Peter Fjellstedt

Peter Fjellstedt (17 September 1802 – 4 January 1881) was a Swedish Nyevangelist missionary and preacher who founded the Fjellstedt School and Evangeliska Fosterlands-Stiftelsen.

Biography

Upbringing Fjellstedt was born to carpenter Lars Larsson and Catharina Carlsdotter in Värmland, Sweden in 1802, the first child in a poor family of craftsmen. His surname was originally Larsson. At a young age, he went from farm to farm to beg. In 1812 there was a severe famine in the area and the family had to mix bark and bone meal in their bread.

For several winters, he contributed to the family's livelihood by teaching the children of the neighbouring village to read and write. In the summers, he had to herd the family's sheep in the Dalsland forests around the cottage. Fjellstedt writes in his autobiography: "Often I went up on some big rock and preached, as best I could, to my cows, sheep and lambs". At one of these places where he preached there was a large stone which later came to be known as the Fjellstedt Stone and where every year since 1965 a service is held in his memory.

Education After Fjellstedt was confirmed, he managed to get into Karlstad's school of learning, thanks to gifts from the more prosperous farms in the area. He walked the distance there. He then studied in Karlstad for three and a half years, renting living space from a tavernkeeper and having to sleep on the lid of a wooden chest with his coat for a blanket. His wife and children primarily stayed in Germany as she did not like life in Sweden. A number of free-church colporteurs, itinerant sellers of Christian literature, were involved early on; however, many left to form the Baptist Union of Sweden in 1857. He also visited philanthropist Emilie Petersen, known as the 'Herrestad Grandmother' . She was godmother to his son Joel.

From 1861 to 1863, he preached in Överum. He also led a church meeting in which it was discussed whether or not to stay in the state church. Participants included Carl Olof Rosenius, Gustav Adolph Lammers, , Per August Ahlberg, and . After that, he worked at the Gothenburg cathedral with Peter Wieselgren for nine years, then spent several years in Germany before returning to Uppsala in the last few years of his life after his wife's death in 1876. Towards the end of his life he was engaged in writing; his was one of Baptist publisher Per Palmqvist's most significant publications.

Religious views Fjellstedt was part of the Nyevangelism movement and a key figure among the Mission Friends. He was critical of the state of Christianity in the country. Around 1850 he wrote to the missionary inspector Blumhardt in Basel, "The state of Christianity in Sweden is very deplorable, and the cause is an ignorance which surpasses all imagination, and that among all classes of people."

Fjellstedt placed an emphasis on Christian eschatology, holding a historic premillennial, non-dispensationalist view on the Second Coming of Jesus, which he preached on. His work also addresses these topics, discussing the signs of the times and the date of the return of Christ as well as the Antichrist and the apostasy of the Jews.