Baptism in missions – Baptism Practice within Svenska Missionsförbundet 1878–1928

During the 19th century the evangelical revival movements were gaining land in the Lutheran Sweden. Methodism, Baptistic congregations and neo evangelical Lutherans were al spreading their doctrines in the country. They were all united by the conviction to awake the population for a personal belief in Jesus Christ. To reach the non-believers in other parts of the world also united their movements. But in the second half of the century the doctrinal differences between the movements, especially between the Baptists and the neo-Lutherans are splitting the revival into two different branches, the first is the Baptistic free church movement (Svenska Baptistsamfundet) and the second is the neo-Lutheran revival movement (Evangeliska Fosterlandsstiftelsen) that still operated within the Lutheran state church. At the year of 1878 a new mission society (Svenska Missionsförbundet) sees the light of day. And one of new movements leaders, Paul Petter Waldenström, strives for the new organisation to unite al the Swedish mission-friends for the greater cause despite their differences in view of doctrine. He doesn’t succeed in that manner but the new organisation will as a result of the doctrinal dilemma not include any specific view on baptism in its own principles of doctrine. The new congregations, formed within Svenska Missionsförbundet (SMF) will therefore accept al believers of Christ as members even if they are baptised as infants or as Baptists. In this manner this new mission organisation gains the role of the “third way”, right in the middle of the Baptistic and the neo-Lutheran organisations. What is even more unique and also the subject for this paper is how this new mission-movement could be conducting missions around the world without deciding what doctrine on baptism that it should embrace. What baptism practice did SMF use in its early missions? And what role did the dilemma on doctrine of baptism play when SMF was founded in 1878?