Jan-Aage Torp (born 26 June 1957) is a Norwegian pastor and

evangelist Evangelist may refer to: Religion * Four Evangelists, the authors of the canonical Christian Gospels * Evangelism, publicly preaching the Gospel with the intention of spreading the teachings of Jesus Christ * Evangelist (Anglican Church), a c ...

. He has developed an extensive international network, and currently hosts the show ''Hovedstaden med Pastor Torp'' on the Christian television station

Visjon Norge Visjon Norge (or TV Visjon Norge) is a Norwegian Christian television station, which was launched in 2003 as the first Scandinavian Christian television channel to air 24 hours a day. It can be reached throughout Scandinavia by satellite. The foun ...

Biography

Torp was born in

Kyoto Kyoto (; Japanese: , ''Kyōto'' ), officially , is the capital city of Kyoto Prefecture in Japan. Located in the Kansai region on the island of Honshu, Kyoto forms a part of the Keihanshin metropolitan area along with Osaka and Kobe. , the ci ...

to missionary parents, and spent his formative years in

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

and

Thailand Thailand ( ), historically known as Siam () and officially the Kingdom of Thailand, is a country in Southeast Asia, located at the centre of the Indochinese Peninsula, spanning , with a population of almost 70 million. The country is bo ...

, until moving to Norway in 1971. Active in the

Pentecostal Pentecostalism or classical Pentecostalism is a Protestant Charismatic Christian movement

community, he eventually became a prolific interpreter for numerous international evangelists including

Billy Graham William Franklin Graham Jr. (November 7, 1918 – February 21, 2018) was an American evangelist and an ordained Southern Baptist minister who became well known internationally in the late 1940s. He was a prominent evangelical Christi ...

. After having been a pastor in established Pentecostal congregations for some years, he founded Seierskirken in

Lillestrøm Lillestrøm is a municipality in Viken county. It is located in the traditional district of Romerike. With a population of 85,757 inhabitants, it is the fourth most populated municipality in Viken. It was founded on 1 January 2020 as a merger be ...

in 1990. He then became outspoken in his oppposition against the homosexual partnership law and against abortion, working together with Finn Jarle Sæle,

Børre Knudsen Børre Arnold Knudsen (1937–2014) was a Norwegian Lutheran priest noted for his anti-abortion activism. Together with Ludvig Nessa, he staged protests at abortion clinics as well as other public stunts starting in the late 1980s, and he spent t ...

and Ludvig Nessa. From 2016, he became active in work against the

Norwegian Child Welfare Services The Norwegian Child Welfare Services ( no, Barnevernet, literally "child protection") is the public agency responsible for child protection in Norway. They consist of services in each municipality, which are aided and supervised by different govern ...

together with Polish organisation

Ordo Iuris Ordo Iuris (full official name: Ordo Iuris Institute for Legal Culture; pl, Fundacja Instytut na rzecz Kultury Prawnej Ordo Iuris) is an ultra-conservative Polish Catholic legal organization and think tank. It aims to "research the legal cultur ...

, which led him to gain an extensive network among international ambassadors. He has also gained contacts and had personal audience with the world's leading Muslim leaders, including

Ahmed el-Tayeb Ahmed Mohamed Ahmed El-Tayeb ( ar, أحمد محمد أحمد الطيب) (born 6 January 1946) is an Egyptian Islamic scholar and the current Grand Imam of al-Azhar, Al-Azhar Al Sharif and former president of al-Azhar University. He was appoin ...

Shawki Allam Shawki Ibrahim Abdel-Karim Allam ( ar, شوقي إبراهيم عبد الكريم علّام) is the 19th and current Grand Mufti of Egypt through Dar al-Ifta al-Misriyyah, succeeding Ali Gomaa. Biography Allam was born in the Nile Delta governor ...

and Mohamed Gomaa.

Family

Torp's son Anders has spoken out publicly and written a book ''Jesussoldaten'' about his "extreme" upbringing, which included preparing for the

end times Eschatology (; ) concerns expectations of the end of the present age, human history, or of the world itself. The end of the world or end times is predicted by several world religions (both Abrahamic and non-Abrahamic), which teach that negati ...

, twenty-seven

exorcisms Exorcism () is the religious or spiritual practice of evicting demons, jinns, or other malevolent spiritual entities from a person, or an area, that is believed to be possessed. Depending on the spiritual beliefs of the exorcist, this may be do ...

and fasting for 40 days. His daughter Christine has also spoken out about a childhood of being terrified of God, sin and hell, and of having been prepared of being persecuted, tortured and killed because they were Christians in the end times. Two more of his six children have supported the criticism.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Torp, Jan-Aage 1957 births Living people Norwegian expatriates in Japan Norwegian expatriates in Thailand Norwegian anti-abortion activists Norwegian Pentecostal pastors Norwegian television evangelists