Quick, what do you think of when you think Norway? Black metal, their most noteworthy cultural export? Oil? Their economic lifeblood? Or the Norwegische Bruder, a Christian cult that has its tentacles in communities around the world?
My grandmother Leokadia had a messed up life. Came from a part of Lithuania that was a battleground between the Bolsheviks and the white Russians after the revolution. The family made their way to East Prussia. She married and had three kids when her husband was drafted into the Wehrmacht. Hubby went to the eastern front and was never seen again. In 1945 she arrived in a refugee camp in Denmark with three kids, the clothes on her back, and a pail of lard.
Somewhere along the way she lost her sense of humour along with everything else besides that pail of lard. She became something of a religious fanatic. Tended to hang with the more extreme groups; folks who thought laughter was satanic and the reading of newspapers one of Lucifer's temptations. Laughing aloud while reading the paper? Eternal hellfire for sure.
I really got to know her in my teens, when I first got a drivers license. By then she'd hooked up with some bunch of quacks who styled themselves the "Norwegische Bruder", or Norwegian brothers. It was my job to drive her, sometimes several times a week, to meetings. Since she'd need a lift home after, I generally stayed for the meeting.
First thing that baffled me was why they were called Norwegian when they all seemed to be German-speaking immigrants. Turns out there was this guy named Smith who discovered he had an uncanny ability to interpret the Bible more insightfully than anyone else in the history of Christianity. Doesn't strike me as a Norwegian name, so I'm guessing he got kicked out of his home church and his home country. Started his own cult in Norway around the turn of the 20th century.
Must admit I wasn't just there for the drive. Had my eye on one of the young sisters of the Bruder. But these sermons I got to hear I remember to this day. It was mainly a variety of older men telling a bunch of gullible younger people whatever the old guys made up. When one of the young men was lobbying dad for a snowmobile, the elder found scripture verses that prohibited snowmobiles. Seemed more than a bit silly.
Younger family members eventually got drivers licenses and relieved me of my duties. I hooked up with the sister a couple of years later. Didn't give any more thought to anything Norwegian for twenty years. Then out of nowhere, Junior is going through a black metal phase. What's this crap?
Norwegian death metal. Had pretty much the same fixation with all things Lucifer as the Norwegische Bruder. Just came to it from a different perspective. Makes sense in a bizarre way. Extreme religion. Extreme music.
I can't say what my grandmother got out of her faith. She eventually went down the alzheimer highway, so by the time I thought of asking that question it was too late. But it didn't seem to bring her much joy.
As for Junior, the black metal phase thankfully ended. He's into Mendelssohn and Schumann and Brian Wilson now.
And the Norweger Bruder? Still finding stuff in the Bible that nobody ever noticed before.
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