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History of the Lutheran Church in America, con't |
| First Attempts at Unification |
- In the late ’40s and ’50s proposals by the United
Lutheran Church in America (ULCA) to merge all the member churches of the National
Lutheran Commission. The attempts to merge failed.
- 1952 the American Lutheran Conference Joint Union
Committee presented the document “The United Testimony” to its member churches, agreeing
they were in “essential agreement” with the positions of the ULCA and the Lutheran
Church-Missouri Synod.
- Theological dialogues resulted from Lutheran World
Federation’s (LWF) 1957 resolve to study contemporary Roman Catholicism with the
possibility of entering into “interconfessional conversations,” and the reforms proposed
by the Second Vatican Council.
- Also accepted the invitation of Reformed churches
(Presbyterian) in America to begin discussions of possible pulpit and altar fellowship
(realized 40 years later, today).
- Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod (LCMS), not a member
church of the NLC or the LWF, participated in these ecumenical dialogues at the national
level, and joined the NLC churches in 1967 to form the Lutheran Council in the U.S.A. (LCUSA).
LCMS, firmly rooted in confessional conservatism and relatively unchanged since its
organization in 1846-47 as “The German Evangelical Lutheran Synod of Missouri, Ohio, and
Other States,” held to a belief in the inerrancy of the Bible.
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| Turbulent '60s & '70s |
- American Lutheran Church (ALC) formed from the merger
of the American Lutheran Church (German), United Evangelical Lutheran Church (Danish)
and the Evangelical Lutheran Church (Norwegian) in 1960.
began ordaining women as ministers in December 1970,
when the Rev. Barbara Andrews became the second woman ordained as a Lutheran minister
in the United States.
The first Native American woman to become a Lutheran
minister in the United States, the Rev. Marlene Whiterabbit Helgemo, was ordained by
the ALC in July 1987.
- Lutheran Church in America (LCA) formed from the
merger of the United Lutheran Church in America-ULCA (German, Slovak and Icelandic) with
the Augustana Evangelical Lutheran Church (Swedish), Finnish Evangelical Lutheran Church
and American Evangelical Lutheran Church (Danish) in 1962
often considered the most liberal and ecumenical
branch in American Lutheranism
tended to be more formalistically liturgical, thus
most similar to the established Lutheran churches in Europe
ordained country's first female Lutheran pastor, the
Rev. Elizabeth Platz, in November 1970. It subsequently ordained the nation's first
female African American Lutheran pastor (1979), first Latina Lutheran pastor (1979),
and first female Asian American Lutheran pastor (1982).
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| Seminex |
- “Historical criticism,” an understanding that the
Bible must be understood in the cultural context of the times in which it was written,
was gaining ground in both Europe and America.
- In the LCMS some seminary professors began to adopt
historical critical methods in their classrooms. A new seminary president with
experience in inter-Lutheran and ecumenical affairs was challenged by the new
conservative synodical president.
- A three-year investigation ensued and the 1973
convention voted to censure the faculty. In 1974 the seminary president was suspended
and many seminarians and faculty left the seminary to continue their work in another
setting, forming “Seminex,” a seminary-in-exile.
- Evangelical Lutherans in Mission (ELIM) was formed
moderate movement in LCMS in reaction to
conservative trends
whether or not to ordain graduates of Seminex led to
the removal of four district presidents at the 1975 LCMS convention
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| Association of Evangelical Lutheran
Churches (AELC) formed 1976 |
- Approximately 300 congregations and 110,000 people
moved into the AELC from LCMS with a stated goal of promoting unity with the American
Lutheran Church (ALC) and Lutheran Church in America (LCA)
- In October 1977, the AELC ordained its first female
minister, Janith Otte Murphy of Oakland, California, and Murphy subsequently took up an
associate pastor's position at the University Lutheran Chapel in Berkeley, California.
The AELC was the third U.S. Lutheran church body to ordain a woman as a minister
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| Now have the three founding churches of the
ELCA (AELC, ALC and LCA), which resulted from movements in the faith |
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| Page 3:
ELCA Formed |
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