Exerpt from the book Sorting out the Supernatural - Christian Publications - by K. Neill Foster pgs.187-188
The author quotes King Olav from The Last Apocalypse (New York: Doubleday, 1998), pgs 22-25, by James Reston Jr.
We always recommend additional research by the reader to verify quotes from original sources whenever possible.
The story of King Olaf Trygvesson of Norway (circa A.D. 995) is a facinating one. Apparently he was in danger of mutiny from his own soldiers, but a seer who had been blessed by the God of the Christians warned him about the impending mutiny. The king would survive, the man said, and afterward he would be baptized. The events as predicted did come to pass, and the king Olaf was dramatically converted and baprized.
Later, in the South Orkney Islands, King Olaf began his missionary career. "I want you and all your subjects to be baptized," he told the local leadership. "If you refuse, I will have you killed on the spot, and I swear that I'll ravage every Island with fire and steel."
When one potential victim/convert was about to escape, Olaf "hurled a tiller at the young man, striking him on the head and killing him instantly,"" and when a slave offered the head of an enemy Olaf had been pursuing, "Olaf thanked him, gave him a gold ring, and then had him beheaded." What today would be called "power encounters" leading to the turning of entire peoples to the name of Jesus Christ seem to have worked rather well in mid-career for Olaf, the murdering missionary.
This true account should give pause to today's missiologists who write breathlessly of power encounters taking place around the world where whole peoples are apparently turning to Jesus Christ. Is anyone listening when we suggest here that there may be power encounters and power encounters? A supernatural event in itself must not lead us merrily on our way to questionable theological conclusions. Murderers do not inherit the kingdom of heaven, nor do they possess eternal life (1 Peter 4:15; 1 John 3:15), baptized or not, prophesied to acurately or not.
One of the men who converted Norway to Christianity was Olav Tryggvason, perhaps the most fabled king in Norway's history, 'the most beautiful, the greatest and strongest and the most widely renowned athlete of all Norsemen', according to Snorre Sturlason , writer of the Icelandic Prose Saga. King Olav's special prowess was running on the oars of a ship outside the hull. His life was a fable in itself. He was born on a small island, a mere rock, when his mother was fleeing from Norway. to the east. Before he reached his uncle in Holmgard (now Novgorod in the U.S.S.R.) he was sold twice as a slave in Estonia; first when he was three years old for a goat, and the second time for a good cloak. His guardian was killed because he was too old to become a slave. Later Olav met the murderer, and the nine-year-old struck him with his ax so that it remained stuck in his skull. As soon as Olav was old enough he went west. He raided and slaughtered whenever he could: Bornholm, Friesland, Germany and England were in hi s path. He killed people in the Scilly Isles too, but it was there that he was converted to Christianity. After this, he energetically converted Norway, slaying those who were unwilling to receive the Word of Christ. This is how he went about it in Tønsberg, Norway's oldest town:
"King Olav had all these men gathered in a room and had it all well laid out; prepared a great feast for them and gave them strong drink; and when they were drunk Olav had the place set on fire and burn it and all the folk who were therein, except Oeyvind Kelde, who got away through the smoke hole." Fortunately he was captured and put on a rock on the west coast, Skratterskjaer, where he drowned slowly as the tide rose. In this manner Norway received the Christian faith.