 He was awarded a Doctor of Theology degree from Yale University in 1889 and was awarded the laurel for a second time as a "jubeldoktor" ("jubilee doctor") in Uppsala in 1913.Although he worked as a school teacher his whole life, Waldenström's notability comes from his work as a theologian, editor of Christian periodicals, and a preacher.He was long a leading member of the Swedish Evangelical Mission ("Evangeliska fosterlandsstiftelsen"), a movement within the state church, but was among those who left the organization in 1878 to form the Swedish Mission Covenant ("Svenska missionsförbundet", since 2003 the Mission Covenant Church of Sweden, the "Svenska missionskyrkan"), which long had an ambivalent relationship to the state church, torn between the relative moderation of Waldenström and the greater radicalism of the first president Erik Jakob Ekman (1842–1915) and his followers.