American Lutheran Church | |
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Classification | Protestant |
Orientation | Lutheran |
Structure | National church, middle level synods, and local congregations |
Associations | Lutheran World Federation Lutheran Council in the United States of America |
Region | United States and Canada |
Headquarters | Minneapolis, Minnesota |
Origin | 1960 Minneapolis, Minnesota |
Merger of | first American Lutheran Church The Evangelical Lutheran Church United Evangelical Lutheran Church |
Absorbed | Lutheran Free Church (1963) |
Separations | Evangelical Lutheran Church of Canada (1966) American Association of Lutheran Churches (1987) |
Merged into | Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (1988) |
Congregations | 4,959 (1986) |
Members | 2,319,443 (1986) |
Ministers | 7,671 (1986) |
Publications | Lutheran Standard |
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Lutheranism in the United States |
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The American Lutheran Church (ALC) was a Christian Protestant denomination in the United States and Canada that existed from 1960 to 1987. Its headquarters were in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Upon its formation in 1960, The ALC designated Augsburg Publishing House, also located in Minneapolis, as the church publisher. The Lutheran Standard was the official magazine of The ALC.
The ALC's immigrant heritage came mostly from Germany, Norway, and Denmark, and its demographic center was in the Upper Midwest (with especially large numbers in Minnesota). Theologically, the church was influenced by pietism. It was slightly more conservative than the Lutheran Church in America (LCA), with which it would eventually merge. While officially it taught biblical inerrancy in its constitution, this was seldom enforced by such means as heresy trials.
The ALC was a founding member of the "Lutheran Council in the United States of America", which began on January 1, 1967. The ALC cooperated with the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod in many ventures, but the ties came to an end when talks concerning a merger of The ALC with the Lutheran Church in America began.
After six years, in 1966, Canadian congregations of the ALC formed the autonomous Evangelical Lutheran Church of Canada (ELCC), which in 1986 joined with the Lutheran Church in America – Canada Section (LCA-CS) (former LCA congregations in separate regional synods in Canada) to form the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada (ELCIC).
The American Lutheran Church was formed in 1960 out of the following Lutheran church bodies:
The first American Lutheran Church was formed in 1930 by a merger of the Evangelical Lutheran Synod of Iowa and Other States (est. 1854), the Lutheran Synod of Buffalo (est. 1845), and the Evangelical Lutheran Joint Synod of Ohio and Other States (established 1818 from Ministerium of Pennsylvania), with headquarters in Columbus, Ohio. After the merger of 1960, this body was informally referred to as the "old American Lutheran Church" or the "first American Lutheran Church" to distinguish it from the later body into which it had been absorbed. The merged body was named "The American Lutheran Church" (with "The" as part of the official title and therefore capitalized), which was abbreviated "TALC." Hence "ALC" designates the 1930-1960 body while "TALC" designates the 1960-1987 body.
The Evangelical Lutheran Church, established in 1917 and known from its founding until 1946 as the Norwegian Lutheran Church of America (NLCA). The NLCA had itself been formed from a merger of the Hauge Synod (established 1876), the Norwegian Synod (established 1853), and the United Norwegian Lutheran Church of America (established 1890).
The United Evangelical Lutheran Church, founded in 1896, and known until 1946 as the United Danish Evangelical Lutheran Church. The UDELC had been formed from a merger of the Danish Evangelical Lutheran Church Association in America (the "Blair Church", established 1884) and the Danish Evangelical Lutheran Church in North America (the "North Church", established 1894).
The Lutheran Free Church, which had broken away from the United Norwegian Lutheran Church in 1897, joined the ALC on February 1, 1963. Forty Lutheran Free Church congregations chose not to participate in the merger, and instead formed the Association of Free Lutheran Congregations, today the sixth-largest Lutheran denomination in the U.S. with over 250 congregations.
The ALC began ordaining women as ministers/pastors in December 1970, when the Rev. Barbara Andrews became the second woman ordained as a Lutheran minister in the United States. In 1970, a survey of 4,745 Lutheran adults by Strommen et al., found that 66% of ALC Lutherans surveyed agreed that women should be ordained, compared with 75% of LCA Lutherans and 45% of LCMS Lutherans. [1] 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.
On January 1, 1988, The American Lutheran Church ceased to exist when it, along with the Lutheran Church in America and the Association of Evangelical Lutheran Churches, joined to form the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America with its new headquarters in the Lutheran Center on West Higgins Road in suburban Chicago, Illinois. At the time of the merger, The ALC was the third largest Lutheran church body in the United States, behind the Lutheran Church in America and Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod.
In 1986, just before its merger into the ELCA, The ALC had 7,671 pastors, 4,959 congregations, and 2,319,443 members. [2] The ALC brought approximately 2.25 million members into the ELCA. Twelve conservative ALC congregations that did not want to participate in the merger formed the American Association of Lutheran Churches, which has since grown to 87 congregations.
Use of the term presiding bishop as an alternative for the term general president was approved in 1980.
The Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod (LCMS), also known as the Missouri Synod, is a traditional, confessional Lutheran denomination in the United States. With 1.8 million members, it is the second-largest Lutheran body in the United States. The LCMS was organized in 1847 at a meeting in Chicago, Illinois, as the German Evangelical Lutheran Synod of Missouri, Ohio, and Other States, a name which partially reflected the geographic locations of the founding congregations.
