Paul Petter Waldenström

Paul Petter Waldenström (alternately spelled "Paul Peter") (20 July 1838 – 14 July 1917) was a Swedish lecturer, priest in the Church of Sweden and theologian, member of the Riksdag, and writer, who became the most prominent leader of the free church movement in late 19th-century Sweden.

Biography

Upbringing and education

Waldenström was born in Luleå in northern Sweden, son of district physician Erik Magnus Waldenström and Margareta Magdalena Govenius. His siblings include physician Johan Anton, jurist Alfred and mayor Hugo Waldenström.

He moved to Uppsala in 1855, beginning his academic studies at Uppsala University two years later; he received his Ph.D. there in 1863, and was ordained a priest the following year. He had been employed as an adjunct in the Växjö högre allmänna läroverk (the secondary school in Växjö) already in 1862 and in 1864; when his doctorate qualified him for this, he received a lecturership in Christianity, Greek and Hebrew at the secondary school in Umeå. From 1874 until 1905 he was lecturer in the same subjects at the secondary school in Gävle. He was awarded a Doctor of Theology degree from Yale University in 1889 and was awarded the laurel for a second time as a jubeldoktor ('jubilee doctor') in Uppsala in 1913.

Work in the free church movement

Although he worked as a school teacher his whole life, Waldenström's notability comes from his work as a theologian, editor of Christian periodicals, and a preacher. In 1857 he underwent a religious crisis, joining the Nyevangelism ('new evangelism') and Läsare ('reader') movements. In the early 1860s he was invited by the Swedish-American Augustana Lutheran Synod to work at its college, but declined.