Mads Jepsen (1868-1916)
Editor, writer, studied theology 1887-92, editor of Folkelæsning [Literature for the People] 1901-16.
Through a wandering intellectual life, Mads Jepsen had become familiar with the prevailing cultural movements of his day. He had an evangelical background in the Home Mission, but turned to Brandesian free thought in the 1890s. When he launched the popular weekly magazine Folkelæsning in 1901, he had regained his Christian faith and he now identified himself with the Grundtvigian camp within the Danish Evangelical-Lutheran Established Church. In Folkelæsning Jepsen raged against his former allies of the Brandes circle, against socialists and against neo-Grundtvigian modernists such as Valdemar Brücker who attempted to integrate literary realism and evolutionary theory into a Christian worldview. Folkelæsning was the mouthpiece for the Jesuit anti-Darwinist Amand Breitung who was the primary debater of evolution in the columns. However, Jepsen also wrote about Charles Darwin and evolution. Jepsen supported Breitung’s assessment that Darwinism was a theory in decline.
Hans Henrik Hjermitslev