The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) is a mainline Protestant Lutheran church headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. The ELCA was officially formed on January 1, 1988, by the merging of three Lutheran church bodies. As of 2021, it has approximately 3.04 million baptized members in 8,724 congregations.
The Synod of the Norwegian Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, commonly called the Norwegian Synod, was founded in 1853. It included churches in Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, and Wisconsin.
The Lutheran Free Church (LFC) was a Lutheran denomination that existed in the United States, mainly in Minnesota and North Dakota, from 1897 until its merger into the American Lutheran Church (ALC) in 1963. The history of the church body predates its official organization, and a group of congregations that did not join the ALC formed the Association of Free Lutheran Congregations.
1517 Media, formerly Augsburg Fortress Press, is the official publishing house of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA). It also publishes for the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada as Augsburg Fortress Canada. Headquartered on South Fifth Street in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in the former headquarters of the American Lutheran Church, Augsburg Fortress publishes Living Lutheran, the Lutheran Book of Worship (1978), the Lutheran Study Bible, and Evangelical Lutheran Worship (2006), as well as a range of academic, reference, and educational books. Tim Blevins has served as the CEO of 1517 Media since August, 2018. Beth Lewis served as the CEO of Augsburg Fortress since September 3, 2002.
The Association of Evangelical Lutheran Churches (AELC) was a U.S. church body that existed from 1976 through the end of 1987. The AELC formed when approximately 250 dissident congregations withdrew from the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod (LCMS) in 1976, and ended as an independent body when it became part of the new Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) on January 1, 1988.
The Lutheran Church in America (LCA) was an American and Canadian Lutheran church body that existed from 1962 to 1987. It was headquartered in New York City and its publishing house was Fortress Press.
The Evangelical Lutheran Synodical Conference of North America, often known simply as the Synodical Conference, was an association of Lutheran synods that professed a complete adherence to the Lutheran Confessions and doctrinal unity with each other. Founded in 1872, its membership fluctuated as various synods joined and left it. Due to doctrinal disagreements with the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod (LCMS), the Evangelical Lutheran Synod (ELS) and the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod (WELS) left the conference in 1963. It was dissolved in 1967 and the other remaining member, the Synod of Evangelical Lutheran Churches, merged into the LCMS in 1971.
Luther Seminary is a seminary of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) in Saint Paul, Minnesota. It is the largest seminary of the ELCA. It also accepts and educates students of 41 other denominations and traditions. It is accredited by the Higher Learning Commission and the Association of Theological Schools. It also has theological accreditation through the ELCA as well as the United Methodist Church.
The United Evangelical Lutheran Church was one of the many denominations formed when Lutherans came to the United States from Europe. Originally known as the United Danish Evangelical Lutheran Church, the United Church merged with other Lutheran groups to form the American Lutheran Church in 1960, which endured until 1988.
The Augustana Evangelical Lutheran Church was a Lutheran church body in the United States that was one of the churches that merged into the Lutheran Church in America (LCA) in 1962. It had its roots among the Swedish immigrants in the 19th century.
The Evangelical Lutheran Church (ELC) was a Lutheran denomination that existed from 1917, when it was founded as the Norwegian Lutheran Church of America (NLCA), until 1960, when it joined two other church bodies to form the second American Lutheran Church.
The Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago (LSTC) is a seminary of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America in Chicago, Illinois. LSTC is a member of the Association of Chicago Theological Schools (ACTS), a consortium of eleven area seminaries and theological schools. It shares the JKM Library and portions of its campus with McCormick Theological Seminary. LSTC is accredited by the Association of Theological Schools and regionally accredited by the Higher Learning Commission.
Trinity Lutheran Seminary at Capital University is an Evangelical Lutheran seminary in Columbus, Ohio.
The Norwegian Lutheran Church in the United States is a general term to describe the Lutheran church tradition developed within the United States by immigrants from Norway.
Johan Arnd Aasgaard was an American Lutheran church leader.
The Evangelical Lutheran Joint Synod of Ohio and Other States, commonly known as the Joint Synod of Ohio or the Ohio Synod, was a German-language Lutheran denomination whose congregations were originally located primarily in the U.S. state of Ohio, later expanding to most parts of the United States. The synod was formed on September 14, 1818, and adopted the name Evangelical Lutheran Joint Synod of Ohio and Other States by about 1850. It used that name or slight variants until it merged with the Iowa Synod and the Buffalo Synod in 1930 to form the first American Lutheran Church (ALC), 1930–1960.
The American Lutheran Church (ALC) was formed in 1930 from the merger of the three conservative Lutheran synods of German-American origin: The Evangelical Lutheran Synod of Iowa and Other States, established in 1854; the Lutheran Synod of Buffalo, established in 1845; and the Evangelical Lutheran Joint Synod of Ohio and Other States, established in 1818 from the Ministerium of Pennsylvania. The headquarters of the ALC were in Columbus, Ohio, which had been the headquarters of the Joint Synod of Ohio, the largest of the three synods.
St. John's Lutheran Church is a member congregation of the American Association of Lutheran Churches (AALC) in Pocahontas, Missouri.
David Walter Preus was an American Lutheran minister. He served as the last president/presiding bishop of the American Lutheran Church (ALC) from 1973 until that body merged into the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) in 1988.
Todd W. Nichol All These Lutherans (Minneapolis: Augburg Publishing House, 1986)
History of the bodies that eventually joined into The ALC