May 18, 2008 - 04:06:02 CDT
There was talk of lynching a pastor in western North Dakota because of his beliefs and sympathies.John Flint (born Johan Caspersen) was a Lutheran minister in Mott who defended a group of local Germans from Russia with a Fourth of July speech during World War I. This riled some zealous patriotic community members, and they reacted by smashing windows.
When it appeared Flint's life also might be in danger, members of his congregation drove their horse rigs around his farm at night to protect him.
Time magazine called Rev. Flint "a public-spirited clergyman" and, as such, he was often a subject of controversy. While a minister in Bismarck, his support of small farmers, earned him the title, "Preacher of the Nonpartisan League (NPL)."
However, many members of his congregation were against the NPL. He also got involved in a book banning issue.
Many influential conservatives in North Dakota wanted books by Upton Sinclair and Ellen Key removed from public and school libraries. Flint opposed the banning, and since one of Key's books suggested that men and women experiment before marriage, Flint also was labeled the "Free Love Minister."
In Alaska, he got in trouble with cannery owners for helping fishermen organize a union, and in Minnesota, he led rallies to stop farm foreclosures.
Johan Christian Caspersen was born Oct. 24, 1880, in Soon, Vestre Borgesyssel, Norway, to Christian Caspersen Aalerud and Alette Marie Hansdatter.
In 1904, he sailed to America with his father to be reunited with the rest of the family.
He enrolled at the Red Wing Seminary in Minnesota, graduating in 1910. He was now using the name John Flint, although it would not become official until he became a citizen in 1915. After spending a year teaching at the Jewell Lutheran College in Iowa, Flint was ordained, and he accepted a position as a circuit preacher in rural Hettinger County.
He traveled by horseback to the three churches for which he officiated, including the new Lutheran Church built in Mott in 1907.
One of the things that bothered Flint the most was intolerance. At the conclusion of World War I, Hettinger County was populated primarily by Scandinavians and other western European ethnic groups.
However, there were a few Germans from Russia families in the area. Because of the war, some in the community had a deep resentment of anything German. There also were those who hated anything Russian because of the Russian Revolution.
In an impassioned July 4th speech, Flint defended those in the community who were being persecuted, and his speech inflamed many of those who were most vocal in their resentment.
In 1916, he was courting Josephine Ellingson, a school teacher in Jamestown. To be closer to her, Flint accepted a call to serve as pastor for the Trinity Evangelical Lutheran Church in Bismarck, and was formally installed on July 1, 1918. In 1919, Flint and Ellingson were married.
The church in Bismarck had been constructed just four years prior to the arrival of Flint. He was the first pastor at Trinity to have exclusive duties there, as previous pastors also served rural parishes. A number of the church members were political leaders in state government.
Flint's support of the NPL and his interference with the proposed book ban did not sit well with some of the more conservative members of his congregation. On April 1, 1920, he turned in his resignation.
In 1921, Flint accepted a calling to serve as pastor at a parish in Petersburg, Alaska.
Flint once again got in trouble with those in authority. Most of his congregation was composed of salmon fishermen and their families. These people worked for cannery owners who lived in Seattle. Flint brought the fishermen together and helped them form a labor union.
The angered cannery owners went to the Norwegian Lutheran church officials to get Flint charged with heresy. The church officials looked into the case and called Flint to Seattle to account for his actions. After testifying, the charges were dropped, but Flint believed he had enough of church politics, and left the Lutheran church in 1925.
Initially, Flint accepted a position as the Congregational pastor in Mahnomen, Minn., and, by the early 1930s had become a Unitarian minister in Underwood, Minn.
From 1943 to 1962, he served as the pastor of the Unitarian-Universalist Church in the college town of Kent, Ohio. He retired in 1962 and died on April 12, 1976, in Oberlin, Ohio.
(Written by Curt Eriksmoen and edited by Jan Eriksmoen. Reach the Eriksmoens by e-mail at cjeriksmoen@cableone.net.)
Independent Conservative wrote on May 18, 2008 4:16 PM:
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