published by Concordia Publ. House in 2005. Over the years a few booklets as well as articles and essays have also appeared in English, from Liturgy and Spiritual Awakening (1950), and The Message of the Church in a Time of Crisis (1953), to "Be Not Discouraged" and "Do Not Lose Heart," the latter two recently included in the Logia journal.

In his vision of the One Holy Christian and Apostolic Church, Giertz integrated a vibrant Evangelical-Lutheran orthodoxy, the Church's traditional liturgy, and sincere church piety into a harmonious and powerful wholeness.

- Rev. Hans O. Andrae

Further biographical reading can be found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bo_Giertz.