We in West Denmark are heirs of a movement, a philosophy of life, a life style that is only now becoming appreciated by many non Danes throughout the world, from Java to Germany, from Russia to Door County. People all over the world are studying what happened in Denmark.

What others are now discovering, we are now losing because: 1. We think it is no longer relevant or are too busy; 2. We are ashamed of it; 3. We have forgotten, or we really never knew what the true essence of the Grundtvigian philosophy is. Though we lived it, we really never put it into words.

It seems that at a time when we are losing it, others are finding it, as witnessed by the books, the international conferences, and by the expansion of Folk Schools in this and other countries not Danish.

Our annual Family Camp is our attempt, for a couple of days each summer, to capture the essence of the Folk School with singing, lectures, folk dancing, skits, crafts, and just plain visiting and enjoying each other's company.

The Basic Tenets of Grundtvig's Thinking:
from Land of the Living by Steven Borish

Enlightenment for life (Livsoplysnimg)-- An understanding of the real and deepest truths that constitute Enlightenment never comes from the rote study of classroom texts. One can learn the facts and theories of received tradition in the classroom, and these might prove useful, but they can be no substitute for Life's Enlightenment, which can only be taught by life itself.

People's Enlightenment (folkeoplysning) --All humans everywhere are born into a particular "folkelig" and historical context, and it is within this framework that ones own personal drama and Enlightenment must be played out. "For Grundtvig it is a fundamental condition of human life that it unfolds itself in a definite people who have their own character created through history." On the other hand, it also suggests that there is a collective, as well as an individual aspect to the experience of Enlightenment, and it must be the goal of society to create, through wise and farsighted policies, the conditions that will facilitate "folkeoplysening" the People's Enlightenment.

Reciprocal action--interaction (Vekselvirkning) How to create the preconditions for this enlightenment within society: a balance between two things that remain different, but should fertilize each other in their differences.

Grundtvig was aware of the tendency of both people and institutions to dominate and control each other. He was opposed to any domination outside the European emancipation tradition with its emphasis on liberal individualism. He didn't believe that the way to gain freedom was to dissolve the power structure. You will only get, he said, another power that is worse than the one just replaced (i.e. the French Revolution).

This idea is important for the way Denmark gained freedom for the common people was through evolution, not revolution. His views on vekselvirking or reciprocal action, went beyond mere toleration of diversity. He was really insisting upon a mutual recognition that each institution, each power center, and indeed each individual could both teach and learn in dialogue predicated on mutual respect. Furthermore such a dialogue would create in the long run a society with widened social and individual perspectives, constituting the types of fertile soils in which the experience of Enlightenment could grow. (This could remind a person of what is also known as Socratic dialogue and is the basis for some of the amendments to our Constitution.)

5. Ordinary people over the cultured (Folket over de dannede) Grundtvig had an unswerving belief in the wisdom of the ordinary people over the educated and elite. It was they who would be the source of Enlightenment, if only they were given the chance.

Some of these tenets are rather difficult to understand out of context of the Europe of Grundtvig's day. More to the point are a few quotes and examples from everyday life even as we find it today between Fundamentalists and much of the rest of society. In the schism that finally divided the original Danish Synod and in the process ended the Seminary in West Denmark we could take this exchange from c1887. "While the aims in themselves had nothing to do with Bishop Grundtvig's theological views, they were of course, in accord with his broader views of man and the importance of living a rich and full human life on earth. Immediately the Inner Mission faction pounced on it and condemned it as being secular and irreligious. Christians, they asserted, should renounce this world and interest themselves only in Heaven. (Does this sound like some people being "left behind"?)

Grundtvig was a man of many talents—poet, educator, historian, theologian, translator, mythologist and myth maker, composer of popular hymns, prophet, protester, and social critic. Many of his poems and songs are paeans to Danish history and heroes, of battles, of Danish as a loving mother's tongue, and songs to arouse Danish patriotism. Much of this was meant to rally a country in deep despair after the defeat by the British in which Denmark not only had to give up its naval fleet, but had to cede Norway to Sweden, and other indignities. Denmark had unwisely chosen to follow Napoleon.