Norman A. Madson

MADSON, Norman Arthur (1886-1962) was born November 16, 1886, at Manitowoc, Wisconsin. He was educated at Wittenberg, Wisconsin, Academy; Luther College, Decorah, Iowa; Chicago University; and Luther Seminary, Hamiline, Minnesota. Ordained November 14, 1915, he was traveling missionary of the Norwegian Synod on the Iron Range in northern Minnesota, 1915-1916; teacher at Luther College, 1916-1918; U.S. Army chaplain, 1918-1919; pastor at Bode, Iowa, 1919=1925, and Princeton, Minnesota, 1925-1946; and professor at Bethany Lutheran College and Seminary (which he was instrumental in initiating), Mankato, Minnesota, 1946-[1959]. He was married August 31, 1918, to Elsie Haakenson. He served in the following church offices: Secretary, Bethany Lutheran College Association, 1927-1929; President of Norwegian Synod, 1935)…; Editor, Lutheran Sentinel, 1927-1929; Member of Committee on Church Union, 1938-1957; Member of Intersynodical Committee on Hymnology and Liturgics, 1929-[?]; Member of Missionary Board of Synodical Conference, 1946-1950. He wrote Ved Bethlehemskrybben, a book of festival sermons; Evening Bells (chapel sermonettes) at Bethany, I and II; Preaching to Preachers (many very special occasional sermons at various Synodical Conference events); and the monograph, The Norwegian Synod and the Christian Day-School. In 1959 he resigned from the ELS and Bethany College and Seminary for conscience reasons related to the biblical doctrine of Church Fellowship, and joined the Church of the Lutheran Confession for the last years of his earthly sojourn.

Paul Fleischer, CLC pastor emeritus