Norwegian practicality

I receive a weekly Norwegian-American newspaper. In a recent issue, there was an article on Norway's pension fund. In brief, Norway invests the money made on their gas and natural gas drilling into a pension fund. Norway has funded a full pension for every single Norwegian with these investments.

It makes me wonder. America has many resources, but we squander them too often. I don't know if we could set up some sort of investment system like Norway has, as they have only a few million citizens compared to America's 300+ million. But it makes me wonder why we refuse to safely utilize and extract our natural resources of coal, natural gas, and oil, among many others.

It just seems to me that Norway has embarked on a practical course of social security, while we have constantly raided our social security savings to pay for other projects in the budget so that their is practically nothing left for those who will retire in the next couple of decades. I wish our leaders could put forward some sort of practical plan to prepare for the future.

Korskirken Panorama View

Here is a neat Panorama view inside Korskiren in Bergen, Norway. Just use the Quicktime controls to pan up, down, and around the church. There's lots of Christian artwork and symbolism throughout the church. Very cool.

Btw, does anyone in Norway have any information about the life of The Rev. Alf Andersen? He was a pastor at Korskirken for many years; I believed he died in the mid-1980s.

Korskirken in Bergen, Norway

One of the things I love about the church I serve is the ethnic diversity of the members. Although many have roots in Germany, there are also descendents of Norwegians, Swedes, Slavs, Philippinos, and Native Americans. One of my members hails from Bergen, Norway and her father was a Lutheran pastor there. He is deceased now, but he served Korskirken (Holy Cross Church). The church is built in the form of a cross.

Here is a link to Korskirken's history (via a Google translation):

http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fkorskirken.no%2Fomkorskirken.html&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&sl=no&tl=en

Olav Tryggvason, a Norwegian Viking, became a Christian when he was baptized in London in 994. He returned to Norway to bring Christianity to the Vikings. In 1536 the Lutheran Reformation came to Norway. Olav only reigned as king from 995-1000, but Olav II Haraldsson (who reigned from 1015-30) brought priests from England to organize the Norwegian Church.

Norway has a state church (Lutheranism), but other denominations have roots there too. The State-Church relationship will soon be modified in the future. Check out the English version of the Church of Norway for more information about that here:

http://www.kirken.no/english/

Harald V is the current king of Norway. He is Lutheran, and takes his duties as the defender of the Church seriously. He is also the first Norwegian-born King to sit on the throne since 1370.

Sissel, an internationally renowned Norwegian singer (she sang at the 1991 Olympics in Lillehammer, Norway and sang for the movie "Titanic") sang as a girl in Korskirken.