Hauge Movement

a religious movement in Norway, mainly in the southern part of the country, during the first half of the 19th century. The founder of the movement was the Norwegian preacher H. N. Hauge.

The lay preachers of the Hauge movement sought to make the evangelical sources of the Christian doctrine accessible to the faithful by means of the “living word,” and they required the confirmation of faith by deeds. Members of the movement were to extend all possible support to one another; they were expected to work and to be active in public affairs.

In the early years of the movement, by circumventing the local clergy and exposing the vices of the state church, the Hauge preachers incurred accusations of sectarianism and were persecuted by the police and the courts. In the second quarter of the 19th century, the activists of the Hauge movement laid the foundations of the peasant-supported democratic opposition in the Norwegian parliament. By the mid–19th century the Hauge movement was almost entirely integrated with the Norwegian Lutheran Church and had become its missionary vanguard. A small sect of a few thousand Hauge followers—known as Haugianer, or Leser (“readers”), still exists in southern Norway.