Karl J. Karlson 1925-1948 

Dean of the Americanization of the Seminary 

Karl J. Karlson was the last of the Bethel Seminary deans born in Sweden. He was born in Småland in 1877 and received his early educational training there. After attending Bethel Seminary in Stockholm, Sweden, he traveled to America to answer a call from a Swedish church in Manchester, N.H. He enrolled at Clark University in Worcester, Mass., where he received his bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degrees, graduating with special honors in 1912 with a Ph.D. in psychology.

During these years of academic training, Karlson pastored churches both in Sweden and America. Following graduation from Clark, he pastored the Gardner, Mass., church from 1912 to 1914. He became a lecturer in philosophy at Clark University from 1914 to 1922, and also pastored the Swedish Baptist Church at Fitchburg, Mass., and the Harlem Street Church in Worcester, Mass. For a short time, he was the interim pastor of Bethel Baptist Church in Minneapolis.

Karlson was called to Bethel Seminary as an instructor in historic theology in 1922. Three years later, Gordh stepped down as dean, and Karlson was asked to take his place. He continued as dean of the seminary until his retirement and subsequent death in 1948.

The Karlson years were not easy years at Bethel Seminary. The Swedish immigrant community, which had sustained the seminary, was in the midst of great transition. During the years Karlson served as dean, more than 100 churches left the Swedish Baptist denomination either through closure, or more frequently, through a decision to join with an American denominational group. Fewer and fewer immigrants were coming to the United States from Sweden. The student body increasingly was composed of American-born students who chafed against the Swedish language proficiency requirement for admission to the seminary. The addition of the Bible and missionary training course in the mid-’20s gave a boost to enrollment, but admission numbers dropped off in the ’30s.

Karlson worked with President Hagstrom to upgrade the academic standards at Bethel and to facilitate the transition to an English language school. The Bible and missionary training program was the first seminary venture into English language classes. At the same time, Hagstrom announced that the core courses in the seminary would continue to be taught in Swedish, but practical courses would be taught in English. Soon, professors were handing out notes in English even in the core course work of theology and Bible. The requirement that students understand Swedish to be admitted to the seminary was dropped in 1935. The era of Swedish-born professors and students, as well as Swedish language instruction, had come to an end, and a transition to higher academic standards came along with this language change. In 1931, Bethel launched a junior college, which was soon to displace the academy. The seminary in turn began to require two years of college work as a prerequisite for admission. At the end of Karlson’s tenure, the college became a four-year institution and the seminary began to require a four-year college degree for admission.

The tension of these transitions depressed seminary enrollment in the late ’20s and early ’30s, but these adjustments in language and academic standards led to a growing student body in the late ’30s and throughout the ’40s. From a low enrollment of fewer than 40 students in the first years of Karlson’s leadership, the seminary grew to more than 100 students by the end of his term. Enrollment growth necessitated faculty growth, and three more instructors were added to the seminary faculty. The appointment of Reuben Omark, Edwin Omark, and Anton Pearson, all American born, moved the seminary into the American mainstream.

Theological transition was taking place in the U.S. during this era as well. Many sister institutions and denominations were experiencing a drift away from commitment to essential Christian doctrines and practices, but Karlson and Hagstrom made a point of stressing the importance of continuity with the historic mission of Bethel. Attention was given to harmony and cooperation across the seminary family, to the spiritual life of the student body, and to biblical grounding of the entire seminary program. Adolf Olson would later summarize the focus of the seminary during the Karlson years in this way: “The Bible at the center as the eternally sure and dependable Word of God, the message of redeeming grace and deliverance from the guilt and power of sin by means of the new birth, the glorious possibility of a consecrated and Spirit-filled life, and the privilege and responsibility to tell the story of Jesus to all nations” (Olson, 1952).