Fredrik Gabriel Hedberg

Who was Fredrik Gabriel Hedberg?

Fredrik Gabriel Hedberg was Finnish Lutheran priest, Neo-Lutheran writer and father of confessional Lutheranism in Finland.

Hedberg was ordained 1834 and became curate in Siuntio, then in Lohja, belonging since 1836 to Pietist revivalist movement led by Savonian farmer and lay preacher Paavo Ruotsalainen. Soon Hedberg became one of the leaders of this movement in southern Finland. Rationalist diocesan chapter begun to dislike Hedberg's activity because of his Pietism and he was transferred first to Paimio 1838 and 1840 as prison chaplain in Oulu. 1842 he became temporary curate in distant Raippaluoto and 1843 curate in Pöytyä.

Gradually, since time in Oulu, Hedberg discovered Lutheranism without any "order of salvation" from Martin Luther's postil and abandoned Pietism including books of Arndt and Spener among others, which had formerly been his spiritual authorities. He began to read Luther, Praetorius, and Book of Concord, and wrote in Raippaluoto a devotional commentary to 1st chapter of the Epistle to the Ephesians, "The Doctrine of Faith unto Salvation", which focused on justification by faith alone, being full of joy about salvation.