Books

reviewed by Phil Johnson

My first contact with Salem Covenant Church of Minneapolis was about 1951 at Koochiching Covenant Bible Camp in Big Falls, Minnesota. The late Rev. Clarence Agard, pastor of Salem Covenant Church was camp speaker. I listened with interest when he preached, but it was how he played softball with us that impressed me most. Pastor Agard knocked the softball over the trees and into the middle of the Big Fork River time after time. None of the campers could do that—yet. He had played for the Chicago Cubs, a reality almost too much for a boy from International Falls to fathom.

As I have learned more about Salem and met more Salemites, the positive regard I had for Salem Covenant as a boy has grown. Regard has been fostered by many people. The late Clarence Nelson, former pastor, President of North Park College and President of the Covenant Church, Donald Frisk, North Park Seminary Professor emeritus of Theology, Paul L. Holmer, Professor emeritus of Theology at Yale University, and Curtiss Johnson, long time Covenant lay leader and friend to many, are just a few.

Glen Wiberg has written a book that goes beyond the limits of one congregation. He touches on themes that have been and are at the heart of Covenant Church life and thought and beyond that, the church universal.

Wiberg looks at the sweep of Salem history through various lenses: worship, teaching, preaching, missions, and congregational life. This approach keeps the reader fresh and provides a way to see the church in development, growth, and action. The excellent illustrations by LaVonne Ecker evoke yet another level of the story.

In the chapter “The Worshipping Church” the author describes how Salem’s forebears reflected the early Covenanters’ attitude about form in worship. Wiberg finds the underpinnings of this conviction in statement of 1900 by the Covenant’s Committee on Ritual “Spiritual life is the inner, true essence of worship but this life must reveal itself through the outward forms of words and deeds. Forms can be without life, but life cannot be without forms. . . . The outward form of worship should be reverent, festive and beautiful” (p. 59).

The endnotes for each chapter are filled with interesting information and remind me of the notes in By One Spirit by Karl Olsson. Wiberg has long emphasized story telling and so it is no surprise that he has called this book a “Centennial Story.”

An illuminating foreword by Paul L. Holmer places the Salem story in the larger perspective of Minnesota and United States history. Holmer concludes: “. . . after decades of study and inquiry in the wider scene, it is a matter of simple justice to admit that the fundamentals of Christian living were laid down by the fellowship whose history is here celebrated” (p. viii).

This Side of the River can be ordered through Salem Covenant Church (Price $20)
2655 5th Street N.W., New Brighton, Minnesota 55112